The Breakout Ship

DOCTOR MECCANO-1

DOCTOR MECCANO

Through the streets of Seattle we marched in perfect synchronicity with each other, a feat achievable only because we were robots. From the Interstellar Navy Base we headed towards the distant shuttle field where we would be taken up to join the 18th Expeditionary Fleet on its first voyage to Core-Star 33.

Not far in front of us were the fifteen thousand marching humans who were also Navy personnel, but volunteers. They had preceded us just minutes before and the thronging celebratory crowds were still throwing ticker tape and flowers to the brave sailors. Occasionally a civilian would run amongst the marching heroes to present one of them with either a garland of Victory-Flowers or a gift to comfort them on their long voyage.

Above us the midday sky glittered with the bright stars that were our waiting spacecraft readying for departure. We were ninety-four robots of varying designs marching four a breast, each with the grey letter ‘P’, denoting Penal Servitude, upon our left breast. We must have looked a sorry lot. I alone also had the red cross of the Medical Service on my right breast. We had all been naughty robots, possibly bad robots, but too costly to destroy.

Sending us on a nice trip in a spaceship was an ideal solution.

The enthusiasm of the populace had nearly dissipated by the time we ‘Tail End Charlies’ appeared, but a few individuals still hung about to distribute largesse. The Navy was known by many to be a stern, sometimes cruel master and the civilians looked upon the robotic prisoners with compassion. Several of my colleagues by now wore garlands of flowers and our guards took little notice of the civilians as long as we kept up our precise pace and position.

I saw a familiar figure at the side of the road, his head hooded lest he be recognised by the scanners of the Navy drones that constantly hovered over us. As I came abreast I saw his familiar human visage.

“Hey buddy, here and good luck!” he shouted at the RoboMechanic in front of me and threw a garland around its neck. The guards were oblivious.

To me he shouted, “Hey Doc! Something to read on your trip!” but the expression on his face was at variance with the cheerful wish.

A familiar book was thrust under my arm but I dare not acknowledge him. Inside the book I would later discover was a scribble, “To my Dear Friend, Doc 569. Good luck from Karl.”

We left the city limits.

To each side of us appeared fields of tall grass so emerald and lush that the un-repairable glitch in my program-code filled me with longing. I wanted to run, free and unfettered to immerse myself amongst the living flora before it was too late. Alas, the nearby presence of Combat Ready Military RoboPolice, said ‘No chance.’

For a while I marched on, thinking of my human friend and how I, a fully trained and programmed Doctor of Medicine, had ended up in my present predicament.

It was not long after my commissioning in 2437 A.D. as ‘R.M.D. No.569’ (Doctor of Medicine: Robotic. No 569) that I was posted to the Central Medical of Luna Dome 1. The Administration of C.M. liked to use the old human terminology; therefore because I was ‘newly qualified’ I was on the lowest rung of the medical ladder, so to speak. This meant that my patients belonged to the lower working castes that generally possessed no health care or insurance provision.

Eventually, after two hectic years of tending the sick in the worst areas (we were not allowed to use the term ‘slums’) of the Dome, I was looking forward to moving onto the next rung of the medical ladder. This would be with an assignment to me of a patient list taken solely from the Dome middle-class castes.

However, my fall from grace began before this could happen.

I had received a routine instruction to see a patient who lived in the upper levels of Luna Dome One. In those days I was a naive robot, true to my programming and the Hippocratic Oath. As green as grass some might say, although I have yet to feel real grass between my metallic fingers.

Heat rises and the upper levels of the dome were humid and uncomfortable for humans, but that was what kept the social rents low. I had left the last elevator on level two hundred and used the public stairs that were the only way further up. On my way I passed many tired and wheezing humans as my tireless servos took me up and up.

Eventually the human traffic petered out just as I reached my destination, level three one six. I scanned the empty walkways for abode 31624 and my internal Nav told me it was at the far end of the gantry ahead and the only occupied habitation unit at this level.

I now noticed that the lights were out and I switched to infra-red. It was then that I saw them.

Preds!

There were six of them slouching in the dark doorways and I could feel their hunger for the meds I carried in the leather bag in my left hand. The bag itself was an anachronism as I could carry cargo internally, but the human patients liked the traditional vision of a doctor even if he was a Robotic Humanoid in a not too fetching brushed grey-steel.

Robo-Fear gripped me as I contemplated my early and brutal de-commissioning! Robo-Docs had been found before, murdered, stripped to their bare chassis, all useful meds and body parts torn away.

I was used to the lower types of humans verbally abusing me as I travelled on my rounds. Some younger ones would dance behind me shouting the derogatory term ‘Doctor Meccano’ that hailed from a long ago primitive mechanical toy. I always ignored them, my programming declining to engage.

But this was different.

I stepped back towards the stairs but stopped as I detected two new heat signatures not far below. Immediately I sent a distress call to the nearby communication grid, but no connection confirmation was forthcoming. In retrospect, even if my call had been transmitted, the Dome Police would not have hurried. I was after all, only a Robot.

The Preds moved closer until they were a few feet away and I detected several tools in their hands with goody bags to carry the valuable parts away. These were experienced dismantlers and I came to the logical conclusion that I was done for. This would be an inconspicuous end to my short, undistinguished career and back in Central Medical, Matron, who was in charge of all the new Doctors, would not be pleased!

Down the alley door 24 opened and closed in the gloom but I thought no more of it.

The main Pred pushed his face into mine and I instantly diagnosed chronic solvent a***e and low level skin cancer. My prognosis was: No more than eight years life remaining for this beast without treatment and because such a creature had to exist outside of mainstream society treatment would not be forthcoming.

“Nice bits Mechy, should get me a pretty penny from the Mechas,” he smiled, banging a joint splitter against my thigh, “I´m gonna enjoy this.”

Two of his scruffy cohorts grabbed my arms, knowing that because of my speciality I had no more than human strength. They too suffered from minor illnesses that if untreated would lead to an early demise. They tittered to each other with amusement at my helplessness, gripping my arms tighter as the Main-Man slid the joint-splitter up to my knee, ready to push it forward and tear my lower leg off. Visions of torn cables, hydraulic lines and nano-tubes filled my mind with terror. I could feel my voltage stabilisers overloading in preparation for any short circuits and I felt shamed with my total failure to survive as a RoboDoc no more than the proverbial ‘five minutes’.

Again I stared into the face of the main Pred as he leered in s******c delight, contemplating the destruction to come.

All of my systems were running on overload and I actually saw the projectile enter through the creature’s temple and its head momentarily expanded slightly like a balloon before returning to normal. The Pred maintained his brutal expression until his facial muscles slackened as his miserable life-force dissipated and he slumped down. Then I heard the tailing off of a loud booming noise and the joint splitter clanged onto the grating. In rapid succession there were three more loud booms and the two Preds holding my arms let go and tumbled back down the stairs screaming as they too lost their miserable lives. The fourth Pred lay immobile in a pool of blood next to his boss while the rest of the g**g melted away into the darkness.

I spent a few moments bringing my internal systems under control, before I saw my benefactor, none other than Citizen Bennett 31624 whom I had come to see. It was a non-insurance visit that he qualified for because of his age. He was of short stature and at less than two metres he was a quarter meter below the current Luna average. A full head of grey hair and a well-trimmed grey beard was visible above a distinctly old fashioned dressing gown. I estimated his age as approximately 75 earth years and a chronic sufferer from Martian tick fever. It was called that because of the deep reddening of the sufferer’s skin but the disease actually derived from the first explorers to return from the legendary Breakout Ship near Pluto, so heaven only knew where it actually came from!

I was appalled when I noticed the smoking pistol in his hand, a capital offence merely for possession in a pressurised environment! An antique Glock 23E 0.4 calibre, said my info-scan program.

“Relax Doc. It’s only my old service pistol and the police will never come up here. And soon this,” he kicked the dead Pred savagely, “will soon be gone.”

“How?” I asked.

I told you I was naive.

He looked at me and smiled, as I am told a grandfather will do when asked a silly question by a four year old, “The Mechas will smell the blood. Believe me. And I bet you sent a distress call over the IntraNet?”

“Of course.”

“Well it won`t have gotten out. The Receptor-Transmitters were destroyed years ago.”

With a sigh at my own inexperience and ineptitude, I called up what was known about the Mechas. It seemed that they were a strange cult that lived within the structural fabric of the dome where they could not be pursued by authority. They worshipped Mecha 1, the only partially alive Cyborg brought to Earth by the 12th Expeditionary Fleet a hundred years ago. The object of the Mechas worship was to transform themselves as much as possible into robot beings and hence bring themselves into harmony with Mecha 1, whom they believed to be the ‘Divine Voice of the Universe’.

Unfortunately they needed a constant supply of human organs and robot parts as they strove to pass ‘Schindlers Constant’ that decreed human organ failure must result when a being was over 42.3% mechanoid. They were outlaws, to say the least and it was declared that they were allowed to be shot on sight by any Citizen of an armed caste.

Citizen Bennett leant closer to me and I could see the fever-sweat on his body. The limb tremors consistent with his illness were also present and he was on the point of fainting. I then realised the great effort it must have taken him to leave his accommodation to save me. Holding him up I steered him back to his habitation module.

“You’re a new model aren’t you Doc?” he appraised my serial numbers and skull shape as I supported him, “With enhanced Empathy progs too.”

I was surprised. Most humans didn’t pay close attention to the robots in their midst, let alone know the differences in the different models. He must have had something to do with the Police, I thought. It turned out that he had, but not in the way I assumed.

“20 years in the Navy, Doc. 5th Expeditionary Fleet.”

He must have meant to say the 15th, I thought. The 5th was nearly at the start of Interstellar exploration.

The door of number 24 closed behind us and the lights came on. I found myself in a curiously old-fashioned living space but there seemed an indefinable temporariness about it, as if the occupant was only here for a short period. There were no 3D vids and indeed no televisors at all and I nearly wondered how the man occupied himself when I noticed the books. Shelves of them and more stacked under the table. Yes, actual books made from paper. Incredible! I didn´t yet notice that the subject matter covered was almost solely that of the Breakout Ship and the Expeditionary Fleets.