Rowdy Dead Productions

By David C. Daoust

The Sandcrawler was at a dead stop. Hamlin sighed. This meant his quest was at a dead stop as well. None of this was really what he’d imagined. He was supposed to pick up a woman from the Ark-temple. How exactly did Noreen expect him to accomplish this in a three foot frame, with no help, and very little information to go on?

Something must have gone wrong.

It didn’t help that he’d been chased from the Starport upon his arrival. Maybe she meant to give him more to go on…? It doubly didn’t help that the Sandcrawler was taken over by a Battle Drone. This meant Noreen was not connected to the machinery. She couldn’t see where he was or what he was doing, at least not through the Sandcrawler. The fact that she had not tried to intervene upon the appearance of these Battle Drones, could only tell Hamlin that she had no idea what was going on…

It didn’t add up. Where the heck was she? She should have eyes above, in the satellites that orbited the moon. She should be everywhere; watched him leave the Starport, tracked him into the Sandcrawler, and watched as the massive rover tore out of Grady.

And when the drones appeared- she should have gone ballistic. All the AI’s rules about non-interference went out the window once a foreign AI was involved. A flipping battalion of droids should have appeared…

No, something wasn’t right. It hit him. The vehicle, the sheriff’s vehicle could not have been compromised by the Battle Drones. One way or the other, an AI saw what he saw. Noreen was gone, and whoever took her place, wasn’t being a proper AI.

Hamlin couldn’t really do much more than ponder his situation at the moment. He looked around the room. Taking each individual into account. The bot in the old man form, Wilford, had excused himself from the bridge some time ago. His wife Olivia, looking very tired, was resting in her chair after their ordeal. And the old jin, Hugo, was busy trying to regain control of the rover.

Hamlin’s gaze fell to the bulbous form of Ferguson- It lay dormant, hovering in the corner. What was its deal? The small holobot helped it because it was literally pleading for its life. Pretty easy reaction… but what was it, exactly? The ancient tech of a bygone age, able to create a complete copy of a person’s brain within its circuitry, to examine all one’s thoughts and memories, to witness every moment of their conscious life… It didn’t seem to act like the boy. And it could call up information, as though it had eyes above. Ultimately, Hamlin felt they were lucky- without Ferguson, the girl, Harper, would likely still be writhing in pain, in this now motionless vehicle, out in the middle of the desert, unknown leagues from any help. Instead she was sleeping peacefully in the corner chair. All that being said, something about Ferguson, seemed off. The wayward aspirant decided he’d have to watch it a bit more closely from now on.

The mottled boy Ratchet was at a loss, Hamlin could tell. Currently, he was trying to get the small view screen to reconnect to the Hub. Hamlin was pretty sure by the look on the boy’s face… he was seconds away from smashing it against the console in front of him. Grace was peering over his arm as she tried to tell him how to just reboot the whole thing. It wasn’t helping.

As Hamlin turned, he found the other little girl, Dicey, staring at him.

“What the heck are you?” she asked with a poke. She reacted to his solid form with an, “Oh, sorry. I thought you might be a hologram.”

“That’s okay,” Hamlin brightened, “I imagine I look rather… different.”

“Well, your head is on fire,” Dicey pointed out.

“Indeed, it is ‘on fire’…” Hamlin affirmed.

“Are you a bot? My friend’s a bot, but she’s a little girl too, like me. You don’t sound like a little girl. You sure are small though,” Dicey bombarded.

“Technically, I’m an Aspirant,” Hamlin decided to wow the young lady.

The little girl laughed, “No! Aspirant’s only live with the Arkroy.”

“Well, I’m an Aspirant on a mission!” Hamlin said, amused with the small girl.

“…To put out the fire on your head?” Dicey said with a laugh.

“I suppose that may be in the end result, yes,” Hamlin found her charming, and doubled down on the ‘wow’ with his exaggerated tale, “I’m on a quest to free Mari Swan from the Ark-temple… all the way on the north pole!”

“You know Mari?” Margo suddenly spoke up, hovering closer.

“I know of her, yes,” Hamlin answered, surprised at the reaction to the name.

“Wait…” Ratchet looked up from the small view screen, “You know where my aunt is?”

Ratchet directed the question to Hamlin, but the Junk-bot, Margo, intervened.

“Mari’s your aunt?” Margo questioned, surprised.

“Have you talked to her?” Ratchet pressed.

Hamlin was pretty sure the conversation just got confusing.

“Last I saw, they all loaded up into the Red Faction ship,” Margo threw out, “the one that took off into orbit.”

“I haven’t talked to her, no,” Hamlin answered Ratchet, then asked, “She’s your aunt?”

“Yes,” Ratchet answered, then turned to Margo, “You didn’t tell Harper when she loaded you in?”

“Harper didn’t power me up, Dicey did,” Margo explained.

“She didn’t ever ask you what you knew about Vincent…?” Ratchet asked, “About what happened to them, how you came to be in his body?”

“Dicey?” Margo asked.

“Why would I ask her that?” Dicey was perplexed.

“No, Harper,” Ratchet did what he could to clarify, “Harper didn’t talk to you about what happened?”

“We never really talked at all,” Margo said simply, “I’m just waiting for Colin to show up.”

“Colin?” Ratchet asked.

“Yeah, he’s got my body,” Margo stated, then turned to Dicey, “My real body.” Margo continued to the rest of them, “Colin and Mari… oh and the choking guy, Craiden… they all disappeared in the gates before I got blasted by a turret! You see they were all loaded up in the tank… and I was trying to protect them… trying to smash the drones, before they smashed us! But then I got blasted. When I woke up, the whole thing was gone…”

“What was gone?” Ratchet asked.

“The Red Faction’s ship,” Margo stressed what she felt like she’d already iterated, “It flew up into orbit. I haven’t seen’em since… but this guy, here, said she’s in the Ark-temple.”

“Well this is perfect,” Hamlin voiced his thoughts, the ones about how perfect this was, “You’re aunt is to the north! You can help me go get her! This rover can handle the terrain— heck it was designed to traverse unterraformed moons…”

“Do you think Colin is with her?” Margo asked excitedly.

Ratchet looked like he was ready to go already… ‘til a shadow crossed his brow.

“What do you want with her?” Ratchet asked skeptically.

“Just to bring her home,” Hamlin explained honestly, “that’s all, I swear…. She’s trapped up there. I was sent to help her out.”

“A woman is trapped in the tundra?” Olivia suddenly spoke up, “Well, we have to help her.”

“Guys, if we can’t get the ‘crawler moving, we can’t get anywhere,” Hugo interrupted, honestly.