Thomas Novack, our unfortunate hero, is one part private eye, two parts irritable cephalopod and a dash of magic. He runs his P.I. business in the year 2318 out of a shop called The Emerald Eye with his secretary, Bob, a robot of war. The shop rests inside the space station, The Flying Spade. He may not always be successful, but to keep the paychecks coming, he’ll try his best.
***
Thomas Novack ran into the Emerald Eye, breathing heavily. He looked around widely for his secretary, fear playing across his face.
“Bob, we’ve got Scrappers!” Novack yelled as he headed into his office.
The sound of crashing and falling metal came from Bob’s room as he hurried into the lobby of the office. The Centurion Model IV warbot carried a still glowing plasma torch, filling the room with heat and the smell of burning ozone. Novack noted that Bob was still trying his hand at a more physical medium absently.
“Are you sure?” Bob asked, uncertainty filling the electronic hum of his voice.
Novack gave Bob an incredulous look as he typed a stream of numbers into a wall safe, “Would I be here if I wasn’t? I was having a nice game of Pok with my buddies when we got the report.”
With a slight click, the safe popped open revealing items ranging from weapons, to magical items and to relics from Novack’s past. They meant everything to some people and nothing to others. He pulled out a large bulky rifle from within. He still had it from the days when he was fighting in the frontlines of some wasteland planet.
As he stared down at it, the tentacles on his face curled up and darkened a shade showing his displeasure. It was the best weapon he had to fight the Scrappers. An Electro-Mag rifle shoots supercharged conductive shards of metal that releases enough electricity to fry any biological or electronic system.
The blocks of metal that were fed into the rifle were damn expensive, one of the reasons why Novack barely used it. However, this circumstance called for something drastic. And if Novack was being honest with himself, he knew he was part of the reason why the Scrappers were here, guilt weighing on his conscious.
Novack walked back into the lobby with Bob waiting with his poems; an energy gatling gun weighing more than Novack could ever carry. All along its side were scrawled and carved words. They simply nodded to one another and walked out of the office.
With a grinding screech, a metallic creature threw itself at the pair. Novack quickly focused his will, a mist of green energy surrounding the machine. It clicked at them angrily as it flailed in the air uselessly. It was a service bot, a drone used to repair ships in areas where biological creatures could not reach.
It was dented and pockmarked, some of its original yellow showing on its body. Its arms were broken and sharpened to points, crude but effective weapons. On the side of its head was the node that made it become a Scrapper. A nanite virus that when attached to a bot, makes it attempt to destroy and convert all other technology around itself. And it desperately focused on Bob.
They didn’t know why the Scrappers were attracted to Bob, but it didn’t matter. All that did was the pair stopping them as soon as they could before too much damage happened to the station.
“If you would be so kind,” Novack said, gesturing to the flailing bot, his four-fingered hand outstretched.
On the plus side, Bob was immune to the virus, which is why they assumed the Scrappers came for him. He reached forward with a massive hand grabbed onto the head of the machine and squeezed. With the sound of squealing metal, and a small pop, the bot’s head was crushed and it fell limp.
Bob dropped the machine before they started walking forward. Strangely no more came. The pair knew that they were most likely walking into a trap, but they had no choice. They paused when they reached the ports: a vast expansive area that held hundreds of ships, small corvettes and hulking cargo ships alike.
After a moment, the shrill sound of screeching filled the chamber as the infected bots began pouring forward towards them. Novack and Bob raised their weapons and began firing indiscriminately into the wave of rushing bots.
There was no possibility of them missing. The pair’s rifles hummed as shards of metal and beams of energy alike poured from them. Bob’s weapon began to overheat from the constant firing. He placed it on the ground and charged forward slamming into the bots like a wrecking ball. Some flew away, some were crushed underfoot.
Novack’s ran empty. He pulled out his pistol and fired it till it clicked empty. The bot’s numbers were drastically reduced, but there were still too many. Novack was not in the business of giving up. Doing the same as his secretary, he ran forward. Instead of a wrecking ball, he was a leaf, dancing around the sporadic and exaggerated swings of the mindless drones.
With a push of his will, two hazy green short swords appeared in his hands. With complete familiarity, he danced, blades flashing as they sliced through metal and electronics. His arms grew exhausted, and a pressure in his head began to push down on him. He was stretching himself too thin.
Just as his will left him, the last bot was struck down. Novack sluggishly walked to Bob and leaned against him, breathing heavy. The pair were slick with lubricant and coolant that had rained from the infected bots.
A light began to flash in the room and a claxon echoed around them, alerting the station to danger.
“Took them long enough,” Novack whispered.
Joshua Rettew is a third-year student majoring in microbiology with a minor in creative writing. JR868511@wcupa.edu