(HasteMakesWaste)

  Over the next day UZB-76 went from being a dot on some of the scans to something McPhail could see out of the window, getting bigger and bigger until they were there. The atmosphere generation system had failed at some point and the layers of gas had thinned out and torn apart until they were like a net inside the original naturally-occuring layers. The remaining scraps hanging in there probably weren’t doing very much any more. No matter. Was McPhail planning to stay for long? No! Was he planning to even step out of the HasteMakesWaste? No! He flew the HMW in through one of the big rips in the atmosphere and guided the great chunk of metal towards the moon’s surface.

  McPhail told the ship to find somewhere suitable to set itself down and went to suit up. He was of opinion that machines were best left to do complex things by themselves without human ‘supervision’ whenever possible. While the HasteMakesWaste busied itself with landing, out of an abundance of caution McPhail donned his full pressure suit. A few of the factors assisted him into it. The little machines locked his helmet and gloves on for him and checked over all the seals and connections carefully.

  They enquired if he was preparing to leave the ship, in the way that they asked questions- they projected an image of McPhail moving from inside a ship to outside and he felt the question mark implied in what they were sending him. “No,” he said, starting to shake his head and remembering he had a helmet on. He thought ‘no’ clearly and pictured himself sitting at the flight deck in his pressure suit. “I’m staying inside,” he told them.

  The factors acknowledged across the neural link that they had understood his answer. They beeped and bobbed up and down for good measure. The HasteMakesWaste pinged McPhail to indicate that it had landed itself successfully. It didn’t indicate that it was readying any of the doors to open- McPhail thought it must have managed to grasp that he wasn’t going to be disembarking.

  For all the packets of chatter about UZB-76 being tossed around, there wasn’t much actual data. McPhail had little other than spooky stories on which to base any expectations about the place. Putting nonsense aside as far as possible, he probably would have pictured something much like this.

  Just the beginnings of a mining site. Clearly abandoned before much construction had even started, no real infrastructure. They hadn’t found anything they needed to transport anywhere yet. He could see what he took to be the very basic temporary accommodation blocks for the miners. He would not be sending his factors in there. The accommodation blocks were a decent distance away from where the HasteMakesWaste had landed. McPhail wondered if that had guided the ship’s decision of where to set itself down. There were no proper roads but McPhail could see the flattened-down track in the charcoal-grey substrate where the workers would have driven back and forth between their accommodation and the work site when they were still...working. The work site was laid out in front of them, fairly compact. There were some enormous hangars that HMW’s initial scans were indicating housed construction vehicles. Vehicles that clearly hadn’t seen much use. Those hangars would be McPhail’s first stop. That was what he’d come here for. He would load up all the heavy equipment, the vehicles, then he would have the factotum search all over for any fuel that was kicking around and still usable. Liquid or gas, batteries, fuel cells and they would get anything like that they found loaded up and ready to go. McPhail wanted to have the HasteMakesWaste loaded, secured and ready to lift off before he started poking about below the surface.

  The pit head was still the dominant feature of the whole area. There was a huge top-heavy looking concrete tower with a couple of dark slits cut into it. McPhail thought it must house the hoist equipment. Some of the cables running out of it had been cut. The ones that hadn’t been cut ran into the concrete that had been used to seal up the top of the mine shaft. There were a couple of tipper-trucks and a couple of cement-mixers left parked by the pit head, the truck beds still open and tipped up. It looked like they had just been emptied into the mine shaft and then left sitting there.

  McPhail could just leave all that alone, he thought. There wouldn’t be anything down there he wanted any part of. Even if whatever danger there had been was long gone. He wasn’t a miner. He was only interested in taking away the hardware, not raw materials. He should just take the equipment from the surface and leave.

  “Ship?” he asked the HasteMakesWaste. “Have you received any transmissions since we arrived here?”

  ‘Yes.’

  Of course he had been expecting that answer. He knew there was something here. The thing that had been sending out weird signals and scrambled messages and making people lose their minds on ships that flew too close.

  It hadn’t, that was just a silly story but McPhail couldn’t help it coming to mind.

  ‘Would you like to see the log Y/N?’

  “Yes please, ship.”

  Every three seconds. Every three seconds since they landed (McPhail guessed that’s when it had started, calculating roughly from the timestamp) they had received a ping. Unknown ship please identify in machine and a bunch of human languages. Automated? It seemed automated. McPhail wasn’t sure why he was slightly disappointed. He wasn’t a man who really liked excitement.

  ‘Respond Y/N?’

  “Yeah, say hello” said McPhail. “Machine only,”

  There was a short pause. McPhail knew the HMW would have just sent something to the effect of; Independent Survey and Salvage Vessel HasteMakesWaste , no affiliation, registered blah blah blah.

  It got the near instant reply Are you mech or human ship?

  HMW wanted to know what to say.

  “Ask it if it’s the security system,” said McPhail. The HasteMakesWaste asked and received a reply almost immediately, which it relayed to McPhail.

  No I’m one of these I’m a humanoid mining mech please help me I’m trapped

  The reply contained a small file, pages from an old manufacturer’s brochure about a product that had been available decades ago. Machines made to look like humans for some reason, strange old stuff. McPhail liked strange old stuff. He saved the file.

  “Ask it if there are any active security or defence systems,”

  No everything’s dead I’m the only system remaining on-line please help

  “We’re here for salvage. Equipment only. Will anything stop us?”

  No. There’s nothing to stop you. Please take me too please

  “If we get what we want and nothing interferes then we’ll try to get you,”

  Please

  “Once our ship is loaded and ready to go and if we feel sure that it’s safe to do so, we will attempt to acquire you.”

  Please start digging it’ll take a long time they blocked up the entrance with loads of concrete you’ll have to blast please hurry

  “No. Wait. Show us that you can be calm and patient so we know you’re not crazy. Wait quietly and we’ll get you once we have our salvage.”

  I can be calm

  “Good.” said McPhail. “Show us.”

  I’m just scared you’ll go without me nobody has come here before and I though nobody was ever going to come

  “Calm down.”

  I am calm but I’m nervous did you look at what kind of thing I am? I’m just a little robot I look like a person

  McPhail told the HasteMakesWaste to stop responding immediately. He also sent a few of the factors to start surveying the mine entrance. The others he despatched to identify all the equipment that would be worth taking with them.

  ----------

  (A Good Man Gone)

  After a couple more days’ travel A Good Man Gone reached Konkin.

  Konkin was a smallish settlement, not on platform but on a moon. Experiencing a bit of a slump. A lot of the businesses that had been there previously seemed to be shuttered. Settlements died all the time- either quickly through some catastrophic failure or over a while as business after business failed or left. Then there would be a fallow period where the asteroid or platform or whatever was completely abandoned or mostly abandoned (usually the latter: there were always people who didn’t have the wherewithal to leave) and then eventually new entrepreneurs would rediscover the location and start moving in again. Typical Free Zone churn.

  They parked up the AGMG on the roof of some building. Hesper was deeply offended by the price of the parking. She seemed to think it had been set so high as a personal insult to her. She determined that they were not going to pay, so Atesthas and Orson would stay with the ship while she and McPhail went to do business.

  “Anyway, we’re trying to be taken seriously,” Hesper said as the two sensible crew members prepared to leave. “Better if we don’t have the two of you in tow,”

  Orson agreed. He and Atesthas had matching black eyes and broken noses now (two black eyes each) and looked ridiculous. “We look tough, though,” said Atesthas.

  “Sure,” said Hesper. “Well, you two tough guys can stay here and chase off any wardens who come looking for a parking ticket.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” said Orson. He was very happy to be staying safely aboard the ship. Whatever business Hesper and McPhail were going to take care of, Orson was sure he wanted no part of.

  “Remember,” said McPhail. “Pallas stays inside the ship. My factors stay inside the ship. No synthetic intelligences tolerated here,”

  Hesper raised a finger. “Let’s just make the rule that everyone stays inside the ship,” she said. “Hm?”

  Atesthas shrugged. Orson nodded so enthusiastically that he made his nose start bleeding again.

  Atesthas still hadn’t apologised for punching Orson in the face. Orson’s official position on the matter was that he didn’t want or need an apology from Atesthas, because Atesthas was on the back foot morally anyway and everyone knew it.

  Pallas was so aggrieved on Orson’s behalf that she was avoiding Atesthas. She had immediately run to tell Hesper on him. Hesper didn’t honestly care but she took the opportunity to hassle Atesthas. “Captain Allan,” she’d accosted him in a corridor. “What’s this I hear about you assaulting a subordinate?”

  Atesthas had groaned and looked a bit embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to…” he’d said. “He just..pushed one of my buttons,”

  “You do have buttons, Captain,” Hesper had said. “But that’s not what I heard. What I heard is that you and Orson were having a perfectly calm and normal conversation and then you just suddenly clocked him one for no reason at all, out of the blue.”

  Atesthas had stared at her. “...Pallas told you,” he stated correctly. “What a little clipe. Doesn’t she know she’s supposed to be loyal to her Captain? “

  “Loyal?” Hesper had scoffed. “If Pallas had to put one of the two of you out of the airlock, we know which one it would be,”

  Atesthas had sighed, unable to disagree. “I don’t think she likes me any more.”

  “I don’t think it liked you much before,”

  “She liked me just fine!” Atesthas had argued. “We get on...fine, we’re...friendly,”

  “Friendly?” said Hesper. “Yeah? When did you last talk, you and Pallas?”

  Atesthas had gone to rub one of his own bruised eye sockets and winced. “Ow. We don’t really need to talk,”

  “You don’t?”

  “That’s how well we get on,” Atesthas had explained, grinning sheepishly. “Don’t even need to talk. We’re in each other’s heads already. You know?”

  “That’s going to be unpleasant for you, then,” Hesper had told him. “Because Pallas is fair affronted. It wants me to throw the book at you. It said something about keel-hauling,”

  “She does know that I’m the Captain and not you, doesn’t she?” Atesthas had wondered. “Could I be formally disciplined for this?”

  “You could if Orson was technically your subordinate…” Hesper had told him. “But given that he’s down on the manifest as cargo rather than crew, I think you get away with it. Captain.”

  Orson didn’t want to appear conciliatory but when Atesthas suggested that they get breakfast, Orson was too eager to refuse or pretend to be aloof. Orson got his handheld and found a place nearby. The two of them spent quite a pleasant time together deciding what to order and then Atesthas let Orson use his account to pay for all of it. Orson decided that maybe Atesthas did feel bad about punching him and was trying to make it up to him. The feeling of righteousness was even better than the anticipation of breakfast.

  Of course, it all had to be ruined almost immediately.

  First, their breakfast delivery was cancelled. No reason given. No alternative delivery available: they would have to pick it up instead.

  One of Hesper’s ship rules was that Orson and Pallas weren’t to be left alone together on the AGMG (Orson was genuinely baffled) so it was non-negotiable that Atesthas would stay on the ship while Orson went out to pick up the food.

  “Can I not take one of the factors with me?”

  “No.” said Atesthas. “We’re still in the Free Zone, remember? No mechs.”

  “Not even if he stays in my pocket?”

  “No. You’re the mech-lover guy, aren’t you? You wouldn’t want to put them at risk,”

  Orson couldn’t really argue with that.

  “You don’t need to take a factor along with you anyway,” said Atesthas. “We didn’t order that much stuff, you’ll be fine carrying it back by yourself. The place is pretty much right at the bottom of this building, too. You’re just going down the stairs and back up again,”

  “I guess,” said Orson, thinking that going all the way down the stairs and back up again didn’t sound like a ‘just’. “Okay.”

  “Hey,” said Atesthas. “Where are you going?”

  Orson looked round in surprise. “To get dressed,” he said. “To go out and get our food,”

  “You’re just going down the stairs,” said Atesthas incredulously. “Just go like you are.”

  Orson was wearing a fluffy pink dressing-gown (Atesthas’s) over a grey vest and grey boxers, and fluffy grey slippers (probably also Atesthas’s). “You look fine,” lied Atesthas. “There’s no-one around anyway, this place is dead,”

  Konkin did look pretty desolate. They were in a big city but there seemed to be barely any people around, from what Orson could see up on the roof. Loads of shut-down and boarded-up businesses. Blocks that Orson assumed were residential units but with windows very roughly sealed from outside with sheet metal bolted over them. Frankly it looked like a place where a guy like Orson would get shouted at in the street by rude teenagers and made to feel very uncomfortable, even if he wasn’t dressed in a fluffy pink dressing-gown and what looked like nothing underneath. But it was highly embarrassing to admit that you cared how you looked, and Orson had a strong feeling that Atesthas would somehow score a point over him if Orson insisted on going to put actual clothes on.

  That was why he unfortunately had to leave the ship and go down maybe a thousand (eleven) floors’ worth of concrete fire-escape stairs in fluffy slippers and with only his handheld to keep him company.

  Only his handheld and the factor that Orson had pretended not to notice sneaking itself into the hood of the dressing-gown as he left through the hangar.

  When Orson reached the ground floor it was with growing disquiet. He found himself in the bottom of the bare white concrete stairwell and wanted nothing less than to push open the door to the street outside. He tried to focus his mind on the food he was about to get. That was worth going out into this creepy deserted street in this desolate semi-abandoned city, wasn’t it? He tried to remember what they’d ordered to give himself something pleasant to occupy his thoughts. He would go out and collect the nice food and Atesthas would be happy and not disappointed in him. Not that he cared what Atesthas thought of him. It was good to demonstrate that he could be useful and brave and just get on with the task in hand, you know? If he was too scared to go out into the barren and impoverished city dressed in underwear and a dressing-gown to get food for the captain then there was no way they would keep him on the ship. And wasn’t it scarier to be sold as cheap labour in a part of the solar system where he couldn’t even watch his livecasts?

  Orson walked along the litter-strewn street as confidently as he could. He wanted to talk to the factor hiding in his hood but he didn’t know it was there, he really didn’t. He also didn’t know if it was in contact with McPhail right now. It could be, McPhail could be hearing everything it was hearing. So he refused to know that it was there and kept looking down at his handheld to see where the place was. It didn’t seem to be as close as Atesthas had insisted. The SPS was absolutely bunk here, though- Free Zone conditions again. Orson knew you really needed decent access to four satellites minimum to allow a positioning system to assist you and Orson assumed there were either two functioning satellites around the moon or a tumbling mass of twenty thousand that had all crashed into each other and gotten tangled together.

  Orson was about to try to message Atesthas to ask him to send over the address, and then with a cold stab of horror he remembered that he couldn’t. Atesthas was not message-able, not contactable at all. He didn’t know where Hesper and McPhail were (and they were on business, he didn’t think they’d answer even if he tried to call them) and Atesthas fried any technology he got too close to. He didn’t have a handheld or anything like that, he couldn’t touch them. Maybe the only way Orson had to get a message back to the ship would be to send the factor, and he couldn’t do that because then everyone would know that he had taken the factor with him and that he cared more about his own safety that the factor’s because he was a big fat hypocritical poseur.

  Did this give Orson enough of an excuse to go back empty-handed? He could just toddle himself back into the building and back up those stairs to the ship and tell Atesthas that his handheld wasn’t really able to work in this hellhole and he would need to make a note of the address and maybe get a map of the area that he could use to find their breakfast. Orson was debating so hard with himself over whether or not it was acceptable for him to (run away) head back to the AGMG that he didn’t notice the footsteps creeping up behind him.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  ----------

  Orson didn’t know what had happened, but it had been painful and fast and now he was face-down on the ground. Someone had come up behind him and knocked him in the head and pushed him over. His handheld was gone.

  It wasn’t in his hand and he couldn’t see it around him on the ground anywhere so it was gone. Of course it was: that was what he had just been mugged for. He got his knees under him and his hands and painfully pushed himself up off the ground. Oh, god. Hesper was going to pretend to be angry with him for getting it stolen but she would think it was hilarious. McPhail and Pallas would look pitying. Atesthas wouldn’t say anything but he would be thinking about how pathetic Orson was, because he was pathetic. Something like that would never happen to Atesthas. Atesthas wouldn’t let it. Atesthas should have been the one to go out to get the food, he should have been the one to go down into these streets all alone. Maybe he had wanted this to happen to Orson. He had known that something like this would happen if Orson went out alone and he had wanted it to happen.

  The factor was gone too the factor was gone.

  Orson thought he was going to throw up. They had taken the factor too, the poor little factor that had just wanted to snuggle in his hood. Orson had known it was there and he had walked out of the ship with it. It didn’t want to go out of the ship, it didn’t want to go along with him. It just wanted to hide in his clothes because they liked that for some reason. Orson should have taken it out and told it to stay but he hadn’t because he was afraid to go out by himself. And now someone had stolen it and they would never get it back and it would be all alone, away from the other little factors.

  Orson started to cry.

  Just a tiny bit. His eyes prickled and leaked and he took a shaky breath, and then he stopped. He wasn’t going to cry. He had to go after the factor. He had to go after whoever had taken it.

  He didn’t even know what direction to go in.

  Orson turned around and started to walk back the way he had come. He would go back to the ship and tell Atesthas what had happened. And when they sold him he would deserve it and he wouldn’t care.

  He walked slowly back towards the door he’d come out of. The bottom level of the building had a sort of covered walkway section supported by a series of archways that gaped dark like cavern mouths. Orson walked on the outside, keeping his distance from the archways and the shadowed area. Just in case there was someone in there. Not that there was any reason anyone would be. They had already taken the only things of value Orson had.

  There wasn’t anyone around, no-one who could have seen what happened.

  No-one could have seen what happened. Atesthas couldn’t have seen what happened. Maybe Orson didn’t have to tell him. Nobody else would even notice that one of the factors was gone. Nobody knew how many of them there even were. McPhail did, probably, but he wouldn’t notice- he didn’t seem to care all that much about the factors. Anything could have happened to it. They must fly away all the time and get lost and stuff. Nobody would miss it. Only Orson would miss it.

  The archways ended a few metres before the edge of the building. In the flat white-panelled end section Orson could see the outline of what he assumed was the door he’d come out through. It was starting to concern him that he couldn’t see any handles or a keypad to open it. Maybe it only opened from the inside? In which case he didn’t know how he was even going to get back in.

  Orson was walking up to the fire-door when suddenly it opened from the inside and Atesthas walked out.

  “Hey.” said Atesthas. “Come on then, let’s go.”

  A factor flew out after him, keeping its distance. It got out just as the door swung closed. It was carrying a hand-held in one of its little claw appendages.

  Orson just stared open-mouthed.

  “You were coming back to get me, right? I’m here. Let’s go.”

  Atesthas grabbed Orson’s hand and pulled him along after him. The factor flew down and put the handheld into Orson’s other hand.

  “The factors showed me what happened,” said Atesthas as they walked. “They can track each other, this one will show us where to go.”

  The relief hit Orson like a wave. A breath staggered out of him. Atesthas felt him go unsteady and squeezed his hand.

  “Don’t relax just yet, we still have to get him back,” warned Atesthas. “But we will.”

  Orson looked down at the handheld. “My one wasn’t working before, I don’t know if this will help,”

  “It’s not running SPS, it’s receiving from the factors,” explained Atesthas. “It’s just showing us where we are in relation to the one that got stolen.”

  They walked quickly down the empty streets, following the factor as it flew in front of them. They left the main street and walked down a series of increasingly narrow side streets. All of the buildings here seemed like residential buildings but there was nobody around and the properties mostly looked pretty abandoned.

  The factor disappeared suddenly, zipping away around a corner. When they caught up to it the little machine was hovering in front of a door. Orson checked the handheld and saw a marker flashing over the map in front of them. He held it up to show Atesthas. “Reckons it’s in here, I guess.”

  Atesthas nodded and stepped forwards. “Hide yourself,” he told the factor. “Don’t come in with us. Stay hidden until we come out, okay?” The factor flew up to the floor above and wriggled itself in behind a sightly detached metal plate covering a window. “Good,” said Atesthas and knocked on the door. “There’s nothing to be nervous about,” he told Orson.

  “I think there is,”

  “Nah,” said Atesthas. They stood and waited for a while. “I don’t think anyone is coming...”

  Atesthas knocked on the door again, harder this time. “Hello?” he yelled. Now they heard a bit of movement coming from inside. Atesthas stepped back from the door. He pushed up the long sleeves on his grey teeshirt a little to expose some of his muscular scarred forearms. Orson wrapped the dressing-gown further around himself and tied the cord more securely.

  There were the sounds of various locks being undone from inside and the door was opened by a nervous-looking woman. She was older, maybe in her forties Orson would’ve guessed. Tall, thin, long dark brown hair tied up in a tight bun, pretty. She looked with wide eyes at Atesthas, then at Orson, then back at Atesthas. Then she stepped back into the house and without looking away from them, bellowed, “MURRAY! WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING NOW?!”

  Her yell was so loud that the two men jumped. “No, wait-” said Atesthas. “You don’t have to-”

  “MURRRAAAAAAY!” she yelled again. She stepped aside and gestured to Atesthas and Orson that they should come in. “Go on, go straight through,” she said. “There isn’t a back way out. I’ll follow you in.” Atesthas nodded in acknowledgement. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said sincerely and stalked into the house and along the corridor. “Thanks” said Orson as he passed her, following Atesthas. She started locking the door. “His room’s just there on the left,” she said. “Just go in, don’t bother knocking. He knows what happens if he plays silly buggers.”

  The second door on the left had stickers all over it, warning signs saying things like KEEP OUT XTREME HAZARD and MURRAY’S ROOM NO ENTRY. “Is it a kid?” said Orson.

  “Yes,” said the woman. “He’s my son. I’m very sorry for his behaviour. You two gentlemen can scare him a bit if you like, he needs it,”

  Atesthas shoved the bedroom door open. “Murray?” he said. “Did you steal my crewman’s handheld and a flying camera?”

  “How old is he?” Orson asked the woman.

  “Fifteen.”

  “Fifteen?” said Atesthas, overhearing. “You’re fifteen, Murray? I thought you Free Zone kids were supposed to be out entrepreneuring at your age. You’re meant to be onto your second business already,”

  Orson followed Atesthas into Murray’s bedroom. The kid was sitting at his desk, video-editing programme open on his computer screen. “I am,” he said. He didn’t even look round at them. “My first business was stealing stuff from losers and then my second business was making videos of myself stealing stuff from losers and getting advertising revenue from them.”

  “Well,” said Orson. “You’ll have to start your third business because we’re shutting this one down. We’re working with the Konkin tourism council and this sort of thing is part of the reason why this place is dying. It’s terrible publicity.”

  “This dump doesn’t have a tourism council,” said Murray.

  “How would you know?” said Orson. “You’re fifteen!”

  “I would know,” said Murray. “If they did they would have approached me about working on their advertising.”

  “You work on the their advertising? It’s probably your videos of people getting mugged in the street that put people off visiting!”

  Murray shrugged.

  “You don’t care?” demanded Atesthas. “Look around you, look at the state of this moon. Everything’s shutting down. You can’t even get anybody to deliver you breakfast any more. The kind of content you post makes this place look like somewhere with no future. Nobody wants to invest in the area.”

  Murray carried on editing. “Not my problem,” he said. “And it’s not yours either. There is no tourism council and if there was you weirdos wouldn’t be on it.”

  “Sure, okay,” said Atesthas. “We’re not from the council. If you want to know the truth, we’re smugglers and we only stopped off here to deliver illegal things to very bad people. And you stole from us. Even a fifteen year old should know that you don’t steal from guys like us. See these black eyes?”

  Murray gave them a sidelong look.

  “Now, it’s understandable that you mistook my colleague here for someone that it might be okay to mess with,” said Atesthas, indicating Orson. “And you are a minor. And your lovely mother has been very helpful. So we’re prepared to leave with no hard feelings as long as you just give us back our handheld and our camera right now.”

  “And agree not to post the video you made of me,” added Orson.

  “Yeah, that too,” agreed Atesthas.

  The kid pushed his chair back from his desk and leaned back extravagantly in it. He put his hands behind his head and gave them a withering look. “You can have your old junk back, sure. But the video? No way,”

  “No way what?” said Atesthas.

  “It’s already posted. You’re too slow. And there’s no way I’m taking it down.”

  “He’s lying,” said Orson. “There’s no way he edited and posted a video already, it’s been what? Twenty minutes?”

  “He is very quick at making the videos,” said Murray’s mother. “But come on, Murray, be reasonable. The gentlemen have been very reasonable with you, even after you mugged them. It’s only one video, just take it down,”

  “Mum, I’m not losing my ad revenue for these losers,”

  “Murray!”

  “It’s a lot of money, mum.”

  “It’s less money than you’ll lose if we nuke your entire channel,” said Atesthas. “If you take down this one video we walk away with the matter closed. If we have to walk out of here with that video still up, say goodbye to your little content-making career.”

  Murray snorted. “How do you reckon you’d do that?”

  Orson was also curious to find out.

  “Easily,” said Atesthas. “I’ll show you. Where’s the fac- the flying camera you stole?”

  The kid was doing a very dubious sort of facial expression but he also seemed sort of interested. He leaned down under his desk and pulled out a wastepaper bin full of empty crisp packets and empty fizzy drink bottles. He rummaged around in it and pulled out the factor he’d taken from Orson’s hood. He set it down on the desk. It had tomato sauce smeared on it. “Well?” he said. “Let’s see the magic trick you’re going to do that’ll make my career disappear,”

  Atesthas grinned. “No trick.”he said. “No magic. Like I said, we’re...a delivery company so we have a ship, which the camera is going to show you now so that you know we’re not making things up...it’ll just take a minute...a view of the AGMG, it’s going to show us…”

  Murray sighed.

  “It takes a while,”said Atesthas. “It is just a basic camera. It can only follow simple commands. You have to be patient with it. Oh, there we go. See?”

  Murray looked confused for a moment and then realised that Atesthas was looking past him, at his computer. He turned quickly to see the live video feed of the AGMG that the factor had just thrown up onto all three of his monitor screens. Orson imagined one of the little factors flying outside as quickly as it could to start filming when Atesthas suggested it.

  “That’s your ship?” said Murray.

  Atesthas nodded coolly. “Sure is. The AGMG. I’m the captain, for my sins,”

  The kid snorted in derision. “Is everything you own an ancient piece of junk? You’re the...captain of crap,”

  “Don’t be so rude, Murray,” said his mother. “I’m sure it’s a good ship,”

  “It is kind of a piece of junk,” said Atesthas. “I think I might get ‘Captain of Crap’ put on my cabin door, after we do a quick orbit of this shithole moon and destroy every single satellite we find up there. It won’t take long, I think you’ve only got about three anyway. I’m surprised you get a connection good enough to post your videos so fast.”

  Murray didn’t say anything. Atesthas gave him a charming smile. “I think to make completely sure you can’t post such nasty content any more what we’ll do is, once we’ve smashed up every satellite around Konkin, we’ll just do a quick tour around the area and wreck every satellite we come across within range. We’re in no hurry, we just made a delivery. We’ll make absolutely sure Konkin is safely cut off from all communication before we go. I think that’s for the best, don’t you, Murray? Or you could just take the video down.”

  The image of the AGMG vanished from Murray’s monitors. Orson quickly picked the factor up off the desk. He looked around for something to clean it with. He picked up one of Murray’s teeshirts from a pile on his bed and wiped the tomato sauce off with it, then pushed the factor into his dressing-gown pocket.

  Murray started rattling away at his computer, hunched over the keypad.

  “Okay,” he said after a minute, sitting back up. “It’s down.”

  “Great!” said Atesthas. “Now the handheld,”

  Murray unplugged something from underneath his desk and then slid Orson’s handheld over to him. Orson pocketed it. “Good.” said Atesthas. Then he lunged past Orson and put his fist straight through the nearest monitor. Everybody jumped.

  “Now actually take the video down.” said Atesthas, picking bits of computer monitor out of his hand. “If I have to ask again you’ll be down to one monitor. Make it hard to do your editing, right? And delete everything that you copied off that handheld. Now.”

  Murray looked as though he was about to argue, then the urge seemed to pass. He hunched down over his computer again.

  “Show Orson when you delete the files. Let him see you do it. He knows what was on that thing.”

  Murray grunted.

  “I’m sorry, Murray’s mum,” said Atesthas. “I didn’t want to be so aggressive but it seemed like I had to make it clear that I’m quite serious.”

  “It’s alright,” she said. “He needs someone to be firm like that with him more often, I think,”

  “Here,” said Murray, leaning back from the desk and beckoning to Orson. “See? Here’s the files. I’ll make the thumbnails big. Are those your files?”

  “Looks like it, yeah.”

  “Okay. Delete. And they’re gone. And here they are in the bin. And I empty the bin. Okay?”

  Orson nodded. “Yes, that’s good.”

  “And the video is gone too?” asked Atesthas. “Show Orson,”

  Murray sighed heavily. “Don’t huff and puff, Murray,” said his mother.

  “Look,” said the kid to Orson. “This is my channel, right? See- creator dashboard. And see here? Video uploaded. Video deleted. Right? You can see the thumbnail, there’s you in it. And it’s gone. Satisfied?

  Orson shrugged. “Yes?”

  “Let me see.” said Atesthas, pushing over past Orson towards them. Orson gave a slight gasp as Atesthas leaned right over the computer, peering at the screen. Orson thought he saw the two remaining monitors flicker. “Great.” said Atesthas. “That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? And now we can get on our way and just leave all your satellites where they are.”

  Murray nodded slightly. His mother clasped her hands together. “Let that be a lesson to you!” she told him. “No more harassing strangers on the street for your videos,”

  “Oh, he can harass whoever he likes,” said Atesthas. “As long as it’s not us. Eh?” He gave her a wink and she playfully swiped at him, mock-angry. “I’m trying to get him to learn something from this!”

  “Honestly, a smart kid like him isn’t going to learn anything from idiots like us,” said Atesthas. “He’s definitely going to go far, as long as he doesn’t piss off the wrong people,”

  “Oh, I hope so…” said Murray’s mum, following Atesthas out of the room. “I’ll let you gentlemen out…”

  Orson stood up from the desk. “See you,” he said awkwardly to the glowering teenager.

  “I know that’s not just a camera,” said Murray. “The factor. It’s some kind of robot. You know those things aren’t allowed here. At all.”

  “Don’t know what you mean,” said Orson brightly. “It’s just a crappy old camera.”

  “You seemed to really want it back,”

  Orson shrugged and smiled. “Sentimental value,” he said.

  “Hm.”

  Orson couldn’t help touching the pocket the factor was in as he walked down the hall. Just to check. He gave it a little pat. The handheld was safely in his other pocket. Murray’s mother undid the multiple locks on the front door and opened it for them.

  “I’m very sorry about all this,” she said. Atesthas made a dismissive gesture. “You gentlemen take care. Orson, was it? And-”

  “Sebastian.”

  “Sebastian. Take care.”

  “You too.”

  “Mandy,”

  “You too, Mandy.”

  Atesthas briefly took her hand and they shared a look. Then Atesthas pulled away and he and Orson started walking back down the narrow street. They walked in silence, not looking back, until they heard the locks being re-fastened.

  Atesthas looked back around quickly. “Hey!” he half-whispered. “Come on now,”

  There was a slight rattle and a scraping of metal and the other factor pushed its way out from its hiding place and flew quickly to them. It dropped straight into Orson’s pocket alongside its rescued buddy and they beeped at each other.

  “That went well, I thought,” said Orson, relief warming him. He felt like he could run straight up the stairs to the AGMG. He felt like he could probably float back up to the AGMG, honestly. “You would have done it, wouldn’t you?” he asked Atesthas. “What you said about taking out all the satellites.”

  “What do you mean would?” said Atesthas. “We’re going to. I hate that kid. It’ll be hilarious.”

  They took a right down an alleyway that brought them onto a slightly wider street.

  “Why did you want him to take the video down so much?” asked Orson. “It was up already, was it really that important?”

  “Orson...people are looking for you. People and other things. It’s not on the news broadcasts but I know that guy you watch talks about it, so you know. Right?”

  Orson didn’t like to think about that. “Sure,” he said.

  “So we don’t want a video out there showing you and your location to anybody looking.”

  “I thought this area was cut off from the normal tubes and channels.”

  Atesthas narrowed his eyes. “Hmm, not entirely. The connection is unreliable but this place isn’t entirely isolated. Stuff can still get out,”

  “Right.”

  Atesthas stopped and looked around them.

  “Is this the way we came?” asked Atesthas.

  “Think so,” said Orson, getting the handheld out. “Oh, wait. What’s this?” When the handheld screen activated, the device was already doing something. It was connected to some kind of livecasting platform, and it seemed to be transmitting. A timer at the bottom of the display was counting up the way, and currently at twelve minutes and forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven...seconds. The viewer count was at 63. “No!” said Orson. He clasped his hand over the top of the handheld to cover the camera and microphone. “He had it broadcasting the whole time! The-thing- the handheld, it was broadcasting while we were in there! It was on his desk…”

  “To who?” asked Atesthas as Orson awkwardly showed the half-covered up handheld to him.

  “How would I know?” said Orson. “But there’s sixty-three of them, whoever they are. Sixty-eight. Seventy-four..”

  Atesthas squinted at the handheld and groaned. “Urgh, LDV. That little fink’s called out the Home Guard,”

  “What is it?”

  “Local Defence Volunteers. Free Zone guys’ favourite thing to do is making little army gangs to protect their bit of midden from foreigners and machines and other Free Zone guys. Mostly other Free Zone guys ‘cause no-one with any sense comes near here. Oh, they’re going to be so excited to come and run us out of town.”

  “Do they know where we are?” said Orson, poking at the handheld. “Will they be able to find us?”

  “Turn it off!” said Atesthas. “Oh god. Oh god. We showed them the ship, we said the name-”

  “We said my name,”

  “We showed the outside of the ship, a local can probably tell where it is. This is really bad, Orse. Come on, faster.”

  Orson turned the handheld off and shoved it back into his pocket. Atesthas started jog-walking down the street. “Keep up!” he told Orson. “Factors.”

  The little machines in Orson’s pocket beeped acknowledgement. “Tell Pallas to get the AGMG ready to take off.” Atesthas instructed them. “Immediately.”

  He considered.

  “Tell her Orson said to do it,”

  Beeps.

  “Contact Dr. McPhail. Tell him what’s happened. Communicate the urgency. Tell him he and XO Hesper need to get back to the AGMG as quickly as possible, or get to somewhere that we can make a very fast uplift en-route. Got that?”

  More beeps.

  “Come on!” Atesthas urged Orson. “We take a left somewhere down here, don’t we? Here?”

  “No,” said Orson, trotting to keep up. He let Atesthas grab his hand and tug him along. “Next one,”

  They jogged along together. “Factors, are you sharing our location with the AGMG?” asked Atesthas. “...Factors?

  “Ah-,” said Orson. He was out of breath already. “Maybe you’re...too close...to them,”

  “Oh,” said Atesthas. “Right,”He let go of Orson’s hand and moved a few paces away from Orson as they jogged.

  “Factors?” he tried again. The was a pause and then a couple of beeps. “Okay. Share our location with the AGMG so Pallas can see where we are. Warn her to be aware of hostiles incoming. There’s probably something on its way. If you see anything airborne coming in just get out. Do NOT get pinned down.”

  “Down here,” said Orson. Atesthas followed him down an alley way off the left side of the main street, keeping a safe distance. “I think I can hear something,” said Atesthas in a low voice.

  “No,” said Orson. He almost tripped over a pair of sodden trousers left lying in the alleyway. He didn’t remember them being there before. “Wrong turn,” he panted.

  “It’s fine,” said Atesthas. “We’re going in the right direction.” He was pretty sure they were going in the right direction. He looked up to see if he could catch sight of the top of the building the AGMG was parked on but the buildings around them were high enough and close together enough that he couldn’t see anything other than sky above them. “There,” he said. “That blue door, go down that street,”

  They jogged across and down the street, Orson puffing, and dodged down the street that left off the main street just before a building with a blue door. This street was different, less residential looking. It had a couple of businesses, offices of some sort, but they seemed to be closed. When they got to the end of the short street Orson recognised where they were. “That way,” he said, pointing. “Look... That’s...the street.” He could see a bun and dumpling shop (closed) that he had noticed longingly earlier. He could hear something now too but he was ignoring it. They both ran towards the main street. The factors started beeping urgently in his pocket, either in complaint at the jostling or trying to communicate something. “Factors?” he asked. Atesthas looked around sharply. “Are they getting a message? Are you getting a message, guys?”

  “Message from Pallas,” said the factors simultaneously in the weird synthesised voice they spoke in that sounded a little like McPhail. “Someone’s coming,”

  Atesthas made an exasperated groan. “Great, Pallas.” he said. “Very helpful.”

  “Reply?” asked the factors.

  “No,” said Atesthas. “Come on, come on..” he urged Orson. They had turned onto the main street and the building the AGMG was parked on was just a couple of blocks along. Orson hardly dared to look but he risked a quick glance upwards. On the rooftop he could see a sliver of the top of the AGMG and nothing else.

  “We’re going to make it,” said Atesthas. “Up the stairs as fast as you can, push it. It doesn’t matter if you collapse once we’re up there, just get up there. Fast. Before anyone else turns up,”

  “...Yes,” said Orson. It was the next building.

  “Factors, door,” said Atesthas. Ahead of them Orson saw the fire door open out of the panels past the loggia along the ground floor of the building. “How?” he managed to ask.

  “I got one of them to stay there to open the door for us when I came out to get you,” explained Athesthas. “I am very smart,”

  They ran past the row of archways towards the door. “Almost there,” said Atesthas as Orson’s breathing got more ragged. “And then push push to the roof. Right?”

  Orson couldn’t have replied even if he wanted to. He focused on the factors in his pocket. He was going to get them back to the ship safely. The factors were okay and he had another chance. Maybe McPhail wouldn’t even have to find out what had happened, if he could get up the stairs quickly enough. Ahead of him Atesthas swung around the door and vanished.

  Orson kept running as fast as he could. Running in slippers was difficult. He bet even if you were fit and ran a lot it would still be hard to run in slippers. He immediately started to feel his previous fury with Atesthas returning. Atesthas had made him come out like this. He had wanted to get dressed but Atesthas had made him leave in his pyjamas. He could have been wearing his boots right now, proper boots for running along streets and up stairs. It would be so much easier if he had his boots on. He probably wouldn’t even be out of breath. All Atesthas’ fault.

  Orson reached the door and dodged around it into the bottom of the stairwell. There was a factor on the inside of the door, holding it open. As soon as Orson was inside it took off and flew straight up the stairwell. The two in Orson’s pocket followed it, the three little things beeping at each other as they vanished up into the building. Atesthas was a couple of floors up already too, clattering up the stairs above Orson. Orson was bereft. He’d been left completely alone. At least the factors would be alright, he wasn’t responsible for them any more. “Come on, Orse!” yelled Atesthas down to him. Orson stepped forward and gripped the handrail. Push push. He could do it. He started climbing the stairs.

  Wait.

  The concrete column next to the stairs was probably a lift, right?

  He stepped back down off the stairs and walked around to the other side of the column. It was a lift! There was a matt-silver button with an ‘up’ arrow next to the door. Orson pushed the button and leaned against the wall.