#zeroids

[doodl-eo]

currently having way too much fun drawing zeroids

silly lil bal mans

[keaalu]

Kestrel Kestrel, chapter four

I hope no-one thought I'd forgotten about this nonsense...

------

Kate slept better than she’d thought she would, with 55 purring quietly for her the whole time.

She’d have probably slept longer, but her protesting stomach woke her up. Those few shreds of bland chicken were a distant memory and she felt ravenous.

Thus, she’d only been awake for forty seven minutes but Kate was already finishing her third plate of sandwiches, not to mention crunching her way through Spacehawk’s entire stock of crispy snacks. 101 looked alarmed by how quickly his inventory was dropping but wasn’t hesitating at bringing more when she looked at him in a specific way.

“Growing a whole new skeleton really takes it out of you,” she said, accepting the offering when the zeroid trundled over the obs lounge floor, pushing yet another packet of crisps towards her.

“That’s our last pack of those,” 101 informed her, trying but not quite able to keep all the reproach from his tone. “So if you want anything else you’ll need to pick something different. Like broccoli.”

“Sorry, hon.” She suspected it had probably been Hiro’s favourites she’d been happily munching her way through, if the zeroid’s manner was anything to go by. “I’ll send some more up on your next supply run.”

He chirped an acknowledgement and seemed mollified, for the moment.

“I guess it must have felt a bit like this when you got your body back after Zelda turned you into a cube, huh?” she wondered.

“Oh I don’t think my experience was anywhere near as bad as yours, ma’am,” he demurred. “Mine was more like… maybe just a very unflattering new set of clothes.”

“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit for surviving a horrible situation,” she said. “For at least two weeks afterwards, you were still hissing every time you got annoyed, if I remember right.”

There was a subtle brightening of his optic display and he just said hmm! which she imagined probably meant he was still embarrassed and didn’t want to talk about it, so she patted him on the head and left it alone. “And I bet it still sucked.”

“Well, it didn’t involve a trash compactor, so it could have been worse.” He gave her fingers a bump. “Would you like a coffee? I just heard it finish brewing.”

“That would be amazing. Thank you.”

He squeaked another little nonverbal agreement, and rolled away to get it. (Pulling the new bag of snacks open, she wondered if she could get away with asking for more sandwiches when he came back.)

“Tea? Yes please, dear,” she heard Hiro say, and looked up to find the lieutenant in the doorway, holding a tablet.

“I ate all your chips, so I think I’m in trouble with your husband,” Kate apologised, holding the open pack out to him. Even that small action made her shoulders ache. Perhaps she ought to forego more sandwiches in favour of sleeping for a few days.

Hiro smiled and took a single crisp, but otherwise waved her off. “He is still bringing you snacks, so you can’t be in too much trouble.” He settled on the floor next to her, cross legged. He looked tired; she didn’t imagine he’ d slept much since this had all started. “If you had upset him, he would have started bringing you things you probably would not enjoy very much.”

“Yeah, he threatened me with something healthy already.”

Hiro chuckled. “Well, please keep this between us, but I am glad someone else is eating our inventory. I once told Owun I particularly liked these, so now he always buys far too many, then pretends they were on offer. Then we have to somehow store four cases of them.” He looked at the bag Kate was holding out, and sat on his hands. “I try not to eat them too quickly, because then he panics that we are running out and buys more.” A little sigh. “There are certain nuances to human behaviour that zeroids don’t quite understand, yet, and striking a balance between unhealthy foods we enjoy and sensible nutritional choices appears to be one of them.”

“Well, you have plenty of ‘sensible nutritional choices’ in the form of broccoli.”

“And why do you think we have plenty of that?” Hiro gave her an arch look, then finally relented and took another crisp.

“Yeah, I get it.” Kate chuckled.

They sat quietly together for a little while, with 55 unobtrusively monitoring Kate’s vital signs from where he perched nearby, connected to Spacehawk’s systems. (The zeroid had become something of an anxious sheepdog and was following her everywhere, now. Just in case, apparently.) 101 finally returned with their drinks, on a small trolley.

Kate took her coffee, but eyed Hiro’s green tea with a vague envy. “I probably shoulda asked you for one of those instead, 101. Not sure caffeine was the best idea for my poor nerves, after all.”

101 was already halfway to the door. “I can get-”

“No, no. This looks good too. Thank you.” It did look good; hazelnut syrup and plenty of hot milk, with a thick steamed foam on top. She took a sip, savouring it, before finally prompting; “So, do you have an update for me, Hiro?”

“I do. Not much of one, yet, but we wanted to ensure you were kept in the loop.” Hiro held out the tablet for her, but maintained his hold on it for a few extra seconds. “Before we start… I am sorry that there is no easy way to tell you what we have found, but I will promise you now that we will do everything in our power to fix it. All right?”

Kate took a steadying breath before accepting the device. “I’m already not liking the direction this sounds like it’s going in Hiro, but all right. I trust you.” She stared down at the confusing mosaic of graphs and microscopy and… biopsy images? “What am I looking at?”

Hiro tapped the first image and it enlarged to a graphical representation of genetic data. “Initially, when you arrived and we took samples?” At her nod, he went on; “We thought that Zelda must have done something structurally to alter your DNA, but when we analysed it, it was all still human. We could not explain it. How could you be human, but categorically not human, at the same time?” He touched the screen again and scrolled through a selection of biopsy results, most of which she wasn’t sure of the meaning of. “Eventually, we did a visual scan of your blood sample. And we found… this.” He tapped the tablet and brought up a new image.

It was some sort of microscopy of a blood film. Kate could recognise red blood cells easily. The irregular, blobby masses were probably white blood cells.

She had no idea what the scattering of angular black flecks were, though.

She sucked in a sharp breath and for a second didn’t feel capable of releasing it. “The hell are those.”

“We are still working on our analysis, but they look like very small machines of some sort. They have proved extremely hard to extract to get under the electron microscope. Doctor Ninestein and Kiljoy are still working on it.”

“They’re in my blood?” She suddenly wished she hadn’t eaten quite so many sandwiches, and hastily put her coffeecup down before she could spill it in her lap. Bile rose in her throat.

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Hiro caught her hand and she clung to him with both her own.

“They’re in my blood, Hiro.” She knew it was her imagination, but everything suddenly felt very heavy – like her blood had been replaced by sludge. Maybe her muscles didn’t ache because of the transformation, but because a hundred thousand tiny sharp black flecks were scouring their way along the inside of her blood vessels, like a malicious alien virus. “Shit. Shit.”

Hiro kept hold of her shaking hands, and waited quietly. The two zeroids had both converged on her as well, leaning comfortingly against her.

“I don’t know what I even expected you to say.” Kate laughed in spite of herself, shakily, and wiped her face with one hand. “That Zelda had zapped me with some… magical raygun, and the effect had worn off, and that was it? It’s all over? Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, would it.”

That bubble of laughter threatened to become hysterical. Keep it together, Kate. She focused on the grounding weight of 55, pressed up against her, and counted each slow scroll of 101’s optic display.

At the count of fifteen, she felt like she might be able to trust her voice again. “When can you remove them?”

Hiro’s silence was all she needed to know.

“We will remove them,” he hastily added. “I just… am not sure how quickly we can do it, yet.”

“Can you block them? Keep them from reactivating?”

“I don’t know. We don’t know how they work. We do not even know for sure if they are switched on right now.”

“So what you mean is, I could turn back into a bird at literally any moment. Including at the worst possible time. Like… at the controls of an aircraft. Or on stage. Or… on the goddamn toilet-” She swallowed the rest of the words before they could dig in any deeper. “How did Zelda even get them-…” A new, nauseating thought hit her. “It was the parcel, wasn’t it. Shit. I left it at the concert hall. I didn’t think to check if Joe actually got rid of it safely-”

“I’m sorry?”

“Someone sent me a ‘gift’. They dressed someone up to look like Stew, so it’d look like it was all legit and came from head office, and nothing harmful showed up on the security scan. Just… pottery and minerals.” She closed her eyes. “It was a broken statue of a bird wearing a wig. There was black sand in it, and it left a stain on my fingertips that took a while to wash off. I thought it was just a stupid joke from a fan who couldn’t craft very well.” That sensation of sickness rose in her throat again. If only she’d been as careful putting it back in the box as she had been taking it out, and none of this would be happening. “But it didn’t wash off, did it. It got into my blood, through my skin, by-by… creeping in through my pores-”

“Kate,” Hiro interrupted, squeezing her fingers and helping pull her out of a threatening spiral. “I promise we will fix this. Zelda did it – which means we can un-do it. I’m so sorry I can do nothing for you yet, but I will. You have my absolute promise of that.”

“…thank you.” She let out a breath in a very long shaky exhale and leaned into him. “I’m sorry, guys.” She tried for a smile but it came out more like a grimace of pain. “I know it’s not your fault. Please don’t feel like I’m blaming you for not magically knowing how to fix it already, Hiro. I just… oh, man. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.” She covered her face with her free hand. “At least tell me they’re not breeding.”

Hiro considered it for a few moments. “We are fairly confident are not self-replicating. Granted, they have been exceptionally difficult to visualise in any detail, but Kiljoy has not observed any difference in the number present in the sample we took.” He found a small smile in reply. “There is also one… silver lining? For some of us, at least. They do not appear to be escaping into the environment, either.”

“So I’m not stuck up here in quarantine,” Kate intuited, and found a more genuine little smile. “As silver linings go it’s pretty small, but I’ll take it. I don’t think I took Earth so much for granted until I was told I might not be able to go back there. Living permanently in orbit? Really not my thing.” She leaned forwards and patted 101’s top curve, making him chirp. “No offence, you guys. You’re both wonderful company. But I don’t know how you do it, spending so much time up here. I need to feel the earth under my feet again. Real gravity. A breeze that doesn’t come from the aircon.”

“No offence taken, Kate, of course. And Treehawk will be ready for you whenever you want to depart,” Hiro reassured. “We can research these… nanobots, for want of a better description… without needing to force you to remain here.”

“Please – keep me updated with everything you find?”

“Of course! You will be first to know.”

“I didn’t think it could get much worse than the time she had Lord Tempo actually kill me, but this sure is in the running for the top spot, now.” Kate picked her coffee back up, and sighed quietly into its cooling depths. “I guess compared to having a worm put in your head to force you to try and kill everyone you love, turning into a bird is getting away lightly.”

Hiro offered a rueful smile. “Let’s not compare our personal traumas. You have absolutely not been somehow treated more kindly than I was.”

Kate slid an arm behind him and leaned into him, letting her head bump down on his shoulder. “I’m beginning to think this job is bad for our health.”

He echoed her movements, leaning back towards her. “You’re right – but somebody has to do it. And at least we all have each other for support, which is more than can be said for Zelda and her ‘allies’.”

Chirps of agreement came from the two zeroids.

Kate finally found a small laugh that didn’t feel like it was a step or two away from a sob. “As families go, I don’t think I coulda found a better one, huh? Thanks, guys.”

Eventually Spacehawk’s crew had to head away to attend to other duties, leaving just 55 and Kate together in the observations lounge. He gave her a little bump and shimmied carefully up under her arm.

“Are you all right, miss Kate? You still seem quite stressed. Your heart rate’s normally lower at rest.”

“You caught me out, Five-five.” Kate sighed. “I guess I still feel like I have an anvil hanging over my head. We know how Zelda did it, but don’t know what the actual trigger was? After I was… infected…” The words felt sour in her mouth. “…it took until the next day before the flecks did anything, and-… I don’t really want it to happen again? But I know it will, because Zelda’s not been in contact with us to gloat over it, so whatever nightmare she’s planning hasn’t come to fruition yet. And my blood will stay full of tiny black specks until she does, unless Hiro can figure it out first.”

55 made a sad little descending note. “Is there anything that I can do? I feel pretty useless if I can’t help you.”

“Just… being company is good, buddy. I promise.” Kate tightened her arm and pulled him in closer, and listened as his fans began that soothing purr again. “And I’m gonna need you while I’m on this enforced sabbatical, so you better have that inner thesaurus of yours all charged up and ready to go.”

“Ha ha! Ten-ten, ma’am. You can rely on me – so long as it’s not with the choreography!”

When the time finally came for them to depart, 101 met them at the airlock, with a packet of crisps. “I fibbed. There was still one pack left,” he apologised, nudging it towards her. “For the journey down?”

Kate smiled. “You don’t want to keep them for Hiro?”

The zeroid glanced around himself, guiltily. “He thinks we ran out already. I haven’t fessed up to still having some, yet.”

She crouched in front of him. “I know you just wanted to keep one pack for him, so I’m flattered that you changed your mind for me. Thank you. But it’s fine, hon. I have eaten so many of your snacks already, I’m surprised I haven’t turned into a chip.” She thought about it for a second or so. “The way my day’s going, I can’t even say that feels all that implausible, either.” She stroked his casing, and smiled, gratefully. “Give them to Hiro, with my thanks.”

He leaned into her fingers, subtly. “Thank you, ma’am. Safe travels.”

Ninestein gave Kate an uneasy glance, watching as she climbed into Treehawk’s passenger seat and buckled her harness. “You absolutely sure you’re all right?”

“Tired and sore and really goddamn crushed that I can’t fly, right now.” She looked back at him. “But if you mean ‘are you fit to be flown’, then sure. I’m fine. Can’t guarantee I won’t turn into a bird again on the way down, but I’m sure you’ve dealt with weirder. I promise to behave myself.”

“We don’t have to travel just yet if you don’t feel like you’re up to it-”

“Don’t you even dare suggest it, Tiger.” She waved a vaguely threatening finger. “I want to sit in the garden, feel the breeze on my face and grass under my toes, and work out what the hell I’m going to do about all those upcoming commitments that really won’t be helped by a coat of feathers…”

-----

Leaning heavily into the central control console on the flight deck, Hiro watched the view from the space zeroids of their small shuttle departing. He felt tireder than he wanted to admit – having first spent hours searching for their missing friend, and then switching straight into researching the malicious nanobot infestation, he hadn’t managed to catch more than a few minutes sleep, and now his eyes had grown sore and a headache was starting to tighten a band around his temples.

101 appeared out of nowhere with a cup of tea, and a suspiciously familiar packet of snacks. “Hiro?”

“Oh!” Hiro smiled and held out a hand. “A little bird implied we had run out of these.”

“Ye-eah so I might have been a teeny tiny bit less than generous with the truth and not completely totally one-hundred-percent honest about our inventory.” Fairly dripping with guilt, the zeroid watched Hiro pick the offerings up off the trolley. “I already apologised to Captain Kestrel. She said to let you have them.”

Hiro smiled and gave him a pet. “Thank you, both of you. I will save them for later, when I am not too tired to enjoy them.”

101 watched him walk across to the window seat, where the bright curve of the Earth was visible. “What they did to Captain Kestrel – exactly how bad is it?”

Hiro patted the cushion by his side; without hesitation, 101 took the invitation and tucked up under his arm. “It is… not good,” the human lieutenant confirmed, slowly, studying the spirals inscribed by the steam rising from his drink. “I hesitate even to say it is manageable, right now.”

“What does that mean?”

“We do not have a big enough sample to study properly. We can barely see what they even are? And even if we managed to filter every last one out of Kate’s blood sample, we still wouldn’t have enough to experiment on.” Hiro took a sip and savoured the warmth of his drink for a second or two. “At the moment, manually picking them out is the only solution we have come up with, and I am not sure how we would do it without removing her blood from her body, somehow. It would be like trying to take out individual blood cells.”

“We might be able to do that,” 101 offered. “Zeroids, I mean. We can be accurate enough to target individual flecks, at least.”

Hiro laughed, tiredly. “I will find you some very small tweezers, then.”

They sat quietly together for a while, with Hiro unwilling to doze off with such a huge job weighing on his conscience but definitely beginning to nod. While 101 was always happy and content to initiate snuggles, and rarely needed an excuse to do so, close contact also let him monitor his friend’s biosigns, and right now he could feel Hiro beginning to lose the battle against sleep, pressing gradually harder against his casing as he began to doze.

101 didn’t know precisely how tiredness affected how human brains worked, but he’d heard some of the gobbledygook Hiro’s half-sleeping brain had convinced him was sensible in the past, and knew that the lieutenant wouldn’t be processing things effectively if he tried to carry on like this.

It exasperated Ninestein, most of the time, but Hiro still encouraged all the zeroids to think for themselves, saying he valued the leaps of logic their processors sometimes made. Granted, a lot of their ‘imagination’ was either one absurd leap too far, or else not remotely imaginative. But practice (and a good teacher) had meant 101 was getting better at it, and something new was percolating: Hiro can’t do anything until we get a bigger sample.

So, we need to try and get more for him. Kate said they were in a statue. There might be more in it. Hiro’s too tired to make that connection for himself just yet, and time is of the essence. The longer we leave it, the more likely we won’t find the thing, particularly if it’s in the trash. I need to get someone on Earth to help.

After the third time Hiro jerked his head back up out of a doze, 101 finally lost patience with him.

“You need to go to bed, honey. You’ve been awake for at least twenty four hours. You can’t possibly be at your best right now.” He butted gently into his side.

“No, no.” Hiro shoved his glasses up and scrubbed his eyes. “I need-”

“To go to bed, before you fall asleep on me, and that won’t be fun for either of us. Go on, shoo. Let me look after the shop. I can handle monitoring and you know I can scream pretty loud if things get too tough for me.”

Hiro looked down to meet the intense scarlet gaze staring him out, then sighed, beaten, and put both arms around him, gratefully. “Thank you.” He pushed himself unsteadily back to his feet, bumping into the central console, then away down the short corridor to his cabin.

101 watched him go, then settled at his perch, and got himself comfortable. He waited until he was sure Hiro was asleep before opening a channel to Earth. “Zero? Are you there?”

The sergeant major took a few seconds to answer, so had either been busy, or more likely snoozing. “Well of course I am. Where else would I be?”

“One of these days you’re gonna answer with something normal like ‘yes’.”

“One of these days, you is going to open with something normal like ‘hello’,” Zero countered, gruff. “What’s the matter anyway, lad?”

“Captain Kestrel is on her way back,” 101 explained, quietly. He didn’t need to be, because his words were transmitting straight into Zero’s audio centre, but he softened his tone anyway, as though trying not to wake anyone. “It’s not good news, Zero. It’s like she’s got a virus of tiny robots in her blood.”

“Tiny robots?”

101 ignored the incredulous tone. “Yes. Hiro told me what the problem is and we don’t know how to get them out, yet. I’ve been thinking how we can help, and I need you to do a job for me.”

That was possibly the wrong choice of words.

“Oh you needs me to do a job, is it.” Zero scoffed his annoyance. “Why don’t you do it yourself, you bossy little space-hopper.”

“Well obviously I can’t do anything from up here, can I, or I would do.”

“You could jump over the side again. Just remember to pack a parachute, this time.”

“Well-!” 101 sounded genuinely wounded by that one. “That was unkind! You know I didn’t jump, and you know what falling did to-”

“All right, all right. Don’t go and blow a fuse.” Zero interrupted before his rival could get himself too worked up. “Fine.” He huffed meaninglessly to himself for a second or two. “That was probably just the wrong side of acceptable. Sorry.”

101 sat and quietly processed the apology. “…accepted.”

“So what’s this thing you ‘needs’ me to do, anyway? That you can’t possibly ask anyone else to do, you has to come to me for.”

A little huff. “I can’t ask the others. They won’t listen to me – you made sure of that. Not my jurisdiction, and you’d overrule me, anyway.”

Zero stifled a chuckle. “Now now, Owun lad, let’s not get in a snit over it. Just the chain of command, operating like it should.”

While the humans had started to use it as an affectionate shorthand, Zero tended to call him Owun if he wanted to imply his rival was soft. Today, 101 was feeling like he was made of sterner stuff. “Oh… stroll off, Zero,” he snapped, exasperated. “Are you gonna help with this or not?”

“Maybe if you tell me what it is you want me doing, I’ll decide if I’m going to help, or just tell you where to stick it.”

“Fine. Then it’s all on you, if this goes balls-up.” 101 sighed firmly. “Miss Kate says the… nanobot infection… was probably carried in a statue. Somebody made it, and sent it to her. We need to find it. We’re assuming it must have been the martians, somehow, since we don’t have anything like this technology on earth.”

In spite of the seriousness, Zero couldn’t resist. “Oh! Does that mean that when you saw them off last time, you did a half-arsed job of it because you was bored, again, and they managed to deliver their weapon right under our noses?”

“Ex-cuse you very much, they made their approach from the opposite side of the planet – which you would know, if you ever actually read a single one of my reports-”

“-and there he goes, making excuses for shoddy workmanship again-”

“And we did a perfectly good job of-… I’m sorry but when did we suddenly decide all of this was my fault?! Please, Zero. For once, can you just not? Miss Kate is in trouble and I’m trying really hard to help right now and you’re just being an asshole, as usual. When I need you!” 101 said, in a frustrated rush. “All right? There, I said it! I need you! You’re good at this sort of thing, where-… I’m… not. Can we not argue? For Miss Kestrel’s sake? Please?”

A heavy silence took hold for a second or two, while Zero thought about it. He’d always been intending to help, right from the start – technically, getting the bossy little twit grovelling for daring to try and give him orders had been the end game, but he’d caved a lot faster than Zero had anticipated and he actually felt a tiny bit guilty for weaponising the situation. “Fine,” he said, at last, gruffly. “Go through your idea, and we’ll decide what we can do.”

“Thank you.” 101 allowed himself a second to get a little bit of stability back. “So. Hiro only took a little sample of blood, and he can’t get the nanobots out of it. I think if he had a bigger sample, he might be able to work out how to control them, so maybe if we found the statue, there might be more of them still in it. There’s a lot of us to help search, and we have senses the humans don’t. Right?”

“All right, and how precisely is we meant to do that?” Zero growled, warily. “Does these teeny little robots have some sort of communications built in that we can home in on?”

101 hesitated. That was the one thing he hadn’t thought about. “Iiii don’t know? I don’t think Hiro has enough to analyse, but I can ask him when he wakes up. And Five-five has a picture of it.”

“A picture.” Zero exaggerated a sigh. “How exactly is we meant to use a picture to locate a dangerous object full of microscopic shape-shifting robots.”

“Captain Kestrel could tell you where the box was left. They were at the concert hall. They’re probably in the trash, now, but I checked the schedule, and it might not have been collected yet. I don’t think anyone would want to steal it, unless they knew it was for Kate and thought they could sell it-” A small note of alarm entered 101’s voice. “Oh, no! What if someone else touches the statue and gets infected? Oh my stars, we wouldn’t even know who they are-! Zero, you have to find it!”

“All right, all right. Keep your hair on. Just let me think.”

The silence stretched out between them. 101 tried to concentrate on not fidgeting.

“…Zero?” he chased, anxiously, when the quiet had lasted just that little bit too long for him to be comfortable with, then singsonged; “I’ll put you up for a medal if you find it…”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I doesn’t need to be bribed,” the sergeant major scoffed, then added, in a low chortle; “Although, I wouldn’t say no if someone offered me one?” He mumbled something unintelligible to himself. “You got me on board, lad. But I need to discuss it with Captain Falconer. I think we is going to need more than just me, Five-five and Hudson, for this. Someone with hands would definitely help.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep you updated if we figure out anything new.”

“Why’s this got you so agitated, anyway? You doesn’t normally lose your head over stuff like this.”

101 had to take a moment to think about it. They butted heads over orders all the time, but pride meant he didn’t often find himself trying to cajole his senior officer into going along with something, like this. “It was something Miss Kate said; it must be like when Zelda turned me into a cube. I… I don’t think it’s really that much the same, but… I guess I can sort of understand what she’s experiencing, a little bit. And I was there when she turned human again. Zero, it looked so horrible! I was right there and I couldn’t do anything to help!”

“Well, you’re doing something now.” Zero’s reassurance felt weirdly stabilising. “I’ll get Mary to call Hiro-”

“Uh.”

“…’uh’?”

“I, um.” There was a long pause. “Well, I sent him to bed. I thought time was of the essence so I might have been operating on my own initiative, just a tiny bit. He doesn’t actually know I was gonna call you. I’ll get him to call Mary when he gets up, instead.”

“Oh ho! Naughty lad, going behind his back. All right. I’ll let you know what Mary says. I’m sure she’ll agree with us.”

Us. Well, that was a good sign. Zero was already treating it like it was something they’d come up with together which meant he kinda liked it, and genuinely would support it. 101 closed the call feeling rather more confident than he had at the start.

-----

Mary listened to Zero outline their discussion without interrupting, and remained silent for several seconds after he’d finished.

Zero made a little noise like clearing his throat. “…so… ma’am…?”

“It’s been more than a day,” she cautioned. “It could have ended up in landfill already.”

“What if it hasn’t? And that’s not going to help our boys cure it, if we leaves it in the rubbish.”

“No, it won’t.” Mary sighed and tapped her fingers to her lips. “Whether we think it still contains more of these… nanobots… or not? Feels irrelevant. It could be empty and harmless, but equally could be enormously dangerous. Getting that statue back is vital,” she agreed. “I’ll contact the venue, so they can start looking for it, and take steps to identify anyone who might have had contact. But,” she lifted a finger, “we don’t want to cause a panic, either. The last thing we need is for this to end up on social media before we even start.”

“Would that be a bad thing? More people looking for it?”

“Maybe. I’m thinking about all those extra people getting in the way and causing hindrance – and even those with the best intentions will start asking questions. And we absolutely don’t want anyone intentionally trying to infect themselves, because they want to turn into a bird. No, we’ll have to move quickly, so go get your team together, sergeant major.”

“Ten-ten, ma’am.”

“And I’ll brief Tiger,” she added. “It sounds like Treehawk’s just landed.”

The unmistakable sound of the shuttle’s engines drew Hawkeye back to the lounge. (In spite of Mary telling him that of course he had nothing to be ashamed about, for goodness sake, how could anybody have possibly known that Kate and the little falcon were one and the same person… he’d skulked off anyway, to play a racing sim and be alone with his guilt for a little while.)

Not long after the engine noise had faded, two sets of footsteps came from the hallway, and two blessedly-human officers (plus one zeroid) came in through the interconnecting corridor.

“Katie!” Hawkeye swamped her in an impulsive hug before recovering and stepping back with an embarrassed cough and an attempted handshake. “Uh, I mean. Good to see you human again, partner!”

“Good to see you too, you dope,” Kate scolded, fondly, catching his arm and returning the embrace. “Thanks for bringing me home from the desert.”

“Hey, you’re welcome. Thanks for being persistent enough to convince me I needed to!”

When she stepped back, she noticed that Hawkeye had gone distinctly pink. She quirked an eyebrow.

“Uh, so.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for treating you like an actual bird. And, you know. Stroking you, like you were someone’s pet, or something. I wouldn’t have if I’d known-”

“Hey. You can quit that right now.” She waggled a finger at him. “I’d just woken up as a bird, and I was terrified you were gonna leave me in the desert to deal with somehow eating mice. That little bit of human comfort was totally what I needed, so don’t go and start chewing yourself up over that.”

He looked away, sheepish, and shrugged. “Might be too late for that.”

After a relieved hug from Mary, the four humans settled around the table, to get a more official update from Kate, not a third-hand account via the pair of argumentative zeroids. Five-five hopped quietly up to a nearby perch, to be close by.

Zero didn’t take long to spot him. He rolled to a halt at the bottom of the pedestal. “Five-five? Come on, lad. Look sharp. We need your help with something.”

“Why?” 55 leaned slightly forwards in a frown. “I’ve done an awful job of preventing harm to Kate. There’s lots of other zeroids who can help with your mandate.”

“You refusing a direct order, Sonny Jim? I’ll ban you from going up to Spacehawk, if this is what talking to the disobedient so-and-so based up there does to you.”

“No? For this whole mess, I’ve accepted culpability. Now Miss Kate’s safety is my responsibility!”

“Well that’s tough cheddar, I’m afraid. We needs your expert knowhow in locating dangerous bird statues.”

“Expert? I’m nothing of the kind. We never wanted it. We left it behind.”

“Yes, but you know where you left it. And what it looked like.”

Neither zeroid noticed that the humans’ conversation had dwindled, and Kate had straightened up, listening intently to the zeroids talking.

“Five-five?” she said.

Her zeroid looked over to her.

“It’s fine. I’m coming too, so we can go together.”

Zero looked blindsided by the announcement and wasn’t immediately sure how to react to it. “Er. Do you think that’s wise, Miss Kestrel-?”

“I’m coming with you,” Kate repeated, in a way that brooked no argument. “Sure as spacefire not sitting here on my maudlin ass just waiting to see what happens next. If I can do something to save myself, you bet I’m going to try.”

[thunderbirdsera]

The Truth Behind Terrahawks' Noughts & Crosses Game

I find Terrahawks part boring and part weird, whilst finding it a little interesting at the same time. Sargent Major Zero is still my favourite character, as well as Sram, Yuri and Lord Tempo, but the noughts and crosses game played at the end of every episode makes me ponder this one very important question that is of lore to both Terrahawks fans and people who are facing life challenges like I'm doing now…

With every Zeroid that appears on the noughts and crosses board, these represent positive thoughts, and every cube that appears on the board represents negative thoughts. Somehow, at the end of every game the cubes wipe out one of the Zeroids, and the negative thoughts win. But luckily, we have the power to fight back against them and replace the cubes (the negative thoughts) with the Zeroids (the positive ones).

So, it basically comes to my attention that Sargent Major Zero, Dix Huit and all the other Zeroids that the Terrahawks keep under our care are actually the happy things we think about, while those stupid cubes represent the thoughts we dare not think about.

True happiness is a Zeroid who wants to be your friend. Sadness is a Z-Cube who doesn't want to be messed around with. When it comes to emotions, the choice is your's.

[geekhombre]

Major Matt Nelson

My absolute favorite toys from age 4-8. Had all of these, including the Captain Lazer and aliens, though those were separate from the 'realistic' (I loved the space bubble but we knew what the Rover looked like - or did we?) toys. They did get to play with the Zeroids

Who were Major Matt Nelson's main competitor and eventually overtook him.

MAJOR MATT MASON - MAN IN SPACE

Major Matt Mason, Mattel’s Man in Space.  This is an original 1966 release, as the straps on his space suit are blue.  All subsequent versions of the figures had black straps.

Mattel took full advantage of young Americans’ fascination with the space program by releasing the Major Matt Mason line of astronaut action figures in 1966.

Sgt. Storm on the Space Sled, a flying jet ski-like personal transport.

There were initially three color-coded 6-inch astronaut figures in the line: Major Matt Mason was in a white space suit, Sgt. Storm was in a red space suit, and Mason’s civilian scientist buddy, Doug Davis, wore a yellow suit.  In 1968 a fourth astronaut, African-American Jeff Long, made the scene in a blue spacesuit.

Long’s addition to the line was a bold move on Mattel’s part, as the astronaut program at NASA during that time was lily white.

Astronaut Jeff Long, who appeared nearly 20 years before Guion Bluford became the first black American to orbit Earth.

The figures were a rubber-like body over a thin wire armature - similar to the Gumby and Pokey toys - with molded plastic heads.  The wire armatures and pliable bodies made the figures extremely posable.

All four astronauts lived and worked on the Moon, which was pretty darn cool.  The coolest thing about the Major and his crew, though, was that - initially, at least - all their equipment was based on actual designs and prototypes developed for the space program.

Doug Davis, first civilian on the Moon.

And boy, was there a LOT of equipment and accessories: a flying Space Sled, a Cat Trac one-man tractor, a moon suit, a Space Crawler that used rotating “legs” instead of wheels, and a whole bunch more up to and included a  multi-storey Space Station play set (although it really was a Moon Base).

The Space Station play set in all its glory.

The Space Station was modular, and you could make it taller or shorter by adding or subtracting pieces of the red pylons.  The idea was for kids to have several Space Stations of varying heights, because Major Matt Mason had a ziipline accessory that enabled him to travel between them.

The Moon Crew in their color-coded spacesuits.

In fact, there were so many gadgets and accessories that, even with mid-1960s prices, I’m sure many parents would have had to take out a second mortgage in order to afford them all.

Doug Davis wearing a specialized back pack while riding his Space Sled.

Unfortunately for me, the only accessory I ever received was the rather prosaic Cat Trac.  It wasn’t as exciting as the Space Sled, or as zippy as the Jet Pack (there were a few different versions), or battery-powered like the Space Crawler.  Nevertheless, I used my imagination to make the most of it.

The Cat Trac: looked cool at first glance, but it was only a hollow piece of molded plastic.  Would’ve scored much higher on the coolness scale if the tracks at least moved.

The Moon Suit, based on an actual prototype developed by Grumman.

The Space Bubble was essentially a rickshaw on the Moon: One man did all the work while another just relaxed in the back.

The Space Crawler, the creme de la creme of the Major Matt Mason transport toys.  This guy crawled along at a pretty decent clip, and due to its “legs” it could cover some rugged terrain.

It wasn’t long, however, before someone at Mattel became bored with the relatively realistic theme of the Major Matt Mason line.  Their solution: introduce science fiction elements to make things more exciting.

Captain Lazer, mysterious alien friend to Major Matt Mason and crew.

The first was the introduction in 1967 of Captain Lazer, who was so different from the rest of the line that there is speculation that he was intended for another line of figures entirely, or acquired from a Japanese company (his helmet reminds me of the Toei tokusatsu hero Captain Ultra, which was airing in Japan at the time).

Captain Lazer was 12 - almost 13 - inches tall, towering over Mason and the other astronauts.  His body was made of hard plastic  The head rotated at the neck, the arms rotated at the shoulders, and the legs rotated at the hips, but that was the extent of his articulation.  He had battery powered glowing red eyes and chest plate, as well as the laser pistol that was attached permanently to his hand.  There were attachments that connected to the pistol to change its appearance.  All in all, he looks like a pulp magazine or Golden Age comic book version of a space hero.

Good guy alien Callisto.

Evil alien Scorpio.

Then there were the aliens Callisto and Scorpio.  These were both in scale with the astronaut figures, and came with various gimmicks and accessories.  Callisto, listed as Mason’s friend from Jupiter, had a rubber and wire armature body.   Scorpio was an evil alien had battery-powered glowing eyes.

A first edition version of the good Major.

The astronauts’ equipment became typical science fiction props, like the Firebolt Space Cannon, assorted hand-held weapons, the Super Power Set (think Ripley’s exosuit cargo loader from Aliens), and the Gamma Ray-Gard (a projectile firing toy).

Major Matt Mason even got his own Big Little Book.  This is the only surviving piece of my MMM collection.

I had a lot of fun with the few Major Matt Mason toys I had, as did everyone I knew who had some.  There were, unfortunately, two major problems with the figures that reduced their enjoyment and playability factors.

First, the wire armatures were extremely thin and broke within a matter of days. The wire would then stick out through the rubber body, poking you in the hand every time you picked the figure up.  Meanwhile, the limb the wire was attached to would flop around uselessly.

Second, the paint on the rubber bodies began to flake off almost immediately, exposing the black base.  I remember finding paint flecks all over my hands and clothes each time I played with the figures.  At a price in 1966 of around $2.37 (approximately $22.00 today), the figures weren’t inexpensive, and I know my folks couldn’t afford to replace them.

Sadly, just as America lost its interest in the space program due to severe problems at home (the Vietnam War, Watergate, the oil crisis, rampant inflation), so did kids lose interest in Major Matt Mason.  Mattel cancelled the line abruptly in 1972 and never looked back.

Nevertheless, the Major and his crew have remained favorites of that generation.  Tom Hanks has been trying to get a Major Matt Mason film made for years.

And the Major was a big hit with NASA.  He reportedly been to space as a crew member on several missions of the space shuttle, including Senator John Glenn’s shuttle mission in 1998.  Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found him somewhere on the International Space Station.

[evilhorse]

The Zeroids ad (circa April 1969)

[khaotickoins]

TransZeroid<333

One who was, is, or feels as though they should be a Zeroid

(Does not have to be this specific interpretation, but I love these guys)

[kitnapz]

Girlie drop the skincare routine why are you so gorgeous 😭😭😭

wahh thank you >_<🤍🤍 i actually used to have rly bad acne but zeroid intensive ointment cream saved my life! i also make sure to stack on a bunch of hydrating serums before i put on lotion (currently i use a shegaia ample i stole from my mom)

most of my skin/acne problems resulted from lack of hydration. so ya!

[chickenpeep77kirbyau]

Fecto Elfilis

Elfilin's natural species, Idrelian, lives in a high magic world and fly around with levitation. This allows the males of the species to have absurdly big and fancy display features, since weight isn't as much of an issue. The females (lower left) are more plain, with smaller ears, lack of horns and side of face structures, and reduced caruncles, along with lack of neck floof and a more faded belly marking. Since it wouldn't be good for a species to laser blast rivals to death constantly(too risky for both combatants), the males settle for display features and posturing to compete with each other.

Fecto Forgo is some version of a zeroid ish lifeform. A mind space being in a normal/magic matter body. Elfilin/Elfilis(?) (Was that even his original name?) seeked power and made an alliance with it, increasing his power. This life form fused with Elfilin. It wants to collect souls to gain more power. Their journey began a relatively short time ago, and, coming from a low tech planet, he saw a low magic planet and assumed it would be an easy first conquest, but did not yet understand the power of advanced technology. How else would you explain how the Forgotten Land civilization was able to capture it at their apparent technological level? ("Ultimate Life Form". "The Great One". Lmao settle down buddy you're nothing in the grand scheme of things.) If not stopped, they presumably would have eventually returned to the Idrelian home world and absorbed them all after it became strong enough to fight them all.

Forgotten Land's civilization (It's Earth, but a parallel universe version of it), due to the nature of magic and their low to none magic world, are unable to actually learn its worm hole magic, but by studying its effects, are eventually able to duplicate it with technology. This time at Lab Discovera fractured his mind, resulting in the separation of Elfilin and Fecto Forgo/Elfilin's old self. Elfilin manifested as a form resembling a juvenile Idrelian(ears are on the big side for his apparent age). They put the Forgo half in stasis somehow. Idk. At their technological level and not knowing much about magic I'm not sure how they figured it out. Or maybe in my au it was just a blob in the tank. They believed the wormholes could take them to higher realms, so they all left for this supposed realm. Where they went and what happened to them is unknown. Elfilin had a hard time after his magic ran out(no Forgo so no magic generation), so its a miracle he survived. Luckily the cities were pretty safe and well stocked with food.

The Forgotten Lands world actually fluctuates in magic amount over time, and if the civilization had waited a while longer, they would have seen the reoccurrence of a higher magic period. Many lifeforms were able to rapidly readapt due to old hidden genes reactivated(there's a scientific term for the reactivation of old ancestral genes but I don't remember what it is). Elfilin was able to levitate again. He has kept some of the abilities he had during his time possessed by Forgo. Also that spear is still around.

Forgo escapes into a pocket dimension. It seems to have features of both physical reality and mind reality. Its also technically part of Forgo, as a semi physical manifestation of Forgo's mind. It is tearing Leongar's soul to pieces to absorb him without a struggle. Kirby stops that. Forgo, in a weakened state, is predated upon by another rival soul absorbing entity. It tries to carry out Forgo's last wish to destroy Kirby. Its defeated, allowing Forgo to turn the tables on who's absorbing who and reassert control, becoming Chaos Elfilis. Kirby wins again, and Forgo is destroyed once and for all.

I'm thinking after he reunited with the small portion of his old self that wanted forgiveness, he started growing again, in age and in power as he ages. Maybe he can relocate his home world, though how would they react to this child so advanced in skill at his apparent age?

He can still GET you

[claudiosuenaga]

A Teoria dos Zeroides: Seriam alguns dos OVNIs criaturas vivas ou bioformas?

Antes de tudo, faço questão de deixar bem claro que mesmo que esta teoria venha a ser confirmada, ela não explica o Fenômeno OVNI em sua totalidade, mas só uma ínfima parte dele.

Uma teoria muito pouco discutida na ufologia é a de que os OVNIs possam ser Zeroides, termo genérico para bioformas ou criaturas vivas que habitam os recônditos do espaço.

Assistia aqui no canal, o vídeo em que o ufólogo, criptozoologista e físico nuclear Dr. Franklin Ruehl (1950-2015) fala sobre a Teoria dos Zeroides: https://youtu.be/TmOwSq3UnO4

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[cartoonfanaticmonsterrobotalien]

Demon Jesse

As she put on the glowing pink lipstick, Jesse thought about something. All her life, Jesse wanted to be with the Stacies, but she always miss that chance every time. Terry then knocks on the door.

Terry: muffling Jesse? You almost done?

Jesse: Uh yeah, I’m done. I’m heading out now.

Jesse walks out of the door tiredly as she heads to her room. She then puts on her pajamas and looks at the mirror sadly.

Music in the background: “Beautiful” from Christina Aguilera

Jesse then heads to bed as she sheds a little tear in her eye, as if she was feeling left out by her transformed family. But as she falls asleep, a glow appears on herself. She then started to have nightmares like Turning Red, one that involves her two adults, her brothers and the Stacies and their friends insulting and blaming her for ruining their lives, a muscular demon looking at her, a spirit of a demon flying through and a shadow of herself as something terrible….. a muscular monstrous demon Shlorpian! Jesse awakes form her nightmares in fear as she breathes in and out in tears.

Jesse: Nnnnooooo! breathes in and out as she begins to cry

Yumyulack: wakes up Hey Jesse, what’s wrong? You having a nightmare?

Jesse: breaks down in tear as she hugs Yumyulack Oh Yumyulack, it was horrible. Everybody was blaming me, there was a monster and I turned into one and…and…

Yumyulack: Hey it’s okay. Just get some rest, you’ll be fine in the morning.

Jesse worriedly head back to her bed and head back to sleep. But then, the next morning…

Jesse: yawning

Terry: yelling from downstairs Kids! Breakfast is ready!

Yumyulack and Jesse: Coming.

After Yumyulack finished getting ready for school, Jesse heads into the restroom. But once she looks at the mirror, she suddenly sees glittering spots all over her body with different shades of pink as she gasp in horror.

Jesse: screams in horror as she slams the door

Korvo: Jesse?! Damn it Terry, did you scare her about this puberty thing again?

Terry: What? Pfft, no. That’s ridiculous, Jesse’s growing up, she knows about this stuff! starts gloobering

Korvo: sigh I know what she needs.

Jesse quickly started to panic as she looks around her body.

Jesse: Oh my God! What is happening to me?! crying but stops once she realizes something Wait a minute, I look perfect! This is just like what the Stacies use to wear. I think my luck is changing! The girls are so gonna love it! I’m gonna be the most popular girl in school!

Jesse’s imagination daydream shows up inside her head as it shows the Stacies and their friends adoring Jesse’s new look.

Stacy K: Oh my God Jesse, you look so fucking cool!

Stacy F: I totally wanna be your friend!

Dylan: Kiss me Jesse!

The daydream ended once Korvo knocks on the door.

Jesse: gasp Korvo!

Korvo: Jesse! Jesse, open the door! I got the stuff you need!

Jesse: puts on a pink jacket Yes. Thank you so much.

Korvo: Here you go. Just in case you start your zeroid. hands her puberty stuff

Jesse: Gee thanks Korvo. Well, better get ready. Better get breakfast.

Later, the Replicants head to school. Jesse head inside the girls’ bathroom where she takes off her coat.

Stacy F: offscreen Holy fuck! Jesse?

Jesse turns around and gasp to see the Stacies and their friends looking at her.

Stacy K: Oh my God! That’s so fucking cool.

Marie: You like a princess.

Stacy F: Do you wanna hang after lunch?

Jesse: Yes. suddenly notices a horn appearing on her forehead Huh?

Stacy F: Great see you then!

As the Stacies and their friends left, Jesse started to panic once she notices the horns looks like a demons’ horn as she panics.

Jesse: Oh no! This is awful, I have to do something or the Stacies are gonna kill me! gets a pink hat and puts it on her Phew. Okay, time to get Stacied!

A montage occurs which involved Jesse hanging out with the Stacies and their friends while Jesse tries to hide her horns. Yumyulack grows worried and suspicious about his sister. Later, he heads home where Korvo and Terry were busy restraining themselves due to their side effects from their monster forms.

Yumyulack: Korvo! Terry! We need to talk, I think Jesse is hiding something and-

Korvo: holding his arm that is glowing blue Not right now Yumyulack. Terry and I are busy trying to control ourselves.

Terry: restraining his arm that is growing green cat fur and it glows light green Korvo, we have to keep trying! We have to gain control before-

Yumyulack: I know how! You guys, we have been controlling ourselves by not letting our frustrations get the best of us. We just kept on going whenever trouble burst around here. Because, we’re the Solar Opposites!

Korvo: He’s right! We have to stop! We have full control!

Terry: We got this guys!

As said, Korvo and Terry manage to gain control as their arms turn back to normal. Suddenly, Terry sees the glowing pink lipstick Jesse put on and grow suspicious.

Terry: What the?

Later, in the lab, Korvo gasp once he ran DNA tests on the lipstick as the gang screams in horror.

Yumyulack: What the fuck is happening?!

Terry: That thing can turn someone into a demon?!

Korvo: But who used it? None of us are even girls! Damn it!

Suddenly, the three aliens’ eyes shrink in horror as they suddenly realized in horror who put it on.

Terry: Holy fuck! Jesse!

Terry quickly got in the taxi and tells the cab driver where to drop him off. Back with Jesse, she tried her best to hide her looks, only for her to grow taller and muscular and her horns grow larger too as her hands develop claws on them.

Jesse: Aw man, this is getting worst, but at least the Stacies didn’t know.

Suddenly, she hears talking and laughing coming from outside as she hears the Stacies.

Stacy K: Can you believe that loser Jesse totally believed we wanted her to be our friend? laughing That bitch is really a slut.

Stacy F: Yeah, we only hang out with her because the sparkles.

Dee Dee: I know, what a loser.

The Stacies and their friends laugh as Jesse turned around in shock with a jaw drop.

Jesse: All this time… the Stacies only liked me…. voice suddenly gets distorted FOR MY SKIN?! growls I can’t believe they fucking tricked me! Those fucking skanks! smashes a mirror with her fist as her eyes started to glow dark pink Ugh, I can’t believe this! Why doesn’t anyone care about me for being me?!

Terry: runs into the school once he suddenly sees the sunset and gasp Oh no! Jesse!

Back in the girls restroom, Jesse growls as she finishes growing, her back gained magenta demon wings, her teeth became demon fangs and she started to growl once the Stacies enter the room.

Stacy F: What the fuck?!

Demon Jesse: roars loudly

Stacy K: Aaaaahhh! It’s a monster! Run!

The girls ran for their lives as Terry runs past through them and gasp once he saw Jesse finishing her transformation. The full moon then appears and Terry turns around to see the moon as he starts transforming.

Terry: Oh shit.

Terry turns into his werecat, and after yowling at the moon, sniffs for Jesse as he growls. Suddenly, he sees a mysterious being with dark pink eyes. Once he turns on the lights, he sees Jesse, now a monstrous she-demon with a ruined dress growling at him.

Werecat Terry: gaining the ability to speak but with a different voice Holy fuck! Jesse?!

Demon Jesse: Roar!

Jesse the punches on Terry and begins to attack him in blind rage as they got out of the school while Terry tries his best to restrain Jesse.

Werecat Terry: Jesse, stop! You have control yourself. You’ve gone crazy!

Demon Jesse: Nooo!

Werecat Terry: Aaah, my poor Jesse! She’s gonna crazy! What do I d-

Before he could do something, Jesse grabs him and prepares to lift him but suddenly, Jesse’s demon eyes became normal as she tries to regain most of her sanity.

Demon Jesse: normal voice No-ho!

Jesse quickly drops Terry as he groans but suddenly, sees Jesse growing scared as her voice grows distorted again.

Werecat Terry: Now’s my chance. walks up to Jesse Jesse, it’s me. Terry, your adult. It’s gonna be okay sweetie. Korvo and I are gonna help you. We’ll figure out this transformation thing, but please control yourself, babygirl.

Jesse then tries to attack Terry again, but then Terry quickly grabs her hand and starts soothing her.

Werecat Terry: Shhhh.

Demon Jesse: T-Terry?

Werecat Terry: Yes sweetie, it’s me. Terry.

Demon Jesse: I-I’m… what happened to me? I’m so scared! Terry, what am I gonna do? I’m a monster…….breaks down in tears as Terry comforts her.

Werecat Terry: Shhhh. There there Jesse-bear. Terry’s here. It’s gonna be okay. I got you.

Terry soothes Jesse as a scene flashes back to a memory of Terry soothing Jesse as a infant. The scene switches back to the present as Jesse calms down and smiles at Terry. The adult and replicant hug each other “Father and Daughter” from Paul Simon played in the background as the two decided to head home.

Werecat Terry: Come on Jesse-bear. Let’s go home.

Unknown to them, Miss Frankie has been watching them this whole time as she growls in fury.

Miss Frankie: That’s it! I had it! Time to take matters into my own hands!

[doodl-eo]

considering making a lil zeroids comic because theyre fun to draw

idk how to write though

but uhhhh i made a logo!!

[keaalu]

Ghosts, chapter two

Where Owun talks A LOT and makes this chapter twice as long as I intended it. Oh well.

-----------------

For several excruciatingly long seconds, the two zeroids just stared at each other. 

Built to the same standard, they were dimensionally identical, like a giant ball-bearing sliced into perfect layers, with the same scrolling scarlet optic display and protective visual shutters (currently pulled partway closed on the stranger), and asset number clear on the brow.

It felt a little – but only a little – like staring into a mirror. Owun found himself at a loss to explain why this unfamiliar zeroid seemed to be trying (badly) to mimic him? And where had he even come from? Owun was fairly sure he’d have noticed extra zeroids on board. Was this some new trickery from Zelda?

More importantly, this strange zeroid had Owun’s personal registry ident. His identification code, communication frequency, ship’s server access. Everything.

Even if someone could have snuck a whole extra zeroid aboard without him seeing them, Owun was just a few millionths of a percent off totally confident that he’d have noticed that.

The other zeroid looked just as startled to see him, rotated very slightly backwards in alarm. He was scruffier; not quite as well-cared-for, not so perfect and smooth, with a selection of little dings and tiny dents at the margins of his segments. Could do with a good bath and a polish, too, to get rid of some of the stains and scuffs. His brow-band was a muted dusky pink compared to Owun’s sports-car scarlet, like he’d been left out in the sun for too long, faded and chipped. It also lacked the sergeant’s stripes – just had his number, in black, off-centre to the left.

Owun’s number.

1 0 1

Owun revised his opinion. This wasn’t a mirror; it was how he imagined he’d look if he was a ghost. Abandoned, ignored, uncared for. Sad and scruffy, left to his own devices and as a result, rather losing interest in looking after himself. Haunting the maintenance corridors of this dead ship.

No, that was ridiculous. He gave himself a little shake. There was no such thing as ghosts. Besides, that would mean he was dead, wouldn’t it? And he sure didn’t feel dead. (Although to be fair, having only been dead once before, he didn’t have the best frame of reference for what that might feel like. That couldn’t possibly have been what that sharp sensation had been, earlier. He hadn’t blown up, by accidentally interacting with the energy source. It hadn’t been him dying dramatically and ending up in some weird machine afterlife. That was obviously ridiculous because surely that meant he was supposed to be the ghost?)

No such thing as ghosts, he emphasised to himself, still staring at the totally-not-a-ghost.

The other zeroid was the one to finally break the silence. “Who are you? Why have I never seen you before?” he said, as though hearing his mirror’s thoughts. There was a flutter of familiarity about his voice, but it was softer than Owun’s, the accent gentler and flatter. Polite and meek and inoffensive and so flaming bland. “How did you get in here?”

“Through the door? The way I always do? What’s going on?” Owun did a whole rotation on the spot. “What’s wrong with Spacehawk? Is someone playing a prank on me?”

“A pr-… no? Nothing’s wrong with it. Why do you have my number?”

Owun bristled. “Well, hey. How about we talk about why YOU have MINE?” He elevated his voice and glanced around the passageway, looking for hidden cameras. “If this is your idea of a joke, Zee-ro, you can just go stick something sharp in a power outlet!”

No-one appeared, though – and the ghost actually shushed him, urgently, looking genuinely alarmed.

“Not so loud! He’ll hear us.” He dropped his own volume and cast his gaze around himself, anxiously. “Master doesn’t like it when we play at being human. When we talk to each other. Not what we were designed for.”

Master? “Who are you talking about?” A further tingle of unease made Owun’s casing prickle with static. He couldn’t be talking about Hiro, surely. It felt absurd. Hiro would never let himself be called master. Would he?

But then Spacehawk wasn’t meant to look like this, either, was she – the big guns, the dark camouflage paint, the lack of other zeroids.

And then there was the whole… Earth’s official clock being incorrect. Or too correct. Or whatever.

This was all very, very wrong and seemed determined to get even wronger by the second.

Maybe he was dead, after all.

The ghost shifted on the spot, uneasily, and ignored the question. “Was that you calling the ship?”

“I- you heard me? Why didn’t you reply?”

“Because you sounded a bit-… like-… you sounded like-… I didn’t dare.” It was like the ghost couldn’t quite force the words out. You sounded like me. “Then Spacehawk reported that the airlock was active. I had to investigate.” An apprehensive side-to-side flutter of the optics. “I hoped it was just a fault, because Spacehawk said it was me that had triggered it, but I was on the flight deck and I knew I hadn’t.”

Owun rocked backwards, alarmed. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. That siren was definitely getting hard to ignore now. “That’s not possible. How can you have been on the flight deck? There’s no way Lieutenant Hiro would have just let you in there! I know humans sometimes have trouble telling us apart but anyone could have spotted that you’re not me! You’re all…” He shook his head. “-scruffy and faded! What’s Zelda even trying to do?”

“Why are you asking me that when she clearly built you?” The ghost backed off a whole rotation. “Did she send you here to replace me? How did the witch even get my command codes? Did she finally hack Spacehawk’s core? Ohh.”

…wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong…

It is, and you know it, but you can’t focus on that now, sweetie, Owun scolded himself. You have to work out what the heck IS going on. How they could have built a whole new flaming Spacehawk and put it here to trick you somehow.

You’re not dead. You’re not dead.

The ghost gave a soft whimper of fright. “I’ll be in so much trouble if he finds out you got aboard so easily and I didn’t stop you-!”

“Then we better figure this out before anyone goes anywhere, right?” Owun interrupted, trying to give the impression of confidence even if he felt a million miles away from it. “So let’s stop answering questions with more questions. We’re going round in circles and I get enough of that from Zero.” He matched stares with his ghost. “I was built in Japan, like everyone else, by humans. They gave me the codes I use to access Spacehawk’s systems. I’ve had my keys since I was commissioned. I use them every day. Your turn: where did you come from?”

“But I’d have known it they were building more. They said they’d run out of the raw materials. You can’t have-…”

Huh. Still pedantic, even as a frightened ghost.

Seeing Owun’s unimpressed expression, the impostor gave himself a little shake. “I mean. I’ve not… come from anywhere? I belong here? I’ve been here since I was first turned on. I’m the ship’s liaison?”

“Liaison? What does that even mean? You mean sergeant, right?”

The ghost gave him a very long stare, as if to say you’re the one claiming to be me, you should know. “I pass on the humans’ instructions, and ensure they are carried out. I monitor for dangers and alert the humans so they can respond to them. I was specially programmed for supervisory, organisational and observational activities.”

It did sort of feel right, Owun mused? Zelda must have programmed him using what she mined from my memories when she stole me.

But that idea only went part of the way to explaining what was going on, and there was something big missing. “And… command? Right?” he prompted. “If you’re alone, you can take charge of the situation. Command the other zeroids. Repel threats, resolve problems. Without needing to wait for the humans to get up here.” At the strange look he was getting, he added, hopefully; “…Right?”

The impostor shifted again, uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. If Zelda programmed you, that might explain why you’re so confused? I can imagine how she might not have access to enough data to make you behave convincingly but-”

“No. No! Stop talking like that!” Owun rocked forwards into a glare – vaguely insulted as well as scared, now. “There’s nothing wrong with my behaviour!”

His ghost cringed away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend. I just meant, you’re not convincingly being like me. That’s all. If that was Zelda’s plan, it’s not working very well. Even if you looked more like me, you’ll never convince anyone, behaving like that.”

“I’m not trying to convince anyone anything! I don’t need to! You’re the impostor! First that debris, and now this-…” Owun’s words momentarily tailed off. A whole new alarm had started to chirp amongst all the other klaxons in his head. “It was bait, wasn’t it! To get me off the ship. She knew I’d spot you, otherwise. That was when Zelda snuck you aboard! She planted you here, to-to…” Do what, space sergeant? Replace the whole damn ship when your back was turned? He shifted, uneasily. “What is she doing that she wants to try to distract me from seeing? What’s happening out there while we’re wasting time arguing?!”

“Debris? I don’t understand. You’re scaring me, a little bit-”

You’re not the only one, Owun thought, but didn’t vocalise it. “I need to get back to the flight deck. Lieutenant Hiro needs to know about all this. He’ll never fall for whatever garbage plan Zelda’s trying. He knows who I am, and we trust each other totally. He’ll back me up. And he’ll be able to figure out what’s going on.”

“No!” The strange zeroid parked himself in the middle of the corridor. “You can’t go through there.”

Owun felt the urge to butt him out of the way. “Move over. Now!”

“Please. Don’t.” His ghost looked genuinely fearful. “Not until we’ve worked out- I mean. I’ll get in trouble if master finds you. If he finds out you got aboard on my watch, I’ll be punished-! Please.”

There was that word again: Master. And I’ll be punished. Well, that tallied with this scaredy mouse being one of Zelda’s creations.

The ghost might be a poor-quality copy of the real thing, but Owun couldn’t help that tiny kernel of sympathy crystallising in his little electronic heart for this pathetic, broken zeroid. Wherever he came from, and whatever they wanted him to do, he didn’t deserve to be so sad and scared.

Well aware that might have been part of the plan, preying on the kind nature of the earth‘s protectors, Owun nevertheless reluctantly backed down. (The alarm bells ringing in his head didn’t get any quieter.) “So what do you propose we do? We can’t stay down here forever, arguing over who’s the real 101.”

They stared at each other for several seconds.

“If Zelda made you, maybe we can help you?” the ghost offered, hesitantly. “We could fix your programming! There’s always going to be room for more zeroids here. If I say I found you, and stopped you before you could carry out your plan, that would work for both of us. I won’t get in as much trouble, and if we repair you, you won’t be under the witch’s control, any more.”

If he pretended to go along with it, would that be the key Owun needed to get this scared little ghost to come with him to talk to Hiro? “I trust that Hiro will know what to do,” he agreed, carefully. “He’s the cleverest person in the whole solar system. If either of us is broken, he can fix it. And-… he might know why everything else looks wrong, as well. Maybe we can help you, too. You don’t have to do what Zelda says, you know? Even if Zelda made you, she must have used a bad copy of my programming for it. That means you can choose-”

That turned out to have been an unexpectedly bad choice of words.

“No! No, that’s not how it works.” The ghost shuffled away backwards, shaking his head in alarm. “That’s not how it works! Zeroids do not choose. Zeroids are good robots and do what they are told. You need imaginations to make decisions and we don’t have that. I am a good zeroid. I am a good zeroid-!”

“Oh, whoa, okay! Don’t do that, don’t do that! I never said you were bad! Oh, gosh. Um.” Good job Owun, get the stranger to have a meltdown in the maintenance tubes. “Please don’t get upset. I just meant-… I just-”

Well, what did you mean? Or were you just not thinking, again. Seeing as literally nothing has gone right since you made the choice to get just that little bit too close to the thing. Maybe you’re the one who should be taking notes, and stop making decisions.

For a few seconds, the only sound was the whir of fans, trying to cool hot, stressed components.

But you’re not dead.

Are you.

Are you sure.

Suddenly feeling stupidly heavy with the weight of all this confusion squishing him against the deck, Owun rocked askew and clonked into the wall. “Ohh. What’s going on.” The ghost was right about one thing – zeroid imagination was terrible. “Why does none of this look right? Nothing makes sense any more.” He’d run out of ideas. He needed Hiro. Wanted Hiro. It all felt so difficult, on his own.

Hard to convince yourself you’re clever enough to figure it out for yourself when your own mirror image is sitting right there, staring you straight in the eye, daring you to think you have the brains for it without a genuine human imagination to help.

He could feel himself wobbling – emotionally, physically, stressed and scared.

No, no, don’t do that. Come on; you’ve done so well so far. Don’t go and spoil it all by turning into a sissy crybaby NOW. He gave himself a stern little shake. One of you needs to be the strong one and he freaks out at just the idea of making choices.

“Okay, okay,” he said to himself, then once more for luck. “Okay.” He pulsed his fans and ran cool air through his systems. “Maybe I just need to look at the ship’s databases again. If I can see a bit more, maybe I can figure this out without Hiro. At least a little bit.”

“Don’t connect to Spacehawk,” the ghost said, hastily. “Master will see you.”

“Maybe I could connect to you, then?” Owun suggested, hesitantly. “If you’ll trust me?”

“Trust you?” His ghost actually backed off a whole rotation, aghast. “You think you are me! If you’re not just really terribly genuinely confused, then Zelda sent you to replace me. What a perfect way to infiltrate our ship! Hijack my brain by uploading some malware into it!”

“Oh for goodness-… I’m not here to replace you. You have antivirus software, don’t you?”

They stared at each other for several seconds before the ghost spoke again – trying to assert some sort of authority, even though his voice trembled. “I’m keeping my firewall at full strength and I’ll disconnect you as soon as you do anything I don’t like.”

“Good. So there is a tiny bit of self-preservation about you, after all. Now sit still.” Owun quietly hunted around for a connector so they could link up.

That first connection was sharp and uncomfortable, like sticking a plug into the wrong port. Owun had to fight the urge to immediately disconnect; it felt like he’d somehow connected himself to himself, threatening to turn his thoughts into an endless feedback loop. What would normally be an exchange of confirmation data in an amiable electronic handshake between two zeroids felt more like an angry punch. Instant pushback.

Error. Duplicated code. Disconnect immediately. Feedback cascade loop imminent.

It bounced back and forth for a few microseconds, a flood of error codes overflowing out of his temporary memory and threatening to overwrite more important things. Had he just done exactly what Zelda planned, and allowed the impostor to infiltrate his brain? He hastily rejected the data transfer and clicked more firewalls up, hoping he’d been quick enough – they’d kept a bunch of over-friendly nosey cubes out, hopefully they’d keep martian-controlled zeroids out as well.

After that initial deluge passed, and the instant of sense-blindness cleared, it all felt nice and secure, actually? Not an attack – just a mistake. Nothing was needling around the edges, trying to get in. Nothing had been left behind in his brain, either – no malicious codes hidden among the scream of duplicated data.

Finally getting over that instant of icy shock, he turned to his ghost – and found he had jolted away just as hard, and now sat with his shutters closed, vibrating softly in fear.

“Hey. Hey.” Owun gave him a little bump, suddenly feeling inordinately proud of himself for just flinching a bit. So brave! (Yeah, right.) “You okay in there?”

“Fff-feedback loop-” the other zeroid stuttered, discordant. “How-how is this how is this possible. What what’s going on I can’t see what how had you got all my codes everything is wrong it’s all the same and fighting itself and what did you upload in my head I can’t see I can’t see-”

“I didn’t upload anything. It just doesn’t like how similar we are. Reject the handshake. I’m dialling down the transfer rate on my end. You’ll be fine. Shut your connection, clear your caches, and start again, just… slower.”

Owun took advantage of the second of calm while his ghost got himself back under control to assess the situation. Really get a good thorough look at the impostor’s coding.

The ghost was telling the truth, at least. He had been here for several years, ever since Spacehawk became operational. Which meant… what? What could it mean?

Then there was the fact that everything about him – apart from a very obvious missing component – was identical.

Not just a good counterfeit.

Identical.

For several seconds, they just stared at each other. Then spoke, simultaneously: “You are me.”

“But how is that possible?” the ghost demanded, before Owun could get a word in. “You can’t be me. I’m me! Why are they doing this to me?”

“I could say the same about you! Where have they been hiding you, all these years? Is that why you’re such a scruffbag, because they’ve been keeping you in a closet somewhere?”

“No? No! I haven’t been anywhere! I’ve been here, working hard, doing a good job, the whole time! And you know that because you’ve looked at my logs.” The ghost’s voice was turning into a frightened wail, now he couldn’t just dismiss Owun as a forgery. “Why are you me? Why are you me? I know they’re never happy with my work even though I try really hard to do a good job but they didn’t have to replace me!”

Still connected, Owun could feel the panic welling up inside the other zeroid.

“I could have done better! I can do better! I am a good zeroid! I don’t need to be scrapped! Especially not to replace me with the likes of you! You’re just… loud, and rude!” His words died in a helpless mew of distress.

“Well, aren’t you just a peach when you’re not hiding behind little sergeant polite-and-perfect?”

“Stop it! Don’t make light of it!” Another sound bordering on a sob. “I don’t want to be scrapped-! I am a good zeroid-!”

They were still connected, and the other zeroid’s panic was bleeding across the link. Heavy, destabilising, genuine fear, it was triggering involuntary responses in Owun’s systems, as well. Alarm flushed his circuits and made him feel like his gyroscopes were malfunctioning. Weapons systems steadily all clicked online – a low-level distracting need to plug into Spacehawk and work out where the enemy was, how to fight back, how to protect his humans. It felt like there was someone right down here with them, looming up behind him-

Owun struggled to regain control of his targeting software before he got to the point of taking potshots at the unfamiliar hardware down here. “Hey! Nobody’s getting scrapped. Why are you going right to the worst case scenario already?”

“Because you’re right here! How can this be anything at all other than the worst case scenario?!”

And it didn’t feel like overthinking – the ghost was genuinely terrified of being removed and taken apart, as a punishment.

By the humans.

No, the humans had promised, we will never take you apart. Even when he’d screwed up, granted his people had been cross, but told him not to do it again and accepted it as a learning event. The idea that this zeroid thought humans could possibly ever do anything like that gave Owun the surges.

He tried to push reassuring, stabilising thoughts across the link, even though he didn’t feel that relaxed and stable himself.

I have to get him back. Everything Owun was trying to avoid looking at, he was just going to have to deal with – otherwise this mousy little idiot was gonna end up blowing a fuse down here, and then what would they do?

“All right! You’re right! I-I think I’m not meant to be here! I might be the impostor!”

The words hurt to finally acknowledge, but had the desired effect. The ghost’s babble faded, a touch.

“I don’t even really know where here is. It all looks so familiar, but not right. Spacehawk’s too quiet, I should be able to hear more zeroids than just you.”

Fright still bled over their connection, but at least now his mirror was looking at him again, not quite so blind with fear.

“And you! We can’t possibly be the same age, with all the same code, and not know the other existed. Even if they’d hidden us from each other, for… reasons…” -you came on too strong you overbearing little asshole of course he doesn’t want you and made a replacement- “…they couldn’t possibly have kept it up for over seven years without something slipping.”

“So what is all this, then, clever clogs?” the ghost retorted, scared and hurt; finally a tiny familiar flicker of sass showing through that meek shell.

“I don’t know.” Owun sagged. “Normally I’d ask Hiro, but you said not to and I didn’t want you to go and short out. I don’t even know that this is all real. Or even if you’re real? Maybe it’s all just a simulation? Probably it’s a simulation? A complicated one, but not real.”

“Well it doesn’t feel like much of one to me. I think I feel pretty real, thank you very much.”

“No, it doesn’t, but I don’t know what one would feel like, and I don’t know how I’d know the difference. I just know that too much matches up with what I remember, but not enough. And I don’t know how all the bits that don’t match up could have been changed so fast?” Owun pondered things, for a moment. “Maybe I changed something? Maybe interacting with the energy source did something bad. Energy doesn’t just come out of nowhere, unless-… did I break reality by going near it?”

Had reality already changed, with the explosion, before he even left the ship? And was continuing to do so around him? Was he the only real thing left?

“I don’t have enough data to answer any of that,” the ghost replied, in the quiet. “And I don’t think you’d believe me even if I did.”

In an absurd impulsive show of faith, Owun dropped his firewall, leaving just enough filters up to stop that crashing assault of error codes when his systems recoiled from connecting to himself. “Well, maybe we need to both get a proper look,” he said, trying to affect a jovial tone. (Maybe it’d keep him from looking for a corner to cry in, too.) “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

The ghost gave him a very serious stare, but then diverted his attention inward. Owun felt a flutter of response over the connector as he similarly dialled down his security – still only allowing access to very top-level stuff, clearly saying I don’t trust you THAT much, but enough for Owun to evaluate his capabilities.

Owun had already spotted something obvious when they’d first connected, but now took a closer look. This zeroid was not only completely unarmed, it didn’t look like he’d ever had a gun, as the requisite algorithms just weren’t there. No digital rangefinding, no strategy modules, no battle calculators. He could calculate parallax, but only to see how far away things were in relation to the ship – not to be able to then defend them from them.

The ghost spotted the same thing. “You have a weapon?”

“Of course. It’s what we were built for. Most zeroids are soldiers, right? So why don’t you have one?”

“I… don’t need one?”

“But how do you defend yourself?” Owun didn’t feel sure if he really wanted to know.

“From what?”

“From… anything dangerous? From Zelda?”

“I think if she got aboard we would have bigger problems to worry about than me not having a gun. It’s easier for the humans to have those. They can shoot for themselves, not have to rely on a machine to evaluate their options first.”

“And… when you’re… not aboard?”

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“…you never leave the ship?”

“Why would I need to? It’s not what I was designed for. I’m the liaison. It’s important for me to be aboard, relaying human instructions to the others. If I wasn’t aboard, none of us would know what to do.”

Seeing how badly the other zeroid had reacted before, Owun almost didn’t want to ask. He tried to send reassuring thoughts through the link. “So does… does Lieutenant Hiro not let you make decisions like that? So you can evaluate for yourself how to keep everyone safe?”

At the sound of the man’s name, the other zeroid actually flinched, but managed to keep his head otherwise. “My master does not allow that, no. It is not the place for machines to make decisions. Only humans have the imagination needed for that.”

My master.

“He-he’s still your friend, though, right?” Owun chased. “Right? Because that’s how the universe works. We’re always going to be besties because that’s just how it is. Right?”

Please tell me he’s your friend. Even if everything else has changed, that has to be the same.

His ghost stayed silent for so long that Owun didn’t need to hear him answer. “I… would not define him as a friend,” he demurred, softly. “I am not sure I have any of those.”

A shiver of something like despair flashed through him. What the hell have you done, Owun. “What about Zero, then? If everything else is so weird and backwards, now, surely you get on with him?”

“...who?”

Owun felt cold. “What do you mean, who? Sergeant Major Zero, that noisy blustering idiot always getting us in trouble with his terrible advice? Is there no-one in charge of the earth zeroids?”

“There are no other zeroids. It’s just us up here. Thirty five of us left. We stay in orbit so we can be deployed more quickly to specific areas of the planet, or elsewhere. Well, except me.”

“Thirty five,” Owun echoed, faintly. “What happened to all the rest?”

“Destroyed in action, mostly. A few accidents. Some were faulty. The prototypes were deconstructed for research. And the humans ran out of iranium crystals.”

Zero is dead. ‘Deconstructed’. Was that a punishment, too? The concept hit Owun harder than he’d thought it would and for a few seconds, he couldn’t speak at all.

No friends. And hardly any of them left. It felt a little like one of his worst dreams, where in spite of all his best efforts everyone said he was just an annoying little pedant, and no-one liked him. Where even the humans were just humouring him, at best. Even Hiro was just putting up with him, for a quiet life. And this sad, scared little mouse was living it.

Please let this be a simulation. It’s just Zelda, torturing you for being a little round nightmare who keeps causing her problems-

“Your turn,” the ghost said, sternly, in the pause. “Or was that another trick, to get me to talk.”

Owun pushed the black thoughts to the back of his processors and gave himself a little shake. “All right.” His voice was still a little staticky, betraying his emotions, but neither called attention to it. “No secrets, right?”

He opened his memory, and let the ghost look where he liked, figuring it couldn’t be any worse than that time he’d had cubes rooting around in his brain.

The sensation was familiarly weird, individual memories being accessed without him doing it, dragging him along behind it. It was thousands of times faster than real time, but still accompanied by distracting little burst of residual emotion; a pulse of intense sorrow – a flash of bad temper – a bright spark of glee.

“I don’t recognise what you are showing me,” the ghost said, hesitating on a recent memory of the flight deck. “This is a battleship, why would there be plants-… I don’t understand?”

It took Owun a second to get his bearings again. “Lieutenant Hiro likes them. He studies them.”

“He-… he what? Plants? Dirty, untidy things like those?”

Owun felt his mirror image chase deeper, trying to understand, looking for anything coded Hiro and plants.

He obviously didn’t have very far to look – and of course he’d fetch up on one of their minor disagreements. The ghost flinched hard when he stumbled across the file, and then got stuck, rooted to the spot in it. “But his uniform is wrong. He-he’s letting you talk back to him. This is all wrong. It’s fake. Why is this even in your head?”

He clearly needed some steering. Owun carefully took charge, gently nudging him away, then on through his memories. “I need to show you what I need to save. Why it’s important to understand what I might have broken.”

First, a handful of thoughts from when he hadn’t been online for very long, just interacting with the human in orbit with him, who was giving him instructions. His director, providing cues for what to do and when; okay fine, his master. Not even a friend, really; Owun’s rudimentary intelligence far too basic to understand what that meant. His own exasperation at the way he was being tasked with talking to plants while his commander was absent, and not something which actually fell into his duty set – and what was he even meant to talk to them about? – but being rewarded with kind words and praise for doing so. Oh, I like this.

Slowly being allowed to stretch his abilities. Encouraged to think for himself. Make decisions. Make choices. What he wanted to do. How he thought he could achieve things in the most efficient and best ways. Only little things, to start with, but increasingly complex as he learned more. Growing.

And the way the human was clearly pleased to see him develop! The kind smile; the words of approval; the gentle amusement at his antics. Learning to get along together, how to make their unusual partnership work. That incredible, powerful sense of connectedness when they worked together to repel the alien menace. I am trusted. I am valued.

Recognising that he’d do anything just to be told good work, 101. Recognising that he enjoyed doing a good job because it made his human friend happy, and that made him feel light and sparkly, like something just as precious and valuable as his human���s friendship.

Recognising, at his very darkest moment, in Zelda’s claws, when it all felt too late and every one of his friends might already be doomed, that he might be in love… but using that little light to steer his way out of the dark. Recognising, when he was finally back in the safety and warmth of his adopted family, that he might actually even be loved back. Being invited to sit together with his sweetheart in those fleeting quiet moments, reading together – snuggling up under his arm, close enough to feel his bioelectric field, the soft intangible sound of his heartbeat. Quiet and content and absolutely fulfilled. Those fleeting, treasured times Hiro actually gave him a little kiss (a kiss!), lighting up a thousand pathways and making him giddy.

It felt a little like gloating, even though he wasn’t meaning to. But if this was a simulation, then maybe he could use this to steer it? And if it wasn’t, his ghost would at least have a little context and might be persuaded to help him figure it all out.

Well, maybe. If he hadn’t just made him into an enemy.

His ghost sat trembling, confused and miserable. “I don’t think I want to see anything else,” he wept, softly. “Why would you do this to me? Is it because I caught you?”

“No. Oh, gosh, no! That wasn’t it at all.” Owun leaned closer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to look like I was boasting, but I wanted your help. They don’t even let you off the ship! I needed you to see the things that are important so you’d understand-”

“But how can this be genuine?” the ghost pleaded, softly. “That human looks like the man I know, but he would never-… he would never- I don’t understand. Humans don’t do that. Humans built us to do jobs for them. They don’t like it when we go outside our programming. We aren’t people. They don’t want us to be people!”

“And this is why we have to fix it-!”

“How do you fix something that isn’t real?” the ghost interrupted, shakily. “I think these are faked and implanted. It-it… maybe a clone. Or her master of disguise. Or an android replica. Zelda could do all of that. You-you said you thought this was a simulation. Well, there’s your proof-”

Owun gave him a small bump to get his attention back, and the ghost flinched. “Do you think Zelda would have bothered generating seven years of fake memories?”

“But-… humans-… I don’t know why you would ever think humans are nice. They’re not even nice to each other, sometimes. Certainly not to zeroids.”

“Would you show me?” Owun asked, faintly. “You don’t have to. I don’t really want to see, anyway. It sounds like your life sucks pretty hard. But I’d like to know what we’re up against. Is that all right?”

“I guess,” his ghost agreed, refusing to meet his gaze. “But just one. You don’t get to see anything else.”

Before Owun could voice his assent, the memory opened up in his head, like he was the one at the centre of it.

From the angle, he was sitting on a perch at the back of the flight deck, mostly out of the way, gaze respectfully downcast. The control room was clean, excruciatingly tidy, cold and sterile; no plants, no human touches, except a single dirty coffeemug perched on the central panel, leaving out-of-place brown drips on the console.

A human was off to one side, lounging in a chair; the ghost was clearly watching them, but only from his peripheral vision, not wanting to come across as confrontational. Owun tried to focus on the figure, but able only to relive his ghost’s memory, he couldn’t see very well. It... looked like Doctor Ninestein; the same rugged features, strong jaw, steely eyes. His uniform was predominantly black, where it should have been blue, with dark grey underlayers, and a little blue detailing.

Importantly, just like Owun’s own scared little ghost, it didn’t behave like him.

The man reminded him more of Zelda, actually.

“You’re here for them, this time?” ‘Ninestein’ challenged, with a cold smirk, jerking a thumb back over his shoulder to point at the watching zeroid. “Seriously? Run out of other ideas, or something?”

“Not exclusively,” the person on the screen replied – and speak of the devil, the voice was unmistakably Zelda’s. “But we’ve seen how you treat your little slaves, and we aren’t prepared to stand back and watch any longer.”

She was mostly hidden behind Ninestein’s head, so Owun couldn’t get a good view, but the martian android didn’t look quite so wild as Owun remembered – elderly, sure. Wrinkles you could get lost in, deep-set yellow eyes, a mane of grey hair. But neat, and official, too. Actually like the leader of a society on the run, looking for somewhere safe to settle.

“‘Slaves’? Oh please.” The human snorted. “What could you possible want those little wastes of good components for? Unless you’re thinking of doing a bit of recycling. We could do you a far better deal on the raw materials.”

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, doctor. We intend to rescue-”

“Oh, blah blah. I heard you all right. You say rescue; I say, how flaming stupid do you think I am. They’re little idiots, sure – but they’re also little idiots chock full of sensitive data. Now, we could wipe their pea-sized brains before we handed them over-”

Zelda stiffened, and Ninestein chuckled.

“-but I guess you wouldn’t want them, then, huh?”

“I fail to see what benefit you get from being so consistently cruel to your creations. They do absolutely everything you ask, without question, and still you treat them like this?”

The doctor gave a laboured sigh, as though speaking to the school’s dimmest pupil, and leaned into the screen, resting on his elbows. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” he said, in a stage whisper. “They’re robots. It’s what they’re designed for. It doesn’t bother them because… they’re robots? They don’t have real feelings to be hurt.”

“Are you so certain of that? Because so were we – at the time. It didn’t stop us growing.”

“Right, right. Our zeroids are gonna rise up against us, huh?” Ninestein snickered and flapped a hand. “One of these days we’ll figure out why they keep trying to think for themselves and get them to stop doing it.” He shot a meaningful glance at the watching zeroid. “Then all of us will be happy. Right?

Zelda stared back, unflinching. “Since you value them so little, it won’t cause you any problems to hand them over, correct?”

“Oh no,” the ghost of Ninestein said, smirking and wagging a scolding finger. He lounged back in his chair. “No no no. That’s not how it works, crone. No-one gets anything for free, in this world. Sure, they’re garbage, but they’re our garbage. Our property. Bought and paid for with the billions we spent on their development. But hey, they’re obviously worth something to you. So.” He spread his hands, palms up. “Let’s trade. What have you got that you’re willing to hand over in exchange? My technical development specialist has been itching to get his hands on one of your ships.”

“So you can use it to further expand your empire, and subjugate yet more sentient species? No deal, doctor. My technology will not be used to aid your aggression.”

“Big words from the old hag attacking my planet.”

“Don’t blame us for the direction our relationship has taken. We came here in peace, and you immediately tried to cheat us.”

“Well, y’could just leave. No-one here’s gonna cry very hard over it.”

“We made the decision to stay here to keep an eye on you, Ninestein – you and your whole species, to protect the rest of the galaxy from humanity. And we are not leaving without your slaves. Either you release them into our care, or we will take steps to rescue them. The choice is yours.”

“Slaves!” The human laughed, throwing his head back. “So melodramatic! Next you’ll tell me you think our cars are our slaves, too. Or our cellphones. Or… smart TVs.”

“You have my ultimatum.”

“Yeah yeah I’ll take it under advisement. You know my terms. Ball’s in your court now. Bye bye, Zeldie.”

Whatever Zelda had been intending to say, Ninestein cut her off before she managed get a single word out. The call ended, and Ninestein snorted something the ghost didn’t catch and threw something at the screen. “Stupid old bat. Why can’t she find some other uninhabited planetary system to plant her meddling ass down on.”

The sound of footsteps came from one of the open corridors, and the ghost’s memories flushed with fright (but also the tiniest almost imperceptible flicker of hope. Interesting).

The man who entered looked like Hiro, superficially, and even though his ghost’s feelings went some way to drowning out his own, Owun’s own emotions did flutter uneasily. The same small stature, the same fine bone structure, nimble fingers, intelligent dark eyes. His hair was cut shorter and slicked back, and his glasses smaller, but he was every bit as handsome as the man Owun held in his own little electronic heart. Like Ninestein, his uniform was predominantly black and dark grey, but with turquoise detailing.

His manner was what marked him as different. Cold. Blunt.

“I told you to call me when you made contact with the witch,” he said, frostily.

“I know.” A shrug, one shouldered. “You were dicking around in the weapons bay, and I’d already strung her out for half an hour. I was bored.”

“Well your boredom wasted us an opportunity, again.”

A flash of something dark crossed the older man’s features. “Watch your manners, lieutenant. Being a genius doesn’t mean you get to be a mouthy little shit as well.”

Hiro stiffened, very slightly, before inclining his head. “Of course. My apologies.” The ghost watched silently as the lieutenant slowly unclenched his fingers from the fist they had closed into. “Did she give you anything useful?”

“Define ‘useful’.” Ninestein rolled a shoulder in a shrug. “She’s a sentimental idiot who thinks she’s in some position of strength, somehow, because we haven’t killed each other yet?” He smirked. “But. These little idiots have found themselves a whole new place in the universe.”

“Are you talking about our zeroids? What possible use could they have?”

“As bargaining chips. She seems to think they’re sentient-”

“Well, it’s a fair possibility-

“-and she wants us to give them up. Well, you’ve been itching to get your hands on her technology for months. We can stand to lose a zeroid or two in the process.” Ninestein gave the ghost a long, contemplative look; the zeroid kept his gaze respectfully downcast, confused and alarmed by the direction the conversation was going, trying to deny he understood what his master was saying. “If she goes for it, we could give them a little extra gift to take along with them, too.”

Hiro was harder to deny. “Are you suggesting we put explosives inside their casings?” He looked unimpressed. “You surely don’t think she won’t immediately see that?”

“Probably? We can still detonate one or two, though. That’ll sure distract her. And while she’s running around in a panic, we help ourselves to what we want.”

“Fine.” Hiro stepped into the way. “But not the liaison. I need it to operate the ship, and it has all our inventory details. Blow up one of the others if you have to.”

Owun felt a tickle of relief and gratitude from his mirror, followed in short order by a pulse of intense guilt-

The recording suddenly stopped and kicked him back to the real world.

Dumped abruptly out of the memory, Owun just sat, for several seconds, listening to the sound of his own fans, roaring with effort, hot and scared and stressed.

“That was-… that was… oh gosh.” He rocked forwards to lean against his mirror. “I’m sorry,” he said, quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“No secrets, huh,” his ghost said, faintly. “I have to go now. Master wants to know where I am.”

That would explain the unceremonious end to the recording – the ghost had kicked him out. “Don’t tell him I’m aboard yet?��

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“I-…” The optics flickered and fluttered back and forth, briefly. “I promise. At least… as long as I can.”

Owun could tell that being asked to promise was probably the worst thing he could have requested, because this other zeroid seemed almost as scared of breaking a promise as he was of the humans here. If that weird anti-Hiro asked him, it put him between a rock and a hard place – break the promise, or defy a human? (But Owun knew who would win in that battle. He just had to hope his ghost wouldn’t give anything away that would make the human ask him. Not immediately, anyway.)

“I have to go. But I’ll come back at some point,” the sad little ghost said. “Don’t go anywhere. He might find you. The other zeroids might find you, as well, but I’ll tell them to keep our promise. I know I can trust them, and the humans never talk to them anyway.”

“We’ll fix this,” Owun assured him. “Whatever I did, we’ll work it out, and put it back how it was. I promise.”

“Hmm.”

Owun watched his ghost trundle away. The sound of his movement echoed through the empty corridors for a long time, but eventually faded to nothing, leaving Owun alone and despondent in the guts of this dead ship.

He backed up into a familiar little alcove in the tubes, where there was a small engineering break in the tightly-massed cables and components.

Before he’d somehow broken the world, he’d used this little clear space as his ‘cabin’, for a while – the place where he’d kept his handful of personal possessions, and his treasures; nice polishes and buffing tools; mementoes from Carrie’s wedding; a preserved flower from murderpea; ticket stubs; a couple of hats and bow ties; old-fashioned photographs. (Until Hiro told him to stop being ridiculous and keep his treasures in the cabin he’d quietly invited him to share, instead. Their cabin.)

This ‘cabin’ was empty, apart from a few (very well-used) tools for personal maintenance, and a neatly stacked pile of ragged cleaning cloths that looked like they’d only succeed at putting dirt on, not clean it off. No way would zeroids in this backwards universe get to have treasures.

A whole avalanche of wrong things were hanging over his head, now. The whole universe was wrong. Like he’d somehow reversed its polarity. If he wasn’t dead, then… what? How was he still alive? That sharp sensation had been Zelda knocking him out, and when he woke up, he was plugged into a computer simulation? Where there was a scared little other-him to make him sympathetic, and a nice-Zelda who would try to get him to do something? Betray some secrets of some sort?

But why would she need to, if she had his whole brain already?

Hiro would have known what was happening, but now he didn’t even dare go near him to ask.

Why did you even have to go near that stupid thing? he despaired. Hiro was programming probes to do it for you! And now you’ve gone and screwed this all up big time. You’ve lost everyone and everything and made it all into a hideous parody of what it’s meant to be.

It upset him more than he thought it would – that something he had done, something he had broken, had changed the course of time and now there was a him and a Hiro who not only weren’t friends, but the Hiro in this universe was actively unkind to him. This Hiro was cruel and didn’t care about the little robot who tried so hard to be useful, wanted so badly to get the occasional scrap of praise, a little recognition for a job well done.

“Oh, what have I done?” he despaired, quietly. “How am I ever going to fix this when I don’t even know what ‘this’ is?”

-----

“So, Hiro. I want it once more, from the top.” Ninestein folded his arms, and sighed. “You lost Space Sergeant 101 again. Then what happened?”

Hiro sat on a stool behind the main bank of Spacehawk’s controls, next to the command perch, on which 17 sat waiting for instructions. The senior crew probably didn’t need to have joined him in orbit, but he appreciated their company.

“He was only meant to be fetching in some debris,” the lieutenant said, tiredly, palms cupped around the mug of tea Ninestein had made for him – far stronger and sweeter than he normally took it, but it bolstered his mood a little. “So we could analyse it and work out what it was. Instead, he seems to have passed through a wormhole.”

“To where?”

“I-…” Hiro gave a curt sigh, cast his gaze to the heavens, and wafted a hand. “I don’t know. Apart from that it does not appear to be anywhere in our universe.”

The two other officers exchanged looks.

“That’s a bold claim,” Mary cautioned. “Your justification?”

“It should become clear as I show you what we recorded.” Hiro nodded to 17, who brought the images up on the display. “I was looking at the wider picture, so we have lost some detail towards the beginning,” he apologised. “I wasn’t expecting to need anything else, at the time.”

The three zeroids were easily visible as bright dots in the distance, although it was hard to pick out the specifics of what they were up to. Owun guided a piece of the debris over to 76, and sent him back to Spacehawk, towing it behind him. 22 stayed behind, watching and waiting for his own instructions.

Owun turned on his operating lights, and moved closer to the dust, and-

-vanished.

It was like he’d gone behind an invisible wall. No dramatic flash of light, or little rippling shockwave, or even any disturbance in the dust. Just like… going through a door. One second he was there, and the next, he’d disappeared.

22 dithered for a few minutes, not sure what to do, until Hiro spotted him on his own and called him back.

“Since then, I have sent three probes. The first I did not program to return, I wanted merely to see if there was genuinely something there. It went through the disturbance, but it was lost immediately.” Hiro gestured to 17 who skipped the footage forwards. “The second I had on personal remote control. I hoped to explore the disturbance, a little? It went through it, but I immediately lost contact. I can only conclude that communications of any kind do not pass through, which is why we lost contact with 101.”

“You said you sent three probes,” Ninestein reminded, while Hiro paused to think.

“Yes. The third… well, I will show you its footage. I programmed it to pass through, spend thirty seconds on the opposite side, and then to return on the exact same path. Please bear that in mind as you watch.”

The screen showed the probe’s visual recording. It advanced on the dissipating patch of dust; the debris had long since passed well out of range. Visually, there was nothing at all to tell the probe was even moving-

There was a little flicker of light and a half-second of disturbance, but the footage quickly cleared, to reveal an unchanged starscape. It was impossible to tell the probe had gone through anything at all. Mary swapped a glance with Ninestein, but both officers remained silent.

The stars began to shift around to the right as the probe stopped and began to turn, to return to the ship. In the distance, small and weirdly shadowed but recognisable, Spacehawk slowly came into view.

“That looks a lot further away than it should be,” Mary started, cautiously. “How fast was your probe travelling…?”

The probe passed back through the patch of disturbance with another of those fractional visual distortions, and Spacehawk jumped forwards to fill its screen. Both Ninestein and Mary took a large step backwards, surprised.

“Hiro, what just happened?” the doctor challenged.

“There is a Spacehawk there which is not us. The debris that we found carried our insignia, but we did not do anything to create it. I believe the only explanation is that we have encountered a doorway to a parallel universe.” Hiro studied the desk beneath his fingers for a few seconds before putting faith in his belief; “an artificially created doorway.”

“A doorway that the people on the opposite side opened,” Ninestein finished the sentence for him, and blew out a long breath through pursed lips. “Flaming thunderbolts.” He stared at the screen for several seconds. “I guess the question we should now be asking is, did they mean to, and do they know they did.”

“If they find our equipment, maybe.” Hiro’s shoulders had already sagged. “Have we broadcast our presence to them?”

“Don’t blame yourself.” Mary settled a reassuring hand on his back. “Sending probes was unavoidable – you had to work out what that disturbance was somehow.”

Ninestein gave them a loaded glance. “101 hasn’t come back, though.”

“No.” Hiro drew a long breath. “The pre-programmed probe returned safely. We must conclude that something stopped 101 doing the same. Perhaps he did not understand what he had encountered? He had only a single point of data, where we now have four. Perhaps he chose instead to approach the… version of Spacehawk that he could see?”

“Why would he do that?” Mary wondered.

“It was the only option he had? He would have known something was wrong with it,” Hiro nodded along with his own hypothesis, “but we are asking a lot from zeroid imagination to expect him to have independently come up with the idea of a parallel universe. I dare not imagine what he thinks might have happened.”

“So, he might still be with them?”

“…perhaps.” Hiro’s confirmation was soft; Mary gave his shoulder a small squeeze.

“Well, if there is another Spacehawk on that side, then there is a strong likelihood there are also more zeroids. It feels strange to think there might be duplicates of us, as well, but we have to consider that. Which I hope all adds up to him being safe and among friends, and they’re just as confused as us.”

Hiro found a small smile for her, but it quickly withered. “I hope you’re correct, and that is the only reason he has not returned.”

Ninestein pursed his lips, thoughtfully. “I guess it all depends on how friendly they might be and what their intentions are. What do we actually know about these… other us-s?”

“Basically? Nothing. The cosmology looks identical, they have a vessel like Spacehawk, and they use the same insignia, and… well, that is it. I do not even know if they are human.”

“I don’t think it’d be unfair to assume that,” Ninestein offered, with a small smile. “At least until we get more data and find out they’re lizard-men or something. I’m more immediately concerned with whether there is another Zelda on that side. Our queen of Mars might have a tendency towards incompetence, but we’d struggle to repel a battle fleet double the size of what she has now.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Any thoughts on what we’re gonna do about this?”

“The obvious answer would appear to be that someone else needs to go through, commander. Someone with enough spark of curiosity to try and find out what is going on, so… not a zeroid.” Hiro drew a long breath to steady himself. “As least senior, I am happy for that to be me. I will record a message on the other side to confirm I am safe, and send it back to you.”

“Hiro…” Ninestein raised a cautionary hand. “Ignoring the fact you’re a civilian, so far you’ve exclusively sent electronics through. We have no idea what this will do to biological tissues.”

“That is… not strictly correct. I sent a zinnia seedling with the last probe.” Hiro demonstrated the little plant on the central console. “It seems quite healthy.”

“A baby plant is a bit of an order of magnitude different to a whole adult human, don’t you think?”

“We do share a lot of DNA.”

“…you’re determined to go, aren’t you.”

“I am. And before you say anything…” Hiro put up his hands. “I am not proposing this exclusively because I want to find my friend. Whatever this is…? We do not know what our counterparts on the other side did to create it, but I do know that we have to close it. The longer we take, and the more probes we send, the greater the certainty our counterparts on the far side will spot us.”

“You seem to be assuming they’re a threat. They may be willing to help us against Zelda.”

“I accept that is a possibility? But they have done something significant enough and energetic enough that it has somehow torn a hole between universes.” Hiro gave his two senior colleagues a long, sombre look. “That does not feel like the action of someone conducting peaceful scientific research. If it was intentional – why? And if it was a weapon? It must have been phenomenally powerful. We cannot safely assume their history and ours have followed similar trajectories. Their Zelda may be worse. Or they may have worse than Zelda.”

Ninestein pursed his lips. “Hmm.”

“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” Mary added. “To say you’ll be vulnerable is an understatement.”

“It may surprise you, but I am not particularly keen on that part myself. But, someone has to, captain – and not just for Owun.” Hiro found a smile. “Hawklet is small. That reduces my chances of immediately being spotted. And I should confess to having just a tiny bit of scientific curiosity.”

“All right.” Ninestein put his hands up. “You’ve made your case. We’ve seen your evidence. Now I’m going to discuss it with Mary. As for you…” He waved a finger in a vaguely threatening way. “Go get some sleep, already.”

“Yes, doctor.” Hiro inclined his head, and stepped away.

Mary caught his sleeve as he passed, and he hesitated in the doorway to his living quarters.

“You’re going to be putting yourself at a very great personal risk, for a zeroid,” she cautioned, softly. “We could do a lot more research from this side before risking human lives by going through it.”

“Perhaps, captain.” He gave her a long sad smile. “But you know I can not – will not – abandon him there. You know as well as I do that zeroids are not just robots. Not any more.”

“Are you letting your bias colour your judgement, perhaps? I know how you feel about each other.”

“Would we abandon a human there?” Hiro’s frown was gently castigating. “Would you abandon the sergeant major?”

“…I acknowledge the point, and no, I wouldn’t – but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just asking you to consider doing a little more research before you go blundering on through.”

“How, captain?” Hiro laughed, frustratedly. “My best friend is lost and truly alone on the wrong side of this… whatever it is. Wormhole? Doorway? And we have proved that we cannot see through it, so precisely what do you propose we can achieve? More probes, that have to be fully programmed first, and might be intercepted? Another zeroid?”

Mary held his arms, one hand on the outside of each shoulder. “There could also be deadly danger on the other side. Tiger and I need to be satisfied that this is the right decision.” She sighed. “And I think, for all that I hate it, we will probably agree with you. But let us at least talk about it.”

-----

“Okay, Hiro. One more time, and this time explain it like you’re talking to one of the jackasses at NASA who keep trying to cut our funding. Whaddaya mean, you have thirty six zeroids on board?”

[keaalu]

Definitely saw the first sentence and went "...Zero/101??? Surely not."

Very vague sense of disappointment to see the clarification that it was parties, not zeroids.

I wish butch n femme balls existed. Not to b a fucking sap n a massive dyke but wow. Ugh even. Just wanna wear a gown n stilettos n have my honey greet me w a bouquet before we leave n we wear matching or complimentary jewelry n spend hours on my hair and makeup to impress. N then when we get there my honey will spin me around the room for a brief dance before grabbing something to drink, wine for me n whiskey for her, as we chat w other dykes n celebrate butchfemmeness. Or whatever

[meenkimhoshop]

🕛비타민앰플 레티놀 미백 비타민C 씨 기미앰플 세럼 ZEROID 더마뉴월 프로텍트 크림 50ml 스페셜 트리트먼트 후 생기 케어, 단일수량🕛

☀️제품상세정보확인 🦖바로여기클릭☝️

✍️모든 글은 쿠팡파트너스 활동의 일환으로 일정액의 수수료를 받습니다.

🤣가격비교 및 상품후기와 제품정보를 확인해주세요👀🌈

💤 메세지와 디엠은 확인 못합니다.👋

[thunderbirdsera]

Terrahawks - A Christmas Miracle

I'm currently watching the Terrahawks Christmas episode 'A Christmas Miracle'. I do enjoy Ninestein, Mary and Kate in their luxuriously silky dressing gowns, but all we have to do is wait for the part where they actually celebrate. While we're waiting, I would just like to tell you that Christmas will never be the same again when you watch it with Gerry Anderson…or in Gerry Anderson style.

The Gerry Anderson 'Merry Christmas Everyone' video just consists of word-spliced clips of Gerry Anderson shows set to the tune of the Shakin' Stevens song 'Merry Christmas Everyone', with a few added clips of the characters from each show having fun. I've fast forwarded it to the Christmas party, where everyone is boogieing on down and having fun…but sadly, there's no sign of Sram, Yuri or Lord Tempo invited. I wish they were good enough to be invited…and even get lots of presents. Yuri of course would get lots of soft toys because he's a teddy bear.

Do you think Ninestein got drunk and acted the same way as Uncle Stripe in the Bluey special 'The Sign'? Because with all strict scientists, you always need somewhere where they can get drunk. And drinking is prohibited! As is overdosing. Do you think Zeroids get drunk? Not Sargent Major Zero.