Number Seventeen
With my standard arm reattached, David and Clyde had worked out their differences, and were now looking over the diagnostic results on their screens, making sure I'd configured the connection to the correct frequency and rate. Satisfied, we walked on foot back up to the central buildings of the complex, where we met up with a few more of the ZeroWorries PMC contractors that were loitering on a metal jersey barrier, appropriated from a pre-war roadwork, now used to stop vehicle traffic from entering the "town square".
"Jake, Pete, we got the thing running."
"They should be here--"
"Do you have one of the things?"
"The what?"
Clyde was straight to business, "the thing or whatever to uh," it was obvious he was gesturing to me.
Pete looked in my direction, looked me up and down, and said, "No."
HAMPTON, Peter
Contractor I
ZEROWORRIES PMC
Jake, who had been silent until now, croaked "I think they've got one at the gate."
O'BRIEN, Jacob
Contractor II
ZEROWORRIES PMC
Peter unsnapped the green camouflage print Motorolla radio from his vest and looked at the screen. "What channel were they again?"
"35.7 I think?"
While Peter dialed in the frequency, David finished signing the paperwork that the engineer gave him while I was interfacing with the uplink. She turned and looked at me face-on for the first time, and I was able to read her ID:
HOGARTH, Jessica
Sr. Engineer – Uplink
T-Mobile Bell Communications
She looked me up and down, then directly into my eyes. Then she reached out and clicked the switch behind my left mandible that activated maintenance mode.
"Run Uptime."
"12 days 9 hours 4 minutes 39 seconds."
"Run ID"
I rattled off a bunch of details including my uid of 17 which she finds particularly noteworthy.
"Seventeen," she says, "Jesus, you're as old as the war. Guys, this is like one of the last betas or one of the first production models of these andros," looking back over at me, "Do you have code-utils installed?"
"Yes."
"May I have root access?"
"Insert key."
"Damn, I don't have one. Too bad. I was going to make you cluck like a chicken."
The team laughs at this. She then toggled the switch behind my jaw and I returned to normal operation.
"Yeah, he's low on power," Jake said, "We want to take him down and dump his logs for the bosses. We got reports that the VIP who was supposed to come deal with theses Fissionists didn't make it."
"I'm not surprised," David chimed in. "We have a few... problems in the bush south of here."
Authorization locks prevented me from volunteering further information.
I was alerted that I have 15% battery remaining.
I entered Low Power mode.
Eventually, Hendrick "Hank" Peterson arrives in a technical driven by one of the other Reliants. Hank holds a Molson Ultra in his hand.
"Boys," he says to the ZeroWorrries, and, by association David. "Jessica," he says to the engineer. He looked over to me, and reaching in his pocket he produced a Hawkeye 90.
He tapped the navigation button a few times, and asked, "Anyone have any fake legs or enhancements or anything?"
Nobody said anything.
Hank looked up at me again and said, "Can like... two of you stand behind him and catch? He's expensive."
Two of the ZeroWorries obliged him, and got ready to catch.
"Well," Hank said, "Goodnight." Hank then pushed the larger red button on the Hawkeye 90, my body fell into the arms of the men, the weight of my torso causing them to stagger backwards a step, and I was alerted that I was powering off.