Happy Holidays!

Atlas was good enough company, but he wasn’t the person that predominated the short robot’s mind.  No, his review of data logs was split between Hermes and Captain Charis.

Charis was by far the more pleasant person to think about.  Every time he replayed a compliment from her in his head, a little blip of a warning message registered in his data logs which he conveniently neglected to pay attention to.  Her curled bangs, her pink coat, the way her orange fingers seemed to grace his shoulder so kindly when she complimented him.  Being as new as he was, he had never had someone treat him in such a way.  Charis was the first to treat him with love, an emotion he did not yet know the name of.

But his ‘feelings’ on Hermes were far more varied, and less easily explained.

Starry masses drifted through view, and Apollo put his fingers to the glass of the window through which he gazed.  The words that Hermes last spoke to him seemed to ring in his artificial data banks.  Have a nice trip.  Come back safe.  Those words inspired a pensiveness in his processors that was not easily explained.  Apollo was bad at following the example of the Victus and forgetting what he could not change.  It would continually be processed, in low function, when he was not occupied with further tasks.

Atlas had reaffirmed time and time again that this was a short trip, that it didn’t require much out of them.  It was only three days.  Apollo had to keep reminding himself of that as he analyzed Hermes’ words, but it began to send up little blips of a error message in his data banks.  Conveniently, as with thoughts of Charis, those error messages were filed away.  They could be handled later.

A particular memory popped up as he browsed his memory storage.  Apollo would have rathered not entertain Hermes’ scary or belligerent behaviors when he wasn’t around, but but sometimes a good mulling-over of the past was good for improving future behavior.  He could learn from Hermes.  Unwillingly, he submitted himself to viewing the memory again.

*

“Good morning, Apollo!”  There it was, the trill of Hermes’ voice (inasmuch as a modulated tone could trill).

“Good morning.”  Really, what was morning out here?  Apollo had heard Atlas ask that very same question time and time again.

Hermes stepped lightly over to Apollo, weaving through a series of medical carts that had been left behind, and plucked the pink headband off of his head.  It was the contraband item of much controversy and hatred among their commanding staff, but like a brattish child Hermes had refused to give it up.  Lately he had taken to putting it on Apollo during the ‘day,’ however.  Marking Apollo as his, it seemed to be.

Honestly, Apollo had gotten used to it.  It wasn’t an approved behavior, but the less he protested Hermes’ oddities the easier it was for him to perform his job.  Hermes paused for a moment, then a (more) put-out expression crossed his face.  The thin robot crossed his arms, and the harrumphing noise he made was enough to force Apollo to look up.

“Yes Hermes?”

“You haven’t said anything about me marking you today.”

“You want me to?”

Hermes tapped a metallic toe against the hospital tiling.  “Well of course I do!  It’s been three weeks and you do it every day.”

“Perhaps I have adapted to function differently.”

The older robot’s mouth contorted into some twisted metal sneer.  “So stupid!  I thought that you had started learning things since we had that conversation.”

Apollo couldn’t help but frown a little himself.  “I have learned plenty.  Many new medical techniques, the placements of necessary medicines and—”

“No no no no no!”  Hermes grabbed Apollo’s chin, tilting it further up towards his gaze.  “I know that the Victus call animals stupid, but you’re even worse than an animal!  You’re worthless.”

This is more antagonizing, was the first thought that flicked to Apollo’s mind.  Hermes had been doing that a lot, antagonizing him.  And yet, he still put that headband on his head every morning.  Hermes’ most valued possession, that pink headband, went into Apollo’s synthetic hair and stayed there for a full day unless Charis or Atlas came around and attempted to take it away.  Somehow, Hermes always swept in just in time to save it.  But if he trusted Apollo enough to not just turn in the illicit possession, didn’t that count for something?

“You say that frequently.”

“Because it just doesn’t change.”  Hermes turned on his heel, putting his back to Apollo.  “You’re getting ready to go, right?”

“Yes.  I must take an inventory and select necessary stock for my kit.”  Apollo nudged his white medic’s bag with a heavy black foot.

“How boring.  What, do they think that Atlas is going to fall deathly ill while you’re gone?  I understand that his immune system is completely pointless, but three days shouldn’t make a difference.”

Apollo tilted his head at Hermes.  “I’m just following standard protocol.”

“Protocol!  Hmph.  Protocol is ridiculous, don’t you think?”  Hermes seemed very carefree about it, but Apollo’s eyes widened even more than they already were naturally.

“Protocol is how we know what to do!”

Hermes reached over and picked up a vial of tranquilizer, turning it over in his fingers.  “Just override the protocol.”  A heavy silence hung in the air between them, before Hermes cast a half-glance back at Apollo.  It was silent permission to speak, though Apollo had never been asking for it in the first place.

“I don’t know why I would want to do that.”  Apollo paused, and then for emphasis: “I don’t know why I would want to do that especially when Captain Charis seems so happy when I follow through with protocol.”

The robot gave a small scoff.  “Captain Charis.  You’re so dependent on her good word.  Why aren’t you dependent on mine?”

“Because you’re considered unruly!  You act like… like…!”

“Like what?”  Hermes turned back to face Apollo, rolling the bottle of sedative in his fingers yet.  How challenging his stance was, how inviting his expression called out to the younger robot.  These sent conflicting messages spiraling through Apollo’s circuits, and he simply turned back to his shelves.

As he began to finger through rows of topical anesthetic, running an automated cataloging sequence, he mustered up the words to speak.  “You don’t act like a robot.”

“And it’s so fun, too!”  Hermes grinned.  “I get to annoy Atlas and Charis and you.  But I want to annoy you and still have you as mine.”

“It makes no sense when you talk like that.”

“You know, it would make plenty of sense if you perhaps tried not being Charis’ pet and tried being my pet.”

“I don’t know how I’m a pet.”  Apollo had considered saying that he didn’t even know what a pet was, but that was a lie.  He was programmed not to lie.  (Not that following programs had done much in helping deal with Hermes, but it was something.  It was all that he had.)  “You put your headband on me, but how that makes me your pet is beyond my understanding.  And how would I be Captain Charis’ pet?”

“Oh my gods, Apollo!  You ask so many questions!”  Hermes stamped the tile a little bit, sending metallic clanga-clanga-clang! around the supply room.  “You should stop asking me questions and actually do things!”

“You do realize I was attempting to.  When you came in, just a little bit ago, I was—”

“Being bo-ring.”  Hermes finally shrugged.  “Might as well let you get to it, Apollo.  I mean, someone has to be good to make up for me being rotten to my inorganic core!”  He put his hand to his mouth, masking a devious grin.  “I’ll see you later, pet!”  With that, Hermes skipped lightly off.

Apollo stared after him, disgruntlement written all over his face.  It was strange to have to deal with him.  He wondered, what would it be like to have him along for the three day voyage?

*

In hindsight, he would never learn the answer to that as Hermes had insisted upon staying back.  How Hermes managed that—and how Altas let it slide—seemed mystery and miracle rolled into one.  Hermes exerting his own ‘will’?  It made his data banks itch for an answer unpossessed if he thought about it too hard.

The interaction seemed to stick out now.  Among enigmatic interactions with the slight robot, that one seemed ever more enigmatic.  Apollo longed desperately to ‘get it,’ for it to ‘make sense.’  Why Hermes would ever want him to be his, why Hermes would claim him with his ‘ugly’ defect as his pet…

Apollo IV was sure that if Charis had seen this behavior, she would have put a stop to it!  Or at least explained it to him.  Made him understand.  Captain Charis was very kind.  A little blip went off in his processor and was routinely filed away.  (Where did this routine to swallow his error messages come from?  Had it evolved, was it put there?  Was it put there by Victus or robot?)  Perhaps when they returned to Section 89 Apollo could ask her about it.  He would have asked Atlas about it, but Atlas was still steamed at Hermes.  Really, when wasn’t he steamed at Hermes?  Oh well.

Apollo realized that as he had been lost in his absent ‘thought,’ the view outside of his window had changed completely.  Inside of his view was a swirling galaxy, a mixture of blues and purples and pinks and glittering white stars like the glimmers of water upon metal.  It was a beautiful sight, but could he recognize that?

Hermes would call me stupid for looking so long.

No error message arose from this thought.  Odd.  Apollo got really confused by his existence sometimes.  And while it wasn’t exactly that his existence was particularly noteworthy in comparison to anyone else’s, it was that devilish Hermes that seemed to cause the aggravation.  If only he could forget Hermes, replace his memories of him with memories of Charis, or Atlas, or literally anyone else.  But Hermes was burned into his data banks, in a way that was all too permanent and real.  Apollo let out another mechanic sigh.