Falling Apart

Black droid arms carried the limp form of the dying detective away from mayhem, to a yellow panel on the wall.

The battle in Garrett Xander Neilson Station’s domed central garden had become a slaughter that the mortals of Earth and Mars could not hope to survive. Being a space station in the middle of space’s endless nowhere, there were safety features for the possibility of a breach. Instead of trying to get survivors into individual suits in the moments that it would take the vacuum to swallow the air from the station, pop-up tent like structures with their own air supplies were lined up along the outer walls, ready to jump into at a moment’s notice. Opening one, Purple slung his master inside and sealed the ruggedised escape pod.

With Arthas Jacques sealed inside, the droid turned to the next immediate threat. Men and women injected with Deus ex Sapiens, the invention Arthas had been investigating, had attacked everyone at the final demonstration of Lord Bank’s game changing technology.

The last survivors of humanity in the dome were welding out their life spraying the transformed test subjects with bullets. Deus ex Sapiens could heal the mercenaries that had been injected with it as fast as they were injured. Only beheading one of them from behind had worked for Purple.

Another solution had occurred to the droid, as good options waved goodbye from a distant horizon. Whether they required air or not, the monsters Lord Banks had created would be far less deadly if they were rotating endlessly in the void of space.

Stray shots had already broken through the inner dome of the space station’s central garden. Accidental for the once breathing Homo sapiens, the rain of broken glass had been the inspiration for Purple’s last resort.

You realise any other survivors will be dead within two minutes of a breach? Said the voice of Red, another expert program that occupied the black Spectrum droid Purple called home. Though their conversation was an exchange of binary, Purple imagined Red’s usual Parisian accent.

Other survivors? Purple asked, aiming Arthas’ assault rifle at the glass above. No correction came. Bullets crackled from the handheld rail-gun, mocking the sound barrier as they shattered it. Glass of the domes above cracked in spider web patterns.

Purple’s gunfire was a beacon to the monsters that answered Lord Banks’ order to exterminate. Aiming Arthas’ Ashikov pistol at the foremost runner, the droid fired. The creature twitched to avoid the bullets. Purple adapted by spreading the vectors in a way that meant avoiding one would put the creature in the path of another.

Two layers of glass to go, one fracturing into fractal cracks, bullets came Purple’s way. It tried to dodge as it kicked the detective’s safety pod into cover. Hoping Arthas would forgive it when he recovered, Purple saw the man flopping limply inside the pod as it bounced and skidded across the viscera of endless soldiers.

The penultimate glass panel broke as the assault rifle’s ammo gauge hit zero. A bullet hit purple’s knee simultaneously, sending it into a vicious faceplant. The oncoming monster, covered from head to foot in the blood and fluids of his victims, bowled Purple aside in a tackle.

Ignoring the creature atop him, the droid pulled the sidearm from the Deus ex Sapiens test subject’s holster. Aiming for the same spot in the last panel, Purple aimed for the dome.

There’s no time, thought the droid in the mental space it shared with the other spectrum programs. If it had spoken, Purple’s Newcastle accent would have been heard by the beast on top of the droid.

Once human hands were crushing the plating of its chest. Veins and muscle fibers tensed insanely beneath the man’s skin. Thick plates that could stop mere bullets creaked under the pressure exerted by the human's thumbs and fingers.

Remote pilot the Morrigan and crash it through, suggested Green, the technology expert program. Purple heard Green’s Dublin accent as its message passed along circuits.

If I have that long, thought Purple, who had already disengaged the docking clamps. The puny pistol from the killer’s belt wasn’t even scratching the last layer of glass between GXN Station and endless black nothingness.

The Morrigan and the Spectrum droid had bankrupted Arthas. She ship sailed through the night, piloted by the droid as other Deus ex Sapiens puppet soldiers took hold of its arms and legs.

Joints screamed. Wires pulled free. The lights in Purple’s eyes flickered and died. The ship sailed on, course laid in. The droid’s arms and legs were torn away. It’s head was ripped from the body.

Good fight purple, my turn now. Green could operate to send signals from the transmitters inside the chest of the droid as the pieces were tossed across the chamber by the victorious post-humans. Microphones in the Spectrum droid’s head used shortwave communication to transmit what was happening from the head to the processors in the body.

“Congratulations,” said the voice of Lord Banks whose accent he thought of anyone he considered poor as sub-human. The enthusiastic self-importance of his voice spoke of a god complex. “You are the first children of the Deus ex Sapiens age. Together, we will make history.”

“We?” asked a throaty voice sarcastically. A gurgling scream followed.

“While not all of you appreciate the freedom you have lost, you will all learn to obey. I am the father of this new era. My will is your command,” said Lord Mark Ignatius Banks, formerly of Edinburgh, Scotland, Earth. The tycoon was wanted on Earth and Mars, but had escaped the agents of both to the far flung GXN Station which orbited further from the sun than any other known station, beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Admiral Jacques assurance that help was on the way was no good to any of the corpses who had served him to the end.

“What’s this? Escape pod?” A voice thick with bloodlust audibly smiled.

If Purple could have, he would have gulped. He was powerless. Green, do something. A distraction.

Like what? asked the technology program.

Literally anything. The Morrigan is almost here.

Some of the lights aren’t protected hooked up to the station firewall, Green thought.

“What’s up with the lights,” asked the same man who had found Arthas.

“How should I know?” asked another.

3

2

1

Impact.

On Earth or Mars there would have been a mighty sound of breaking glass and bending metal. The vacuum swallowed all of the air in moments, taking all of the particles which would have transmitted sound with them.

The portion of Purple’s consciousness that was hooked into Arthas’ ship turned the craft as everything from inside the dome began to zoom away into space.

Mapping Arthas’ heat signature wasn’t hard for the program. Intercepting and matching acceleration with the spinning emergency pod was a struggle even with the wealth of experience Purple had downloaded. The pressurised pod eventually bumped into the air lock in the Morrigan’s rear.

Unable to do anything more for the detective without its body, Purple began tracking down its own body parts. Each of the limbs was heading in different directions. When both arms, legs, the head and body were aboard, Purple began a full system backup. If Arthas survived, he’d want to know everything his droid’s programs did.

Spinning off in its own direction was the immobilised virtual presence droid Lord Banks had been using to speak to the assembled representatives of both human worlds and their most powerful conglomerates.

Purple steered the Morrigan alongside the droid, not wanting it aboard. Sending distress signals to Mars, Purple waited.

We really need a second body for situations like this, thought Green, using the ship’s mainframe as the droid’s dismantled pieces lost power.

So does Arthas. Purple thought.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty.

Arthas twitched inside the yellow bag.

Is that him waking up or dying? asked Blue, the scene documentation program who spoke with a Glaswegian accent when talking aloud.

Coming round, Purple said.

Gasping sounds penetrated the silence.

Arthas swore through his teeth in primal agony.

“Arthas, it's Purple,” said the droid through the ship’s speakers. His gravely Newcastle accent caused more twitches in the yellow bag. “I got you aboard but I don't have a body right now. You need to get yourself out of the bag.”

Green began playing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Monty Python. Quietly at first, slowly upping the volume to be sure Arthas didn’t pass out from blood loss or concussion.

The creature in the body fluid stained chrysalis wriggled around, making a thousand grunts of pain. The seal of the tiny airlock hissed open, out came the black prosthetic hand of the disgraced detective.

Almost there, Purple said. Keep going boss.

A muffled expletive escaped Arthas’ split lips as he pushed his face through the opening of the yellow inflatable sack.

“You have no idea how bad it smells in there.” His accent was the usual Arab-French of the Martian Capital, tinged with the slur of brain trauma and bleeding lips. The former detective and soldier coughed and spat out a tooth. One leg moved inside the bag, pushing the man out of his bloody cocoon. His left arm was broken in umpteen places. All of his visible skin was cut and swollen in a rainbow of painful colours.

“Why do we keep the first aid kit on the wall?” Arthas groaned, blood dribbled over his lip.

“In hindsight we were woefully unprepared for a conflict with nanite powered post human mutants. Won’t happen again, sir.”

“Funny.” Arthas tried to look at his body, muscles of his midsection twitching as he attempted a sit up. Eyes spinning, he collapsed, head thumping against the floor.

“Take it easy, Arthas. You’ve lost a lot of blood. You need to seal the wounds.”

“Purple, on a scale of one to ten, how screwed am I?”

“This seems like a ten squared level of screwed, Arthas. I have an idea.”

“I doesn’t involve shooting through the window does it?”

“No. But it does involve more zero gravity for you.”

“Wonderful. I’ve always loved internal bleeding. Go on.”

“I can float you to the first aid kit if I turn off the artificial gravity and adjust acceleration vectors. You could use your good arm to grab the kit, then float to your chair. I can set a course that will keep you in the chair then turn on artificial gravity again. It would allow you to patch up your wounds.”

“And fly like Peter Pan, except I’m a little low on happy thoughts right now.”

You’ve read Peter Pan? Purple wondered, but then again, Arthas read everything. “Are you ready?”

“Hell no. Go for it.”

Matching the ship's momentum with the artificial gravity so that Arthas wouldn’t be slammed against the opposite wall, Purple steered the Morrigan to move the human’s floating body across the ship to the first aid kit on the wall.

Come fly with me, let’s fly, we’ll fly away, crooned Frank Sinatra as Arthas wobbled and groaned through the air towards the red box on the wall. Metallic black fingers fumbled with the clips that kept the box on the wall.

“Come on!” Arthas grunted. Loud clicks signaled his success. Purple steered the floating patient to his chair, behind the pilot’s seat. Slight acceleration rested the double amputee before the reactivated artificial gravity held him in place.

“Nice work. That was only excruciating. I was expecting worse.”

“If I could bow with a flourish, I would,” said Purple.

With his only working hand, Arthas loaded painkillers into the injector. Pressing it to his flesh and blood leg, he pulled the trigger. Laying back, the man waited for the drugs to take effect. A long sigh whispered from his lips as the agony eased.

“Now I can think,” he said to himself.

Removing the straps of his body armour, he winced as his limp arm flopped through the sleeve. Blotchy bruises covered his torso. A bullet wound in his shoulder dribbled blood.

Replacing the empty painkiller capsule with an antibiotic and antiviral cocktail, he injected himself near the wound.

“Purple, I need your help with the next bit.”

“If you want a hand, both of mine are lying on the floor behind you,” said the program.

“Hilarious,” the detective gave a mock smile that split a burst in his lip even wider. “I need you to project me on the holographic projector so that I can thread a needle for the wound.”

“Use the staple gun,” said Red, in its Parisian accent. “Easier.”

“Not if I can’t pinch the wound together.” Arthas raised an eyebrow.

“Ah. Of course.”

“Yeah. Stop making me have expressions. It hurts.”

A projection of Arthas filled the cockpit.

“Wow. I’m purple and red, I look like a very berry flavoured dessert.” He pulled the needle from the box and popped the blister pack around it. Pressing the needle into his numb flesh to hold it in place. Arthas opened a packet of surgical thread with his teeth. Licking the thread to stick the strands together, he threaded it through the eye of the needle that protruded from his mangled left arm.

“Dammit,” he said. Frowning as the end of the thread hit the loop of the needle and frayed. Licking them together, he tried again. “Zoom in for me. That’s better.” Pulling the strand through gently, he picked up the needle.

Purple watched as Arthas prodded the needle through his flesh, the skin weeping more blood as he dragged the hole shut.

“Buddy?”

“How do I tie this off with only one hand?”

“With great difficulty I imagine,” said Purple as it queried the problem in its database. A video tutorial flashed up for Arthas. He looped the thread through itself intricately until nothing slipped. He cut the thread with a generous amount to spare and put the needle back in the medical kit.

“Now for the arm and leg.” Arthas picked a medical version of the quick drying expandable foam used for insulation or as a projectile restraint. It did the same job as a traditional cast, all squeezed into a pressurised canister the size of a beer can. The orange liquid faded in colour as it expanded and spread around Arthas’ arm. He closed and clipped the lid of the first aid kit.

“Can you lower the gravity for me a bit?”

Purple decelerated.

“Thanks,” said Arthas as his arm bobbed limply upwards. He continued spraying until the whole thing was encased in the foam. Purple raised the detective’s chair before he could ask. “Mind reader.”

Cutting his trousers off up to the thigh, Jacques found that his leg was the same mess as his arm. Breaks and fractures lined the leg all the way down.

“Time to dip my toe and test the water,” said the detective. Swinging his legs down, he set his prosthetic left leg down on the floor. The metallic clunk echoed before his right foot tentatively touched down.

“This is one small step for man, one giant pain in my leg,” Arthas said, doing his best impression of Neil Armstrong. “Your turn, Iron Man. I need my buddy back in one piece.”

Purple played Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You from the title line as it hit the crescendo.

“Love you too, all of you guys. So turn down gravity again, float the pieces in my direction,” he held up a black metal finger, “slowly please.”

The Spectrum programs watched eagerly as Arthas placed the floating pieces in order on the chair. Next he waddled to the tool kit.

“Green?”

“Yes,” answered the technology expert program in its Dublin accent.

“I’m going to need a lot of direction. Speak slowly and use small words.”

“You got it,” said Green.

Hours passed. Arthas had to top himself up with painkillers regularly. He ate as the reconnected upper half of the droid reattached its own legs.

“Good as new?” Arthas asked.

“Good as you,” replied the droid in a Dublin accent.

“That bad, huh?” The man sighed, lying down in his chair as the droid tested his balance. “I need to sleep, guys. Make sure I wake up.”

“You trust me?” asked the droid in the neutral tone used when all of the Spectrum programs were talking as one.

“Always,” said the man. His eyes closed. His muscles relaxed.

Pressure by David Bowie and Queen played softly throughout the sleek black ship. The droid cleaned Arthas’ wounds and bandaged him. The Morrigan kept pace with the still rotating droid Lord Banks had used to order the slaughter aboard Garrett Xander Neilson Station. When Jacques was ready they would interrogate the enemy droid together.