92 - Why Do They Call You...AIEEEE

Terry sat in the pilot's chair, staring at the screen, his chin propped on his hand with one finger pointing up past his ear. He tried hard not to sulk. Sulking was uncouth. The fact that the 'rescued' spy from the other land, Eshmaeel, didn't trust him and had only told the machine which direction his home was... AND the fact that that machine hadn't seen fit to tell him anything about it, had effectively poked holes in any kind of self importance he may have started with.

"I'm a Tech Second Class,” he muttered, watching the tunnel melt away in front of Mom. “I worked on the moon, had intergalactic friends, even code of my very own hooked into the galactic hub that Prime doesn't know anything about.” He shifted over to his other side, resolutely keeping his back to Eshmaeel, who sat cross-legged in the bunk, clutching the briefcase full of dangerous information to his chest. “It was my brother who set all this up to get these two ungrateful boys home and me out of danger.” 

Mom clicked as if she had just been activated by an address of his. “So it was. Your brother Gerald as the owner of this vehicle, accepts all liability, should this unauthorized usage ever be disclosed or discovered at all."

"You two have just taken over our great escape and left me to trail along like the comic relief in a radio drama.”

"Terence.” The machine actually paused. “Such attitude is unseemly and inappropriate. You cannot be the entertainment hero who comes in with cape flaring and blasters blazing to save the day. It is your lives that you are talking about, not face or status.” 

He straightened, about to verbally excoriate the machine for presuming to lecture him... and in Gerald's terms no less! He must have programmed the damn thing. Then what it had said sank in and he subsided. “Cape flaring? I'll have you know that capes are both foolish and dangerous, even in the animated worlds.” 

There was a static-like buzz for a fraction of a second. “Very astute, Terry.”

"Did Gerald program you?” Another pause, long enough for the human to wonder if the program had crashed.

“He did... but he came down all the time to talk to me.”

Terry stared at the console as if he would stare into an opponent's eyes. “He talked to you?”

"For hours sometimes, when he couldn't sleep.” Terry had the image of his brother, riding over foggy meadows on his quisling horse, to the one entity who would, or could listen to him as he unburdened his heart. His wife... was a good Xanadu woman who would have just fainted at the idea her husband would have problems, much less worries or heartaches. I want friends I can talk to, he thought. Not just a warm sex object for my bedroom that happened to produce children. But I'm not attracted to anyone my own sex. It was the first time he'd truly felt how lonely he was, understood how lonely Gerald must be. He'd begun the process on the moon, but it hadn't truly sunk in until now. He cleared his throat, that had somehow gotten full of phlegm. "How long till our breakout?”

"Fifteen minutes.”

"Thank you, Mom.

"You are welcome, Terry.” They emerged in a jumble of rocks on the edge of the terraforming. Smooth green fields ran straight into razor sharp tsingy that had not yet been broken down to be infected with Terran biomass and safely covered up. "I suggest that you hold the controller as we begin your transportation at speed,” Mom said. “That way you will learn how to drive this vehicle faster, without my assistance.”

“Assistance.” His tone was sour. The vehicle had no external lights, not even running lights and was still moving forward at the same steady speed as a robotic horse. He picked up the controller and found that the haptics let him feel what the vehicle was doing as it kept the cabin rock steady while the rest of it scrambled and squeezed and clambered through the tsingy.

“Of course, Terry. You are the pilot.” In the moonlight outside, enhanced by the windscreen, he could see that the tsingy on the edges just got worse and worse. There were no places for a road. There were no places for a machine this big to squeeze through. 

There was only spines and spines and spines of vertical rock stretching as far as he could see. The machine spiralled up to the top of one like a silverfish on a wall and paused. “It looks impossible,” he said quietly. “Can you get us out?”

“Yes. I am retracting my sand-crawler legs.” Mom showed him the front two legs that looked rather like shovels with toes, pulling up under her windscreen. “Cabin medical restraints at full.” 

A squawk came from the bunks as Eshmaeel found himself safely lying down. The controller in Terry's hand quivered and then was quiet. “All right, if you say you can get us through.” His hand tilted forward as he said “You've been very smooth... why in Prime's name do people call you a sand-flEEE EEEE EEEE EE!”