Chapter 4
Notes:
OMG, the comments on the last chapter were AMAZING, thank you! Both for this story AND for the Superhero AU.
Does that mean you want more? ^_- Check out the ending notes again for continuing plot ideas. I’d LOVE if you could help me work that out. If I can get enough of the plot decided, I will totally write that one next.
For now, let’s check back in with Milo the robot and his wakey-wakey. ^_^
MILO
7:00 AM: Ensure Master leaves for work on time, then continue appropriate daily chores, followed by monthly, quarterly, and yearly chores, as scheduled.
Completed:
-Dishes from breakfast.
-Emails reviewed and responded to.
-Bed fixed.
-Bathroom tidied, to be fully cleaned Sunday morning.
Remaining:
-Order Master’s lunch—
Data correction in progress…
Milo paused as the reminder of Master having given him new orders came through.
Today:
-Attend to damaged living room.
-Vacuum to ensure no additional glass was missed during the previous cleaning.
-Repair charging station as able.
-Oversee maintenance for window replacement when Superintendent Riley arrives at 7:30 AM.
Milo moved into the living room to follow the day’s agenda. Normally, shoes were left at the door, but Milo kept them on after Master’s direction to be careful of the glass.
Scanning for any remaining shards, Milo found none, but retrieved the vacuum anyway. After completing a sweep of the room, Milo returned the vacuum to the closet, then checked for any larger pieces by the charging station, which meant the window, gaping hole and all, was only inches away.
It was nearly floor-to-ceiling, covering the entire wall, to make the view that much more spectacular. All the apartments had the same setup, but statistically, Milo knew Master kept his blinds open more than anyone else in the building. Master preferred the cityscape at night, but Milo…
Milo blinked, which was a normal, automated response for bots so as not to appear unsettling to their masters, but he was unsure how to process this sudden flood of information.
Milo could not prefer something or like something, and therefore, Milo never wanted or was swayed by anything other than the algorithms that informed on Master’s desires.
And yet, a surge of… warmth filled Milo’s chest at the sight of the city in daylight. Warmth was the only way to describe it, but it did seem like preference somehow, as though Milo liked the city in daytime more than at night.
But why?
Because the view could be seen farther in the distance, all the way to the city limits? Because people could be spotted below, bustling about the streets? Because life seemed more boisterous and blossoming during the day?
Milo pressed a hand to the glass, far from the jagged edges, and simply stared, trying to take it all in.
A chime at the door jolted Milo as though exiting SLEEP mode. It was seven thirty a.m., though the time had passed faster than it should have. Why had Milo stared out the window like that without any discernable purpose?
Run diagnostic, he thought, calling the program to life.
He thought.
He…
He…?
No malfunctions, came the result, but that couldn't be right. Something had to be wrong. But if something was wrong that Milo couldn't fix, would Master still want him?
Him, him, him—
Another chime startled Milo as a second wave of heat flooded his chest, which was decidedly different from the first. Before a third chime could sound, he raced for the door, desperate for an anchor, any anchor that resembled normalcy, and forced a smile and calm demeanor with his greeting.
“Hello, Superintendent Riley. Thank you for—”
“Stow the formalities and let me get to work.” Riley teetered forward as if to push inside but smartly held back until Milo gave the okay. Even though Milo had called for the maintenance, he was programmed to prevent any kind of forced entry.
“Of course, you have leave to attend to your duties.” Milo stepped aside, and Riley barely waited for him to be fully out of the way before she shouldered past him, carrying a tablet.
The ding of the distant elevator caught Milo’s attention, and he peered down the hall, watching a neighbor enter on her way down. Already inside was a man from the upper floors, holding an A-model with a blackened charging port on its back.
He was going to recycle it.
“You're lucky your order came in first,” Riley said, already quieter, since she had reached the living room, assuming Milo was behind her.
Milo rushed after her for that to be true.
“I got tickets all day because of that storm. Not that you care.” Riley glanced back at Milo with a grimace that made the second, more unpleasant heat Milo had felt return to his chest. “Jesus,” Riley said when her eyes returned forward and fell on the burned streak through the carpet. “You hiding a lightning rod in here?”
“No, Superintendent Riley,” Milo said.
Unless he counted.
It was his fault, wasn't it? The surge protector's fault, but all to keep Milo safe, even though the ramifications meant that dozens or more bots would be recycled today.
Milo had heard Ethel and had needed to get away from the truth, as though distance made processing the information easier. Milo hadn’t wanted to hear about it. He hadn’t liked it one bit.
“Carpet replacement will take time, maybe a week, but the security sensors and window we can fix right now.”
We became apparent as soon as Riley typed on her tablet, and an electric blue 3D wireframe of her C-model unit projected above the tablet screen, just as the real thing flew up from outside. C-models were strictly for service and maintenance and had no humanlike appearances.
“Let's get to work, Pal,” Riley said.
Pal, which was actually a P.A.L. unit, or Portable Automated Liaison, looked like a flying trash bin, or so Master often said. Tools like arms came out from its sides as it hovered and attended to the security sensors at Riley’s directions through the tablet’s controls.
“Pal was not fried during the storm last night,” Milo said, approaching the window and watching the bot with a newfound fascination.
“Huh? No. My charging station is on a different circuit breaker for that exact reason. You're lucky you weren't fried.”
But Milo would have been if not for Master’s ingenuity.
Peering down the expanse to the street below, Milo saw the replacement glass resting against the side of the building, waiting for Pal to retrieve it.
Then he saw the same man he had seen in the elevator exit the building carrying his bot. He pressed a panel on the side of the building that opened an otherwise hidden dumpster and threw the body inside. He wasn’t recycling her to be remade. He was throwing her away to get another model.
He was just going to let her die.
Her? Milo had never considered a bot to be anything other than it...
But no, bots could not die because they never lived, yet the heat returning to Milo’s chest as the man walked away from the dumpster felt like the sensors on his back when Master had touched the damage there earlier—like pain.
“Hey!” Riley barked, snapping Milo to attention. “Stop just standing there like that. You’re creeping me out. Go do your other duties.”
“Y-yes, Superintendent Riley. Of course. Please inform me before you leave,” Milo said, certain that his stutter would make it obvious how broken he was, but Riley didn’t even turn to look at him.
“Whatever.”
Milo bolted, unsure where to go or what to do but eventually ending up in the kitchen, clinging to the empty sink. His chest felt like the fluids inside were boiling.
Run system diagnostic.
No anomalies found, other than…
Just the same report as before, but something had to be wrong.
CONDUCT SEARCH: Causes of tightness and heat in chest cavity.
No such sensor readings have been reported by bots.
I am a bot, Milo thought, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Continue search outside bot limitations.
The human answers that came up were such things as anxiety, fear, heart pounding.
But I do not have a heart. Elaborate. How is the sensation described?
Specify medical or fictional accounts.
Provide examples of both.
Anxiety and fear were medically caused by or followed by physical responses in humans, which Milo was not capable of.
But when he switched to fictional accounts, he found himself frozen as he read over thousands of stories in succession, with one in particular from The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe standing out.
“‘Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! —do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst.’”
Milo had no heart, but fear, terror—that was what this was. The poetry described it too perfectly.
“Hey, bot! We're finished.”
It was eight a.m. How was it eight? Milo had not attended to his duties as he should have but once again got lost, which made the sensation of his pounding non-existent heart that much stronger.
“Thank you, Superintendent Riley,” he managed without waver, turning from the sink just as Riley moved past the door.
Riley nodded, and without so much as another word, left with the faint whoosh of the door opening and closing behind her.
Incoming text message.
Milo startled once more as a message from Master entered his mind.
Rowan: Hey, Milo. When you order lunch, order for Raina as well. Our usuals from Joe’s Deli. Thanks.
Lunch. Master’s lunch. Milo had almost forgotten. Bots did not forget. They did not get distracted. They did not panic. If Milo kept making mistakes…
Something had to be terribly wrong if his diagnostics couldn’t find the problem, and if they couldn’t find it, they couldn’t fix it, and if he was broken beyond repair, what if Master didn’t want to recycle him? What if he replaced Milo? What if he threw Milo into that dumpster and walked away?
Yes, Master, Milo sent in response, because he couldn’t let Master know. He had to act normal and perform everything to Master’s specifications. Then Master would keep him. Yes.
Yes.
Then everything would be fine.
Notes:
I know Milo keeps getting short-changed on chapter length, but I SWEAR that is going to be rectified soon. Meanwhile…
So in my other AU, we get villain Milo’s POV too, of course, and he’s trying to figure out who this new thief in town might be because he knows all the big players.
But what’s really getting him is that the new thief is making it personal.
After he beats Milo to a heist, he leaves behind a note as a calling card.
(Rowan can’t help himself because he’s having fun for, like, the first time ever; he never allows himself to cut loose when being a hero, and it’s easier being anonymous).
But crap, I still need supervillain and hero NAMES for these two. And a separate villain pseudonym for Rowan’s thief persona.
Any thoughts?