When we get back to camp, Cleve presents the robot repair kit to Corazon. “Maybe this will help?”
She takes it with two hands and starts to put it down with a dismissive, “Eh, this will be handy, I’m sure…” But then she catches herself. We both just took a certain amount of risk to retrieve it, and she honors that by actually opening the kit. There do turn out to be useful things there, based on the murmurs she makes as she rifles through it. “Ah, we can bypass the security… okay… Huh, that’s a dumb design.”
“Well, now you know what not to do when you build your own robot,” I tell her.
Cor sets to work, reprogramming the robot to obey simple voice commands. Cleve unfolds the circuit diagram and dictates pieces of it to her. At loose ends myself, it occurs to me that I might be able to keep us all a little healthier, even up here where miasma isn’t visible to the eye. “Do you mind me trying to clear the air right around here?” I ask Corazon. She’ll be the focal point of what I attempt, and there’s a chance it could backfire.
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Cor says, barely sparing me any attention. Then she pauses her work and looks up to me. “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” she tells me. “But don’t worry; I got this.” She slips her shades back on.
Does what I do work? I don’t really know. I don’t see any twinkles of purple light moving, so maybe this area was already as clear as can be.
Under Hypercor’s hands, the robot comes back to life. “All right, I’m in,” she announces. “Mariah, tell me a story.” I’m startled by the completely unexpected request. “Just start talking,” she says. “I dunno, tell me about how you got injured.”
In other circumstances, I’d consider that a rather inappropriate question, but we were just talking about this an hour ago, and in a way, Corazon is connected to the story. “Well, uh,” I chuckle a little self-consciously, “it was in a Santiago water purification plant.”
“Oh.” Cor drops her head into her hands.
“It was a run-down old one,” I hasten to add, “no longer functional. I used to play in it when I was a kid, and I fell through a rusted-out floor. I… did not land well. At all.” I leave out just how shattered my leg was and how long I was down there alone in the dark, hoping for someone to come find me. Instead, I turn to Cleve and skip to the end of the tale. “I climbed a rusty iron girder to get out of there.”
He nods. “That tracks.”
Cor continues hiding from me behind her hands. “Ugh,” she groans. “Of course Grandpa or one of the other heirs would have cut some corner. I swear, some of them were just as bad as Morgan.” She finally works up the courage to look up at me, leaving her sunglasses in her lap. Her taupe skin is flushed rose with embarrassment. “I’m sorry my family left that trap there. I don’t know why they did so many terrible things.”
I crouch down to her level and put a reassuring hand on her arm. “Hey, that wasn’t just a Santiago thing,” I tell her. “There are so many other buildings like that. As cities grow and industries change, so much just gets wasted on Earth. And so much just gets abandoned.” Her shame melts away, replaced with shock at this news about the old homeworld. “That wasn’t the only derelict building I played in as a kid. There are pockets of that all over LA.”
“Well, all the same, my family had the resources to do something about it. And what did they do? They left.”
“So did I.”
“You didn’t have a lot of choice. They did.” She rubs her hands over her face. “So, I dunno, maybe one day we can make it better here, but… whatever. The Santiago name isn’t worth a Chiron cent around here.”
“Oh, is there money on this planet, after all?” I ask, embracing the lighter topic.
“That’s what they measure Morgan energy credits in. Anyway… Cleve, tell us an army story.”
“Yeah, how’d you meet Roze?” I ask.
“So… Tech Sgt Roze and I were in the same unit. This was back during the Canadian Defensive War—you know, after the Baltic Sea was drained. I didn’t know them well until this one time they really had my back…” He goes on to describe how he was driving a truck in their battalion’s convoy when the vehicle ahead exploded, having hit a concealed mine. Cleve kept his cool, even when another truck met a similar fate. Roze, through some brilliant computer work, determined the pattern behind the mine placement. They fed directions to Cleve, allowing him to safely traverse the area, and between the two of them, they got the rest of the convoy out of there safely. Of course, Cleve highlights that Tech Sgt Roze saved the whole unit, but Cor and I can read between the lines. He followed procedure but adapted smoothly to the new situation when required. Maybe this explains why he’s not weirded out by what I can now do; he just deals with whatever comes his way.
“Great, I’ve got your voice samples now,” Cor says, “so it can obey your commands. Stick to movement-based ones.” She explains that the body and treads work, at least. She can’t get the command set for the arms to function, though. We’ll have to either heave the broken robot up into its frozen arms or else go with Cleve’s litter plan.
“Well, wait,” I say, “what about your voice sample? I told you how I hurt my leg. Your turn. Who’s Saba?”