1 . Name: toxo !wf5JJ352J. @ 2012-11-17 05:57

Initiate checks.

Hot. It is hot. It is 15:12:05 hours. It is dry. Atmospheric humidity is 3%. Speed is 0.89408 meters per sec.

Check levels. Coolant 64%. Charge 96%. Lubricant 93%. Checks are good.

Check body integrity. Armor is complete. Circulation is optimal. Optics are functioning. Supercranial modular accessory not present. Checks are good.

Check primary imperative routines. Is HOME safe? No alerts. HOME is safe. Scan locally. Sensors return no flags. Are OTHERS safe? Ping: 12ms. Network returns no flags. OTHERS are safe. Network relays are UP; packet loss negligible. Checks are good.

Check secondary imperative routines. Is OTHER near? OTHER is 6.14m NNW. Checks are bad.

Initiate correction routines.

Checks completed in 74ms.

Initiate checks.

---

“What’s that one doing?”

Ms. Pauling’s struggle with the tea tray would be endearing to anyone but her mistress. The Administrator deftly hooks a teacup as it slides towards the edge of the cutting board they use instead of a real service. It’s blocky, scarred and practical, and it holds the creamer, Pauling’s honey, and the Administrator’s saccharin packets. And Pauling can still slice tomatoes on it.

“I don’t know.” The older woman slides into her wingbacked chair and rolls closer to the monitor in question, teacup sloshing. “Put number 18 on the main screen.”

Pauling reaches through the stump forest of old tea mugs and musty ashtrays to flick through a series of familiar controls. The hot afternoon light on the central screen makes her squint. And there is the robot.

It moves more smoothly than the others, and as Pauling adjusts the focus, the single wheel and graceful sweep of its long chassis are clarified. A Medibotâ„¢, with its strange unicycle design, slowly rolling through the red dust and ruined boards of the decoy facility. It passes in front of a row of shipping containers, all painted signature blue-gray, each with a 5-digit serial number stenciled, in white, on the side.

The Administrator narrows her eyes, and pulls a cigarette out of the packet with her mouth, still holding her cup in the other hand. Pauling is there with the lighter without being asked, and as she exhales the first plume, the robot slows in front of one container, then stops. It sways very slightly on its dainty wheel, the balance servos correcting and recorrecting.

“What’s it doing,” Pauling breathes. The Administrator blows out the flame of the still-hovering lighter.

“I don’t know.”

They watch.

---

“I still don’t understand why they won’t let us have a whole team,” Scout grumbles. “Got any fours?”

“Go fish,” Soldier replies. He grips his cards close to his face, eyeing the others suspiciously.

Scout swipes a card from the deck and crams it into his bursting hand.

“While we are on the subject of not playing with a full deck,” Spy cuts a glance at Soldier, who clutches his cards with renewed vigor, “I have been counting these cards, and--”

“Cheater!” Soldier slams his cards on the table.

“--and I am positive we are missing a few.”

“So buy a new pack!”

“What’s wrong with the one I made, you spendthrifts?”

Spy picks up a stack of paper napkins from the center of the locked crate that serves as their table. They flutter as he peels through them.

“The 16 of Shovels, the 3 of Commies, and the Ace of United States. Ah, and a Shovel Queen. Two Shovel Queens.”

“So?”

Spy exhales slowly and stands up, brushing ashes off his shirtfront. The afternoon heat has stripped them all down to ruins of their regular ensembles, most of them hatless, boots strewn about the floor. “I will get another pack.”

He ambles over to the counter and fishes a scorched billfold from his hip pocket, peeling a few away and re-pocketing the rest. After he feeds them into the slot and makes his selection, the MannCommissary™, chirps brightly and vends a new pack of Mann Co™ brand playing cards, which promptly jam in the chute. The creak of Spy’s gloves as he bunches his fists is audible across the room, and there is a sudden hush.

“Steady, lad...”

Spy holds up a hand. “No, no. I’m fine. It’s fine.” He punches the VEND button a few times, the machine buzzing denial at him.

“We need that machine,” Demo warns, gently.

“Yes. I know we need this machine.”

“See? This is why we should have an Engineer.” Scout snaps his gum, rearranging his hand.

“Oh, and for whom would you trade him, pray tell?” Medic speaks up from across the room, where he sprawls in misery. His customary pallor is flushed in the heat, sweaty and suffering. “The man who can knock them senseless with one gadget? How about one of the men with the tank-busting munitions, and the means to use them? How about me?” He almost stands, but decides against it, reaching for his tepid canteen instead. He drinks, and wipes his mouth on the back of his bare hand. “Maybe you would rather go back to real war, when things like seeping gut wounds and exploded heads meant more to us than having to walk back from the locker room.”

“I just don’t get--”

“We don’t have the power!” Medic barks. “Those toasters are sucking up more electricity than the BLU respawn ever did. That’s why we lost them. There was only enough power for six of us! They cannot just keep sending Engineers, or Snipers, or--” he bites down on the H, unwilling to say it. “So when we all got caught...and if I hadn’t followed him into that swarm, if I had stayed back like I am supposed to, maybe--” Scout stares steadily at his cards; Spy faces the machine unmoving, cigarette dangling. The names of their dead teammates; Medic’s expression--it’s unbearable.

“If we can’t keep them once we have them, I mean.” There is a stifling quiet. The bar’s suite of vending machines clicks and whirs, awaiting cash.

“What if we get more power? Will they come back?” Scout’s voice is small.

“I don’t know. Only Engineer knew things like that.” Medic’s eyes are closed again, head leaning against the clapboard wall. “We don’t know anything.”

---

Ms. Pauling awakens to the sound of the percolator. The Administrator doesn’t have to summon her, and as she swings her legs over the edge of her office cot, and finds her shoes in the dark, she can already smell a fresh cigarette. Does the woman ever sleep? Pauling’s never seen it.

Out in the Administrator’s office, the monitors are all switched on, covering the wall. The room blazes with cold light. Each camera shows another bit of the decoy base, including the lost buildings beyond the tunnel, and the huge carrier tank. The behemoth simply rolled over Hale’s barricades, ignoring the mines and the razorwire, and disgorged its spawn into the valley. And there it squats, black conduits swarming like worms into their electrical boxes. One camera shows the parasitic cables clearly, each splice and solder performed with the steady thoroughness of artificial intelligence. A few cameras were destroyed in the initial push, but seemingly by accident--the robots ignore them entirely.

“Has it moved?”

The Administrator pulls on her cigarette in reply. The largest screen still shows the Medibot stalled in front of the shipping container, and at first Pauling believes the picture tube is malfunctioning--the image seems fragmented, or fractalized; confusing, multiplied views of the same robot. But as she watches, blinking sleep away, another, identical robot rolls into frame, and stops. Then another. There are already five of them, just standing, swaying on their treads, waiting.

By the time she brings the coffee things out on the cutting board, there are seven. The Administrator is on her feet. Her cigarette grows a precarious ash as she stares at the silent picture.

“There,” she says.

“Where?”

“Watch the door.”

---


“It’s too hot to sleep,” Spy says, apologetically gesturing to the other side of the crate. In front of him are Soldier’s napkins, arranged in a series of careful stacks.

“Solitaire?”

“Solly-taire.”

Medic smirks mirthlessly and sits down opposite. The little fan whirs gamely, making the napkins flutter. On top of each stack, a robot’s exploded hex nut keeps them from blowing away. Medic picks one up, holding the free napkins down with a finger. It glints as he turns it in front of his spectacles.

“I did not anticipate this, this feeling of nostalgia for the teeth and gobbets and entrails we used to hose off our steps. Never. But I do miss it. I wish this were a chip off someone’s skull.”

“Si, si. But, caro Dottore, unlike me, you have not drunk nearly enough to be this maudlin.” Spy picks up the little flask from where it has been cooling in front of the fan, and shakes it gently at his opposite. Medic takes it and drinks, grimacing. The single bare bulb makes them both look older, the theatrical shadows under their jaws and cheekbones turning them into kindred ghouls.

“Are they asleep?”

“Ja. I left them all snoring. You are sure you will n--”

“No. Thank you. I have a horror of sleeping pills. It makes for restless nights, but clear ones, thank God. And you?”

“Force of habit, from my hospital days. Someone has to see through the night shift.”

They sit in silence, studying the “cards”.

“Can you play a Shovel Queen on a Proud Dad?”

“Whenever I have had to ask myself these things tonight, I take a drink.”

Medic dutifully pulls at the flask, and hands it back.

“I warn you,” Spy looks up, mock-seriously, “I am very drunk.” He sets the flask in front of the fan again. Medic’s grimace is more nuanced, until finally he swallows.

“What are we drinking?”

“Absinthe, my good doctor.” He smiles at Medic’s expression. “I know, I know. But I discovered through trial and error that it is the only thing the Scot will not appropriate. Though I admit that taking it neat is hardly ideal.”

“If Pyro were made of licorice and pine sweepings, this is what he would taste like.”

“What is Pyro made of?” Spy looks up through his eyebrows.

“I am afraid that falls under the aegis of doctor-patient confidentiality.”

Spy smiles ruefully, laying down a 13 of Crabs and replacing the hex nut on top. “Well, next time I lay hands on some ice water and a sugar cube, I’ll know with whom to share them.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes, letting the green poison seep into their stomachs.

“Can you play a--”

“Drink.”