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Elliot spooned eggs into his mouth, and found himself preferring to think about what kind of animal had laid them instead of focusing on the robot who hovered with a concerned air across the table. The cafeteria wasn’t loud enough to be a distraction.
“Does your brain hurt?” Hubcap asked. “I can get the medics back in here if you still have swelling.”
“I’m fine, Hubcap.” He took a drink of green juice that tasted unpleasantly tart. “Their scanners are new and functional, and I have every confidence that they fixed each broken blood vessel there was to find.”
“The tech isn’t all that new,” the robot protested. “Pseudo-new at best.”
“Not the point,” Elliot said around another mouthful of eggs. “No medical supplies are up to your standards unless they came straight from the factory. These people have equipment that’s perfectly good.”
The robot scowled, deliberately looking away with his chin on one fist and the fingers of his other hand tapping on the table. Elliot focused on his food.
“The only thing I will grant them,” Hubcap said. “Is that they have a very effective sedative for the frenzy. It sounds like the death rate here is negligible, and that’s mostly due to the SedEggs. But that does not make this planet safe!” he hurried to point out.
Elliot just nodded, chewing.
“Until someone figures out what actually causes the frenzy and how to stop it for good, sedatives are a temporary fix,” Hubcap concluded.
“I thought they decided it was brought on by psychological trauma from leaving our mother world,” Elliot said mildly.
Hubcap gave him a look. “You know better than that,” he said. “Humans first left Earth in the 1900’s. The frenzy has only been popping up for what, a decade?”
Elliot shrugged. “Something like that.” He polished off the weird juice and searched for a new topic. “Ooh, I smell fresh cookies!” A glance at the buffet table showed him a kitchen worker bringing out a plate of breakfast pastries that were turning heads with their newly-baked goodness.
Hubcap shrugged. “If you say so.”
Elliot gazed at him in amusement. “You can sniff out a lost hiker using nothing but an old sock, but you can’t smell cookies right out of the oven? And you make fun of me for inferior senses!”
The robot pointed a finger at his grinning face. “Yes, I do. When you show me a cookie that I can use for more than an inefficient paperweight, then I might be interested in detecting their scent.”
Elliot eyed the pastries, still smiling. “I dunno, man. You’re missing out.”
“And you don’t have heat vision at all. I can tell you which of those cookies is still warm, as well as which plate is too hot to touch and which coffee has gone cold. I win.”
Elliot tilted his head. “I suppose that’s fair.” He looked at his watch. “On another note, we’re behind schedule, and that’s a problem. Has Vic said what we’ll be doing today? It looks like the locals are already out and about.”
Hubcap leaned both elbows on the table. “No, but someone from the office of Lord-Lee The Overboss stopped by while you were still resting your squishy brain, and he sent some ideas for low-impact work.”
“Lord-Lee?”
“I hear that’s his preferred nickname these days. Or Righteous-Lee, or Majestic-Lee, or Triumphant-Lee. You know, the nice complimentary stuff.”
“Uh-huh,” Elliot said.
“Sometimes he goes by more specific names, like Speedi-Lee when he gets things done fast, or Unexpected-Lee when he sneaks up on somebody.”
“I do believe you’re making that up,” Elliot said, tossing his napkin onto his plate.
“Me?” Hubcap asked. “Would I behave so false-lee? Underhanded-lee?”
“Only on days that end in a Y,” Elliot said. He leaned back in his chair.
“You wound me!” Hubcap exclaimed. “So deep-lee and mortal-lee!”
“I’m sure you’ll get over it. You might say you recover quick—”
“Lee!” Hubcap finished.
“Look at that, you’re better already!” Elliot pushed back from the table and picked up his tray. “Let’s go find the others, shall we? I’m more than ready for some low-impact adventures.”
“Yes, I will take any impacts for you!” Hubcap said, bounding to his feet. “And today is all about SCIENCE!”
Elliot hazarded a guess. “Is this the kind of science that will leave me wishing I hadn’t eaten so many eggs?”
“Probably!” Hubcap said with delight.
“I will puke on you, given a chance,” Elliot said.
The robot clapped him on the back. “Just be sure to tell me, in the name of scientific curiosity, how they taste on the way back up.”
“Oh, I’ll make sure you know.”
––––––––
Half an hour later, Elliot regarded Hubcap through the viewplate of a full-body biohazard suit. “I have detected a flaw. I can’t throw up in this.”
“Well, technically you can...” the robot said with a grin, encased in his own suit. “But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Elliot shook a fist at his friend, making the sleeve crinkle. It smelled like plastic inside the suit. At least the thing appeared to be a new one, not gear that got washed once a month. Resigned, Elliot turned to watch the camera crew getting into their own suits. Local scientist types were moving around the cleanroom, helping to make sure everything was zipped and sealed in the safest manner possible. Soon the team had passed inspection and the camera crew were picking up their carefully-wrapped video equipment. When Vic was satisfied that the cameras would still work through the wrapping, she set up the filming angles for Elliot and Hubcap’s exit from the room.
The large scanning arch looming in the doorway made Elliot a little worried about contagion, but no lights lit up in alarm as a local led the way through. Elliot followed her. He breathed easier when he was on the other side. It occurred to him that the scan on the way back would be more important, but he was still glad that things were going smoothly now. The clean room was so white and sterile, he felt like any sign of untidiness on his part would reflect badly on the team as a whole.
The room on the other side of the scanner was painted in a calmer off-white, but it was still very clean. And this one held their new boss for the day. Elliot squared his shoulders and greeted her with Hubcap at his side and cameras all around.
“Hi there,” said the stocky and cheerful woman in another biohazard suit, offering a hand to shake. She was a study in contrasts, with dark skin showing through the viewplate in the white suit, and a bright smile competing for attention with the fringe of blue hair — not the only person here with dyed hair, but the most vibrant Elliot had seen. “Welcome to the lab,” she said. “I’m Sera Jones.” She had just finished the sentence when someone called for her attention from a different doorway, addressing her as “Dippy.”
“...Serendipity, that is,” she amended, turning to give instructions on where to put a certain box of supplies. The other suit-wearing scientist left with a nod, and the boss turned back to her guests. “As I was saying, you can call me Sera. Nice to meet all of you.”
She shook hands with Hubcap too, and introductions were made. Sera was especially curious about Hubcap’s name. “Did you start out in the auto industry?”
“That’s a common misconception,” Hubcap said, raising a suit-covered finger. “Actually, I narrowly avoided being melted down to make car parts, back in the old days before I was legally a person.” He shrugged. “I chose the name as a reminder not to get complacent.”
Sera nodded slowly. “Well, all right then,” she said. “So it’s not your original title.”
“No, the factory designated ‘name’ will not be uttered, and should die in a particularly hot fire.”
“Oh, now I have to know!” she said with a smile. “I won’t tell.”
Hubcap gestured to the cameras. “This is all being filmed for posterity. So ... no.”
Sera continued trying to wheedle it out of him. Elliot would never betray his friend’s trust by sharing that particular secret, but he wasn’t above leaning over and pretending to whisper it. Hubcap whacked him on the arm.
“Hey,” he said with a glare. “I will shave you in your sleep.”
Elliot just grinned, and Sera changed the subject by ushering them on to do some actual work. Elliot followed eagerly.
But first, they would need to take a cart ride to the far end of the science wing. These carts turned out to be simple hover platforms with seats, railings, and an odd amount of floor space in the front. When everyone climbed onto two of the carts, and not a single local touched the seatbelts despite the cameras, Elliot privately decided that the belts and the floor space were both in case of frenzy. Unconscious people would need to be restrained or laid flat.
“Can I drive?” Hubcap asked. “I have a permit!”
Despite his assertions of expertise, Sera did not allow the robot to drive. Instead she piloted the lead cart down a long hallway that had only every third light turned on, while a solemn local man drove the other.
Elliot talked to the man about saving electricity while they rode. They both ignored Hubcap being a chatterbox and rocking the lead cart. Elliot knew that Vic could handle Hubcap’s shenanigans just fine. And the cameras were off now, so it wouldn’t be giving any young viewers bad ideas about vehicle safety.
Soon enough, the carts arrived at their destination: a brightly lit chamber with parked carts and doors lining the walls. While Elliot disembarked and the cameras got back into position, Hubcap was already guessing which door they would be headed through.
“Ooh, they’re even color-coded,” the robot said. “Will it be the green door, cryptically marked “Wash”? Or the black door, ominously labeled “Purifying?”
“We’ll be taking the red door,” Sera told him as Elliot walked up. “Where we finalize the ingredients into a product we can use and sell.”
Hubcap sidled up to a camera to mutter. “I never would have guessed that’s what happens here.” He pointed up to the label over the door, which read “Finalizing.”
Elliot nodded. “A shocker, to be sure.”
“This way,” the boss said, waving the duo forward. “Mind you don’t bump into anything. Glass vials full of poison are the name of the game.”
“Duly noted,” Elliot said. “So what will we be doing to finalize things?” Dale’s camera filmed over his shoulder as he followed Sera through the red door into a room full of tables and equipment, with scientists in biohazard suits doing various things to the promised glass vials. A faint chemical smell drifted through his suit’s filter.
“Mostly adding ingredients and some diluting agents to the concentrated toxins that come from the purifying room,” the short woman told him. She stepped aside as the camera crew slid past, still filming. “And we’ll have to test to make sure it’s the right ratio for the best effects.”
Hubcap stuck his head around the door frame. “What do you test it on? Human subjects, perhaps?”
“No,” Sera laughed. “Nothing like that. We just analyze it with machinery to see the chemical composition, then run virtual tests.”
“Bah, that’s no fun,” the robot said.
“Neither is an overdose of poison, funnily enough,” the scientist replied. “A lot of the steps to this are incredibly delicate, but there are a few things that we can let you guys help us with.”
“Such as?” Elliot asked.
“Mostly measuring out the ingredients and putting the little containers into the machines. Things like that.”
“Sounds fascinating!” Hubcap declared. “On with the science!”
Elliot glanced at Vic, privately hoping that the science would be more interesting than he feared it might be.
––––––––
“So I was wondering,” Hubcap said as he watched the test tubes spin with his head on the counter. “Can somebody frenzy on boredom? I mean, it is an emotion, right?”
“Hush,” Elliot said, keeping an eye on the digital readout that kept track of how many times the rack had spun.
“It’s a legitimate question!” Hubcap protested. “I know the frenzy is all mysterious and unexplainable, but surely someone here has enough experience with it to say. Who can I ask?” He raised his head and looked around eagerly, but Elliot shushed him.
“I’m sure they all find their jobs to be full of fascinating scientific interest,” the human said.
“Ha, only on the good days,” offered a passing scientist with an armload of empty test tubes. His breath fogged the inside of his mask. “The rest of the time, it’s just about playing music and trying to stay sane.”
“Music!” Hubcap exclaimed. “That’s what we need! Where is it, man? Turn it on!”
“Well, the speakers are a little tetchy,” the man said, setting down his armload. “I can give it a try, but it may not work. It takes a while to get new supplies here, at least for things that aren’t classified as important.”
“Music is always important,” Hubcap declared. “Go on and give it a whirl.”
The man did, making his way to the other side of the crowded room to fiddle with a bit of machinery that had been hidden by a stack of boxes. After a few silent moments, static blasted the air for a startling split-second, making all the humans flinch and the man apologize. Then he twisted more knobs and dials, and only then did the music pour forth.
It was a merry little ditty about snowballs and cooking pies and family togetherness. One that Hubcap knew Elliot hated with a passion.
“A little out of season, don’t you think?” Hubcap asked mildly while his co-host tried to cover his ears through his suit.
“Yeah, sorry; we had it on random shuffle last,” the man said as he hurried to press another button. The holiday cheer was replaced by peppy, wordless piano. “How’s that?” the man asked.
“That will do just fine,” Elliot said. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” The man gathered up his test tubes and wove his way to the door, past the beige worktables staffed by scientists in white suits. Some of the vials were brightly colored, but otherwise the room was dull to look at. Nothing even smelled interesting; Hubcap knew that every vial was likely the strongest of poison, but none set off warning bells for him. This was disappointing to say the least.
Hubcap turned his attention back to the still-spinning test tube rack. The numbers were getting higher, but not there yet. He waggled his gloved hands in mock-excitement. Elliot set a finger on the Stop button, and moments later, pressed it.
Hubcap dinged like a cooking timer. “Poison’s done!” he declared, turning to look for the overseer and bonking his head on a camera instead. “Ow! Use the zoom function, Dale! You don’t have to stand that close!”
The chastised cameraman stepped back as Elliot mused aloud. “Y’know, I often wonder why you say ‘ow,’ when we both know that didn’t hurt.”
“Many reasons!” Hubcap ticked off points on his fingers while the test tube rack spun to a tinkling halt. “It’s part of fitting in with you fleshy types, and not making anyone jealous of my supreme durability. It shows impressionable human larvae watching our show an accurate representation of the reaction they could expect to have. It’s programmed habit. I find it funny. It’s more TV-acceptible than saying -bleep-.” In place of a word, he mimicked the TV censor noise. Elliot just shook his head. Hubcap was about to go on when Sera appeared from behind the cameras and asked about the state of the test tubes.
“Just finished,” Elliot told her. “Now what?”
“Now we carefully put them into one of these lovely padded boxes, and bring them to that station over there.” The short woman set the box on the counter and waved to a table at the other end of the room. She began to demonstrate the proper packing procedure, then stopped when Hubcap pointed to her hands.
“Hang on a moment. How many fingers do you have?” he asked.
Sera laughed and held up her hands, and it was obvious that her suit must have been custom made. “Six on each hand,” she admitted with a grin. “They tell me it’s really rare for the extra finger to be functional.”
“You don’t say!” Hubcap gave one hand an exploratory poke.
The cameras zoomed in, and Elliot also got a look. “I thought people usually had that sort of thing removed as infants,” he said. “I always thought it kind of a shame; as a kid I wanted extra fingers. I was convinced that I could do much more with them.”
“Normally people do get them removed,” Sera said. “Mostly to keep the kids from getting picked on later, but my parents were big believers in random chance happening for a reason.” She bobbed her head. “Thus the name.”
Hubcap looked up from his inspection. “What name? Oh right, Serendipity. Happy chance indeed. Well, I am impressed with your fleshy digits.”
Elliot stage-whispered. “That’s high praise coming from him.”
Hubcap flicked his helmet in reply.
“Ow,” Elliot said, while Sera laughed.
Hubcap was still curious. “So was child-Elliot right? Does this allow you to play instruments in mindblowing fashions, undreamt-of by lesser mortals?”
“It might if I played any,” the scientist replied. “As it is, I couldn’t tell you. But I’m told I handle syringes and test tubes with an especially steady hand.”
“Two steady hands!” interjected a passing hazard suit with a female voice.
“Yes, two hands.” Sera said. “Thank you so much, Jaya, for helping me count.”
The younger woman paused long enough to give the group a thumbs up, then move on to the other end of the room.
Hubcap and Elliot asked a few more questions about the boss’s extra fingers, then reluctantly got back to work. As they did, Elliot talked about someone he’d known as a child with an extra toe. Hubcap packed test tubes while the human jawed away.
“He got the impression from science class that one of his parents had to have an extra one too, and since they didn’t, he went home and asked when they were planning to tell him he was adopted.” Elliot gave the cameras a concerned look while he picked up a test tube.
Hubcap blinked his wiper panels. “And they said?”
“They got in a fight, because he wasn’t adopted. Then the kid brought it up when all the relatives were visiting, and the grandma said ‘Oh, your father used to have an extra toe! We got it removed when he was a baby.’”
Hubcap picked up the container of vials. “That sounds like an unfortunate family dinner.”
“You would be correct!” Elliot stood aside. The anecdote was clearly concluded, recorded for the editors to keep or toss, like many of the human’s stories. Hubcap nodded and ceremoniously set off with the container toward the table across the room, where new suit-clad scientists promptly took the tubes out again.
“Hello again, Mister Test Tube!” Hubcap greeted one vial of yellow liquid. “Why I haven’t seen your face in, oh, three seconds!” The technicians around him chuckled, and Elliot objected that it had been at least twenty seconds. “Oh, glory be, could it be true?” Hubcap pressed both hands to his facemask. “That’s nigh unto an eternity!”
The younger scientists laughed again, and Elliot said. “That only encourages him, you know.”
This of course prompted Hubcap to begin enacting conversations between two different test tubes, which he kept up until Sera told him sternly to quit fooling about.
“Yes’m,” he said, placing the test tubes back in the box and bowing his head. “I will not risk breakage of the horrible toxic bad-stuff-which-will-be-good-stuff.” He stepped back a pace with his hands up, bumping into Dale and stepping down on the cameraman’s foot.
The robot turned with superhuman reflexes, but Dale was already on his way to the floor. Hubcap snatched the camera from his hands, leaving the human to tumble into a pile of knees and elbows. The two nearest technicians jumped back, first surprised, then bursting into laughter when Hubcap posed with his save.
“I got it!” he said. “Eh? Eh? Oh, good landing, Dale,” he said as an aside. “But you should really consider rolling when you fall; it’s much easier on the joints.”
The cameraman got to his feet while Sera asked if he was hurt, and one of the technicians kept laughing.
“No, I’m fine,” Dale said uncomfortably, adjusting his suit and taking the camera back. He glanced at the cackling woman next to him, who was starting to wheeze from laughter.
“Jaya,” the boss said sharply. When only laughing greeted her, she grabbed the young woman’s shoulder and shook her hard enough to make her head bob. But the technician laughed louder, eyes staring. Sera swore. “Give me space!” she shouted, turning the other woman to face away from her, then pulling at the safety tab on the laughing scientist’s suit.
“It’s frenzy,” Hubcap exclaimed as he hovered about the two. “What can I do?” He set down the camera as heads popped up all around the room and Vic hurried over.
“Stay back,” Sera instructed. She pulled back the covering over the tiny hypospray built into the suit, and lined it up with the back of Jaya’s neck.
But Jaya was doubling over in convulsions that were barely recognizable as laughter any more, and her neck wasn’t holding still. Sera muttered about puncturing the suit with a SedEgg if she needed to.
Ignoring the directions to keep his distance, Hubcap grabbed the young scientist’s shoulders to hold her in place. He tried not to leave bruises. Then Jaya’s knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor, taking Hubcap and Sera with her.
“Oh my god, just put her in a headlock!” a man exclaimed. Gloved hands appeared to wrench Jaya’s head downward, baring her neck. Sera aimed the hypospray while Hubcap leveled a stern glance at the man yelling directions.
“Nobody here knows the first thing about subduing a frenzier!” the man said. “We should all be taking judo classes, but no! Meditative breathing, my ass!” His face was reddening inside the suit. He held his coworker’s head down like he had a grudge, and he shouted far louder than necessary. Hubcap tried to free a hand to reach his SedEgg.
Another man crept up behind the first and pulled the tab at his neck. But the angry scientist whirled to yell at the new target.
Hubcap felt Jaya go limp as Sera fired the sedative. He looked away from the impending fight for just long enough to make sure Jaya didn’t bump her head during the boneless slide to the floor. Then a foot hit his shoulder and knocked him aside.
The two men were a vicious whirlwind of limbs, their shouts turned into a wordless harmony of rage. Scientists were leaping out of the way, some focused on getting to safety while others tried to find an opening with a SedEgg. One dragged a table covered in vials to the far side of the room. Another hid under it.
Hubcap was getting his feet under him to leap into the fray when a tall woman landed a SedEgg on one combatant, then two more got the other. Both men collapsed. Sera got to her feet and shot a hand in to the air.
“Clear!” she called. “Who’s okay?”
Hands raised around the room in a chorus of clears. The shivering figure under the table didn’t answer. Someone else crawled under with comforting words and a SedEgg, then crawled out dragging a sedated form. Everyone was accounted for.
Hubcap found Elliot and the others gathered against the wall, as far out of the way as possible. Every face was wide-eyed and every camera was filming. They still filmed now, as Hubcap joined them in watching the scientists nervously clean up the mess.
Sera set the speakers to playing some babbling-brook nature sounds while foldable gurneys were brought out of closet storage and the four unconscious people were loaded onto them. No one spoke. Within seconds, the gurneys were wheeling away with extra escorts, and the other scientists were leaving the room in unseemly haste.
The camera crew hurried to join them. Hubcap kept a close eye on his humans, SedEgg ready and his other hand free to grab.
Dale seemed the most anxious. “Four people!” the cameraman whispered loudly. “Four at once! And just two days after the last attack!”
Elliot agreed, following him out the door. “Yeah, that’s a lot. And intense.”
Hubcap looked at Vic, who was frowning down at her camera as she walked. “Do we want to ask how many times we’re likely to go through this while we’re here?”
Vic nodded. “I’m starting to think certain details were left out of the briefing about this place. I need to talk to Mr. Lee.”
A voice rose in panic ahead of them. Heads snapped up. Hubcap shoved past his coworkers to get a clear view, and saw one white-suited form clinging to the bars of a cart and wailing that there weren’t enough seats to get everyone to safety. Other scientists swarmed to hold the man in place while someone pressed the hypospray. He fell limply onto the cart. Two others lifted his feet and piled onboard, sending the cart rocketing down the hall. One drove while the other held a SedEgg aloft. Hubcap hoped that they would make it.
At the rising murmur of worry, Sera calmed the mad rush to the remaining carts. She reminded her subordinates that they were levelheaded professionals who had weathered this storm many times before. Then she commanded them to sing.
That same obnoxious holiday song filled the cavernous room, accompanied by exasperated looks and resignation. Hubcap snuck a look at Elliot.
His incredulous expression was quite the sight. Hubcap snickered.
Sera waved them forward. “Proven technique for calming a group,” she said over the chorus. “Works for us. Now up you go! Visiting celebrities get first priority. Nina, Will, drive safe and come right back.”
Two scientists stopped singing and hopped into the drivers’ seats. Elliot thanked Sera for everything. The camera crew climbed on and held tight when the carts took off.
Hubcap watched the cluster of scientists recede into the distance, their song echoing through the building while they waited for their ride into the sunlight.
The boring science had turned interesting, but not in a good way. Not unless the editors wanted to completely change the tone of the show. Hubcap set his jaw and faced forward, keeping an eye on the humans around him.