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“Brother Anderson, guess what? Colin is going to take me to my place to get some of my stuff!”, Hannah burst into the med bay.
“Oh! Really?” Brother Anderson cast a surprised glance over Hannah’s shoulder to Colin, who had entered right behind her. This was an unexpected event, and perhaps not a choice he would have advised.
“Yes! Oh, I’m so excited! I don’t really know what to get though. Obviously my black jeans. And my good shampoo. Oh god - my shampoo! Ah! My oboe! Of course, my oboe! Oh, Colin, I can play you music! Would you like that?”
“Of course I would like that very much!” He stared intently at Hannah, partly to avoid catching Brother Anderson’s sideways glances. Despite his lack of an actual face, Brother Anderson was highly adept at the subtle art of sending the stink-eye. In fact, Colin swore he could somehow literally feel the negative response welling up within his robot companion, and he purposed to avoid it by taking away his opportunity to speak. “Hannah, I need to collect a few tools and things for this, so I’m going to go down to engineering - actually maybe you should come with me - we also need to find you a pressure suit, and...”
“A pressure suit? Like a spacesuit you mean? I need to wear a spacesuit?”
“Well, yes. We’ll need the suits for their life support systems, as well as their internal pressurization.”
“Oh. Um. Is it... well... don’t you need some kind of training for wearing a spacesuit?”
“Well, yes, but...” Colin began, but was interrupted by Brother Anderson.
“Pressure Suits are regulated equipment and under no circumstances are they to be operated without completion of an approved and accredited training course and certification from the jurisdictional health and safety board.”
Now it was Colin’s turn to give the stink-eye back to Brother Anderson. He really knew how to pick the worst times to fall into classic robot red-tape.
Hannah was crestfallen, her eyes became clouded with an empty darkness. Colin placed his arm around her shoulder and herded her toward the hatch.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll figure something out.”