(Photo by Anthony 🙂 )

The workday was over and Matiew found himself lying on his bed, still fully clothed, just staring up at the ceiling and thinking. BaBS-Y hadn’t made its usual daily visit to check on the salon. A lot of people seemed relieved by that fact but not Matiew.

“Robots don’t forget to do a task they’re programmed to perform,” he whispered to himself for the hundredth time. “They don’t get bored of repetitive tasks either.”

What was the robot doing now, if not looking for a weakness in the system Matiew and Min had devised to keep BaBS-Y away from the salon? He just needed BaBS-Y to leave things alone for another day or so. Then, he and the small team Mr Jorgenson was assembling would be able to go down there and, hopefully, deescalate the situation.

Matiew rolled over onto his side. It was still too early to go to bed. He ought to be making dinner, or ordering something to be delivered from the kitchens or restaurants. Most people Matiew knew were stress eaters. A good percentage of the RCC had begun to gain a bit of weight because of everything that’s been going on with BaBS-Y. For better or worse, Matiew was the opposite of a stress eater. The steak and shrimp he’d had this morning was the only thing that sounded appetizing enough to overcome his current reluctance towards eating.

Normally, Matiew would be out right now, either with friends eating out or else by himself at the gym. Neither option was appealing to him anymore.

“I do need to get out,” he muttered, knowing that staying locked up in his quarters whenever he wasn’t at work wasn’t doing his mental health any favors. “Come on,” he grunted and sat himself up in bed.

A few minutes later, he was heading up inside the elevator. He had his headphones on, blocking out any potential insults. He wasn’t listening to music and instead had “The Sounds of Cities” playing. Someone on Earth had had the brilliant idea to go around various places and just walk around while recording audio. Places that the colony ships couldn’t replicate. Places that the colonists, the first generation at least, might miss.

At first, Matiew had scoffed at the idea of listening to those sorts of audio files. A lot of people had the same reaction at first. Now, each new batch of audio files were eagerly anticipated by a decent amount of the colonists.

Cities were a lot less noisy these days than when Matiew was growing up. Back then there were still cars with combustion engines, though admittedly not that many. The new city sounds were more like a hum, with the sound of tires on pavement being the dominant vehicle noise. Some conversations drifted in and out as the person making the recording walked by different groups. Some were street vendors, others were students on their way to school. A few voices were more angry, shouting insults in the distance. At one point, Matiew even heard a siren. There were sirens on the Thesis as well, but they weren’t the same and were employed with much greater infrequency than those on Earth.

The elevator reached its destination and Matiew wheeled himself out, removing his headphones and taking in the sight and sound of the sector. The air was heavy and damp, and there were a few evening birds calling out to one another while insects chirped. The lights above were dimmed in mimicry of the Earth’s day/night cycle. Sector thirty was one of the wilderness sectors. It was here that certain species of beneficial insects, fish, and smaller animals were allowed to maintain their populations. Decades of research had gone into identifying which species would be needed, and then decades more to find the best ways to ensure their longevity as a species over the long voyage. What set this wilderness sector apart from most of the others was the fact that it had a boardwalk. It wasn’t a very long loop trail, but the fact that it was a place he could go in his wheelchair meant it was the one he frequented the most. Although, that wasn’t saying much since he still didn’t come here all that often.

The reason why tonight he’d chosen to come here was because this sector had mosquitoes. As it turned out, mosquito larva were a key component to many ecosystems. Since people didn’t generally like mosquitoes, though, Matiew had long since found out that this was the ideal place for a private stroll. The animals in most of the other wilderness sectors were at least somewhat accustomed to people but not so on sector thirty. The silence surrounded Matiew as he went further into the sector as his presence became known. Birds quieted, frogs stopped croaking, and even the insects would fall silent while he rolled past them.

Eventually he heard a soft trickling of water and caught glimpses of light reflecting off of water. Trees and some marshy plants became more common the farther into the sector Matiew went until he reached the center where the boardwalk bent and turned to begin its return trip towards the elevator. However, Matiew didn’t follow the boardwalk right away. Instead, he halted and looked out over the pond that dominated the other half of the sector. It was quite dark now, although there were a few motion activated lights on the boardwalk to help any late night visitors avoid inadvertently stepping off the boardwalk. After a few minutes, those lights around Matiew shut off and he was left in sudden darkness. That came as no surprise. He’d been waiting for it to happen. Slowly, his eyes began to adjust to the darkness and soon he could begin to make out the shapes of things around him. Pinpricks of light from above mimicked the constellations outside the Thesis and a glowing orb, passing almost too slowly to notice its motion, substituted for the moon.

Everything was for a purpose, of course. Several species wouldn’t complete their life cycles without the right day/night or lunar cycles. They couldn’t replicate the pull of the moon’s gravity but increasing or decreasing the atmospheric pressure instead seemed to be good enough for the species on board. Currently it was a full moon.

Flying insects began to skim the surface of the pond. Some were hunting, some were laying their eggs, and some got eaten by the fish in the pond before they could do either one. There wasn’t enough light for Matiew to really see much detail but the faint splashes here and there were enough to tell him what was happening. Before too much longer, the frogs began to croak again and some unseen birds or possibly bats began to take wing, making sure the insects didn’t go unchecked.

Lots of people would find the setting peaceful. That was one of the main reasons Matiew had come here. Unfortunately, nature had never really been his thing and the longer he sat there, the more he knew this wasn’t going to help him calm his nerves. He should just go back to his quarters, or maybe he could go to the gym. With his headphones on, most people were willing to leave him alone and those who did express their frustrations with him would only be heard by him if they were particularly loud and run the risk of getting themselves thrown out.

With a heavy and disappointed sigh, Matiew turned to begin making his way back towards the elevator. However, as he did, he saw that the lights along the boardwalk were lighting up, revealing someone else walking along the boardwalk. The lights around Matiew blinked on, having sensed his motion from turning around and the other visitor to sector thirty met Matiew’s gaze. There was a brief hesitation in their steps and then they picked up their pace. They were too far away and the light too dim for Matiew to make out any clear details other than that they were tall and broad shouldered.

“Hey!” the man called out, “I want to talk to you and I don’t like how you ignored me back there!”

Matiew could see the anger now in his posture, in addition to hearing it in his voice. Before he could really think through his options, Matiew began wheeling himself down along the loop trail opposite the other man.

“I’m sorry, I had my headphones on,” Matiew called out, trying not to shout or sound like he was anything other than apologetic. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“Well you can hear me now,” the man shouted back, “and stop moving away from me. We’re going to talk!”

Matiew didn’t respond this time and instead focused on just moving as quickly as he could towards the elevator. Something about the way the man spoke, the way he moved, all set off warnings in his head that told him he didn’t want to talk to that man under any circumstances.

“Get over here!”

Matiew didn’t even look away from the boardwalk as he pumped his arms, making him move as fast as he could. Pounding footsteps on the boardwalk were followed by a crash of underbrush as the man abandoned the walkway in favor of cutting directly across the marshy ground. Splashing and swearing made it all too easy for Matiew to know he wasn’t going to reach the elevator before the man caught up with him.

“HEY!”

Matiew turned his head just in time to see the form of the man as he leapt out of the marsh and bowled into Matiew. He was knocked from his wheelchair which in turn was hurled, either by momentum or by the man himself, into the darkness where it landed with a muddy splash.

A hand took hold of Matiew’s shirt, just below his collar, and a fist came down. His jaw took the hit and Matiew’s vision flashed as his head snapped back onto the boardwalk. He tried to wriggle free but a heavy knee came down onto his stomach, knocking the breath out of him while also pinning him down.

“You’re gonna tell me what happened, alright!” the man bellowed. “No more excuses! No more half answers!”

“Tell you what?” Matiew managed to say as he gasped for breath.

“You tell me where my wife is! She was down there, getting her hair done, and then –

He broke off, searching for words. When he couldn’t find them, he resumed punching Matiew. Self defense was not a thing Matiew had ever studied and he was defenseless, only able to hold up his arms in front of his face as best he could to protect himself from the worst of it.

“She’s gone,” the man growled. “They said they threw them all out of the ship, but they shouldn’t have done that. They shouldn’t have done it.”

His punches were coming slower now, with less force behind them. Eventually, the man just stopped. He still held Matiew down, but the fight in him seemed to have burned itself out.

“You had no right to throw them out of the ship,” his voice was low and dangerous.

Matiew’s lip and nose were bleeding freely and he was certain a few teeth had been knocked loose. His arms and ribs ached but fortunately he didn’t think anything was broken.

“It wasn’t my decision,” Matiew whimpered.

“That’s a cowards excuse,” the man spat in Matiew’s face. “You should have known it was wrong and refused to do it!”

He slapped Matiew across the cheek.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Matiew pleaded, “It was the mission director who made the call.”

“WEAK!” he bellowed, punching the ground right beside Matiew’s head. “You should have just sent people down there. What’s one stupid salon bot?”

Matiew had no reply for him. It had been suggested, of course, to send some people down to deal with BaBS-Y, but in those early days of the incident there were a lot more pressing issues. Then, once it became public about what BaBS-Y was doing, this had seemed like the most expeditious means of stopping the robot.

“Fine,” grumbled the man, “don’t talk to me. Seems that’s all you’re good at so I’ll help you out with that.”

He got up, Matiew relaxing a bit only to be met with a kick to his stomach. Then a kick to his face and it all became too great for him as he lost his grip on consciousness.