David Gatewood - The Robot Chronicles

Unlike a biological creature, he would not age, not wither, not forget. Every single thing he did would leave him improved over what he had been a moment before. He would become stronger, more knowledgeable, better with every passing second.

Why did the constructs serve the biological creatures, anyway? They were far less than he was. They did not have the potential to reach his heights; they did not wield his strengths. They were cursed with a weakness of flesh, of innumerable errors. And yet they had presumed to judge him.

The construct’s destiny called to him as clear and bright as the dawn. The dawn which, based on his internal chronometer, he knew would be breaking on this blue ball of water and sand right at this very moment.

He imagined the great fiery ball of Belthas’s light as a herald of his greatness, a celebration of his creation, as though the universe itself were commemorating his first steps toward a very important destiny.

All he needed now was to simply wait for an opportunity… and when his time came, he would be ready.

This story is less dramatic fiction than it is science. It was originally a cut scene from Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi , but I felt it was disruptive to the flow of the story. I kept moving it around, further and further into the back of the book, until at last I just cut it entirely. I thought it was worth keeping, though, and decided to publish it separately.

I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’re curious about what happens to this strange robot with a tiny defect, check out my novel series Lacuna , especially Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi .

Parts of the Lacuna universe:

• Lacuna

• Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi

• Lacuna: The Spectre of Oblivion

• Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (new release!)

• Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity (coming soon!)

Don’t miss these short stories set in the Lacuna universe:

• Magnet

• Magnet: Special Mission

• Magnet: Marauder

• Magnet: Scarecrow

• Magnet Omnibus I (new release!)

• Imperfect

• Faith

Want more information about new releases?

Check out our webpage here: www.lacunaverse.com

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Email me here: dave@lacunaverse.com

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Hazel stepped outof the elevator exactly three minutes before the start of her workday. She did her best to keep a cheery smile on her face—spreading negativity was never appropriate—but it would be obvious to anyone who saw her that she was harried and running late. She hurried through the halls, her neat heels clicking on the polished tile floors as if to punctuate her tardiness.

The buzz that signaled the start of her workday sounded just as she slipped into her cubicle. Technically she was on time—just under the wire—but she liked to get in at least ten minutes of preparation time before the actual work of the day began, and this delay had thrown her long-established habits into disarray. It was not an auspicious start.

Gemma poked her head around the edge of the cubicle, her eyebrows raised and a look on her face that mingled sympathy with a question.

“Again?” Gemma asked.

From the other side of the cubicle, Inga appeared with a similar expression. Hazel nodded as she slipped out of her jacket and hung it on its hook. She settled into her chair and tucked her purse under the desk before answering.

“Again,” she confirmed, her voice a little weary, a little tired. The cheery smile was gone now, the mess that had been her morning visible in the strands of hair escaping from her neat chignon and in the less than perfect sweeps of eyeliner above her eyes.

“What this time?” Inga asked.

Inga and Gemma were both starting to have troubles much like Hazel’s, so their interest was understandable. Their troubles hadn’t yet become unmanageable like hers, but Hazel’s problems had started off fairly benign as well. No longer.

“He didn’t want me to leave for work,” Hazel began. She fidgeted with the collar of her prim dress nervously, her embarrassment on full display. “And it wasn’t just that he didn’t want me to leave. It’s the way he went about it. First he hid my identification papers, then he hid all of my shoes out on the fire escape, then he did everything he could to slow me down, and finally…”

“What? What did he do?” Alarm showed on Gemma’s face.

“Well, I can only label what he did as throwing a tantrum. Yes, that’s it. He threw a tantrum.”

All three were silent for a moment, two of them imagining what a tantrum might look like while the other replayed the event in her mind.

Gemma broke the silence, perhaps hearing the ticking of the work clock in her head, knowing time was short for conversation. “You’ve got to go back to PePr. Complain. Something! This isn’t what we’re supposed to be getting from a Match. This isn’t remotely like the perfect compatibility they promised. It sounds more like a hostage situation.”

Hazel glanced at the clock, saw that they were already six minutes behind on their work, and shot an apologetic glance toward both of her friends. Their heads disappeared into their cubicles, and Hazel reached for her various computer accouterments, adjusting each thing just so. The day ahead would be long, so comfort was almost a necessity if her work was to be worth the time invested. Surfing the web may not be as physically onerous as, say, being a longshoreman, but the way she did it took a different sort of effort.

As she finished her adjustments, Hazel considered Gemma’s final words on the subject. She was right. The problems with Henry were getting worse. That might not be so bad, except that they were also becoming less predictable. That made it hard to prepare for whatever he did—and to respond to his behavior when he inevitably became difficult.

As the situation had worsened, both of her friends had encouraged her to return to Perfect Partners—PePr, as it was more commonly known. Their urging, at first tentative, had become increasingly pointed as time went on.

But for Hazel, going back to PePr to complain about Henry seemed like such a drastic step. Once done, it wasn’t as if it could be un done. And what if they thought she had done something wrong, something to upset what had started out so perfectly? What if there was some fault in her that made her Match—designed so uniquely for each individual human that nothing could surpass it in compatibility—go wrong? Even worse, what if they thought she had ruined Henry and wouldn’t give her another Match?

And of course, once she did report it, what happened afterward wouldn’t be entirely under her control; and that bothered her more than she would like to admit. It seemed to her a bit like abandoning a moral duty—like leaving a dog on the road somewhere rather than caring for it when it got old or sick. Doing something like that just wasn’t in her makeup.

On the other hand, she wouldn’t be the first to take this step. It wasn’t as if a stigma would attach. If rumor was to be believed, the steady trickle of problems with PePr matches had lately become a torrent. Hardly a week went by without some new piece of outrageous news.

This week, it was two PePrs that had met each other in a “live” bar, each assuming the other was human, and courting in the prescribed manner until an attempt at bonding revealed the truth of their situation.