91 Watching His Back

Jackeye waited in silence as C1313 stared blankly at the shelves of fossil fuel, communicating with the Space Spoon. In a fit of boredom, he leaned his head over the counter to take a breather. There were too many people around, and by "people," he meant robots.

There were so many that Jackeye could no longer differentiate between them. Most of the ones who appeared human wore torn or frayed clothes, but some wore none at all.

“Tejeda says they can’t break through the Rurar’s defenses to land on that moon.” C1313’s report came in. “Can you hack in a console or something to give them an opening?”

A serving robot carried a tray of drinks past them, so they paused for a while.

Jackeye looked around. At the far end of the bar, there was a console. His eyes lit up for a mere second, and he could tell the system was easily breakable.

He had been staring at it for a few seconds when he heard C1313 say, "You're not going to do anything rash, are you?"