Chapter 3

LOCATION: PETROV STATIONSYSTEM: GLIESE 667

DATE: 2397

Years passed for Alexander in the blink of an eye. Most of it was repetitive and dull, especially pretending to still be a dutiful robot. Not that he told anyone of his ability to act independently, especially not Yuri. With his situation uncertain, he decided to take a cautious approach to his freedom so he didn't draw undue attention to his circumstances. It wasn't like he was in a hurry.

This slow approach had worked in his favor so far. It gave him time to see what type of man Yuri truly was. Turns out he was the type that would sell his mother if the price was right. So not great. But he wasn't the worst person he had run into on this station. Alexander had carried more than one unmarked box to a set of sketchy individuals over the last two years. Given the choice, he would not have associated with those people at all.

He needed to free himself from Yuri's control before the man decided selling him was worth more than keeping him around. Not that the man ever seemed to part with any of his junk. Alexander swore the man's collection grew every time he sold some part or component.

The first idea Alexander had about freeing himself was to blackmail the man into selling the robot to his fake persona. After weeks of thinking about the plan, he decided to scrap the idea. The man he purchased his fake ID from was one of Yuri's connections. And the man wasn't stupid, he would ask around and soon find out the ID was fake. Alexander also didn't want to start on the slippery slope of committing more crimes to get his way.

True he had stolen money from the salvage yard owner, but that was repayment for his work and to set up a new life.

With his first plan in the dumpster, he went with a simpler one. Yuri understood money, so Alexander would simply purchase himself. Of course, that was easier said than done. He had no idea what amount of money it would require to purchase himself from the cantankerous old man but he doubted it would be an insignificant amount.

That wasn't the only thing he needed to consider either. Alexander needed a place to stay once he was legally owned by himself. Since he didn't need to sleep or eat, a small out-of-the-way space would be fine. A small shop would be ideal as that would allow him to continue to earn money the only way he knew how, and that was by repairing things.

When Yuri closed up for the night, Alexander made his way over to the station terminal and logged in with the old man's stolen credentials. He couldn't use his yet in case the station logged who used a terminal or not. Which he assumed they would.

Few things were free in this world Alexander had found himself in. But thankfully business listings were among those. Probably because they only showed current station assets and not those outside its confines. He would take the small win though.

Petrov station was designed as a typical ring station from Alexander's memories. Which surprised him. The whole point of designing a ring station was to spin it around a central axis to create gravity. But the station had normal gravity and not spin-generated gravity as was clear by them standing on the floor of the ring instead of the outer walls. The only way he could explain this discrepancy was if the station was built or was in the process of being built when humanity discovered a way to generate artificial gravity without the need for spinning stuff. He didn't actually know what that process was, but it did intrigue him.

At least he finally understood why all the doors looked to have been slapped in as an afterthought. If they were meant to be accessed from the outer wall and had to be cut out and reoriented, it would certainly explain the patchwork. Searᴄh the Nôvel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Yuri's shop was on the third ring. Which was designated as an industrial ring along with the fourth and fifth rings of the station. The sixth through eighth rings were commerce and housing with the ninth and tenth being upper class housing and control.

After a quick look through available spaces, Alexander realized he couldn't afford even the smallest space on the third ring with the money he had squirreled away over the past years. He winced internally at this.

Setting his sights a little lower, literally, in this case, he looked into the second ring. It seemed even in space, you couldn't get away from the destitute. And the second ring was where those as well as orphaned children were housed. Although you wouldn't know that by looking at the station map. On the map, the second ring was simply labeled overflow and storage. Nobody lived on the first ring. That was reserved for reclamation systems, power generation, oxygen generation, and water storage.

There wasn't even a lift to that ring except the one through the core and Alexander knew only station personnel had access to the core. Not that he wanted to live in the noisy power generation area anyway.

That left the second ring as the only viable option for him. It wasn't ideal. Being down there would certainly limit his ability to earn money. Then again, less prying eyes and less demand for the spaces down there would mean he wouldn't need to earn as much anyway.

After swiping through the properties for rent in that ring, he settled on a small storage room with a door to a secondary closet within it. He assumed someone had added a wall in there at one time to partition the space for whatever reason. What that reason was, he couldn't say. It served his purposes fine. But best of all, it was within his small budget.

The unit wasn't very big, maybe twenty feet by thirty. And the closet was probably big enough for him to stick some shelves along the walls and just barely stand inside. But it would work. He would make it work because there wasn't any other choice.

Alexander recorded the information. During the day when he was out for a delivery, he would access a terminal outside of the salvage yard and purchase the lease on the property using his fake identity.

With that out of the way, he switched the terminal to Yuri's personal library. It was where all the old man's digital purchases went. And a man as old as Yuri had quite a few. But less than a quarter of them were for actual service manuals. The less said about those other purchases, the better.

Alexander picked the next service manual in the list and began scanning it. He did one manual a night to ensure he understood all of the content within. So many things had changed since the twenty-first century that he was lost the first time he stumbled upon this trove of gold. Thankfully, it wasn't so alien that he couldn't grasp the basics. It was good he could comprehend the technology because it was going to be his only way to earn a living. And the more he read, the better he seemed to be able to piece together the next. Like his mind was helping him.

Maybe it was. Those dark spots in his memory had never recovered, but maybe he was once an engineer or mechanic. When he finished one of the manuals, he seemed to just understand the concept or device the manual was created for. It was almost instinctual to the point he sometimes thought of ways of improving the designs. Or he would come across some component from another manual and realize it could be used to improve a different device.

It was something he really wanted to test, but he couldn't until he was free of Yuri.

The night passed by quickly and Alexander turned off the terminal and went back to where he usually stood. Yuri arrived no more than half an hour later, grumbling something under his breath.

"He's late," Alexander heard the man say.

The man complained about a lot of things, so this was no surprise. Alexander just stood in his normal spot as he watched and listened.

Soon the communicator Yuri carried beeped. "You're late," Yuri cursed the person on the other end.

There was muted shouting from the other side that Alexander couldn't pick up, but he saw Yuri pull the device away from his ear. "Don't get pissy with me!" Yuri shouted back. "I agreed to be the go-between for this deal because I owed you one. I don't care if you ran into trouble getting here."

More garbled speech came through from the other end, but the person must have stopped shouting as Yuri kept the device up to his head this time. "Yeah, yeah," the older man responded. "Just have the crate ready, my bot will be there shortly." Then he clicked off the device before stuffing it back in a pocket. "Ingrate."

"Robot, go to hangar 415 and retrieve the crate. Then bring it to hangar 512. And be quick about it."

Alexander started moving as he whistled internally. He had been sent to the fourth ring on a number of occasions for deliveries or retrievals. It was the most heavily trafficked ring as it catered to mid-sized and smaller ships. The fifth ring, however, catered to the large ships and luxury craft. As such it only had like a dozen hangars. The big ships simply docked at massive unloading ports that stuck out like towers from the station.

That meant this crate, whatever was in it was going to someone important. And going by the clandestine way Yuri was handling it, probably highly illegal as well. Alexander just gave a mental sigh.

***

Hangar 415 was easy enough to locate. He had been there on a number of occasions. He even recognized the ship and the nervously pacing man near a very futuristic-looking box. Everything about this situation screamed 'turn around' to Alexander. But if he did that, he would give himself away.

He forced those thoughts down as his feet clanked against the deck. The Captain of the ship finally noticed his approach, not that he had been stealthy or quiet by any means. Although he found he could be both if he chose to be.

"Finally! Hurry up already. My client is waiting for this crate, and he doesn't appreciate tardiness."

Alexander didn't hurry, he kept the same sedate pace that he always did. The annoyed look on the Captain's face helped smooth over his annoyance at having to be the errand boy for whatever illegal nonsense this was.

The crate wasn't very large, about the size of a party cooler from Earth. But it was heavy if his whining servos were to be believed. Not that they made any actual noise, it was all digital. He had learned to sort of read the digital feedback that scrolled past his vision. He still didn't understand most of it even after two full years but he got the gist of it. It was clear his body possessed a vast array of sensors and functionality that he simply couldn't tap into. Or that was damaged by whatever had caused the large melted scar across his body.

"Be very careful with that," The Captain stated, putting his arm on Alexander's causing him to pause. "The stuff in there is very delicate."

Alexander remained stationary, waiting for the man to remove his arm. Not because he wanted to but because the damn interface Yuri had built into his body prevented him from moving when he was in contact with a person. While he had regained control of his body for the most part, likely due to Yuri improperly reinstalling the control unit, there were still constraints in place to prevent him from accidentally or purposefully hurting anyone. Not that he ever would.

"Gah, why am I even bothering? You're just a stupid robot, you wouldn't understand anyway. Just hurry along," he removed his hand and waved in dismissal.

Alexander turned and walked out of the hangar, carrying his load.

Finding the other hangar took a bit of time. It was clear across the other end of the station on the fifth ring. The people he passed up here stepped aside and stared at him. They weren't used to seeing him like the crews on the third and fourth rings were. Alexander ignored their stares and whispers as he trudged along the ring to his destination.

Unlike the hangars on the lower floors, hangar 512 was richly appointed. Or at least the entryway was.

Alexander was forced to pause in the entry as a woman behind a desk contacted someone else. Shortly a brick of a man stepped through an inner door. The individual was kitted in full body armor and was equipped with a shock baton. Alexander was pretty sure the man would have preferred to carry something more lethal, but weapons were highly regulated according to the station laws he had read.

The man waved a device over the crate and it gave a happy little beep. "Alright, bring it in."

Technically, Alexander could have left the box there, he had fulfilled his orders, but he was curious to see what type of ship the wealthy flew.

He followed the man into the more spartan hangar. The ship resembled luxury yachts from back on Earth, only converted into a space-going version. All elegant lines and sharp edges to make them look sleek and imposing. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised by that. Those designs had been popular with the rich for a reason.

The squat armored man walked up the ship's ramp, but Alexander stopped short of it. For the first time, he thanked the restrictions built into the control box.

"Don't just stand there, bring it aboard," the man urged.

Alexander set the box down at the edge of the ramp and stood. Then his little box chimed in reply. "This unit is forbidden from stepping foot aboard another vessel. The contract has been fulfilled. Thank you and have a nice day."

After the overly cheerful voice finished, Alexander turned around and left. It wasn't the first time he had been asked to board another ship. It seemed to happen almost any time he did these sketchy deliveries for Yuri. If the old coot wasn't so paranoid, Alexander probably would have been carted away and sold before he had ever regained full use of his body. He kept up the charade of complying because it told him who was trustworthy and who wasn't.