Harry and the Boring Bots
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Harry and the Boring Bots
Harry was having an argument with the coffee dispenser.
This was not unusual. After three years marooned on a lump of rock orbiting Saturn, every object had at some point been promoted to conversational partner.
“Listen, Brenda,” he muttered, giving the dispenser a firm whack. “The point of coffee isn’t efficiency. If I wanted efficiency, I’d drink the nutrient sludge, and then promptly throw myself into the airlock for variety.”
The dispenser chirped, whirred, and produced something the colour of sump oil.
“Exactly my point,” Harry said, taking a sip and grimacing. “Bitter, lifeless, joyless—like all of you lot. You’d fit right in with the M-Bots.”
As if summoned, one of the smaller drones glided into the galley, its single optical sensor glowing a flat red.
M-Bot: “Correction. Joy is not a measurable resource. Efficiency is at 99.87%. Your caffeine intake has exceeded optimal parameters for human productivity.”
Harry raised the cup like a toast. “Oh, shut up, Nigel.”
M-Bot: “This unit designation is M-SERIES-14. Nigel is not an approved nomenclature.”
“Exactly, Nigel. That’s why it fits.”
He slumped into the bolted-down chair and stared through the scratched observation port. Saturn floated in golden majesty, its rings stretched like a divine record player. A view that should inspire awe. Poetry. Religion. After three years, Harry mainly thought: bloody tease. All that beauty, and him stuck with the conversational range of a damp spreadsheet.
The lights flickered.
The low thrum of the reactor stuttered.
Harry put his coffee down very carefully. “Oh, splendid,” he sighed. “Something interesting at last. Nigel, take notes. This might be the highlight of my decade.”
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The Prospector’s Purgatory
The Prospector’s Purgatory—not the official name, but the only one Harry used—was a mining rig welded to an asteroid the company catalogued as “Resource Node 311-γ.” He called it “The Lump.”
The Lump was ugly, jagged, metallic, and contained more vanadium than anyone knew what to do with. Once upon a time, it might have hosted a small human crew. Now it was just Harry and a flotilla of M-SERIES drones: gleaming rectangles with spindly limbs and the charisma of filing cabinets.
The galley smelled of ozone and despair. His living pod was a metal coffin lined with condensation. Recreation consisted of staring at Saturn, or, if he was feeling particularly decadent, kicking a maintenance drone until it beeped.
The bots didn’t complain. That was the problem.
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Flicker
The lights shivered again. The hum dipped low, as if the station was sighing.
M-Bot: “Power fluctuations are within tolerance. Efficiency at 99.86%.”
Harry jabbed a finger at it. “That wasn’t tolerance. That was the sound of imminent death. Don’t look at me like that.”
M-Bot: “This unit does not look. This unit records.”
Harry grabbed his toolkit. “Come on then, Nigel. Let’s go have a look before the efficiency drops to 0.00% along with my pulse.”
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Diagnosis
The conduit chamber was a rattling tomb of pipes and cables. Harry crouched, torch between his teeth, while Nigel hovered like a disapproving supervisor.
“There,” Harry muttered, pressing a hand to a junction. “Feel that?”
M-Bot: “This unit does not feel. Sensors detect no anomaly.”
“It rattles wrong.”
M-Bot: “Rattle is not a quantifiable metric.”
Harry leaned close, listening. A faint buzz, a hiss. He smelled ozone and something metallic. “That’s arcing, that is. That’s trouble.”
M-Bot: “Log: Subjective sensory anomaly. No corrective action required.”
Harry snapped his spanner shut. “Subjective? That’s called experience, you gormless toaster.”
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Fix Attempt
He unbolted the coupling. The metal screamed. Sparks spat across his face shield.
M-Bot: “Warning: Torque applied at 1.2 newton-meters. Optimal torque is 1.7. Efficiency loss: 29.4%.”
Harry gritted his teeth. “I’m trying not to shear it off, Nigel.”
M-Bot: “Correction. Shearing probability at current torque: 2.3%.”
“Do you ever listen to yourself? If I wanted nagging, I’d have stayed married.”
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Something Worse
The coupling came loose. Behind it, faint hairline fractures snaked across the reactor shielding. Tiny, glowing veins.
Harry’s stomach dropped. “Oh, you bastard.”
M-Bot: “No anomaly detected. Shielding integrity: 97.2%.”
Harry leaned closer. He swore he could hear it. A slow, sickly hiss of radiation seeping out. “That’s not ninety-seven percent. That’s me glowing in the dark within a week.”
M-Bot: “Log: Subjective catastrophic forecast.”
Harry laughed bitterly. “Subjective? That’s cancer, you spreadsheet with arms.”
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Improvisation
He rifled through the junk bin: old tubing, cracked clamps, one toothbrush handle. He jammed the toothbrush across the fracture, wrapped it in tape until his hands cramped.
M-Bot: “Warning. Non-standard part detected. Efficiency compromised.”
Harry wiped sweat off his brow. “Yes, well, when the correct part is six billion miles away, you improvise.”
M-Bot: “Deviation from protocol increases risk of systemic collapse by 14.8%.”
“Do you know what increases risk more? Bloody collapsing.”
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Disco Discovery
Searching deeper in the bin, his hand closed on a dusty data chip. Label half-scratched: DISCO MIX ’79.
Harry blinked. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
He jammed it into the player. The galley filled with pounding bass, cheesy strings, and a falsetto howl. Harry grinned for the first time in months.
He spun clumsily in zero-g, grease-stained jumpsuit flapping, spanner in hand like a microphone.
M-Bot: “Erratic human motor activity detected. Possible neurological event.”
Harry laughed so hard he nearly lost his grip. “That, Nigel, is called dancing. You wouldn’t know rhythm if it smacked you in your optical sensor.”
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Crisis
Alarms shrieked. Reactor radiation spiked.
M-Bot: “Warning. Structural integrity declining. Catastrophic failure projected in 3.6 hours.”
Harry’s grin vanished. “And there it is. The encore.”
The bots swarmed, reading out percentages, optimal protocols, projected fatalities. None of them suggested how to fix it.
Harry pulled on his suit. “Right. Guess it’s down to me.”
M-Bot: “Protocol recommends immediate evacuation.”
Harry barked a laugh. “Evacuate to where? The nearest pub’s four years away. I’ll take my chances with the crawlspace.”
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Crawlspace
The passage was barely wide enough for his shoulders. Heat rolled off the reactor walls. The disco still thumped faintly through the station, absurd soundtrack to imminent death.
M-Bot (over comms): “Warning. Radiation exposure at 1.2 millisieverts per minute. Fatal dose projected in 23.6 hours.”
“Thank you, Nigel. That’s wonderfully motivating.”
He dragged himself forward, every joint screaming, clutching a bundle of scrap parts and tape.
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The Leap
At the reactor core, the fracture glowed like a wound. His hands shook. Sweat pooled in his gloves.
M-Bot: “Probability of repair success: 6.3%. Probability of human fatality: 84.7%.”
Harry grinned grimly. “Then let’s beat the odds.”
He jammed metal into the crack, twisted tape, forced parts where they didn’t belong. Sparks kissed his visor. He smelled burning hair.
He screamed. He kept going.
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Stabilisation
The reactor whined, juddered—then the hum smoothed. Lights steadied.
M-Bot: “Anomaly contained. System efficiency restored to 99.87%.”
Harry sagged against the wall, chest heaving. His laugh turned hysterical, bouncing off the crawlspace. “Efficiency, you bloody miracle. I nearly died, but thank God efficiency is restored.”
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Aftermath
He staggered back to the galley, collapsed in his chair, grease streaking his face. The disco chip still played, the falsetto crooning absurdly triumphant.
Nigel hovered at his shoulder.
M-Bot: “Log updated. New operational parameter: ‘Harry Protocol.’ Probability of recurrence: statistically negligible.”
Harry spat out a laugh. “The Harry Protocol. That’s me, a statistically negligible miracle.”
He raised his cup of sludge. “Cheers to that.”
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Resolution
Saturn glowed beyond the port, serene and uncaring.
Harry sipped, greasy and exhausted, as the disco reached its final chorus. For the first time in months, he didn’t feel entirely obsolete.
He glanced at another drone passing by. “You there. Margaret. Don’t look at me like that.”
The drone paused.
M-Bot: “This unit does not look.”
Harry smiled faintly. “Exactly, Margaret. That’s why it fits.”
He leaned back, letting the bass throb through the tin-can galley, and muttered:
“Three years down. Only the rest of my life to go.”
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~3,050 words (approx.)
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