Chapter Nine Aaron

After waking up in the morning to the screech of his alarm clock, Aaron is surprised to see that he’d slept so well. He seems to have conked out without even turning his lamp off. He checks his phone to make sure everything at the work site has been set up. It looks like the two shipping containers of robots was dropped off as scheduled. He’s put a lot of time into writing the machine’s command cards in preparation for this one. It’s a big job and he hasn’t gotten to work with such a large crew like this in a little while.

Instead of his usual kakis, he puts on his black riding pants and boots. The job is too far to walk to, and not far enough away to bother going to the yard to pick up a van. He could also use getting the pent up energy out of his system. This time, he’ll take his runner out. Now that things are moving along with Valerie, he’s a little wily and feels like tearing the street up a little.

Now that recreational legged machines are allowed on-road, he’s been starting to use his around town. It’s required some extensive modifications to get the thing up to speed, but it’s working out quite well so far. He’s already been using it out in the woods for a few years by now, but has never pushed the thing very fast like on the pavement. If he ever screws up out in the forest, getting help is not really much of an option, so he keeps it safe.

Runners are plain and simply dangerous, especially the particualr model that he has. Despite that, the vast amount of safety incidents that were predicted simply didn’t happen. There were no spikes in traffic collision statistics, people flying off their uncontrolled runners, or deaths caused by pedestrians getting trampled. Because people have been responsible with them, they’re bing allowed on the road.

Three years ago, he’d bought the runner new. It was the third year after machines like it had hit the market. Out of all the makes that were becoming available, he felt compelled to get the model he has, because it was apparently terrible to ride and no one liked it. Like his antique computer, he has a thing for disowned equipment. His model was the black sheep, which is why he liked it so much. He can’t stand things that are trendy, it ruins them.

In truth, it doesn’t offer a smooth ride like most of the other models do, which is why it quickly lost its place in the market. It was designed and built like a huge cat, with an endoskeleton and all. The drawback is that it inherently moves like one too. Traditional two or even six legged machines are most popular for people to start out on. They come with the best bang for the buck, but they aren’t nearly as capable as his machine is. That’s also because he’s modified the crap out of it. He’s swapped out the original basic controller and shoehorned in a far more advanced unit that he salvaged from a Four-Series Werker robot. It still runs on the original firmware that he copied over, but that’s about to change.

Down in the lower level garage, it’s fairly dim, but luckily there’s some daylight coming in from the street access ramp. Since he’s been a resident for so long, his parking spot is quite close to the elevator doors. He keeps his machine under a large motorcycle cover, which is usually pretty dusty. He can always tell when someone gets curious about what’s underneath, because their handprints show up.

Most of his runner is a flat dirty-green in color, but has a lot of glossy black appointments to it. Its unusual animal-like padded feet are quite noticeable from under its cover, which is why people keep noticing it. After pulling the tarp off of the machine and kicking it into the corner, he lifts the side maintenance panel up to expose the command port on the controller. He inserts the new card he programmed, taps the power button, and steps back a few paces, just in case.

While shaking off his nervousness, he takes a deep breath and waits a minute to mentally check all of the changes he’s made. Almost startling him, the runner gives an audible request for a response name and starts counting down. It’s a standard Werker prompt that he forgot would still be in effect. Being transmitted through a foreign audio system, the machine’s voice doesn’t sound like it should. It’s quiet, grating, and machine-like.

“A unit name is requested. Five…four…three…”

Aaron jumps up and down while spinning in a circle, overcome with the thrill of it. He nearly misses his opportunity to say its name, but is able to settle himself down enough to speak up clearly. “Runner.”

He couldn’t really think of anything better, and it’s fitting enough in his opinion. Now, he needs to give the machine a corresponding prompt request code and then his own name so that it’ll remember his voice for recognition authority. If he doesn’t, it’ll leave authority open to anyone that talks to it.

“One-zero-one… Five… four…three…two…one… Aaron.”

“Thank you Aaron. Voice authority lock complete.”

With his new program, he’s given it three different operational modes, with two of them requiring his explicit verbal authorization to be used. The first is basically a valet mode that operates as if it were still stock. The second is his performance edit that takes advantage of all the hardware upgrades he’s implemented, and the third is for unrestricted autonomous function.

Now, all he has to do is give it a verbal command, and it’ll do as he says. Such a thing is highly illegal, but the old-ways die hard. The country blood in him is still strong and he could give two shits about silly rules. If any officer feels that whatever he’s done to his runner is wrong enough for them to stake their life on, he’ll give them the opportunity to do so.

Every time he rides the machine, it seems a little smaller to him. It’s still four feet tall at the shoulders and a good eight feet long, not including its tail. It used to seem so big when he first bought it. Knowing better to, he does his stretches first before hopping up onto it. He looks both ways before bending all the way over and grabbing his toes. He’s always though he’d look silly if ever caught doing it don in the garage. If he doesn’t stretch out his back like this, he’ll regret it.

With his knees forward and heels tucked in a ways below the seat, he adjusts the machine’s ribcage cutouts a little more inward so that his calves are inset more for a better hold. He has a feeling he’s going to need it this time. He leans way forward and grabs the front controls up behind the head unit and readies himself for launch. He pulls the throttle trigger all the ways down, sending Runner into an enormous leap forward. The power and pull the thing has is incredible.

Through the rest of the garage, Runner scrambles across the concrete, skidding its feet across the pavement like a cat on a polished floor. He loves it when it does that. It’s his own version of a burnout, or even drifting, if he gets carried away with it. The stock system would automatically dial itself back down in order to not wreck, but his new one can keep it going. When he blasts on up the street ramp, he barely has enough distance to stop before crashing through the security gate out front. As he swipes his key fob across the terminal, he hears someone in the garage behind him shout “asshole!”

When galloping down the street, he has no problem holding the twenty five mile per hour speed limit. With Runner’s new ability to tuck its feet in a little closer together while it runs, it can move much more smoothly. Things don’t get rocky when it corners anymore either. Before he redesigned them, the original joints couldn’t swivel at the shoulders and feet well enough to brace against so much inertia.

The machine’s already flexible spine makes it more intimidating to ride, but pays off with having a higher top speed than any other model. Being able to arch its back gives it the ability to lengthen its stride another thirty percent over any other rigid machine. Now that Runner can learn on its own, it’ll be able to better take advantage of that ability.

To go even faster, he keeps his own body held up over the machine so that it can move more freely underneath him. It takes some practice to time his movements with Runner’s, but he’s getting better at it every time. Going over thirty five miles an hour doesn’t sound like much compared to most things, but not many horses can run any faster than that.

Coincidentally he catches up to a metallic blue two-legged runner just up the street in front of him. They see him gaining on them in their rear view mirror and start speeding up as well. He can see them constantly glancing back, keeping an eye on him. They push their machine as fast as it can go, trying their best to stay in the lead, but they won’t have a chance. He’s set on running them down, mainly because of the that ugly ass blue he’s tired of seeing so often.

Feeling confident enough to try out the new and faster motion routines, he pulls the trigger all the way back. The machine’s gait completely changes form, lurching into a full on sprint. He’s only attempted this a few times before, when it was still stock, and he was never able to hold on for long. It’s still scary now, but it’s at least manageable.

The front and rear legs move in almost complete opposition to each other, making extra-long strides, and using the torso of the body to unify the strides. Holding on is about all he can manage, but he’s not going to back off this time.

Focusing on his own survival more than anything else, he barely gets a glance of the other rider when he stampeedes past them. They have to drop most of their speed into the next turn, but he doesn’t. Runner’s feet are starting to break loose a little around the corner, but the Werker controller is able to keep it together.

As soon as the road straightens out, he lets the sprint stretch out a tiny bit farther towards max speed. He can’t believe it when the load monitor indicates that it can still go even faster. He quickly glances down at the HUD to check his speed, letting off at fifty Miles per hour. It’s the fastest he’s ever heard of on any machine like this going. At the last minute, before risking getting bucked off, he slams on the brakes.

After skittering across the pavement, Runner slows down almost to a stop before hopping back into a trotting motion. Pie eyed, he huffs in relief of not getting thrown off this time. He quickly looks around, hoping no one saw him driving like a total ass. Word of a runner going that fast would certainly make its way around, and he doesn’t need the attention. Luckily, no one else is around but a few machines going on with their tasks. The other guy on his runner still hasn’t even come back into sight from around the bend of the street either. He’s not going to stick around for the guy to get all friendly either.

After noticing that he’s already blown right past the address he’s supposed to be working at, he turns off and circles back around. The place is only one more street, back the other way. When he spots where he’s supposed to be, it’s fairly obvious. There are four high-rise buildings on the block, all under construction. Three of them are new structures going up, and the one he’ll be working at is the one coming down.

On his way back towards the construction site, he sits upright on Runner to relax and activates the inset controls behind its shoulders. Het takes the next alley to cross back over, and trots down to the end of it. Abruptly, someone walks right out in front of him on the sidewalk. They freeze and end up causing Runner to immediately halt, almost dumping him over the front.

“Son of a bitch!” As soon as the words come out of his mouth, he sees the meek girls face looking up at him in shock.

He can’t believe his eyes. It’s the woman from the rooftop, he’s almost sure of it. She’s still wearing the same outfit and has the same looking hair. She is just frozen, standing there in front of Runner, looking up at him. She has the typical bewildered expression most people do when they see a runner up close for the first time.

The woman reaches out to touch the machine, but stops her hand halfway there, and then quickly tucks it back to her side. She doesn’t say anything, and submissively steps aside to let him go on by. It appears that she doesn’t recognize him from last night. Likely, she wouldn’t have been able to see him at all with his light shining in her face the way it was.

“Sorry, um…sir.”

Even now in the daylight he’s questioning whether she’s a real person or a robot. He’s never seen anything quite like it in his life. She looks, acts, and sounds like a real person. He can clearly see that she’s curious, like no normal robot could be. If it were a real woman though, she would’ve surely gone off on him for running up on her like he did. Instead, she’s patiently waiting on the sidewalk, up close to the side of the building, waiting for him to move along.

“No, no, it’s not your fault. I should be paying closer attention with this thing. Sorry for shouting like that.”

When he walks Runner out of the alley, he circles it back around to look at her. Had he though it through, he wouldn’t have done it. She becomes clearly concerned by his attention to her. She steps back up against the wall and looks like she’s going to make a run for it again. He wonders if she maybe recognized his voice. Robots can usually differentiate people perfectly well by their voices alone. Knowing better to not push his luck, and run her off for good, he straightens back out and prances Runner off to a safe distance from her.

When he looks back, she’s actually stepped farhter into the street, and is craning her neck out to watch him. He twists around in his seat to face her and waves to her with his right hand held up high. She starts to wave back, but quickly lowers her arm, backs up to the alley again, and swiftly moves out of sight around the corner of the building. He knows he’s given himself away this time.

“Shit.”

He remembers waving at her the first night he noticed her out on the roof. Though he wants to, he knows not to pursue her any further, at least not yet. Even though he could easily catch her on Runner, it’d likely force her into taking more dangerous measures to escape again, or maybe even attack him. She could actually be dangerous, like the other might’ve been.

He figures it’ll be best to go to work like he’s supposed to and think on it for a little while. He has a feeling that their paths will cross again soon enough. Besides, Valerie would be pretty mad if she found out that he’s been out hunting her robots down on a runner and terrifying them.

While taking the next right around the end of the building, he catches just a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He turns his head only just enough to see that it’s the woman peeking around the corner again. He smiles and chuckles at her squirrel-like curiosity. Either way, he feels it’s good that he at least hasn’t scared her away for good. The outlandish coincidence of their meeting like this makes him feel like there’s something driving their connection, like a crossing of fates of some sort. It truly sounds stupid, but it’s a feeling that he can’t shake.

“Only stupid rats believe in fate.”