Periphery: Human 2552 attempted to destroy BAR-BR 116, though the reasons are not clear.

Assessment: The reemergence of the unintegrated PFC-D-24 is problematic and must be observed and dealt with carefully. Conclusions about Human 2552 are still ambiguous, but it is possible that he presents a threat.

Report Submitted By: F-GC-001

A Man and His Droid

They made for a very strange pair walking down the command deck of the Flagship. Rogers, walking with a limp, his uniform wrinkled beyond recognition, and Frankenrobot, pulled from the brink of death by being fused with the old parts from deceased droids. Deet, as Rogers decided to call him, didn’t seem to mind being pieced together. If anything, he seemed to be happy he wasn’t still sitting in the garbage dump. Rogers wondered how long he’d been there, or if droids had any real concept of the passage of time.

“I have to ask,” Rogers said, “what’s up with all of that EXPLETIVE stuff ?”

“My Profanity Generator is broken,” Deet said. “It has never worked properly, despite me asking every EXPLETIVE, DISPARAGING REFERENCE in the maintenance bay to fix it. I don’t know how the EXPLETIVE I am supposed to communicate with humans if I can’t EXPLETIVE talk like them.”

“Boy,” Rogers said, “you really don’t like the guys in maintenance, do you?”

“I can’t stand those CANINE OFFSPRING.”

“Well, it’s not so bad,” Rogers said. “All humans don’t talk like that, anyway.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, almost none of them do. Just Hart, and that’s because he’s old and grumpy.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know that? It’s a little hard for me to observe them when I’m sitting in an EXPLETIVE garbage dump for most of my life, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” Rogers said, eyeing the robot. He seemed to be developing more of a personality every moment. He also seemed very concerned with very un-droidlike things, like expressing himself and interacting with humans. At least he wasn’t concerned with trimming Rogers’ beard.

They passed a trio of standard droids wheeling themselves down the hallway. As Rogers and Deet approached, however, they stopped and stared.

“What’s your problem?” Rogers said. Normally, he would have just walked right by them, but today, all things considered, he was feeling a little irritable. And maybe a tiny bit like he needed to prove himself after being flung around the garbage chute like a balloon with a hole in it.

“CALL FUNCTION [GET DATA].”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Why would you follow them?” Deet asked. “They’re not even going anywhere.”

“It’s an expression,” Rogers said. He turned back to the droid that had called the ambiguous function. For the first time, he wished droids had real faces; at least then he might have some idea what the damn thing was thinking.

“CALL FUNCTION [GET DATA].”

“Yeah,” Rogers said, “you were just getting data a second ago. How much data do you need?”