“Buying time,” Rogers said. “As much of it as we possibly can before—”

The up-line door opened, and Rogers stopped mid-sentence. On the other side of the door was a face he really, really didn’t want to see at that moment.

“CALL FUNCTION [STARE OMINOUSLY].”

BAR BR-116’s instruments whirred on his appendages. There was something different about them now, though Rogers couldn’t tell exactly what. They were moving pretty fast.

“I was wondering what happened to you,” Rogers said.

“CALL FUNCTION [STARE OMINOUSLY].”

“Who is this?” McSchmidt said.

“A droid that is, for some reason, obsessed with taking my beard.”

“It is pretty scraggly,” McSchmidt said.

“I kind of like it,” the Viking said.

Rogers silently vowed to never shave again.

“Why don’t you go dump yourself out of one of the trash chutes?” Rogers said. “The up-line is full at the moment, as you can see.”

Gesturing at the group of people behind him magnanimously, Rogers hoped he had enough strength in numbers—and an angry monkey—to deter Barber Bot from meddling. The last thing he needed right now was for some crazy droid to be chasing him around the ship, trying to cut off his beard.

Rogers reached for the button to close the door but found that Barber Bot had jammed a pair of scissors into the call button. That seemed uncharacteristically violent for a droid. Rogers hoped he hadn’t broken the up-line.

“CALL FUNCTION [STARE OMINOUSLY].”

“Yeah,” Rogers said. “You do that. But maybe go do that over there.” Rogers pointed ambiguously in another direction. “And take those scissors out of the control panel so that we can keep riding.”

“This shiny is weird,” Mailn said. “Is he malfunctioning?”

“I don’t know,” Rogers said. “It’s hard to tell. I always kind of felt like this one wanted to kill—”

“CALL FUNCTION [PROTOCOL 162].”

A Breach of Protocol

“Look out!” Mailn screamed as Barber Bot launched itself at Rogers.

In a brief moment of clarity, Rogers saw that the droid’s haircutting instruments had been swapped out, replacing the razors with butcher knives, the talcum brush with a flanged mace, and the comb with an unbreakable comb. The welding torch was still there.

Before Rogers could react, someone hit him hard from the side, sending him flying across the inside of the up-line. He tumbled over the top of one of the booths, performing an uncoordinated and volatile cartwheel that ended with him upside down, his ass pointing directly toward the ceiling.

Behind him, Rogers heard a monkey shrieking. No, wait. He heard two monkeys shrieking, which seemed strange.

Something crashed into the seat he was hanging over, and he heard the discomfiting but very particular noise of a flanged mace hitting the interior wall of the up-line car. Rogers tumbled the rest of the way over, landing in an upside-down prayer position on the floor in between two rows of seats.

“Where is your pistol?” the Viking shouted from somewhere. It sounded like a trash compactor had gone wild; metallic hammering noises made Rogers’ ears ring.