The House
"Tec look!" Ruby said pulling his arm so that he could see the street in front of the building. Various New Yorkers now populated the avenue before them.
"Must have worked," Tec remarked as a man, flamboyantly dressed, approached them.
"You see Maureen?" the man asked angrily, pointing an ornate walking stick at them.
Tec shrugged his shoulders in the midday sunshine as Ruby subtly rotated her torso before the odd stranger.
"If you do, tell her Big Travis is lookin' for her," the man said before disappearing into the alley.
A husky voice with a substantial old Earth, Irish brogue startled them from behind. "You two have been exceptionally persistent."
Tec turned to see a tall woman in the brownstone's doorway. Abundant pink feathers adorning the top of her bathrobe framed a kind face below red hair packed with ancient, pink, hydrocarbon-based curlers. Despite appearing as if she just got out of bed, she still looked regal.
"Hello. I'm Ruby," Ruby said extending her main appendage.
"I'm Tec," Tec added staring at her unusual, violet eyes, "Geological specialist and Chief Science officer assigned to the Lyell."
"I'm Clare," the woman said while gently grasping then shaking Ruby's prime manipulator. "This is my house," she added with a smile while widening her stance to let a dachshund run between her legs, down the brownstone's steps, and then towards a nearby fire hydrant.
Ruby gasped. "Look at those little legs go, Tec."
Clare sighed. "It's been some time since she's been out."
"Tec is actually the acting captain, MSSL Vera," Ruby said still observing the canine. Its mission finished, it disappeared into the throng of pedestrians. "That's where this holo deck is located," she added.
Clare sighed. "It seems things are in a tad of a muddle," she said. "We need to talk," she added directing them to follow her into the brownstone.
After passing through a small reception area, Tec whistled at an ornate, wooden spiral staircase standing before them in the middle of a large parlor.
"Unfortunately there's limited access to all our facilities due to your unusual entry," Clare said. "But I'm sure you’d like the Bower, Tec," she added with a subtle smile.
"Interesting décor," Tec muttered.
To his left Tec saw a large, cold hearth of a fireplace flanked by purple velvet fainting couches. On the opposite side of the room were similar furnishings and a silent grand piano already under Ruby's scrutiny. Elaborate, red tapestries adorned the parlor's walls between muntin-filled windows. The room's gaudiness somehow seemed normal.
"My house can be any style of your choice. However, most clients do find this mid-twentieth century version engaging," Clair said.
"There's no music," Ruby said tapping gently on a white, followed by a black key and then holding the tricorder to the instrument.
"Just what kind of house is this?" Tec asked with a widening grin while surveying the room again.
Ruby looked up to Tec, puzzled.
"My artists paint a broad pallet for our client's broad range of wishes, captain," Clare replied wistfully.
"Oh," Ruby said through a giggle and a subtle shutter of her lower appendages.
Tec just grinned while taking a closer look at the erotic carvings adorning the staircase. "I guess that could be sort of interesting," he quipped while trying not to laugh aloud.
Clare sighed looking up at the ornate plasterwork of the parlor's ceiling then turned to Tec. "Captain, I'm afraid I need more information before suggesting how to pro—"
"We are approximately 2350 light years from Sol," Ruby injected, "and above the anticlockwise galactic spin."
"Above the south galactic pole" Tec clarified, "and we're doing about one half the speed of light."
"Agrona," Clare muttered. "And how do we find ourselves way out here?"
"A confluence of gravity waves dislocated the space we occupied and flung us here," Ruby explained.
"Like a pond droplet," Tec added nonchalantly.
"Extraordinary," Clare said.
"The Vera is an asteroid sampling and assay laboratory," Tec said. "I'm a rock geologist and Ruby is, ah was, a geobot."
"I'm a senroid now," she added proudly.
Clare smiled kindly at Ruby. "I have confirmed Vera's mission, position and speed," she said.
Tec looked at Ruby, recalling the intentional disconnect between Vera's main computer and the holodeck.
"I have access to only the most basic information," Clare said apologetically.
Tec looked at Ruby and shrugged his shoulders.
"Such an event as you describe has not been seen in this sector's adjacent fractimes," Clare said thoughtfully.
"Maybe it's your turn to relay some basic information," Tec said.
"Of course," Clare said beginning to remove the curlers from her hair, forming a makeshift, pink pyramid on the piano.
"You're not a recreational program are you?" Ruby asked.
"No, my darling Calma senroid, I am not. Not entirely anyways," Clare replied. "I sense you both are what you say you are. Given our situation, we need to trust one another," she added.
"I agree," Ruby said.
Tec nodded.
"I am a holo agent working alongside the Confederation's Time Corps," Clare explained. "Detection of rogue Builder mechs is my primary mission," she added solemnly.
"The Universal War is long over," Tec scoffed. "No mechs have been sighted in over a century. Ah, make that two centuries, hopefully."
"How can a holo AI, destroy a mech?" Ruby asked.
"This," Clare said looking around the empty parlor, "is only a handling and resource facility for corporal agents. I assume one of your crew was one such agent."
"Corey," Ruby said with a quick glance at Tec.
"The crew didn't make it before the event so it's just us," Tec clarified.
"It's been difficult," Ruby muttered.
"And I've died ten times," Tec added sheepishly.
"Twelve," Ruby corrected him.
"You are a human construct," Clare said looking Tec over. "A staggering display of technology. I am impressed, Ruby."
Ruby shrugged her main appendage.
"Overcoming the memory transfer quandary could have significant implications once we are back in the Milky Way," Clare said frowning as she added the last curler to the stack.
"You have incoming drone data transmissions from an asteroid designated JTK-57," she said. "A metallic body. Mass is low. Curious."
Ruby gave Tec a quick, worried glance.
"What happened to just the basics?" he asked.
"What analysis did you perform on that asteroid?" Clare asked.
"A high-resolution surface scan," Ruby said.
"The iron is a company alloy," Tec added.
"Less than 250 years old," Ruby clarified.
Tec saw a grave look solidify on Clare's face.
"Anything else?" Clare asked tensely.
"Our rover is measuring surface density and imaging the rock's interior," Ruby said.
"Oh my," Clare said. "What kind of imaging?"
"An acoustic image needing small explosive charges simultaneously detonated," Ruby replied as a piercing alarm sounded from the tricorder.
Clare shook her head.
"Tec, it's a displacement alarm," Ruby said silencing the tricorder. "57 is moving and its mass is reducing rapidly."
"Route the appropriate cams to the tricorder," Tec quickly commanded.
The small display of the tricorder showed large iron slabs sloughing off and away from 57's central mass, which was slowly approaching Vera.
"Maybe the acoustic charges were too much given the weakness of the iron," Tec said.
"We have a preliminary rover image," Ruby said as the display changed to a line model of 57's interior. She magnified the image until centered on a small, central mass.
"There is your answer, Captain," Clare said staring at a mech roughly two meters long in the acoustic image. "I don’t suppose you have much in the way of weapons?" she asked.
Tec switched the tricorder's feed to an exterior view, showing the mech now only meters away.
"It's not very big," Tec said thoughtfully while desperately wanting a solution for their problem to somehow materialize and soon.
"Apart from low-power lasers, weapon plans are barred from company replicators," Ruby replied.
"There is SAV7's disrupter dredge," Tec said wondering how they could get close enough to suck the mech into the bins.
"It's coming," Ruby whispered staring at the tricorder's display.
The Vera trembled slightly as the mech clamored onto its hull then quickly scuttled toward deck two's stern airlock without hesitation.
"Tec, I'm frightened," Ruby said grasping his hand tightly.
"Ideas?" he asked looking to the women as a tremor shook the ship causing the stack of curlers to collapse, scattering them across the house's well-worn, oak floor.
"It just knocked on the door," Clair said.
"I'm thinking it probably wants in," Ruby added.
Clare shook her head. "I'm so sorry," she said watching the mech now motionless outside the airlock.
"I'll talk to it," Ruby said with conviction. "Machine to machine."
"Mechs usually don’t take to chit chat," Clare said solemnly."There have been rare exceptions," she added, "but they never ended well."
Ruby smiled at Tec and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "We need to cycle that lock," she said calmly looking at Clare.
"We're going to let it in?" Tec asked incredulously.
"The authorities are too far. It would be long gone in the centuries before they could respond to a standard com," Ruby said.
"Go," Clare said. "Go now," she added sternly as the ship shuddered again.
"Exit program," Ruby ordered, quickly transitioning Clare and her house into the holo deck's lattice of sensors.