“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Clayton Forrester muttered as the car bounced along the bumpy highway.

In the driver’s seat Joel Robinson grinned. “Where’s you sense of adventure, Clay?” he asked in that annoyingly cheery voice which made Clayton want to beat his head against a wall on days such as this. “This must be better than trying to interpret some kid’s answer about quantum physics.”

The mad scientist-turned-teacher was about to retort with the fact that A) his sense of adventure was still clonked out on Mike’s couch, B) those tests aren’t going to mark themselves, and C) quantum physics wasn’t in the curriculum, but he somehow managed to bite his tongue. Instead he instructed Joel to make a right turn at the stop sign.

“How much longer is it?” Joel asked. Driving wasn’t one of his favourite activities, especially not up to two straight hours of it. When they began their trip Clayton had been behind the wheel. They switched places after Clayton had pleaded tiredness and, as he had put it, ‘slowly rising insanity from the dull panorama’. In all, they had been on the road for almost five hours now, and Joel was starting to share Clayton’s opinion about the unchanging scenery. Somehow, trees and the occasional gas stop just don’t make for an interesting drive.

“Not long now,” Clayton assured him, his voice weary from the effects of the long drive. He had hoped he would never have to make this trip again but life, as the saying goes, wasn’t fair.

He started to daydream of a big, comfy bed and found himself wishing for more than just the weekend off. It had taken the combined effort of both Tom and Crow to detach Clayton from his makeshift bed on Mike’s couch that morning. The night before he had stayed up way too late dealing with a combination of school work, dealing with the pranks and other shenanigans of the ‘bots, and with matters dealing with his soon-to-be apartment. At the halfway point through his student’s tests he had finally given up and gave into the sandman at almost two in the morning. About six hours later he was rudely awaken by a certain golden robot yelling bloody murder into his ear with a megaphone and a certain hovering red robot dumping a bucket of cold water over his head.

Needless to say, he wasn’t in the best of moods.

“Turn down this road,” Clayton said, indicating an old dirt road just ahead of them.

“It’s really out of the way, huh?” Joel remarked as the car made its bumpy way down the lane.

In the back seat Cambot hovered up to see outside the window.

“If the piece of junk is even still there,” Clayton muttered, making a show of being sullen.

Joel, not one to be phased by people’s bad moods, gave a small chuckle. “If I know Gizmonic, they’re probably doing everything they can to keep the Feds away from it. We both know the kinds of ‘friends in high places’ the head honchos have, after all.”

“Hmph, point taken,” Clayton said, feeling a little deflated. As much as he considered Joel a friend now, it still irked him when the inventor points out flaws in his hypotheses. He may not be bent on taking over the world anymore, but he still had that Forrester pride.

The rough drive continued in silence until Cambot started to make a little commotion in the back seat. He was bopping in the air and beeping frantically, trying to get the two human’s attention. Joel couldn’t help but grin at him.

“I guess this is the place,” he said as he pulled the car over.

Clayton shivered in the cold autumn air as he stepped out of the confines of the car. “Couldn’t you have at least chosen a warmer day to do this, Joel? One that didn’t make my breath practically solidify when I exhale?”

Joel grinned but said nothing as he opened the backseat door behind the driver’s seat to let Cambot out. On the other side Clayton had opened the other door to get at his laptop while grumbling about the “damn weather” and “irritating boobies who can’t let sleeping scientists lie”. Joel couldn’t help but chuckle slightly.

“Why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Clay?” he asked, grinning.

The other man glared at him, but stopped his complaining. He didn’t have the energy for an argument at the moment. Not that he would have had a chance to start one anyway. Once out of the car, Cambot took off into the woods, leaving the two men in his wake.

Joel looked over at Clayton. “Looks like we’re in for quite the exercise,” he said before taking off at a jog after the camerabot. With a laptop tucked under one arm, Clayton mentally cursed Mike for having a job interview that day and took off after Joel.

Thankfully, their trek through the trees was short-lived, though that didn’t stop Joel and Clayton from being on the receiving end of many scratches and bruises as they trudged their way after Cambot. In minutes they were standing in front of the wreckage of the Satellite of Love.

“Good job, Cambot,” Joel said, patting the floating ‘bot with a proud smile. “I knew that homing chip of yours would come in handy someday.”

Clayton, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic. “Kinda odd, isn’t it?” he asked.

“What is?”

“No security or anything,” he replied, looking around nervously.

Joel shrugged. “I always thought Gizmonic was too self-confident for their own good. They probably figured that keeping the whole business quiet from the public was good enough security. Did you see what the Feds told the news about the crash?”

Clayton couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “’An experimental military plane crashed last night during a test flight,’” he said, mocking the reporter on the local news. “I was hoping they’d use the swamp gas excuse.”

“Or weather balloon,” Joel agreed.

The next few minutes were spent in silence as the two men stood at the foot of the thing that changed both of their lives forever. For Joel, as much as the Satellite was his prison, it was also his home for almost five years. It was in the Satellite where he had created the ‘bots, where he had had some of his best ideas for inventions, and where he had seen the stars the way most humans could only dream of. The good memories he had of his time on the SOL far outnumbered the bad ones. To see it in shambles now, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness.

Clayton, on the other hand, looked upon the wreckage with a certain amount of satisfaction. When he looked upon the SOL, he saw an experiment gone wrong. Sure, it all worked out in the end, though not the way he had anticipated. However, there were still times if he wondered if it was actually worth all of the stuff he had gone through. He tried to think of what his life might have been like if he had never started the experiment. Would he still be a Gizmonic, still trying to think of increasingly irrational and idiotic ways to gain world domination? Clayton found that the possibility wasn’t too appealing to him, and elected not to think about it.

A couple hard nudges and beeps from Cambot jolted Joel and Clayton from their thoughts.

“Okay, Cambot, okay,” Joel said with a grin on his face. “We’ll get right on it.”

Clayton rolled his eyes as they started to make their way towards the wreckage. “Why is it that none of your robots know the meaning of patience?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Joel said, carefully stepping through a jagged hole in the hull into the console room. “Gypsy has been known to have spent hours trying to fix one little fault in the drinks dispenser, then spend a few more hours interrogating Tom and Crow on how a crayon could have jammed itself in the coffee spout.”

Clayton made a sort of non-committal ‘hmph’ sound as he started to fiddle around with the various panels and switches underneath the main console. “This might take a while, Joel,” he said, his voice slightly muffled.

Joel nodded. “Thought so. Well,” he said as he pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “I’ll go and see how many of these I can find. Come on, Cambot.”

As the inventor and ‘bot walked/hovered off, Clayton’s hand slipped and received a small cut from one of the many jagged pieces of metal. Cursing, he tried to ignore the pain as he worked away and made a mental note to buy a good disinfectant on the way home.

At least as a mad scientist, he admitted to himself glumly, I had an assistant that would do all of the painful work for me.

***

Joel made his way carefully around the debris. A couple of feet ahead of him Cambot floated his way easily through the rubble, occasionally turning around to give his human an encouraging little beep.

“Now,” Joel said to himself, pausing to look around. “If I were,” he read the piece of paper again. “Mike’s stash of rice, where would I be?”

Cambot, after a quick look around, flew through one of the many doorways in the former hallway and beeped at Joel. With a few cautious steps, Joel found himself standing the ruins of the Satellite’s kitchen. Cambot was floating beside one of the toppled tables. A suitcase full of packages of rice was lying beside it.

Joel grinned. “Good job, little guy,” he praised, patting Cambot. “Now, let’s see how fast you can find Crow’s Schmidt Beer sign.”

***

“Why. Won’t. You. OPEN?!” Clayton smacked the offending panel for added effect. Not that it made much of a difference. On hindsight, he admitted that it was rather foolish of him to think that he could do this without any tools.

He sighed and contemplated taking a break for a few minutes. His back was starting to ache from lying underneath the console for almost fifteen minutes, after all.

With one last punch at the panel out of spite, Clayton started to crawl out of the grimy console. His progress was cut short when the panel swung open and the door slapped him on the head.

Clayton glared at the now open panel. “Sure, laugh it up,” he grumbled at no one in particular as he snatched what he was looking for from the little exposed alcove. He then slid out from under the console, being careful not to come into contact with any stray pieces of serrated metal, and reached for his laptop.

“This better be worth it,” he muttered as he went to work.

***

“That’s it,” Joel said with a wide grin. Beside him Cambot beeped his satisfaction. He watched as Joel packed away the last of Tom’s underwear collection into a backpack he had found earlier one of the bedrooms. “It’ll be like an early Christmas tonight. Maybe we should get you a pair of antlers, Rudolph,” he added with a laugh.

Joel went back into the hallway and observed the fruits of his and Cambot’s labour. A suitcase full of rice, a backpack filled to the rim with various odds and ends belonging to Mike and the ‘bots, and a second backpack devoted to Tom’s extensive, though odd, collection.

Joel looked up at the camerabot. “Can you think of anything else we might have forgotten?”

Cambot tilted to one side, giving Joel the mental image of a confused puppy. A second later the little robot gave his creator an excited nod and floated away. Curious as to what the camerabot had thought of, Joel followed Cambot’s quick progress as fast as he dared to go through the rubble.

“Cambot!” he eventually had to plea. “Slow down! I can’t even see you anymore!”

There came a faint beep in response. Realizing that it was coming from his old workshop, Joel steadily made his way there. Another, almost impatient, beep was heard.

“I’m coming, Cambot,” Joel yelled to him. “I’m sure whatever it is you found isn’t going to walk off just yet.”

As he walked through the door to the workshop, Joel saw Cambot trying to nudge a cupboard door open. As cute as the scene was, Joel thought, he didn’t feel like repairing scratch marks tonight.

“Here,” Joel said, walking over to the ‘bot. “What has gotten you all worked up?”

Opening the door, Joel was assaulted with a cloud of dust. During the coughing fit that followed, Cambot had drifted inside and rested on one of the discarded sketchbooks. With an enthusiastic beep he got Joel’s attention again and, as the coughing subsided, he took the book Cambot had indicated out of the cupboard and, sitting down on the floor, cracked it open. What was inside made his breath hitch.

He had almost forgotten about this, and idly wondered how Cambot remembered it, but none the less it brought a nostalgic smile to his face. The pages were taken up by the various drafts and blueprints of the ‘bots and diagrams of the various mechanisms to give them movement, intelligence, and voices. Almost slipping out where various photographs of his progress. Here was a picture of a normal video camera lying in pieces on his worktable. Here, the inside of what looked like top of a gumball machine toy filled with a mess of wires. Another picture showed a flashlight being wired up to a scavenged motherboard. Yet another picture displayed the first test of a thin pair of legs.

Joel could feel tears stinging in his eyes as he flipped through the pages. Back then, he had never imagined that an idea he had thought up one night out of boredom and loneliness would evolve into the family he had today. Of course, he had had high hopes for the ‘bots when he created them, but he had never stopped to think about just how much they actually meant to them until they were gone.

He looked up at Cambot, who was looking over his shoulder at the book. “Good find, little guy,” he said quietly, with a smile on his face. Cambot gave his human a little affectionate nudge, causing Joel to let out a grateful chuckle.

Forcing himself out of his reflective state, closed the book and stood up. “Let’s get this stuff out of here,” he said, still clutching the book. “Hopefully the Grinch has finished his work by then.”

***

Clayton had just finished his handiwork when Joel had finished hauling the last of Mike’s the ‘bots’ things to the car.

“How’s it going?” Joel asked as he sat down beside where Clayton was hunched over the laptop on the floor.

The scientist shrugged. “Almost done. Where’s Cambot run off to?”

“He elected to stay in the car,” Joel responded. “Are you sure this will work?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Clayton said a little sharply. “I created her, didn’t I?”

“Well, Mike and the ‘bots didn’t see a peep out of her for a long time.”

“That’s because some idiot changed her settings to ‘mute,’” Clayton muttered.

Joel blinked in surprise. “Who would have done that?”

“Tom would have,” a female voice said, causing both men to jump. “Though he didn’t know it. Joel, you need to teach him how to work a console properly.”

“Hey, girl,” Joel greeted Magic Voice. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time we get stuck in space. How’s life treating you?”

“Can’t complain,” Magic Voice said. Her voice was coming from Clayton’s laptop. “It’s been kind of slow lately though, what with the crash landing and all.”

“Well,” Joel said as he stood up and brushed himself off. “We’re about to change that. Gypsy wants you to join her in her business venture.”

“Really?” Magic Voice said, sounding as surprised as a computer could.

“Yeah. I believe her exact words were, ‘Who knows more about the mechanics of the satellite than the computer?’ Besides, you really didn’t think that we would leave you behind, did you?”

Joel’s attention was turned back to Clayton due to the other man rather loudly and pointedly clearing his throat. “I think,” he said, starting to pack up his laptop. “That we should start heading back home now.”

***

Clayton kept his eyes on the road and tried to drown out the incessant chatter between Joel and Magic Voice. He wasn’t opposed to the two catching up, far from it. He just had a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, one that he didn’t really like and chose not to dwell on.

“Joel,” he finally spoke up, cutting into their conversation about the time the demon dogs boarded the SOL. “I hate to cut your chat short, but the battery in that laptop isn’t everlasting, you know.”

“Oh, yeah,” Joel responded, sounding a little disappointed. “Well, girl,” he addressed Magic Voice again. “It looks like we have to continue this some other time. I’ll get you back online once we get home, all right?”

“Okay, Joel,” Magic Voice said, pleasant as always. “Bye for now.”

“Bye,” he said as he began shutting down the computer. Idly he thought of how Tom and Crow were going to react when he comes home and boots up Magic Voice again.

“I can’t wait to see their faces,” he said, mostly to himself. “And imagine what she’ll accomplish at ConGyspCo. Between her and Gypsy, humans will be heading to Mars by next Christmas.”

Clayton made a vague grunting sound, but said nothing.

The other man looked over at him. “You’ve been pretty quiet. Something up?”

“No,” Clayton said. He had to restrain himself from cringing at how defensive that sounded. “What could possibly be wrong?”

Joel gave him a sceptical look. “Forgive me for being curious, but why have you been distancing yourself from the rest of us if nothing is wrong?”

“I haven’t been distancing myself.”

“Yes, you have,” Joel shot back. “Like today, you didn’t say a word when Magic Voice came back online.”

“Maybe that’s because I, unlike you and Mike and the ‘bots, spent the time during the experiment in Deep 13 rather than in your merry little paradise on the SOL,” he said acidly.

Joel looked at him sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Clayton rolled his eyes. “Are you really that thick, Robinson? It means that I’m not the same as you guys. It means that I can’t look back at those days with fond memories. It means that, while you guys played pranks on each other and made fun of bad movies, I was underground with only Frank for company while trying to accomplish an impossible task. So forgive me if I feel a little out of place!”

Joel blinked in surprise. He certainly didn’t expect that revelation. And, though Joel didn’t know it, neither did Clayton.

“Clay,” Joel said once he had carefully thought over what he was going to say. “I’ll admit, you have a point there. But you have to realize that it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for us either. Being confined to the Satellite for years isn’t exactly my or anyone’s idea of paradise. Now though, we can look back on it all and laugh. Can’t you look back at some of your more… um, creative plans for world domination and think, ‘Man, what was I on?’”

He paused to let his words sink in. When Clayton didn’t respond he took it as a sign to go on.

“That was then, this is now, Clay. Back then you were our captor. Did we think kindly of you? No, I’ll admit that we didn’t. But, and I believe you’ve said this yourself, things change. We’re your friends now, Clay, whether you like it or not. I’m sincerely sorry if you’ve been feeling detached from the rest of us, but it’s not all just us. That’s an area we all need some work in, including you and me.”

Clayton sighed. Joel had worked him into a corner again.

“Damn you for being so observant,” Clayton muttered.

Joel grinned. “Get used to it, buddy,” he said, giving Clayton a soft punch on the shoulder. “You’re stuck with us.”

Clayton couldn’t quite keep the beginnings of a smile from his face. Yeah, he could get used to this.