Book One: Chapter Five: ii

Cillian gestured off-handedly in the direction of Reginald, who stood quietly beside Cillian in an unassuming posture of defeat. On hearing his name, Reginald glanced up at the gathered party of Ustur mercenaries and waved a limp hand, an expression of resigned despondence upon his multi-articulated metallic face.

Whilst Reginald was a highly advanced combat assault robot, specifically designed as a Fimbul Robravo for personal security; he had also been intentionally made to resemble the non-combat Fimbul Robutler to avoid drawing unwanted attention. This intentional design ensured that enemies could not easily identify them, thus allowing officers in civilian clothing to blend in seamlessly with wealthy civilians who were often accompanied by their private butler robots, the Fimbul Robutlers.

Cillian being Cillian had, of course, taken it a step further and outfitted Reginald with an entire butler’s uniform. It was actually quite common for butler robots owned by those in the upper-class circles of society to wear uniforms and these would often depict the Family insignia. Instead, Cillian had elected to outfit Reginald in a uniform with absurdly clashing colours and styles, predominantly as a grand practical joke. The uniform consisted of a pink long-sleeved dress shirt with rainbow-coloured bow tie, yellow gloves, red polkadot waistcoat, purple butler’s cap and finally a black and white chequered waist apron. That being said, it certainly did reinforce the illusion that Reginald was merely a butler robot to an eccentric elite, and not, in fact, a highly advanced combat assault robot.

“So, I am still curious,” said Cillian as he began to pace back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back. “Is it they/them? Ze/hir? Xe/xem? Hy/hym? Or maybe just it/its? Or are there some other preferred pronouns I am not aware of? Please do enlighten me. I am ever so curious. No? No response? Reg, educate me about the Usturs for a moment. Are they non-binary?”

“Yes, sir. That is correct.”

“Well there we go. I cannot help but wonder at the irony of this entire situation, though. Computers were all initially designed to function on a binary system of 0s and 1s, and yet some 600 years later you have a delusional race of sentient computers who now believe they are all non-binary.” Cillian began to laugh at his own joke, folding over whilst slapping his thigh with his free hand.

“You see,” Cillian resumed as he straightened. “For us Boheme, we have only two genders, male and female. And these two genders correlate with the two biological sexes that exist in our species of humans. It makes life very simple, you see. But I understand things may be different for you Usturs. How would you classify your gender identity? Would you say you are more agender rather than non-binary? Or perhaps androgynous or neutrois? 

“How does your species, if that is even the right term, reproduce? Do you have anything down there?” said Cillian, his right hand pointing towards his crutch? “Anything at all? Or is it all just a shiny mound — “ but Cillian got no further as the leader of the mercenary crew fired a warning shot into the air as a means of silencing Cillian.

The leader then spoke up and this time their voice was not disguised by voice distortion technology. Anger was clearly heard in their tone of voice. “You are now our prisoners. Our hostages. We will not harm you so long as you do exactly as commanded. Do you have any weapons on your person? Does your servant robot have any weapons on them?”

“Prisoners? Hostages?” said Cillian, feigning shock. “Why on earth would you want to take poor innocent little me hostage? I have no weapons, as you can see. And Butler robots are unable to bear or use arms of any kind. No, you must have me mistaken for someone else. I cannot for the life of me imagine why you would want to take me as your prisoner. Did I offend you with my questions regarding your gender identity, or lack thereof? Let us start over again, then, shall we? This discussion has become terribly serious. I know what we need. Some humour. Reginald, would you mind telling these Ustur ‘folk’ that joke you told me earlier? Actually, hold off on that for a moment. I have one more thing to clarify.”

Cillian began to pace back and forth, his eyes studying the ground as he resumed speaking. “Apologies for using the term ‘folk’. I was no doubt making an assumption. Is ‘folk’ the collective noun that you Ustur use when referring to yourselves in plural contexts, given you are neither a group of men nor women? I could not have very well said ‘people’ because… well, you are not humans. Perhaps the term ‘beings’ is more appropriate as that refers to sentient entities and being a living organism is not a pre-requisite for sentience. You are not living in the normal sense, are you? You appear to satisfy all the key attributes of a living organism save for four fundamental ones: cellular structure, growth, reproduction and adaptation. But, oh how human-centric and arrogant of me to project onto another… ‘being’ the expectation that they would need to conform to the same attributes that characterise us humans as living organisms. That being said, I am fairly certain that every other living species in Galia — the Mierese, the Punaab, the Tufa and even the freaky Photoli — do actually adequately conform to and satisfy all the fundamental life characteristics. All except the Ustur. It makes one wonder, does it not? Did nature really intend for these ‘things’ to exist?”

Cillian stopped pacing and looked up at the mercenary leader who still stood with their gun trained on Cillian, a look of rage now on their face.

“Ah,” cried Cillian. “I have found the term that best describes you all. ‘Things’! It suits you all perfectly. And logically your pronouns would therefore be it/its. Fantastic. Now that we have resolved that mystery, Reginald, please now relay the joke to these ‘things’.”

“A robot gets arrested,” said Reginald. He paused for another second, and then continued. “He is charged with battery.”

Cillian began to laugh hysterically, turning as he did so to slap Reginald on the back. He then bent over, right hand on the ground, as he howled with laughter.

The mercenary soldiers appeared to be perturbed by this highly eccentric behaviour. The soldiers looked from Cillian to their leader and back to Cillian.

“This is not the time for your stupid antics,” yelled the Ustur leader, firing another warning shot above Cillian, this time closer to his head. “Have you not understood what I have said?”

Cillian continued laughing, tears streaming down his face.

“Fucking insane human,” growled the mercenary leader. Without turning, he addressed his team. “Search the human for weapons. Then bind them both. Once that is done, I want you to contact the Bohemian authorities and let them know we have a member of one of their elite Families as our hostage. This human is the son of someone important, no doubt. So he will be our ticket off this forsaken planet.”

Despite the fact that Cillian was at this time on his knees, laughter continuing to rock his body back and forth, his acute hearing picked up the Ustur’s words.

So that is their game, huh, thought Cillian.

Cillian immediately ceased laughing, straightening up as he did so, and he reached into his right pocket to remove a shiny sphere. The same shiny sphere he had taken from behind the passenger seat of his car.

“Oh, please pay no mind to this here trinket. It is not a weapon, so you need not be afraid,” he said, holding the sphere out on his flat palm. The multi-faceted ball of metal began to unfold and transform. Twin propellers appearing on either side of a centrally positioned camera that was attached to a miniature gimbal. It was, in fact, a high quality personal video recording drone. These were, for the most part, only used by wealthy elites, celebrities, high-ranking politicians, entertainers, social media influencers and some athletes. And, of course, by Cillian.

The recording drone lifted off into the air and immediately began to record Cillian as he recommenced his pacing. It was, however, not only recording but also live-streaming to Cillian’s infrequently used social media account on the Hologram News Network. Cillian had noticed that as soon as they exited the ship, they were able to receive and transmit frequencies, which meant that only his Lowbie was being radio jammed and shielded. In their arrogance, the Ustur had evidently not considered it a significant risk if Cillian or Reginald were to contact the Bohemian officials once they had exited their ship given the authorities were going to be called by the Ustur anyway once Cillian had been taken as a prisoner.

Cillian spoke loudly and clearly as he walked, his words no longer slurring. “I see now that I was intended to be your hostage. To be used in your negotiations as leverage with the Bohemian authorities to assist in your escape off-planet. You must have therefore come to Bohemia on a secret mission. You bear no insignia, nor do you have any uniform. Mercenaries, I suspect. Paid to carry out a mission. Likely against the nation state of Bohemia itself, given the National Military are after you. Oh, yes, I can see you have had a run in with the National Military. And not just any old regular soldiers, either. You were engaged by Bohemian special forces. I can tell because of the bullet holes in two of your comrades. These bullet holes all have the faint but distinctive chemical residues left behind by the unique armour-penetrating ammunition that is exclusively used by the Bohemian Special Forces. How can I see this you may wonder? I can see it with my high tech — and highly fashionable — sunglasses.”

Cillian stopped momentarily to tap his aviator sunglasses, flashed a grin up at the recording drone, and then resumed his pacing. There were currently just over three hundred live viewers and this number was growing with each passing second. Cillian did not post very often on his social media account, however, when he did, the videos would inevitably go viral. His last post, which had been the live streaming of his drunken horse race two days prior, already had over two million views.

“These are not just any old glasses, though. No, no. These allow me to see all sorts of things. Including the following facts,” said Cillian, halting mid-stride to turn towards the lead mercenary. He raised his right hand and began to count off each item with his fingers as he spoke. “Two of your soldiers have no ammunition in their assault rifles. None of your team has any backup guns. You are the only one with a single spare ammunition magazine. One of your soldiers has sustained three fractures in whatever equivalent of bones you ‘things’ have in your legs and you yourself have a broken right arm. And finally, your personal energy shield power level is down to around twenty-five percent remaining capacity, whilst most of your team have either very minimal or no remaining power in their personal energy shields.”

Cillian stopped speaking to gauge the effect his words were having on the Ustur. Two Ustur on the left side of the field, whose assault rifles were empty of ammunition, had already lowered their weapons. They realised the pointlessness of holding up the empty rifles any longer given their bluff had been called.

“So, back to my story. Yes, you came here on a secret mission to carry out some nefarious plot. But you failed in your mission. Caught in the act, I suspect. You fought off the Special Forces, who no doubt came crashing down on you when you muddled your mission. You somehow escaped, although not without losing a soldier and being injured in the process. And now you are trying to escape the planet as the Bohemian Special Forces are no doubt searching for you this very minute. Then along comes what appears to be a spoilt rich kid in his souped up ship, and you thought this would be the perfect hostage as he likely has parents in powerful positions who would do anything to get their beloved boy back. How am I doing so far?”

The Ustur soldiers stood motionless, unable to respond. The recording drone swivelled in the air to capture the expressions of the Ustur. Just under ten thousand viewers now. The word was spreading like wildfire through the Bohemian community and abroad. By now, the authorities would have been alerted and likely would already have ships airborne and on the way to the location of the livestream transmission.

“I take it by your stunned expressions that I am right on the money. Now the only two questions left are: one, what was your mission, and two, who sent you? For this reason, I will keep one of you alive so I can question them later. And that one will be… you,” said Cillian, the index finger of his right hand pointing towards the mercenary leader. “Reginald?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Please enter combat mode. Engage and neutralise all hostile ‘things’ in the area. Except for this ‘thing’ I am pointing at. I will keep it alive for questioning,” said Cillian.

“Understood, sir,” responded Reginald, his tone all business, the previous despondency was now entirely gone.

“Very good,” said Cillian, turning to the recording drone once again. He smiled widely as he observed that twenty-five thousand viewers were now watching the live recording. “And please remember, my beloved fans, Reggie and I are trained professionals, so please do not attempt the following at home.”