We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Bob

September 2334

Six Hills

They placed me in an actual cell, with two buckets and a mattress on the floor. One bucket contained water; the other was empty, except for some stains from previous occupants that left little doubt about the intended use. Yech! The bars were something that resembled bamboo, and they felt solid. They were also embedded firmly into the floor and ceiling. A small window, high on the wall, let air and light in. There were two cells against one wall of the room, with a door on the opposite wall that led to the rest of the station.

The cop took my backpack, after inventorying the contents and giving me a receipt. Which he placed in the backpack. I wasn’t sure if that was deliberate irony but commenting wouldn’t accomplish anything except possibly pissing them off, so I kept a cork in it.

After announcing that dinner would be at dusk, they left me to my own devices. Which normally would be just an expression, except, you know, Bob. I had no spiders left, my last spider being in the crate with Bender, but I did have a couple of fleas. They might or might not be able to cut the bamboo without starting a fire. I was just going to have to take the chance. I’d have loved to do a little spying and get the lay of the land, jail-wise, but fleas didn’t have sufficient audio-visual capability.

While the fleas examined the structure of the bars, I sat down and engaged in a good old-fashioned panic attack. Bender was sailing off with the Clipper, with a postal address in Three Circles. Some unlucky recipient was going to get a face-full of angry spider instead of whatever was in the box that the cops currently had in their possession.

Either the recipient would report the issue to the authorities—in which case Bender would be back in the hands of either the Resistance or the Administrator—or the recipient would try to break down the cube for metal. Whether or not they were ultimately successful, Bender wouldn’t survive the treatment.

I looked out the window to see the sky fading to dusk. The Clipper would have left by now. They’d get out to the middle of the river before dusk and sail all night, putting on up to a hundred miles per day. Sailing in Heaven’s River was an almost mindless activity, since you always had the current on your side. The wind tended to be north-south due to residual Coriolis forces, so boats could use a beam reach to travel even faster than the river current. I wasn’t sure if my manny could overtake them, even swimming flat out.