Zen stepped past the gate representing the invisible border where Gray's property started, it was quite a large area but Zen thought it best to take things slow anyway and abstained from using the spacecraft to get closer.
Gray's mining station was like any other patch of soil on this planet. Barren, red and mostly littered with rocks. The planet depended on the greenhouses near the capital for food, if something were to ever happen to any of them. Well, best not think about it.
Then Zen saw the mining station itself, a giant hole cone shaped towards the center stretched on for almost as far as the horizon allowed it. To the east stood a medium sized storage building meant to store the robots in time of inactivity or repair. Next to that stood massive warehouses for depositing the minerals and other materials.
Usually all these processes would be automatic and fully independent, running 24/7 365 days a year. Poor robots didn't even get the holidays off.
Zen studied his options. The mine itself was massive and searching for clues would take a while, the robot storage unit at the same time was way more manageable. Burying his hands in his pockets he felt the drone Effy had left him, he took it out and studied it.
It resembled a dragonfly but with rotors instead of wings, the design was relatively light and it folded up pretty nicely. 'If Effy's made the lifespan of this thing more than thirty minutes this thing might actually be quite impressive.' Zen pressed the big button on the dragonfly's back.
With a slow buzz it sprung to life lifting off from Zen's hand, it hovered above his head for a minute beeping methodically. The dragonfly seemed to flinch for a moment and turned to face Zen.
"Hey Zen! What do you think eh? Pretty neat right?" Zen couldn't see Effy but he knew her well enough to guess her expression at this time; overconfident pride.
"Yeah, it's alright. I'll give it a six out of ten" Zen slightly bumped the dragonfly making it correct itself on the fly. "What's the battery life of this thing anyway?"
"Stop that!" Effy spoke playfully "It can stay airborne for an hour more or less, batteries sure have come a long way." Effy made the drone spin around to take a look around the mining station.
"No matter how many times I've seen them I never really get used to the sizes of the mining stations."
"Well Oreallis is a mining colony, so I expected it to some degree. But you're right, not this massive." Zen sighed looking at the massive expanse of the hole drilling deep into the planet's crust.
Zen cursed under his breath—combing through this endless expanse on foot felt like searching for a needle in the universe's largest haystack. He should've brought the spaceship.
"So what do you want to check out first? I can send the dragonfly to do semi autonomous investigations but that's it. Plus I still have my own work to do." Effy was right, Zen couldn't expect her to give her whole day to him while she was busy as well.
Zen looked around. "If you'll take the warehouses, I'll take the robot storage. After you're done, meet me there." Zen pointed towards the entrance to the actual mine, a massive gate with a bunch of old inactive mining equipment near it.
"Alright! I'll see to it then. Good luck playboy." The dragonfly flew off to the warehouses scanning for anything anomalous and of course recording every waking second of its existence.
Zen turned to face the robot storage and paused, he did not like this in the slightest. A theft of this scale was simply impossible, there had to be a bigger picture. Yet, he could ill afford to be idle for long and made way towards the storage, the coat of his uniform fluttering in the wind behind him.
The storage's door slid open with clear signs of operational neglect, it screeched open, protesting to any movement the actuators forced it to make. The inside was covered in a layer of thick dust, nobody had been here for a very long time.
He walked inside and immediately saw a second print of footsteps in front of him, it seemed his initial thought was incorrect. Someone had been here, and very recent at that.
Zen crouched down and inspected the footprint further, it was too large to be from Gray. Also it didn't look like a boot, it looked like one of the robots from the station itself had walked here. If one of the robots had been here, it must have been a glitch. AI had strict laws erected against it since the extremist war.
Zen followed the footprints and made sure not to contaminate the crime scene, he shot quick pictures of everything that caught his interest. The footprints lead to the main console where all the station's robots were controlled, on the console a number of buttons had been cleared of dust.
Zen quickly prepared a small fingerprint test and looked at the dustless buttons, nothing. Which proved nothing of course, fingerprints were nice and all but they could be easily faked and wearing gloves was a surefire way to ensure none were left behind.
In short Zen became none the wiser, Zen looked out at the open space where all the robots were stationed if need be. The bottom of the floor was still dusty but not as dusty as the rest, which made sense as the robots just entered via their entrance and disturbed the dust walking to and from the storage.
Zen Crouched down in front of the console and looked for a minute.
"Ha! Got it." Zen retrieved a rectangle like electronic component from the console. "I'll have Effy analyze the commands entered from the console, and then maybe we'll have at least a clue."
Before Zen could pocket the console's database a noise stirred from within the storage. Zen turned to face the direction, it came from the repair bay. Zen cautiously approached as he gripped his sidearm tight, caution was better than death.
Slowly closing in on the repair bay, the noises intensified. It sounded like someone or something was struggling against something else.
Now in front of the door Zen decided on making his presence known, better to have someone knowing he was about to jump into the room with his hand on his gun then to surprise a potential trigger happy thief.
Zen cleared his throat and announced his presence. "Hello? Anyone there? This is the protection force, you're in a crime scene." The noises immediately ceased as soon as he spoke. Zen hesitant. "I'm coming in."
Opening the door Zen was welcomed with the chaos that is an engineers workspace, parts scattered across the floor, oil spilled on random places, drawings of parts hung up half heartedly on the walls. And as a cruel centerpiece hung a mining robot.
The robot's humanoid frame was made to be compatible with existing equipment and to allow supervisors to follow the robots into the mine itself. It was huge, standing at least 2 meters tall towering over Zen like a father to a child. It had been red once upon a time but now was smeared with filth and dirt, making it red brown-ish in color.
The robot seemed to be powered on, which was strange to say the least. During repairs robots were meant to be shut down in case of emergencies, in case they suddenly jumped to life while midst repair causing harm to owner and itself alike.
The wrench system upon which it was hanging was battered and on the point of breaking apart, it seemed the robot had tried to break out. Only there was a small problem, it was not supposed to be that intelligent. Do what you're programmed to do, that is the current programming way of doing things. Nothing more, nothing less.
And unless this robot was programmed to escape its bindings, which was doubtful. It had to have been illegally modified, which explains the disappearances. They could have literally escaped their owner and moved somewhere else. Or Zen was reading too much into it and an error made them think the mine was on the other side of the planet. To which the robotic workers happily made the pilgrimage.
He saw the robot's singular camera move frantically across his whole body. It was studying him. It stopped the scan all of a sudden and focused on the console's database, its body remaining eerily still. If Zen had not heard it try to break free or seen its camera move he would think the robot was simply shut down.
With a violent explosion of force the robot grabbed the console database with a speed and strength that surpassed Zen's own, crushing the component with its bare hands reducing it to rubble. Zen had jumped back but not fast enough to save the database.
Grabbing and leveling his sidearm he aimed at the robot who at the meantime was busy freeing itself from its shackles.His finger hovered over the trigger, heart pounding. Destroying the bot would erase any chance of unraveling the mystery, but waiting another second might cost him more than just a clue.
Finally the robot broke free from its constraints and faced Zen, freezing for a single second. Having reviewed its options it shot forward towards the human it deemed a threat, its hand wide open and aiming for the man's face.
However it seemed to have miscalculated. Three shots rang out inside the repair bay, echoing as the sound bounced off the walls. Zen had opened fire, accurately destroying the joints on the arm the robot tried to kill him with. The Robot recoiled and reconsidered his actions. Bolting out the door destroying everything in its path instead of going around or over as it left a wake of destruction behind it.
Zen hurried behind it, shooting the remaining bullets from his magazine. The impact of the bullets rang out with a dull thang as the bot fled, leaking multiple fluids from severed tubes across its body further impairing its own movement. Zen had destroyed the right shoulder, left knee, left ankle and right hip joints. Slowing it down severely, it was now no faster than a walking human. Zen followed it calmly reloading his pistol with the backup mag he thanked the gods brought with him.
The robot crawled outside towards the mine entrance then froze one more time, it looked over its shoulder back at the human who maimed it. It would not be able to escape him. This called for desperate measures, the robot had no intention of sacrificing itself but it was not left a choice.
It rattled as a foreign threat possessed it, again crawling away. But not towards the mine this time, It crawled towards one of the mining equipment located near the warehouses; the stone crusher.
Just as Zen reached the robot he aimed his pistol at the remaining intact joints, he was afraid of damaging anything important but if the robot was allowed to walk… or crawl it would disappear surprisingly fast, and Zen wasn't feeling a manhunt at the moment.
The robot sensing his demise quickly turned around contorting its own torso hindering it even further and slapped the pistol from Zen's hand. Zen wasn't strong enough to stop a 300 kg machine on his own, crippled or not. He was forced to retrieve his pistol first as he ran towards where it had landed.
Zen retrieved the pistol and immediately turned around half expecting the robot to stand directly behind him. But it wasn't. Zen could only watch as he saw the robot throw itself in the stone crusher, destroying any hope of retrieving valuable information.
The stone crusher screeched and protested against the contents it had swallowed as it slowly crushed the robot further, until it eventually jammed, not being designed to withstand metal.
Zen rushed over, the crusher had been deactivated moments before. 'Fuck! Did the robot activate it?' He looked, the console was on the other side of the machine. It couldn't have done it itself in the time Zen was preoccupied. 'Was it done remotely?'
Zen turned the stone crusher off and kicked a rock into the far distance as he rustled his hair in frustration. Two vital clues—gone. Zen kicked a rock in frustration, cursing the bot and himself for being a second too slow.
Buzzing could be heard slowly intensifying as it approached, it came from the warehouses. It was Effy's dragonfly. It hovered at eye level besides Zen quickly inspecting the scene. "Zen! What happened! Are you alright?" Effy sounded honestly concerned.
Zen just sighed. "Yeah I'm fine, I just fucked it up." He looked up at the sky, its blue vastness only broken by the occasional white cloud. "I found some clues but this robot." Zen spit on the ground and signaled to the now jammed rock crusher. "This asshole of a robot was the second clue and crushed the first and destroyed himself."
"But I'm fine. Or at least still in enough pieces to continue our date tonight." Zen smiled as he teased Effy for a change of pace. The dragonfly just hovered, staring at Zen.
"Not funny smartass, I heard gunshots, I was worried." Effy could not be seen pouting but Zen could imagine it clear as day.
"Well, if everythings alright I'll call Robert and Amelia that their assistance is no longer needed." Zen looked at Effy through the dragonfly.
"You told them I was in danger and they agreed to help?" Zen was perplexed, he could sort of understand Robert but Amelia? Her discontent and hatred towards Zen was more than palpable. It was obvious.
"You're not as hated as you think Zen. At least that or they don't want to wait for another investigative officer again." Effy laughed.
"Yeah thanks for the pep talk." Zen looked out at the mess that his robot encounter had caused. "You see anything interesting near the warehouses?"
"Nope not much, it's like everything suddenly just decided to dip and never come back"
Zen sighed and turned around. "Same here, could you stay close and cover me for a while before another murder bot fancies me?"
"Sure thing, lead the way."