Archive of Our Own ^beta

The quiet hum of the engines broke through the recently charted space, a big warm yellow one and other light orange, bright at the distance with numerous solar flares dancing across their surface and in-between space. Soundless, the alert systems of the ship warned of numerous secondaries malfunctions, and a golden robot dressed in all black polyester studied the communications screen as the Federation picked the distress call.

“GM08 reporting, solar storm in nearby system is currently affecting motor performance. Pilot under non-commercial license. I request advisement.”

“Officer 7o3 on call, GM08. Please list your exact coordinates.”

Metallic golden fingers coded the coordinates the spaceships’ principal screen with flawless grace, the metal reflecting the suns’ shine.

“The Solar Storm of such system is expected to last for a couple of days, interfering with communications and navigation machinery. Emergency scale is advertised.”

“Copied. Is nearest Federation’s Station located in fluid planet Solaris?”

“Correct. Currently inhabited, the Station is kept functional for mainly scientific purposes. The Stations’ AI systems are qualified to realize automatic landing on the stations surface. Do you wish to be linked to the Station system?”

“Please…” the officer copied that, and the Voyager’s computer showcased the ongoing connection among the warnings. “How long do the storms usually last?”

“Generally, in the universe, a week, but since this Solar system has two stars, is it logical to expect a longer duration. Positive feedback enhances the radiation spectrum. Precaution is advertised.”

“Copied.”

There were some seconds of silence while the remote officer adjusted his ships’ system to the Stations’ sensors, his vessel immediately showing the new course due on the interactive screen.

“Officer, I have read that Solaris is a sentient planet, can you confirm?”

“It is, Navigant. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard about how Solaris reacts to visitors, it shows red structures similar to one’s dreams. No independent androids have been there yet, so it’ll be a first. Good look, sir.”

“Thanks. Nice afternoon. GM08 out.”

And like that, communication with the last command center in the quadrant ended. The cursor showed an estimate arrival within the next five hours, the motor’s efficiency severely disturbed by the radiation sudden changes. As the ship felt hotter and hotter under the two suns, an occasional fire blast would interfere with the main reactors. Glancing towards the visor, he studied the thick-atmosphere clad red planet, and he hoped that the spaceship would resist. If not, the flames would ignite his body again… this time for real.

***

“This is the Capitan of the Voyager Spaceship, GM08. I request landing under the Federation’s law.”

He repeated the sentence a couple of times to the microphone, hoping the interactive artificial secretary system understood his vocoder. The storm had already flared, full force, his ship sensors making no sense as the spaceship barely entered the atmosphere of the red planet on time. He tried once again, and finally, after who knows how many attempts, the call was acknowledged. He let a relieved bleep, falling to his chair.

“This is the Solaris Station Assistant. Its request has been processed, Capitan of Voyager Spaceship. Vessel shows authorization for landing as Federation’s rules. The software will maneuver the ship now, please do not alter course. Landing will occur in 35, 34,33…”

Technology… to think there was a time were astronauts had to manipulate the movements of their spaceships with millimetric precision, using only tiny air propulsors. And now, he could drive an entire ship on his own through the universe, being only a naïve pilot.

TB3 would be so mad at how easy it was to drive a gigantic vehicle along the void.

“…2,1. Landing successful.”

***

The station was as innocuous as one can imagine: beige walls, warm-toned faux wood flooring, indirect light on every hallway, white and light brown furniture, marble countertops… there was no single hint of a soul inhabiting any common area. How boring!

Nevertheless, business.

There wasn’t a reason to resist a complete week by himself roaming an interminable living ocean. He understood the thing might be appealing for some scientists —though, not right now—, the wonders of how a whole planet can be alive, but to him… barely a stop-by in his wandering schedule.  

He went to the nearest bedroom with his universal charger in hand, plugged himself to the wall while sitting on bed, ready for setting himself to sleep mode. Then, his sensors alerted a change in the surroundings, the red waves of the ocean swirling and clashing in wild waves. Would the station be swallowed by the fluids while he slept? A calm death would that be, if you must… and then, the ocean appeased.

The steps that distanced the bed and the glass wall were walked rapidly, his motherboard beaming curiously at the sudden changes in the marine currents. Definitely not like Earth’s and unlike any other planet he’d visited in his whereabouts. Some currents changed, the red waters gathering unnaturally in some points of the surface and moved like synchronized wires.

In the matter of a blink, the fluids displayed a figure, chunky segments of static flows in spherical segments and fur-alike texture walking back a couple steps he wondered, how did this big and scorching planet know what a cat looked like!?

A giant sleeping cat…

That was the thing the planet decided to show him.

Probably the only one that could have called his attention.

So, he went back to bed, unplugged the charger, and went to the library to see if he could find some behavioral data of the mass of red fluid that whirled under the floating station, as the sleeping cat softly disappeared among the waves.

***

His first couple days were spent in a silent routine, recharging, reading and observing the immense mass of fluid under the Station, which amazed him non-stop with Earth figurines and animals. Never human-like shapes, however, as he suspected it had some relation with him being a robot. His search for informal human reports had been unfruitful, the whole library full of scientific research and informs rather than experiences.

Every day, he tried to communicate with the nearest solar system, unsuccessfully receiving the static that alerted that all communications would be impossible until the storms melded down.

The experience itself was rather lovely. No one questioned his whereabouts, it was always quiet aside from the lulling waves, and the Station had a swing mode that enabled at night, so the complete structure acted like a baby crib rather than a complex investigation center and lodging unit. His mechanical heart, though, missed the infinite void of space, as it seemed to resonate with the void within him.

Sometimes, when only one of the two suns reined the sky, it appeared like the ocean tried to entertain him, showing snippets of broken histories about rabbits and foxes, pufferfishes and whales, or simply a toaster roaming the red sea… all those things remained him of his early days on Earth, the sunny afternoons playing with friends and late dates with his only loved one. Those memories always came with the sadness that things would never be that way ever again. But being sad in Solaris made no sense, so he let himself feel and what came to his artificial senses was deep, heart-clenching nostalgia.

He’d be lying if he didn’t say there was a hint of hope, too.

***

Not everything could go so flawlessly, so one day he woke up to emergency state in the Station. One on the valves on the roof had broken due to the intensified radiation, leaving the secondary stabilizer system unavailable. Everything would remain safe until the usual afternoon winds began, making the floating island sway in all directions.  

“Assistant, where are the spacesuits?”

The computer in reception bleeped before responding, green dots in the side informing the command had been understood.

“Spacesuits and helmets are stored both in the loading port and main laboratory, last floor.”

The robot nodded, even if he knew the computer could not see him.

“The Lab is the one that has a hatch to the rooftop?” he asked, watching from the common room viewing glass wall the wildered ocean, the first sun beaming low as the day began. He did not have much time before the second with its storm would get up there soon, rising the temperature a couple hundred degrees.

“Affirmative. Valve can be changed from there.”

He’d begun walking through the corridor when he responded to the AI.

“I’ll change it, but I’ll need instructions.”

***

The wind began to blow strongly just as he closed the hatch, his internal ventilators working non-stop to bring down the processor’s temperature. The duty itself had been easy, the AI assistant providing useful information during the whole procedure and the valve being straightforward to change.

But he knew something had changed the second his space-suited foot had touched the lab’s flooring. His sensors could not phantom what, as everything looked the same as an hour ago when he’d gone out, however, that sixth sense humans bragged so much about, this hunch told him something he did not know yet had just changed.

Keeping his cold demeanor, as any robot would do, he wandered around the lab, eyeing reports and empty specimen cages. Turning around a table, abandoned in a table a report sprawled with handwritten annotations on top of imprint characters he found what appeared to be a report. He analyzed his surrounding briefly before devoting all his attention to the papers and green letters, noticing they seemed written in a rush. It was English, irrefutably, but some words were barely understandable.

«The thing does not die!

I kept it in the freezer for -illegible- in it remains as strong as the beginning

It gets desperate at my absence

Don’t know what to do I can’t believe her»

Whatever the scientist referred when they wrote that, he could not know. All reports he’d found in the data banks of the Station had been about the planet itself, nothing about what happened inside the quarters. If he’d been capable of trembling, a chill could had run down his spine, slight static accumulating on the top of his metallic parts to mimic goosebumps.

He should be afraid, he thought, taking the report in his gloved hands inside the suit. Carefully, he went to the changing rooms within the Lab and quickly disposed the suit. His golden feet took him rapidly to the common rooms, analyzing all open areas in the search for any danger.

“Assistant, has any ship arrived at the Station since my arrival?”

The two seconds it took the computer to answer lasted an eternity, soft waves barely bothered outside by the strong wind. GM08’s gaze flickered constantly between the ocean and his surroundings.

“No, no new ships registered in the last week. Only Voyager spaceship and emergency shuttles kept in the pneumatic system.”

One of the stress resistances on the main circuit boards turned off, the closest thing to relief his body was capable of doing. He muttered a thanks to the machine and continued looking for something, anything that could tell him that what had him so uncomfortable and tiptoeing every turn and door.

He began by the second floor, where the habitations started. He opened all the closets, all the bathrooms, on room and habitation he’d found in the station. It made sense to leave his room last, since it was the closest to the principal common room and he’d probably heard something from there when he’d spoke to the assistant.

The whole second floor was empty, no soul detectable around.

“Assistant, warn me if you detect any movement among the hallways of the station aside myself.”

The stairs to the first floor felt like nothing, even in each floor had a height of at least three meters and a half. The air bathing his body was hot, secondary sensors suggesting enabling all ventilation systems, but he could not risk being loud.

The rooms all looked the same, aside from three habitations that had been used by scientist for a long time, that still contained some of their belongings in the organized distribution the cleaning automatized robots made when they were gone.

That’s when he heard a bed croak. Until then, he’d not noticed the door to his room was open, not being sure if he’d left it that way in his rush or if someone had left it that way. Aware of every electric pulse his body had, he tiptoed his way to the room, entering fast while maintaining silence.

His visor looked instantly to his bed.

GM08 stood static, completely speechless. Words did not form in his vocoder as he tried to phantom what was going on, logical computerized synapsis electrocuting. It simply made no sense. The station had told him there was nobody here when he arrived, and no spaceships had arrived since his own arrival.

Illogical. Impressive. Impossible.

The man in the unmade bed observed him, in silence, with his mouth open in confusion.

After a minute of nothing, the robot took a step back and closed the door. Mentally, he counted to ten, opening the door again to look inside.

The man tilted his head to the side a bit, blinking.

“Are you a robot?” the man asked, his voice croaking from unuse while he kept his gaze immobile.

A human, appearing in Solaris?

No, something had to be going on. All systems enabled against his will, all fans in the ventilator system worked unstoppably to cool down the processors. The whisper of the tiny turbines could be heard from meters away, but he could not care anymore, he’d found what was wrong.

“Are you real?” he asked in a vain attempt to convince himself his spacesuit had had a leak and his motherboard was contaminated with unknown red chemicals.

The man laughed lightly, bubbly and carefree.

“I sure hope so…”

He could not put his finger on it, but the man seated on the bed had a familiar air. Like he’d known him from somewhere, forgetting about him. Oh, but it is illogical for a machine to forget. He had curly brown hair, slightly ruffled, longish face with soft arched full eyebrows. His thin lips were open a bit, portraying confusion.

“What are you doing here?”

The man frowned, crooking his head to the side. “Where exactly is here?” He wondered, modulating with humor, and the robot was not sure if that was a question for him or if the man was just speaking his thoughts.

Well, it seemed he was not getting too much information out of this lad, not at least in this state. But wait- his processors snapped in place, the synaptic circuits finally accepting that there was someone there.

How?

“The Federation’s Station in Solaris,” he informed, remembering the question. The man in the bed nodded his head, but his corporal expression delated he still had no idea where he was standing… or sitting to be precise. Feeling quite compassionate rather than confused, he proposed a game. “I propose you something,” the man looked up, brows rising, “I answer one of your questions and you answer one of mines. Deal?”

Curly-haired-man thought about it some seconds, to then smile relaxedly. Apparently, a robot in the middle of an ocean of nothingness, in a place he didn’t know about, was not a threat for him. Highly irrational, it surprised him to no end.

“How did you get here?”

“I sincerely have no idea” the man giggled, reclining luxuriously on the unmade bed. He put his hands behind his head, a gesture that had been familiar to the robot a couple years ago. “My turn: why do you sound so human?”

All the hard questions always for him.

There was a brief short circuit inside his head at the question, remaining him that he was not a human to this being and probably would never be to anyone. He was a robot, after all. Internally glad he had no facial expressions; he took his time to compose so his words did not betray the sense of trust the human seemed to be acquiring.

“I used to be.”

“How so?” the man inquired, turning to face the robot. Curiosity was found in those eyes, the sting of envy stabbing his senses. But he was over that time he’d wanted to be human. It had taken all he had and more, there was no use anymore.

He vented some air.

“One day,” he began speaking, walking closer to the bed but maintaining a healthy distance, “an explosion forced me and my partner to become robots.”

The youthful man sank down onto the mattress even more, hugging a pillow under his chest as he inhaled deeply. He wondered what his pillow smelled like. Metal? Oil?

“Are things to different? From being human?”

The visor reflected the dim light that passed through the blinds when GM08 looked down. He was rather relieved the unknown man had changed the conversation theme, not wanting to dwell into his old gone juvenile robot days. Instead, he could easily answer this one, ignoring the way his motherboard sizzled with sadness.

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, I think that being alive is greater than a memory loss.” The man said happily, sitting up to stretch luxuriously, even a yawn escaping his mouth. His data banks categorized the gesture as cute. This creature, whoever and whatever it was, was obviously tired, light blue undereye bags now visible as he had gotten closer.

The next question left him baffled, painfully being reminded of his lost.

“Is your partner here on the station, too?”

“I believe it’s my turn to ask you something” he said after some seconds, finding reassurance in the uplifted mood of the man. It made him remember those times traveling to some blasting Led Zeppelin, TB3 on the driver’s seat and a minine sleeping on the backseats, the other robot’s head reflecting the sunlight has they bopped their heads to the beats. When life was worth living.

“What’s your name?”

The curly man pouted at the question, confused once again. “I think is Thomas.”

Something in his motherboard shimmed, producing a cascade of electrical impulses to all memory banks and sensorial systems. Thomas. He knew there was a significance in the name, and it rolled out of his vocoder like it was meant to be that way. Beneath the chest plaques, he felt a stab, like a strong magnet had been electrified to the master circuits, even if all memorial data was absent of that name.

“You think?”

“Yeah, well…” Thomas ruffled a hand thought his curls. “I am not sure of many things right now. The heat here is too much and it- it feels,” the man struggled to find his next words, staggering while it, “it- I-” sight, “like someone brainwashed me and shook my head like a cocktail.”

He definitely could not relate those feelings, so he chose the logical answer.

“Some humans manifest discomfort at intense solar radiation, as well as temperatures this high. I recommend you move out of the sunlight, Thomas.”

Thomas smiled at his name, blinking tiredly. It appeared like a sleeping spell had been set upon the human. He yawned loudly, a couple of exhaustion tears falling out the corners of his eyes.

“Will do,” he moaned tiredly, resuming to lie in the bed again “but I’m too tired now.”

The creature was sleeping not even after two minutes, and GM08 stood in silence until he was convinced he would not disturb the man’s sleep. Using the control panel, he closed the second set of blinds. The second sun would rise soon, and with that, the temperatures would get higher.

Before exiting the room, the turned up the air conditioner, adjusting it to be around the 20 degrees Celsius. Humans enjoyed sleeping at temperatures a little lower than the average, he’d read years ago, so he hoped Thomas would feel better when he woke up again.

Someone had to figure out what was happening.

***

There had been seven hours since he’d abandoned the room and watched silently how some structures grew along the waves. Even after a week, it still fascinated him how a mass of organic matter could do such things, even his existence being an enigma to investigators along the universe. There were other sentient planets, but as he had read in the last couple of days, none of them represented the mystery of Solaris. What astonished him the most was the lack of general information, as every scientist that arrived never left, or the exact opposite, left as soon as they could.

The report he’d retrieved from the laboratory had some cryptic messages and lots of scrambled numbers that apparently made no sense. Neither his processing systems nor the AI of the Lab’s main computer had understood if the numbers had a relation or were of some published data about the planet. All information available of the scientist that had wrote that repost was about chemical analysis of the red water underneath the Station and fluid dynamic phenomena. All information available of the scientist that had wrote that repost was about chemical analysis of the red water underneath the Station and fluid dynamics phenomena. None about unexpected visitors.

He had been sure he’d been alone in the first place, the station functional but abandoned to roam the ocean of red fluid. He’d even checked the rooms and made a life form study with the medical bay scanner. Nobody lived there. Periodically, some non-willed maintenance androids came and stocked the pantries and cleaned stuff, but it seemed nowadays nobody stayed too much. Well, to their credit, the planet seemed to be too hot for humans, and to be outside for more than two hours would be disastrous for them. Maybe Thomas knew, but he had been confused about his own name, so he did not thing the man could deliver a satisfactory answer, at least for now.

The last hours had gone while he read, information saturating temporal memory banks before they moved to more permanent storage. In the meantime his processors worked, he got up and went to the kitchen area. There hadn’t been a point on visiting the area before, as he only needed some special oils and phenols to survive, but now that he’d found this mysterious companion, maybe he could do something other than reading and observing the sea, to occupy his mind.

Grabbing synthetic eggs from the perma-freezer, and some dried milk, he mechanically found the ingredients for crêpes. He did not know why he knew it in first place, was the recipe embedded in all French motherboards? He had no idea, but the sensation of nostalgia and home-ness that hit his emotional systems told him the crêpes had been special.

He’d struggled with the pan but somehow managed not to burn his sensors neither the crêpe, another absolute win to the banks. This weird sense of being doing something so ordinary brought a sense of pertinence and even, to his very surprise, a feeling that resembled joy.

How long had it been since the last time he’d felt joy?

Some lyophilized coffee to accompany the breakfast, and he stood facing the door. With confidence, his golden hand found the doorknob and opened the door with no resistance. Thomas seemed to be just waking up, stretching as he’d been before, but this time his lips framed an incredible smile when he spotted him.

“Is that for me?” Thomas asked hopeful, barely resisting the urge to walk towards the caramel filled, rich sweet aroma of the breakfast. Manifesting a tiny smile in his own visor, he left the tray at the table near the window.

“Affirmative.”

“That’s such a sweet gesture, thank you very much. Although,” he smiles, showing his teeth while lying down to bed again “how can I know you’re not poisoning me? Do robots know how to cook?”

He even found the courage to chuckle briefly, vocoder making soft glitching sounds as he moved the tray to the bed after opening the first set of blinds. Thomas seemed too focused on the meal to comment on the weird laughter.

“You won’t know either until you take a bite yourself. I remember how to cook, but I had never done it before. I hope it is edible.”

“It’s crêpes!” the man said in pure adoration, almost puppy eyes. Logical processors didn’t understand the sentiment.

“I do not remember with what it was used to be eaten, so I brought some jams and stuff I found in the storage unit.” Then he took one of the jars of jam, deep purple puree inside, handing it to Thomas. “This blackberry one, I think you’ll like it.”

Thomas stared at him, not moving from the bed as he blinked a couple of times. GM08 asked him what’s wrong, but the human shook his head after some seconds, his hair moving along with his head.

“It’s just… my best friend always said the same.” He smiles softly, casually caressing the surface of the bed sheets.  

***

“What are you doing here? You don’t exactly seem to keen to be trapped here.” Thomas looked up from his seat on the floor, a trillion of cables and metallic pieces filling the space before him.

With his arms crossed behind his back, observing the red fluids reshape and disappear among the waves, GM08 spoke distant.

“An emergency scale,” he said, turning to check the mess of wires absently, “due to the solar storm. These suns emit strong radiation waves that made my equipment unusable. Federation suggested I landed here.”

Thomas nodded, immersed in detangling a red and a yellow wire. “How weird.” He stopped his movements, lifting his head frowning. “I’m sure there are solid planets in this solar system.”

Maybe GM08 would have lifted his eyebrows if he’d had those.

“Neither of them is half interesting as Solaris, and thus, not worth a station.” The robot resumed to seat in the floor next to the man. He wondered how much Thomas could remember about his live before the memory loss, since he’d barely been awake the last two days. Now, he was much more inversed into repairing a vinyl player he’d found in his ship, after rummaging his belongings with his permission.

Perhaps he was an engineer.

“Have you ever seen the structures that grow in the ocean?” he asked with his robotic voice, visor fixated in the red fluid.

“I find you rather more interesting than the waves” Thomas responded, not even looking away from the cables. His tone was somewhat tender, he didn’t know how to interpret it. It had reminded about the message in the lab report, about how the unknown creatures manifested interest in the scientist.

“This is a sentient planet, Thomas. It has a form of conscience we don’t really understand.”

“How could you know that?” Thomas replied huffily, grunting at a big tangle he’d made with the red cable.

“Maybe if you looked through the window more you would notice.”

That made the man lift his head to watch him, small smile adorning his lips while he intensely observed the void of the black visor. The response alerted GM08’s circuits with curiosity as the action had intended to sound mean, but Thomas seemed to enjoy it.

“For a robot, you’re quite a savage.”

They didn’t speak for the rest of the day. Thomas kept on working on the player, barely eating when he was hungry, but he noticed that at times he stopped and studied the waves. Surely, the shapes that appeared for him weren’t as defined as his own, making sense since probably Thomas’ head was a lot more challenging to read because of his memory problem.

He remembered seeing a bass, distorted and chunky, about double of the size of the Station. Maybe Thomas was a musician too.

***

One day after many burning mornings, the planet finally got tired of the incandescent suns and rain began to pour. The Station swayed softly with the wind, light red liquid falling from the high clouds. The oceans were calm, and it was possible to stare outside without any blinds. Relieved, he relaxed on the chair as he watched the red waves, his sensors finally resting from the constant oversaturation. He was not the only one glad of the climate’s change, since it was obvious Thomas had gotten tired of the hot double-sunned weather. He seemed in a much amenable mood, shoulders down and posture relaxed.

He smiled at the robot while leaving the book he’d been reading on a table beside him.

“Isn’t this a wonderful day?” he sighed, reclining in the white leather. GM08 nodded once, walking towards the viewing wall of the common room. “Solaris is quite lovely when it rains.”

The robot crossed his arms behind his back, nodding again. The ocean appeared to be too tired from its constant figure making, the fluid swirling softly in tiny waves today.

“We could go out while it lasts.”

Thomas leaned towards him, resting his head in his hands.

“Do you think is safe?” he asked, sounding slightly fruity. He smiled broadly, from ear to ear.

“Lab shows no dangerous radiation is detected, and the rain should continue for the rest of the day.”

Thomas jumped to his feet and stood behind GM08, his breath condensing into the robot’s neck plaques. It tickled the ports hidden under them…

“It is not the most conventional date I’ve been invited to, but I accept.”

He turned then, partially to try to shy away Thomas with the interminable void if darkness his visor had. But there stood, sightly crumped down so they were face to face, the man, beaming, every day more attached to a robot. He should be ashamed, repulsed, however a great part of his processors had confabulated and decided he deserved the attention, that it was his moment to be selfish and enjoy it. In the end, nobody would judge him: a broken-hearted robot trapped in a floating Station inside the atmosphere of a sentient planet? Hallucinating about a companion?  Space radiation must have burned his motherboard!

“I can’t really offer you something better at the moment.” He intertwined his metallic fingers, nodding pleased, almost bowing. “Follow me.”

Thomas was pleased to find they both fitted comfortably inside the expedition helicopter. The spacesuit felt lighter than he’d expected, strangely movable. He turned his head to the side, checking on GM08 as he pressed a hundred buttons and then jacked some knobs. And he did not know what a single of those things did, lifting his eyebrow he noticed that the Station’s roof opened and as the robot pulled towards him some sticks, the vessel began to ascend.

“This is worse than playing with two drum machines at the same time!”

The robot turned his spacesuit-covered visor to his side, and Thomas could have sworn that he’d seen an electronic eyebrow lifting.

“It’s a matter of training.”

“You bet! It took me years to master it!”

That was an unexpected response. Not only Thomas admitted being a musician, but also one that knew how to use two drum machines at the same time. The only one, aside from himself, that GM08 knew could do that had been TB3. Back then, there was no aid for mixing the rhythms, so all beat maintenance had been on the user.

“I have a” vintage “TR-909 in the ship.”

“Marvelous, wonderful machine… now look! An Island!”

About 10 kilometers forward, a red mass of red solid formed. It was triangle shaped, about 100 meters each side, making it perfect for landing the small helicopter. The radar showed the formation was stable and no mimoides were on the vicinities.

 “It is suitable, press the orange button at your right when we land.”

Thomas lifted his brows, glancing briefly at the hundreds of buttons at his right, but well, one had to work.

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

The helicopter landed perfectly still, bouncing softly in the red solid. It remained Thomas of eaten bubblegum, kneaded until it was soft and wrinkle-free. Tentatively, he set a foot on the ground and exited the ship. Like a half of his weight was returned in momentum, like a solid trampoline. Rapidly he turned to GM08, smirking; the robot held his hand forward, signaling the rest of the island before them, giving permission. Immediately, Thomas jogged two steps and jumped.

With all that impulse and given that Solaris’ gravity was slightly less than Earth’s, Thomas got about two meters above ground. His carefree giggles were clear in the helmet’s speakers as he danced in the air, landing on his back. The robot would have been concerned about the human’s wellbeing if it hadn’t been for his laughter.

“This is amazing!”

Gm08 himself got out of the helicopter after checking the island stability one last time, not wanting to waste a second to join the human in the jumps. Testing the gravity, he jumped once, bending his metallic knees. The surface was wet with the rain, but it was just coarse enough that they didn’t slip. Thomas flew above him, landing with some flips next to the shore.

“Careful with the water! It is quite deep around here.”

“Don’t be a killjoy!” Thomas whined, walking towards the robot, stumbling. It was clear to the eye he’d gotten dizzy, but his pride was too great to stand still. Instead, he reached a gloved hand to him, and impatiently bounced until he took it.

“Jump with me.” Thomas held all their hands together, forcing them both to catch flight. GM08 feared the impulse might be too much and that they landed either on the helicopter or the ocean. But Thomas’ shinning eyes were too much to resist, and he complied without grumbles. Illogical Robot. “One, two… three!”

They jumped in unison, getting up to almost two meters before descending again. Thomas took no rest and they jumped again and again, and he just let himself go for a moment and flew through the air, hands locked with Thomas, each time jumping higher and doing complicated flips.

It was quite relaxing being this carefree. Especially after all those days trapped inside the Station, the two suns heating the floating ship like a cooking pot. He’d to admit the flying experience was one thing, but observing Thomas so happy and lively, swaying in the air from side to side, inciting him to do backflips and higher jumps… that was the best.

He wondered if it would be the same when he discovered antigravity.

«Oxygen reserves low. » Said the AI assistant of the suits, cutting them short. Thomas, just landing a double backflip with a leg completely underwater, moaned sadly. GM08 lifted his shoulders in resignation.

“It is what it is, back to the helicopter.”

Out of breath, Thomas nodded as he walked to the ship, shaking his leg free of the denser red fluid. GM08 studied their surroundings as he waited for the man. The rain kept falling slowly, the waves washing the shore in peaceful covers, the ocean as calm as a lake. No sun on sight.

“That was the most fun I’ve had here,” Thomas breathed out, collapsing on his seat while GM08 closed the doors. In no time, the quiet murmur of the helicopter blades overlayed the rain, flying back to the station.

***

 Gm08 was too focused on maneuvering the ship that he missed a structure to the right. Thomas, still a little lightheaded, caught the red formation instantly.

It was big and long, protruding the ocean by several meters. The shape resembled a wobbly pyramid, the nearest to the top, the thinner. Even if it was not a good copy, he’d known instantly. It was the Eiffel Tower.

He’d been there. He had a hundred photographs there, with friends and family. How could he not have them if it was from his natal city? So many memories, fragmented, broken and with big pieces missing, but definitely memories of his own. He reclined on the chair and looked away, letting out a shaky exhale. If the robot noticed, he said nothing.

What seemed an eternity after, the reflective shields of the Station opened the lodging area, the helicopter descended down the landing square flawlessly. Exhaling a breath he’d not been aware of holding, Thomas exited the vehicle, walking gracelessly in the suit to the decontamination area.

GM08 observed him in silence, aware of his mood change, maintaining a safe distance. Was he usually so bad of a person that the robot knew when to be cautious around him? Oh, Guy-Man would smack him down.

“Thank you very much for the evening out.”

“It was my pleasure, Thomas.”

“I-I’m really tired, I’ll take a nap if, if you don’t mind.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Memories. I just-”

And he stayed quiet all his way to his room -previously GM08’s-, and forced a smile for the robot, stopping before disappearing.

“It was really a lovely experience, but… is too much. I’m sorry.”

“It is alright.”

“Oh, I really don’t deserve you. Guillarme would be so mad at me…”

Then he softly closed the door.

There was this thing about the name Thomas had pronounced before disappearing. Like it was important, but not as much as Thomas’. He still could not find about the man in his memories, or the Stations data, the only places left to check were the Federation’s databases and his own memory storage units from his life on Earth.

Checking his old photographs meant watching TB3 again, and he’d been in such a good mood last for the day, he didn’t want to get sad. And about the Federation’s data, it was inaccessible due to the interference caused by the storm.

Low battery.

Turning, he walked towards his room, but he changed his course when he noticed a previously closed door down the hall was open. An old scientist’s room. His battery would hold up until he’d checked the room. Maybe Thomas had been there in the morning, however, it seemed unlikely, the man had been glued to the book he’d been reading from early hours.

He tiptoed inside, not really feeling the suspense he’d felt when he’d found Thomas. The room was submerged in the darkness, the clouds blocking the two suns’ brightness. Turning the lights on, he checked the bathroom, under the bed, behind the desk, and finally, the closet.

A dozen of books fell from the shelves, and he jumped back with a metallic clink. His visor studied the surroundings, not finding anyone at all. His gaze fell towards the books, a particular one catching his attention. Unlike the others, its pages were crinkled and worn, the cover soft leather with a metallic clasp broken in one of the extremes. A diary.

The first page stated the contact information, the letters painted with the same green tint in the lab’s scrambles.

«Dr. Gibbson, head of the Solarian Psychology Academy. If found, please return to room number 7».

Battery low.

Frustrated with his own function, he grabbed the diary and exited the room, closing the door behind him. He’d meant to change his battery to a self-charging one the week he’d arrived to Solaris, in the Delta Gamma Tech Station, over a thousand parsecs from the planet. Damn the solar storm.

He threw the diary to his own closet, rapidly rumbling through his mass of cables and electric devices to spot his charger that had mixed with Thomas’ cables, the battery numbers dangerously low. Scare the human was the last thing he wanted to do, so he ran to the bed and plugged himself good night.

***

A metallic noise woke him up from his sleep cycle. Alarmed, he sprinted to the kitchen to find Thomas de-freezing enough food for a whole legion, with the same enthusiasm as yesterday’s trip.

“Ups,” the man muttered, showing him an unapologetic smile as he continued to move pans and other metallic kitchen instruments. He lowered the sensitivity of his acoustic sensors, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

A green eyebrow showed in his visor.

“Fancy a breakfast? I could fry you some iron pellets or something.”

GM08 snorted, or something similar, with his vocoder, relaxing finally.

“Pure phenol would be nice. Be careful getting high, though.”

“With this weather? Do you want me to die?” Thomas tossed some motor oil to a pan, smiling mischievously. The robot would have grimaced at the thought of that oil lubing his joints. 

“I doubt you could find drugs here. Federations’ rules.”

“These guys,” Thomas took a bunch of wires and put them in the oil, to his dismissal, “clearly don’t know how good it is to rave at the club two E’s high. No wonder they end up in places like this.”

Now the curly man turned off the stove and took from under the kitchen island a plate, with a tower of sandpaper, and poured the iron pellet-oil mix over the squares. The mere idea to polish his metal pieces with them ran an electric shiver along his circuits. Thomas, in the other hand, was absolutely delighted.

He wondered what he had done to end trapped with such a child-man. In the best of meanings. Thomas slid the plate in his direction, a fork with a knife next to the oily stack. Lifting his visor, he showed a green heart in the center, briefly enabling the long-forgotten rainbow led lights at the sides.

The curly-haired man gasped at the sight, leaning over the counter to watch the colors, completely fascinated.  The way he leaned sightly to the side and hunched over reminded him so much of TB3 it physically hurt his circuits, but as much as it hurt, a part of him literally lived for that kind of reactions.

“You know, I’ve never wanted to be a robot, but that,” he points were the colors had been in his visor seconds ago, “that’s cool.”

***

“Before me there was no one here.”

“And how do you think I appeared? I certainly don’t remember being here either.”

“I’m hoping it is a misunderstanding with the Station’s systems. I’m hoping you are a scientist that hacked the Station to forget about and that somehow you lost your memory.”

“I don’t remember space. I like music and dance… and movies. Not eternal oceans in solitude.”

“I don’t think you belong here either.”

***

After a month trapped with a child in the body of an adult, hovering a sentient ocean, he believed nothing he could see there would impress him anymore, but oh dear, wasn’t he wrong when he opened the door of Thomas’ room with breakfast and found an exact replica of TB3’s helmet.

He dropped the tray with the things and closed the door abruptly.

Running, he heard Thomas concerned shouts from the corridor, but he did not look back once as he entered the suits room inside loading bay and dressed himself in a space suit, the fastest his trembling hands allowed him to. As he started the helicopters engine, he saw Thomas at the viewer of the station, standing with his mouth open in concern. GM08 dialed a signal to the station, still shaking as he flew through the sky.

--- will be back in an hour---

The station IA secretary would be pronouncing the code through the speakers, so it could he heard on all common areas. Suddenly, he remembered the diary of one of the old scientists that used to be trapped in Solaris as well, that he’d seen yesterday after ordering his closet, and cursed out loud by not reading it.

Maybe there he could find a reason there on why each day Thomas reminded him more of TB3.

***

He ended up roaming a beach, the helicopter securely standing a couple of meters from the shore, ready to fly if the ground became unstable. The memories of the younger robot assaulted his memories time to time, the final moments of the silver robot in the middle of the dessert at that old Californian town. Even standing in that town had been a mistake, but long time had passed since and he had allowed himself to forgive the decisions that led to than awful ending.

And now… the helmet. The look he’d given it had been infimum, the silver shape being too much for him to handle. It even had the little smile that TB3’s had in the beginning, the first superficial efforts to keep some humanity among them. Last time he’d seen that exact variant had been nearly a decade ago, full of wishful and lighthearted memories.

He lifted his visor, staring at the small waves in total silence. Some currents overlapped here and there, producing riptides with no clear frequency. The red liquid seemed pinkish at the border of the ground, he bended his knees to kneel in the regular surface, less than a meter away from where the waves crashed. The spacesuit was tight, but that same thing allowed the position to be easier on the knees’ motor system.

He raised a golden globed hand towards the ocean, rays from the two suns producing two different shadows over the clear plastic. It was then that the pink liquid contracted, and right there at the shore, a mimoide appeared.

When he’d first found about them, he’d thought there were the first clue he had about the appearance of Thomas, but now, after he’d read a lot about what the sentient planet decided to show and what not, he knew those structures were smaller and more detailed versions of the big ones he could see from the Station.

It resembled a human form, like his own, but the head… it was too big to be human. The thing moved a little, extending one of its hands towards him.

He remained static as the object seemed to stabilize, contour clear finally. He studied the figure with his limited range of vision, and oh my, wasn’t that a deform mimic of TB3?

“What do you want!” he shouted, vocoder glitching at the harmonics as the mimoide broke into a splash, briefly washing the material of the space suit in a warm embrace. How dare this planet… how dare.

He had traveled across the galaxy to forget about that robot, to try to stop the ache of his perpetually broken heart, and this sentient planet decided to make him suffer like no other. First, Thomas himself, with the footprint of the other robot’s personality (out of the depression that ended his life), after that the smiling helmet, and then a mimic of TB3?!

What was this, a macabre version of heaven?!

Of all things he’d thought he’d end up being, a planet’s puppet was not one.

***

“Why did you run away like that?”

Thomas had been waiting for him in the hallway, outside the landing platforms.  His hair stood up in all kinds of different directions, a mass of formless curls that indicated that the man had not even showered yet. An empty plate rested to his side, along with a cd player with its headphones.

“Was it the helmet?” he asked, soft voice so full of sincere concern that GM08 just wanted to crumble down and cry, but he physically could not. So, he nodded.

“It’s hidden away. I-” Thomas opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. “I thought you’d like it, since I could look like you do.”

Oh, if he only knew.

“You don’t want to.”

He walked towards his room in silence, briefly looking over his shoulder to see if the man decided to follow him. He was, indeed. In no time they walked together side by side.

“Why not? Does it look that bad? I thought Solaris had done a good job in replicating my vision-”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then, why?”

If he could sight, he would do it right now. “That helmet is the first one TB3 had.”

“Oh.”

They entered the room and GM08 went directly to the closet, were he’d thrown the diary of the scientist.

“Was that the name of your partner?”

Gm08 nodded again, moving those damn books outs of the way, frantically searching for the notebook. He needed to know why all those people had abandoned the station. He needed to know what the green annotations on the lab report meant, and why Solaris had created something from Thomas’ imagination. He needed to know now. The man’s gaze felt intense, like static at the base of his neck, distracting him a little.

“What a coincidence. It seems like a pun between my name and a Roland TB-303.”

A buzz, a loud static filled his sensorial systems, suddenly knowing. Petrified, he dropped the notebooks, not daring to turn around. He remembered it all at once with unconcealable force.

“Thomas Bangalter.” He mustered, collapsing on the floor in shock. He could not even register the happiness on the man’s tone when he spoke again, the fans of the ventilator system overclocking.

How could that be possible?

“Yes! That’s it! I’ve never told you my last name… H-How, how do you know it?”

“Thomas Bangalter.”

“I am a robot, I do not need a name anymore.”

“But it is your name!”

“No!” the silver cladded laughed, the vocoder glitching a couple of times, being unused to the request. “I am a robot now, I’ll need an adequate name!”

“Well, then say it, ro-bot” he pronounced the last word in the most French-sounding accent he could, limited by the artificial vocal cords.

“I’ll be T-B-3, like a Roland TB-303 mixed with my human name.”

“It sounds good. Then, I’ll be GM08, like a Roland TR-808.”

“We’ll be the best robots.”

“We will, mon chéri.”

Realization hit him like a magnetic pulse, as he repeated his own name.

How can one forget its own name…

“Wait! Repeat that.” Thomas demanded, sitting down in front of him on the floor with a frown.

… for so many years?!

“Guy-Manuel…?” he repeated, unsure, turning finally to face the pale man.

Thomas gapped and GM08 noticed how his heartbeat changed, the rhythm faster along the raged breaths. The man’s hand found his mouth, as he leaned forward to touch him. But he did not, backing up in panic, using his legs to crawl backwards.

“Y-you?!” he shouted in disbelief, crawling backwards even further. He was not sure what was louder, his ventilator system or Thomas own, he practically could feel the other’s panic in the air.  

Side glancing, he saw the diary and took it, rapidly flickering through the pages as Thomas seemed to hyperventilate faster. He should be doing something about it! This man, whomever he was, needed assistance, but he could not bring himself to stop searching, his own processors not keeping up with so much information.

“I don’t know what this is, Thomas, but calm down,” he pleaded, briefly glancing up. Thomas seemed to be frozen in a shock state, holding his hands under his eyes as his whole body trembled with force. “Thomas!”

That seemed to snap out Thomas of his frozen state, looking up with huge eyes, sweating.

“You said I was dead!”

They both had reached the same conclusion, apparently. His fingers finally found what he’d been looking for, however…

“I saw TB3 blow to pieces in the middle of the dessert, Thomas.”

He was sure humans could not keep that kind of respiration for too long. The man looked about to shut down, but he couldn’t move. The words were there in green ink, his brain saturated at the numerous statements of the scientist.

“But I am here, and I am very much not a robot!”

GM08 glanced up quickly, his visor focusing on Thomas as he considered how not to sound so harsh about the truth. When he had asked Thomas if he was real, the question had been legit. He still wondered sometimes, but he had unnumerable proofs of the -at least- corporeal existence of the man. The food could not simply disappear.

“When I arrived, the station told me there was no inhabitant, that I was to be alone. No vehicle has entered the atmosphere of the planet since given the intensity of the storm.”

Thomas eyes closed painfully, tears flowing down his face as his respiration drifted to hiccups. He tangled his hands in his hair and pulled. He wanted to touch him, to reassure him everything was going to be alright.

But he didn’t know himself.

“But I am here, and I am alive!”

Tears kept falling from Thomas eyes. His own visor hitched painful, strange robot empathy that told him his emotional systems tried at least to mimic the reaction. It was too much, so he just snapped shut to himself to stop the pain.

“… are you?”

Thomas gulped at that, producing a sound halfway between a sob and a grunt, and stormed out of the room after that. He followed suit, because whatever the thing was, it was a friend now. And he cared! Even if it hurt and he didn’t know what to do about it. The diary still on his hand, he ran after the human through the stairs and hallways.

“Thomas!” he shouted, strongly holding the notebook. Just the shade of Thomas was visible from his position, noticing clearly how the man looked himself inside the lab.

“Don’t talk to me!”

He knocked on the door three times, golden metal clashing loudly with the metal plates. “Please, Thomas, I have no one else!”

That was the truth. After all those years roaming the space searching for a reason to keep on living, he’d found it in the form of a man, inside a floating island above a sentient planet.

The door of the lab resisted, the strong lock not giving in a second. The steel was too sturdy to knock down by himself. The robot kept on banging the door, not giving up. He had already lost a Thomas once, he could not lose him twice. Even if there were different people at the end. They were both worth it.

“What I am?!” he heard the shout with echo as he kept tussling the handle, drooping the diary.

“I. Don’t. Know!”

“I seem to have memories about a human version of you, a childhood and friends, but it all seems so distant and unclear. The last thing I remember is a synthesizer blowing up. I don’t know why am I here, or how did I even got here in the first place, so please, tell me, at least who. I. AM.”

“I don’t know Thomas, I don’t know!”

A thousand error messages invaded the emotional systems, too overwhelmed to handle a second more of input, the whole thing shutting down rapidly.

“I wish I could tell you” he whispered to the door as his world went black.

***

When he woke up, he was fully charged and tucked tightly into his bed. At his side, Thomas read the diary in silence with bloodshot eyes, his chest steadily rising slowly up and down under his shirt. After a basic check-up, the cause of the shutdown turned out to be emotional overload, the circuits not withstanding so many things at once. He bleeped softly, somewhat glad of the forced restart, and turned to lie in his side to watch Thomas.

“You scared the hell out of me.” Thomas muttered as he sat upright, closing the diary, and leaving it between their bodies.

“Emotional overload.” He explained, lifting his arm to touch Thomas’. The man moaned slightly at the cold sensation, then taking the artificial hand on his own, caressing the black polymer between the metal. The touch resembled the one he’d have given to a kitten, affectionate, soft and a little cautious.

“Are you alright now?” GM08 nodded, Thomas melting into the bed with a relieved sight. His hair was still a mess, but at least now it looked clean.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget that you’re as clueless about this whole situation as me. The broken memories don’t help either.”

The human moved one of his hands towards his face, using the metallic backside to press softly against his closed eyes. The coldness probably offered some comfort for his tired eyes, and the exhales tingled on the sensors embedded on the polyester.

“Did you bring me here on your own?”

“You’re not so heavy.”

He vented some air, mimicking a sight, and Thomas lowered his hand to look at him. “TB3 used to say the same.”

“Well, I’m to become him, it does not surprise me anymore.” The robot tried to free his hand from Thomas, but the man held on tightly, stronger than he’d expected.

“I hope you don’t become a robot.” He admitted, disabling momentarily his visor. They’d had no option, back then. It was either death or becoming a robot. The bliss of forgetting what it meant to be a human had lasted a couple years, filled with happiness and success... then there was that last year and the vacation to California. “At your end, you just wanted to be human.”

“What happened to TB3?”

He did not want to say it. But Thomas deserved to know, if it gave him a reason to stop talking nonsense about becoming a robot. Again.

“In a world full of robots, we tried to become human again. Complex sensorial systems, interactive memory banks, even we tried masks… the whole town ended up chasing us and that finally broke him.” He fell silent for a while, observing the map of small dots the skin of the human had, ignoring temporally the angsty gaze. “We ended roaming the desert, walking together until we were not together anymore, and he simply exposed his destruction button and asked me to turn it on.”

Thomas swallowed hard, and maybe he was crying again, but he would deal with the emotions after he got it all out.

“I loved him too much to say no. I still loving him, after, who knows, 2 or 3 years. He simply had no reason to keep on living -me neither. So, he exploded to a thousand pieces in the middle of nothing. I myself tried to end my suffering, failing miserably. Not even the pain of all my circuits burning can compare of the heartbreak TB3’s death signified to me. It still hurts to this day.

“Somedays I wish we’d blown up together.”

Thomas was not capable of dealing with anymore tears, so instead he resorted to hug the robot tightly, hiding his face in the metallic neck.

“You have me know,” Thomas whispered reassuringly, squeezing tighter, “why don’t you take me in your travels through the universe?”

That was a future he could look forward to, if it wasn’t for one thing. He didn’t know if Thomas could leave Solaris atmosphere without vanishing from existence.

“We’ll see Thomas, when this storm passes.”

“You know, something similar happened to this man.” Thomas broke the embrace, taking the diary from under his waist. GM received the book with the writings, taking an extra pillow from the floor to adjust his neck for reading. He’d been wondering what the man had read to change his mood so suddenly, after his runaway. “Someone dead simply appeared here, real and corporeal. Memories, flesh and bone, feelings. The scientist describes it as the same person they’d met before, only missing the last part of their lives.”

If Thomas was really TB3, he was missing more than a great chunk. Part of him was glad, thought, since he would never remember the pain and suffering that had come with the circuits and metal.

“What happened to them, after?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas snatched the diary from his hands and held it open in signaling a specific part. He reached to take it, but there was a miscalculation and the book ended up back on the mattress, ”it ends with that “We’ll go and see if she disappears”, you know, not much information about it.”

He sneaked his hand between them and took the diary, his cold metallic forearm caressing briefly Thomas’ backside which caused him to giggle.

“We could try, once the storm ends.”

It felt like repeating himself, but if he remembered a thing about both Thomas and TB3 is that the man/robot was stubborn. Thomas observed his helmet in silence for some moments, to resume to lie down, his head on the robot’s chest as he drifted to sleep.

They seemed to be in the exact same situation. Scientist’s significant other, whom had passed away by suicide years before his arrival to the Station, appeared one day sleeping in his room. The scanners didn’t show her, and she was virtually impossible to kill, according to other scientists’ commentaries. Every one of them had been in a similar situation, no one ever found the answer to the questions. Some got crazy, some in denial, and others simply accepted the opportunity.

At the beginning, the beings showed little self-sufficiency and went crazy when their pair was absent. However, with time, the creatures stopped needing constant reassurance and most grew to be their own beings. Most scientists were baffled by past ghosts and either flew out of the planet or learnt how to deal with living ghosts. Some even ended their lives.

Thomas, he’d shown independence since the day he’d found him in his bed. At times, he even got bored of him and went to another room to vent, playing instruments or working out. There was no doubt to GM08 that he had free will, from the beginning. And while it was true the man had got attached to him —you don’t make a song for someone you don’t care about, don’t you?—, it was nothing like the things the scientist wrote about in the report and diary.

His circuits didn’t allow non-senses. There was only one answer: Thomas was as real as he was.

How was another completely different question, and he knew better that to go down that hole.

***

The storm kept strong the next week. In vain, GM tried to communicate with the adjacent solar system, deeply in need of information. He was a former musician, not an astrophysic, the numerous charts and radiation indices remained a mystery for him. He had to know some space navigation due to spaceship management and general settings, but compared to these weird equations, the navigation letters were too easy.

“A mystery for tomorrow…”

He left abandoned the papers of solar radiation on the kitchen island, to take the ones for solar cycles, and he lifted his visor just in time to catch one of Thomas’ distracted gazes. What secret of the universe would he be marveling about?

“Uhm, lately I been thinking, do robots have sex?”

Some circuits worked the bad way around for a second, doing something similar to a choking sound.

“Why, you want some of this?”

Thomas choked now, getting so red his skin temperature rose a degree.

“I was just wondering…” he barely spoke, looking down in embarrassment.

“Not as you think.” He continued after a while, trying hard not to dwell in his own memory banks for those heated moments, but living for that blush on the other’s skin. “Sensorial systems work different, there’s no organic connection, but there are cables here and there, ports are highly sensitive spots and so on.”

“I see…” Thomas raised his cup to his lips, hiding his still very blushed face. “Sounds fun.”

“I bet it is not as good as sweaty, rough, meaty sex. Why do you hide so much?” he laughs, Thomas hiding even further, practically sliding down the barstool. “I don’t remember you being so shy about this!” he laughed more, leaving the papers of solar cycles abandoned in the countertop, his metallic feet tingling on the cold ceramic surface in order to find the melting human hiding just around the corner.

“I’m sorry!” Thomas finally laughs, his face behind his arms as he rose from the floor, GM watching, him arms crossed. “I was just curious.”

“It’s fine, you look all flustered and cute.” Humans and their changing skin. “Maybe one day we could try some things.”

Thomas hid behind his hands once more, giggling as he shook his head.

“If this storm lasts too much, I’d be up to it.”

***

Not everything could go smoothy for too long, so one day Thomas found the helicopter flying back in automatic pilot, after numerous failed attempts to communicate with the robot.

“God, no, what’s wrong now?” Thomas quietly wondered, transporting the unconscious body to the medical area of the station. As he entered, an interactive panel with a medical assistant half stuck on the wall turned on.

“Ehm, could you tell me what’s wrong with him?”

Numerous lights switched on, displaying colorful signals on the screen next to the bed.

“Hello. Please specify species and order of the individual.”

“I don’t know! Android, cyborg?!”

The wall robot bleeped a couple of times, unplugging itself from the wall and floating towards the golden robot, fans still working at maximum capacity, black visor screen showing red glitches here and there, while unmoving.

Then IA spoke again, voice emotionless as always. “Two hearts found in the station. Human robot hybrid presents heart failure due two hyperthermia. Please stand back to begin reanimation.”

Thomas did not want to see, so he flew outside the medical area to GM’s room, searching for something, anything that could give him some information about what was happening with the golden robot. The IA had said the scan showed two hearts. And that GM had had a heart failure due to heat… a heart. Did he keep it when he was forced to become a robot? Was he even a robot, really?

What it means to be human?

He emptied the bedside table, the black briefcase with clothes and a chain with silver, triangular shaped pendant, along with some vinyl records he recognized as his own, and numerous data banks. He picked the last ones, running towards the master computer at the principal desk. Connecting them all at the same time, he talked the IA of the computer through the search for some kind of information about the suspected android. His mind drifted between all kinds of bad endings, finally resorting to a forceful need to keep the robot version of Guy-Manuel alive, feeling like his own existence depended on the state of the other. Solaris created him for GM, and if he died, would he die too? Was any point in being trapped alone in the station for the rest of his life if GM wasn’t there?

No, there was not.

The data banks were useless, full of music, videos and photographs of the robots. Most of them dated from 4 years and before that, not any recent ones. He opened some and found two robots, the golden one he knew, and the silver one he had tried to mimic, without noticing. Concerts, festivals, coffee shops, music studios… what had happened to those days? Why TB3 had decided to end his existence and why had GM tried it, too?

Was being human that important to them?

He sighed, disconnecting the units from the computer, rapidly leaving them back in the suitcase to run back to the medical area. His heartbeat was out of control, panic rising with every steep he took towards the room, and when finally the area was visible from the corridor, he noticed the room was closed.

Silence.

The tried to open the double door, but the locks did not give in. With his body weight, he tried to tumble down the synthetic material, hitting it with his bodyweight, failing. He ran to a nearby sitting room and took one of the chairs, and then ran back to the infirmary’s door. He lifted the chair and slammed its legs against the surface, hitting it one, two, …, ten times nonstop, but the door remained immovable, and his muscles ached.

“Let me in!” he screamed, hitting the door with his fists. “This is a medical emergency, I request to enter the room!”

But the IA did not respond, so he ran back at the main desk to try to unlock all the doors. He entered the command, and the software told him that all locks had been already unlocked.

“No, nursery is closed.”

“Scan shows door with code MedB is unlocked.”

Just to check he went back to the nursery and tried to open the door, which was locked.

“God, what a stubborn machine. It is closed. Do a lifeform exam.”

The machine bleeped in silence for a minute.

“Station scan showed two lifeforms.”

He exhaled slightly relieved, sinking down in the chair for a minute.

“Give me information about the habitants.”

“Information unavailable, check medical scan to see detailed lifeform analysis.”

“Is there a chainsaw in the station?”

“No, however, there are angular grinders in the laboratory’s toolbox.”

Say no more. The door resisted the cuts, the acid, and the dynamite. He’d blown up three of the doors of a couple of rooms with the impact, but the white innocuous doble panel doors of the nursery were utterly indestructible. The heat kept rising as the first sun wanted to sink, the second one shinning harder than ever at the noon hour.

After trying again with the angular cutter again, he collapsed on the floor.

Before passing out, he asked the IA if there were any robots on board.

“Aside from the non-station integrated assistants, the Station does not have a robot inhabitant.” He closed his eyes, exhaustion forcing him to sleep land, so he did not hear what the desk assistant said next. “There are, also, no androids nor cyborgs on board.”

***

An infinite field of flowers blooming, soft wind lingering the stems and fabric, the warm sun shining high in the skies as Guy-Manuel found himself standing in the middle of a hill. The short grass felt like a pillow under his naked feet, using the toes to grab some of than green natural fabric, sensing marvelously every texture of the ground and the occasional ant that traveled among the exposed skin.

He inhaled deeply, pure air filling his lungs to a saturation point, all cells of his own human body thriving with oxygen and nutrients and DNA and all living things. He exhaled soundly, his hair moving with the breeze, noticing a couple of butterflies dancing over the small, colorful flowers that grew from the grass.

His heartbeat calm under his ribs, like the song some birds sang in a tree far away. His mind found peace and his heart, solitude, a sense of being something greater than himself, but still missing a touch. He could not figure out what, although it did not matter, resolving to lay down on the grass to cloud-gaze a little, to enjoy that loving calmness that reined his self.

“Finally, I’m human again.”

A butterfly tickled his nose, filling his chest with quiet laugher.

“If just you were here with me, Thomas.”

And then, a melody. Some organic, living synthesizer, making soft and oh so dreamy sound he’d thought he’d imagined them, but the notes changed unpredictably, clearly someone playing the instrument with great ability behind the keys.

“Touch, I remember touch…”

That person now had begun to sing. Curious, Guy-Manuel got up, walking unhurried towards the source of the symphony, plants and wind caressing so barely his legs on his way. The sun had begun to sink, and the rainbow of colors mixed unruled in textures and flows, an abstract painting stroke.

A shuttle became visible, thick log walls surrounded by even more flowers, a pipe that delated the presence of a fireplace inside, probably ignited since some smoke ran through the tube.

“Touch…”

The door was left open, but he was too far to figure out who was inside playing.

“I remember touch… where do I belong?”

He hurried a little, curiosity getting the best of him as the luminosity decreased slightly.

“Touch, I need something more.”

The notes started to have a sinister edge, creeping tones of disbelief and hopelessness, angsty song pleading for something more. Deep down, his insides rumbled in empathy, the urge of that thing that is not there and you don’t know what it is resonating in every cell, heart tight.

“Touch, I remember touch…. I need something more in my mind.”

He just reached the doorframe and glanced inside, a desperation flooded his senses, hands tingling and breath fast. But he saw nothing, a bright light made him blind, ears buzzing with intensity as the dream ended.

The inhale he performed when getting back to consciousness straddled him. He had inhaled.

He opened his eyes to find himself in the medical bay of the station, surrounded by cables and bright lights and oh wait- eyes!? Dumbfounded, he traced his face with his hand, flesh sensing the reliefs of the nose, a tentative shape of lips, and very surely, a pair of eyes.

“This can’t be real” he said to himself, his own French tongue sounding so unreal he forced himself to lie down due to dizziness. Breath in, breath out. The last thing he remembered had been going out in a quick expedition to one of the communication units some hundreds of kilometers away, and the whole day being unusually hotter due to the sun storm.

He might had come back, thanks to the autopilot mode of the helicopter… but to the medical bay? No, that had not been him, so that left only one possibility…

Thomas, where was Thomas?

“Thomas?” he called, voice rasp as he felt a headache, and he hadn’t even questioned why or how. “Thomas!” he said louder, finding strength in the adrenaline the subjacent fear had freed.

The door of the nursery was closed, something irregular sticking near one of the handles, like someone had thrown a sharp knife or something. He tried to talk to the assistant embedded in the wall, but there was no use, the robot did not respond.

Why were the doors closed, why Thomas was not there, why was a circular object inserted into the wood of the panel, and so many other whys that had no answer. He inhaled, feeling stabs of pain inside his chest. Whatever had happened outside, he had to know, so he hissed when his naked feet touched the cold floor tiles, remembering suddenly the times he’d gone to the bathroom in the cold nights back in Paris. Or when he’d first gone to the doctor’s office decades ago.

He now could remember the day the synth exploded, and what came after.

“Thomas!”

The door remained unmovable as he tried to walk, legs uncoordinated and muscles aching with excessive lactic acid, his mandible tight as he launched forward to the next empty bed, the cold fabric felt like it’d cut his skin. His bed sheets used to be made of silk because his fancy ass did not like the feel of synthetic material…

Maybe Solaris had decided to erase Thomas from existence just like it’d brought him back to life.

“Thomas, please!” he pleaded, throat tight.

Every step towards the door felt like walking on sharp ice, whole body trembling. He had to be alive, he could not stand to lose him a second time, not after all those blissful moments over this red ocean. He was about to reach the door, clinging in the border of the last table next to the last bed, the handle a little more than a meter from his current position. Oh but his arm was too short and he did not reach it, and with all the confidence in the world, he attempted to take a step on his own.

Obviously, the leg trembled and resisted for a second, and it failed the next one, so he tripped down to the floor, elbows hitting the ground hard as he moaned in pain. He cursed, inhaling with his mouth open, and started to crawl the meter he’d left.

“Thomas…”

Using the panel, he got up to his feet again, scratching the surface. The circular thing was not a knife, was the disk of an angle grinder. Probably someone tried to cut the door, but the material was too thick for a tool that small.

In less than a blink, he’d twisted the handle the door, which showed lots of resistance before giving in an inch. It seemed to be stuck, somehow, but without the lock of the door itself. An object outside must had been blocking the door.

“Thomas!” he shouted as he’d moved the door a centimeter more, the low light of the corridor barely showing him ashes and cables. The thing was so heavy, and it did not move more! A tear of frustration slipped down his cheek, a red color marking his whole face and chest in exertion.

Then, something moved in the side of the corridor he could not see, the door was suddenly a lot less heavy, and it opened completely in a mere second. Guy-Manuel couldn’t notice the change of pressure needed fast enough, so he stumbled forward, ending up headfirst in the ashy floor again.

“Hmhmm!”

In the stillness of the corridor, he felt a tingling in the back of his neck. Then a gasp.

“… is this really you, Guy-Manuel?!”

That voice…

“You asshole, I” words flew out of his brain, replaced by immeasurable relief at the sight of the unruly, tired and covered in black dust Thomas, kneeled in the floor facing him. He laughed, grimacing as tears flooded his eyes at the sight, realization and knowledge getting the best of him “… It was the Juno, wasn’t it?”

Thomas stared in silence, then nodded once, gaping, and proceeded to hug him like the ocean would swallow the entire station, squeezing the flesh and hair and tears and all things human tightly, trying to convince himself that his was not a fantasy, that a corporeal and real Guy-Manuel was the one he hugged.

He might had even crushed a rib.

“You said you did not remember the explosion!” Thomas laughed, still crushing the others body, his nose snuzzling the long hair, inhaling the other’s aroma he’d missed for so long. He’d just remembered about it last week, keeping it to himself.

“Now I do,” he sniffled loudly, caressing the dirty clothes of the younger man.

“And you have a human body…”

“So it seems. Pinch me.”

“Why, do you constantly dream about being human?”

“Don’t joke around” he cried, using the back of his hand to wipe away some tears. Thomas, still holding him with a crushing force, used his left hand to pinch his naked shoulder. It had hurt.

“And? Am I a tourist in your dream or are we alive?”

He distanced himself from the embrace. Countless times he had dreamed about finding Thomas again, in death, in dreams, however it had to be just to watch him once more… and this, this was lightyears away from his wildest dreams, while being as real as the sun and the rain, and that sentient being under the station.

His hands traveled through Thomas’ chest and shoulders, caressing with care until reaching the jawline, when he leaned to meet his lips with the other’s own.

Just one kiss was all he needed to erase the desert memories and unhappy years, his mind already racing with sensations and feelings.

They kissed and kissed until they could no more.

“This is being alive.” Finally.

***

“You just got this new human body and the first thing you do is to smoke. A. Cigarette. Stop it.”

“I wasn’t the one to take E for a whole year.”

“I was experimenting! And I stopped after that incident, thank you very much. I had to die and revive thanks to this planet to see you again; can’t you just spoil me? Or at least light a joint or something of that kind.”

“I don’t think there’s weed here,” still, he lighted the cigarette and took a short drag, to exhale and inhale back. He did it a second time, and under the hard stare of Thomas, he smashed the poor stick in a plate, more than the half left to waste. “Happy?”

Thomas smiled broadly, showing his teeth.

***

“I can’t wait for the storm to end.”

“I don’t know what’ll happen with us if we exit this station.”

“I rather die again trying than having to spend my entire life trapped in this solarium.”

“Hey, if I had to be trapped here in order to spend the rest of my life with you, I’d do it.”

“I hope it’s not necessary. And well, if I disappear in the middle of takeoff, you can always come back and see if the planet makes you another gift.”

Thomas, always the pragmatic, not the romantical.

“I think it likes us too much…”

“Is… is that whiskey?!”

Guy-Manuel hummed, turned around and hid the crystal glass, “… no?”

“OH! Give me!”

“Catch me!”

***

“This bed feels like twice as big as before.”

“You’re more petite now, without all that metallic paraphernalia.”

“It would not surprise me if the ocean decided we needed a bigger bed.”

The rise and fall of his eyebrows made the other man blush deeply over his already rosy cheeks, looking to the side.

“Don’t talk about the ocean like that!” Thomas laughed, embarrassed as he hid under the duvet.

“Why, don’t you think we are giving it a headfirst on human relationships and anatomy lessons?”

“The voyeur planet.”

Guy-Man laughed wholeheartedly before speaking, his cheeks hurting from smiling so for long.

“Sadly, Solaris, I pronounce you as the Voyeur planet. Thank you for this wonderful wish of humanity.”

“Jokes aside, I think you always kept humanity inside that golden clad body…”

“Maybe I did, but never broadly, and always deceiving.”

Thomas seated up, his gaze unfocussed in the dark room as his hand searched for Guy’s own.

“When you came back from the expedition, I asked the medical assistant to tell me how many inhabitants were here. The IA said there were two hearts. A-and you were still a robot!”

The man of the long hair meditated the statement in silence, flat on his back.

“Maybe I kept a heart all those years, the cause of all my suffering.”

Thomas reclined himself over the other’s body, laying on the chest.

“Well, without that one organ you would not be here now…”

“Thomas,” Guy-Manuel’s fingers stroked his neck and hair softly. “I’ve already dwelled on the past too much on my life,” his hand drifted towards the jaw, lifting Thomas’ head to face him, half-closed eyes filled with love “come with me and enjoy the present.”

“Oh, I will.” Thomas responded after a snort, snuggling the chest area with his face, and Guy-Manuel felt his chest heavy, weirdly proud of the double meaning of the sentence.

***

“Guy! There are new messages!”

“What, the Federation finally noticed my spaceship missing?”

“Yeah, and they said the storm would end this week!”

***

“Assistant, tell me how many habitants this station has.”

“Currently two human beings.”

Thomas moved his arms from his hips to signal the computer, full of himself.

“See?” Guy only rolls his eyes. “I told you, Solaris likes us. When we go, we’ll have to promise to come back.”

“Well, the old diaries of the scientist say that the creatures the planet made for them were never registered in the sensors, so… yeah, yeah, we got lucky. I hope, at least.”

“We’ll make it, I feel it Guy-Manuel. Nah, I know it.”

***

They did succeed, eventually, and Guy-Manuel had to stop Thomas from sending their spaceship towards a black hole… twice.

END