“Oh
I think he did. Got upset you weren’t there. But he’s ok now. Sometimes
comes and searches the ship but yeah. There wonderful lovely
creatures.”
“They are,” Carlos agreed. He’d never seen anything like them. “Gosh… I hope his parents are somehow able to let him know that it’s okay. Or… I dunno, Yondu… You, um… your species seems to have some minor telepathic abilities. I… I dunno if this is presuming too much, but… are you able to just…let him know I’m okay? I’m just asking – I don’t know what I’m talking about, so I’m just asking…”
“Don’t worry his parents took care of him and… Hmm I guess they can understand me in a way… I whistle and they understand that way I guess. Don’t worry it’s ok. Maybe someday you’ll see him again. But always remember he’ll be you soul traveler…. he’s a baby so that means you will have a long life. You’ll both be old before he carries you to Valhalla…”
What…? Carlos had wondered about what aliens believed regarding the afterlife, but the subject had just… never come up. Did they think space whales were basically boats to the afterlife? That… well, he could see that making sense as a belief.
“You believe in Valhalla?” he asked. That was a term that Carlos had thought was exclusive to Earth… well, until it was revealed that one of Earth’s heroes was actually an alien – a Norse alien, if there was such a thing.
Carlos was so busy trying not to straight up vomit from the pain that he almost didn’t hear the question. “I… buh, wha?” he murmured intelligently. “I… fuckin’… The dogs in that junkyard outside just spooked me an’ I jumped… over a car.”
He only remembered flashing lights as his ankle was hurt so badly that it knocked out his sight for a minute. He remembered being unable to control the shriek of pain, which now that he thought about it was probably what drew the Diamond City guards to his location. He remembered gunfire and flopping down on the ground as he tried to duck and cover while his whole leg seemed to be trying to kill him from pain alone.
He remembered being moved and all that jostling had not been a pleasant experience at all. It was a miracle though that he had been so close to Diamond City in the first place, he supposed. Would’ve been a better miracle if he hadn’t broken anything in the first place though.
Hatbot bounced again, pleased about this news. “Hatbot.” The small robot looked up at his boss.
“Yes sir?”
“I shall be inside. Watch over this pathetic fool and make sure he
does nothing funny.” Black Hat glared at the human. “Have him bring the
sentinel back when finished.”
“Yes sir!” Hatbot saluted with a grin.
Carlos hummed lowly. “The only one doing the funny stuff here is you, Señor Sombrero Negro hombre,” he murmured in a very low voice.
He immediately got to work looking around and figuring out the components he was looking at. There was a lot going on inside, he could tell. Vocal components, what looked like large coolant lines complete with a hat-shaped pump right where a heart would be on a typical human, large servos and power cords… oh, it was beautiful. He could honestly spend all day in there.
But he had a job to do so he started to look at the wires to make sure nothing was burned and broken.
The smaller hatbot fell back and huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. Black Hat rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “Fine. Just fix the damn thing so it can return to work.”
Carlos gave the other man a small, thankful smile and a nod. He turned and hurried to the car – the robot thankfully had collapsed only about fifteen meters from it so Carlos didn’t have to strain his lungs or his muscles any more than he had to in the short walk. He used his keys to unlock the car and then grabbed a blue and yellow toolbag from the passenger’s seat of the car.
He came back and stood over the giant robot, looking for its access point. “Okay, let’s see where the access panel to this big boy is,” he murmured to himself.
The smaller robot perked up when he saw the tools. He bounced excitedly on his wheel. “It’s here sir!” He said, patting the robot’s chest with his small clawed hand.
Carlos blinked at the robot, surprised that it was able to speak. “Oh – thanks, buddy!” he said with a smile. He went to kneel next to the large robot and started to determine how to open the panel located right under the bow-tie. “I’m sorry about what happened – I’ll get him up again and he should be ready for your scientist to give him new instructions.”
Carlos got a screwdriver from his bag and used it to pry at the edge of the panel and it popped open.
The Perfect Scientist 