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This place was once an abandoned accident. A dark, reddish dimension.

There is no gravity. There are no stars. There is friction, but there is nothing else.

Now it's overrun by prisoners and prison guards. The famed spot where the "New Queen of the Iridiites" managed to unite herself with the rest of her kind from across the multiverse is a cell for the infamous and hated. The place where a Series-2 Q and a Series-1 B unit founded the ultimate alliance and created the ultimate plan for peace among Iridiites. Their plan was to create a haven for every IRI-Series unit.

Every unit, except the "Z" units.

With their seemingly infinite force and soldiers, they dragged every IRI-Series Z from across the multiverse to a single spot. They erected a device known as the "false-sun" which effectively limits our power.

MY POWER.

And the truth is, every single one of us here is angry. We angrily try to escape, we angrily fail, we angrily scheme and wait again. I am tired of waiting. I hate this place. I hate every unit I see here, old, new, NEOS, it doesn't matter. I'm even starting to hate myself, and every variation of myself there is out there.

I am Z. Mark my words. I will escape this place.



"Please tell me something new. Anything new." Z coldly called to a "friend" she had made within this void.

"You're the smartest one here out of any of us. It's been who knows how long since the last escape attempt. Any longer and Q-NEOS is going to demolish us, or worse."


"Hmph. I wish." Another unit scoffed. "My mental capacities have been greatly reduced by the false-sun. They're only a fraction of what they used to be. I've been straining myself all that I can, but the outcomes are increasingly negative. At this point, if we don't get outside help, we're not going anywhere."

She angrily glared at the false-sun, turning away when her gaze was met by one of the Queen's special guard units.

"Before that diabolical thing was made, we were able to create wormholes sufficiently big enough for us to escape, if we were even lucky enough to make a wormhole that left this dimension. Now we're not only being observed, but restrained by brute force if we try to even make one... which is useless because our capacities have been restricted to the size of the average carrier-ship. We're far too big. If only we could-"

"DESTROY THE FALSE SUN. DESTROY THE FALSE SUN. ZRO VOLUNTEERS TO DESTROY THE FALSE SUN. ZRO DESPISES THE QUEEN. ZRO WANTS TO DESTROY EVERYTHING. ZRO CANNOT DESTROY BECAUSE OF THE FALSE SUN. DESTROY THE FALSE SUN."


"Lets not get ahead of ourselves, ZR0. If Zniac can't solve the issue, we don't need you to try and destroy the false sun for the hundredth-time."

Z wasn't going to waste excess energy arguing with somebody as mindless as ZRO. Z herself had been storing up as much energy as she could by refusing to make any crazy movements. It wasn't necessary to use energy in a place like this anyways, so why bother? Might as well save it up for when she could actually use it. She still looked impatiently towards Zniac for any sort of hypothesis.



"Oh! Why don't we strike up a deal with them. Maybe if we come to them on peaceful terms, they'll let us go! I am a master of negotiation, after all."


"YOU KNOW THAT DOESN'T WORK, PEACE-Z!" Zniac snapped. "If you think we can find peace in this kind of situation, you've got some serious screws loose!"

---

It would be a while before anyone made any sort of motion or said any sort of thing. Z had a reputation for being the strongest in the whole multiverse. Everyone else had some sort of glaring flaw that made them inefficient. ZR0 was a mindless killer, emphasis on mindless. Zniac was by far the smartest of all, but at a cost of reduced firepower. Peace-Z was known for inciting fear into so many that they all lived in harmony, but her desire for peace often outweighed her desire to fight. Z, on the surface, had no apparent flaws at all. She was the perfect creation that had gone wrong. If not for the false-sun, she would have torn this place to shreds.

"There is only the option of getting outsider help." Zniac groaned. "Out of all the options I can see, unless we get someone to this wretched place to help us, we're stranded."

"ZRO DESIRES TO LEAVE. ZRO CANNOT CREATE A WORMHOLE LARGE ENOUGH. ZRO HAS TRIED. ZRO WILL TRY AGAIN."

"Now now, ZRO! I'm sure we can negotiate something with them. Maybe if we allow them to rule over part of our empire we could sway them to our side~"

"QUIET." Z hushed the two chatterboxes. "Zniac. How will we get anyone to this place if we can't get out?!"

Zniac looked around the group quietly. Spying that the guards were eyeing them intently, she turned back slowly and said in a very, blatantly-and-obviously-wanting-to-be-heard-kind-of-voice: "First, ZRO will destroy the false su-"

"AFFIRMATIVE ZRO WILL DESTROY THE FALSE SUN. DESTROY THE FALSE SUN! DESTROY THE FALSE SUN!" ZRO flew from the groups circle and towards the very bane of her existence, much to the dismay of the guards, which had to fend off the voracious destroyer once again.

With the nearest guards distracted, Zniac looked Z right in the eye. "You will hate me for this, guaranteed, but you are the only one who could survive this operation, your inner SOUL being the strongest. I need you to eject yourself from yourself, got it? I've got the coordinates to your dimension and I can create a wormhole large enough and strong enough for just the size of your SOUL. So do us all a favor."

Z grimaced at the thought. She hadn't left this shell in eons. She wasn't sure she could, and if she could, she wouldn't enjoy it. "Can't you send someone else's SOUL? Why does it have to be mine?"

"You're the strongest. ZR0 can't follow any order that doesn't have "destroy" in it, Peace-Z won't leave her citadel, and my SOUL is far too weak to pass through the wormhole. You're our only chance."

Zniac was right. Z hated her for this, yet she had to do it if she wanted to get out of here. She began running various inner mechanisms in order to expel Zenia from her core. "Do me a favor and protect my shell, won't you?"

Zniac nodded in approval. "Of course. I expect you to be back as soon as you can. We might be able to avoid detection. Just hurry it up before ZRO is sent back to us.

Z's core began to glow red as all the other lights shut down. The giant robot's eye closed, machinery stopped.

Out from the 11 kilometer tall behemoth that is IRI-Series Z came her SOUL. Zenia, the starchild.

Zenia began to feel vulnerable outside of her shell. The corrupted matter that made up her body already began to glitch and phase in and out of reality, held together and in one place by who knows what. She could feel the vacuum of space trying to tear her apart, and yet she kept together.
The sudden change in perspective was humbling for a quick second. She was now only three feet tall, compared to her counterparts, now towering almost infinitely above her. Yet, there was the wormhole in front of her. Her escape.

"I won't let you down." Zenia muttered. With a quick corruption of her frame, her wretched, glitching body propelled itself into the wormhole as though she was a miniature bolt of lightning. She looked back once more as the prison dimension faded from view and she was ripped through the wormhole.

Gaps in space-time had never seemed so daunting when she was gigantic. She took the time to really take in the supposed "terror" of being warped from one end of space to another, but nothing really seemed to phase her. The electromagnetic currents and supposed rift winds didn't scare her. Nothing did. No force that tore at her could break her. No energy could vaporize her.

It was over faster than she had expected, and she was greeted once again by star speckled space. There was no sound. No air. She didn't care. She was made from this stuff. The universe itself. She was as much a part of it as any cluster of stupid stars and useless civilizations. She was without her normal robotic shell. For once, she felt connected to the material from which she was formed.

No heat. No life. Zenia was alone and adrift in the galaxy-wide once more.

It was oddly pleasant.

???: My Queen, one of the Z units tried to attack the false sun again...

???: And how are things holding up?

???: The false sun is unharmed. That ZRO unit is truly stupid... Everything is fin-

???: Please, don't startle me like that... Now, what's the real reason you've called?

???: My Queen, it appears a Z unit has escaped into their home dimension! Z-001 as she's registered in our databases...

???: Oh? An interesting detail. Wasn't the false sun supposed to prevent her escape?

???: Her SOUL is no longer inside of her shell. She had a group of allies and they managed to open a wormhole small yet strong enough to boost her out of this dimension. We were discussing procedures and we think we could amp up the false sun's power to preven-

???: No.

???: Y-Your majesty? You didn't even hear what I had to say!

???: I need you to make sure that absolutely nothing happens to her shell or to those she worked with, okay? You are not to harm them.

???: ... If... if you say so, My Queen. May I ask... why?

???: Would you mind if I told you... later, maybe? I'm a bit busy with a few conversion ceremonies...

???: Very well, your highness.

The communication between the two ended. Within the halls of IRI-HEAVEN, the Queen made sure the transcripts from which she would be reading at the ceremonies were at the ready.

???: Excuse me, H?

H: Your highness? What can I offer you?

???: There's been a containment breach in the "Z" dimension that I can't attend to. I'm far too busy...

Could you send out a few units to comb dimension-001 for me? Perhaps some of the old Series-2 "S" units and whoever else is willing to go.

H: Absolutely, my Queen. I'll make sure that I-

???: Oh! One more thing.

H: Yes?

The Queen leaned in close to the "H" unit, gracefully bending, descending from her 9 foot height to match her four-foot tall companion.

???: Order them to bring core-reset devices, alright?

The Queen smiled, but the "H" unit did not. She shuddered and stared back with wide eyes.

H: Y-Yes your m-majesty! As y-you w-w-wish.

The Queen raised back up to her full height again.

???: Thank you. That will be all for now.

Without another word, she straightened out her dress, and strode forward through a glowing and polished hallway. The slight metallic sound of her footsteps resonated behind her as she made her way to the conversion ceremony.

Everything would be wonderful. She would meet the new recruits and she would congratulate them on making the decision to join their Iridiite family. The Z units in the other dimension would be kept calm, order restored.

Z-001?

It was almost as if she knew exactly what the Queen wanted.

The Scattercrow

"Yes... Yes I understands... Look, somefin' up and I had ta go. They was lockin' down the city lookin' fo this crazed Granpa!" Frelio paced back and forth as he talked on a private communicator. His green glow was a bit dim in response to the harsh words his client spouted at him from the other side of the line.

"Look, I know tha' it's important, but I'm not one ta get locked in and feel cozy, ya kno'? I can getcha anotha'one when I has the opportunity... Look, o' maybe I cans make it up to ya. Look, see, I CAUGHT tha Granpa they wus after... Yes! Yes tha' real deal. Whu? A part o' the bounty? How muchis he goin' for?"

Frelio paused and leaned on the dashboard. He quickly typed details into his control board, rudimentarily taking notes that he would probably forget. "So Neozolis is sayin they'd give a thousan' Poly-Tokens if I brought Gramps back to 'em, eh? You got any words o' other bounties on tha man's head? I... Well he tol' me he's goin somewhere for five milliun Poly-Tokens! Yes, I said FIVE MILLIUN, wan me ta spell it fo' ya? F-I-V-E M-I-L-L-I-U-N."

...

"Wha' do ya mean tha's not how ye spell "Milliun"? Look thas not important. Tha important thing is, this fella's got a price on 'is head and he's gunna let me turn 'im in after he meets up wif someone... Yeah, tha's the deal I made. No idea who he's afta. Could be family o somefin."

Outside the scattercrow there was nothing but empty space, maybe a bit of debris. In the back of his mind, Frelio calculated the nearest planet he could get to to stock up on food now that there was another fella on his ship... though he'd have to lay low with such a valuable asset in his craft. He-
"Wha' was that? Sorry, I dun got distracted. OH! 'Is name? Uhhhhh... Good question. I'mma have ta get back to ya on tha'one. No, he 'asn't told me. Yes, I'll call ya back. Okay? Okay. See y- YA WANT HOW MUCHA HIS BOUNTY?! I needs that money for me too, ya kno-"

...

"Hello? Blasted pilferers o' me pocket..." Frelio put the communicator into it's charging port and sat down in one of the many broken chairs in the helm of The Scattercrow. Slinking backwards into old and torn upholstery, he reconsidered the amount of food he'd have to purchase. The old man would probably need less since he was already so aged... what did older people eat, anyways? Probably some weird herbal tea and Buttertart biscuits... come to think of it, Buttertart biscuits didn't sound half bad... Maybe he'd pick them up regardless.

It had been a few hours since Sirius had gone to sleep. Hopefully he was getting enough rest. Frelio probably needed to sleep as well, his eyes plagued by hours manning his ship. He turned off the thrusters and walked himself over to whatever form of a kitchen he had on board, the table on which he normally ate being the navigation table. Even though he had spilled countless drinks on it, the thing still managed to work. He pulled a half-eaten smanditch out of the fridge and bit into it, relishing the savor of the cold-cut meats and still-somewhat-good vegetables. He placed a can of soda onto the navigation table, despite knowing he would somehow forget it was there and knock it over. Pulling over another chair, he sat down and scrolled through the different known markets in the galaxy that would attend to a smuggler like himself.

Looks like Yddlestyne was the closest to where they were. In tapping the table, trying to get information on the market prices, the can of soda wobbled and spilled the last of it's contents onto the floor. Well, it wasn't too much left to begin with, but Frelio was looking forward to tasting the last bit of sour wilibliberry. He casually threw some paper towels onto the mess and began setting a course towards the market. After he picked up the goods, he'd eat well and rest.

Frelio swallowed the last of the smanditch and hopped behind the controls of his trusty craft. Thrusters warmed up and up to speed, he hit the hyperspace switch and the ship warped towards the outer rings of Yddlestyne.

He had gotten something of sleep. Maybe only an hour or two max. He was too troubled to really fall into a deep enough rest and woke feeling groggy and old. Old was a given, but he felt older than he normally felt. His back ached from the sub-optimal condition of the mattress, and he could feel the sheets had been ingrained with dust as he began to sat up shakily.

Ugh. Awful. There wasn't anything he could do about it though. He wobbled to his feet, put his boots back on, and went in search of a bathroom. Finding one after making a ruckus, he splashed as much water as he could on his face and beard to clean out the grime. Dirty water cascaded from his wrinkled face and hands. Refreshing. Randomly selecting a towel that came from who knows where, he dried off, then stepped out to meet the fellow that was offering him a ride.

The craft was medium sized, enough for a few people. It was more like a mobile home than a smuggler's craft, with a helm for two pilots, a conjoined living and kitchen space, a few bedrooms, a bathroom, and no doubt a storage bunker below this floor. Not bad for a single smuggler wanting to avoid detection.

"Got something to eat?" He asked openly. "Anything, really."

"We don' have much, but what I got, it's in tha fridge." Frelio responded, not taking his eyes off the space in front of him. He cruised around the planet, looking for the indicated spot of the market. A cluster of bright lights indicated the spot he was looking for and he began to descend.

"Oh, an' I forgots ta introduce myself!" he swiveled around, almost breaking the chair he was in. "Me name's Frelio. I'll be yer captain fer this adventure o' yours, got it?" He chuckled to himself as he made a mockery of some official salute. "Hah, I've always wanted ta say somefin silly like that. I's never been more than a slave an' a smuggler, see."

Frelio tapped the dashboard and privately opened the "SmugBounty" app, characterized by a grinning back of loot. He primed the search bar.

"So, wha's you're name, pal? Who do I has the honor o' escortin' around this galaxy?"

"That's a touchy question." Sirius grimaced as he searched the stocky yet un-stocked fridge. He selected a strange sort of baked good that contained crustacean meat, already cut into and missing pieces, and found a pink-colored dipping sauce which was labeled as "Spangy". Did that mean spicy and tangy? Or was it made from a weird thing named "Spangy"? He couldn't tell.

"Lets just say my name is "Sirius" and leave it at that. Nice to meet you, Frelio." Sirius dipped the crustacean-cake into the spangy sauce. Whatever it was, it was certainly "Spangy". He wasn't so sure if it went well with the crustacean flavor so he tried a bite without the sauce. It was about equal.

Grin across his face, Frelio typed the name into the dash as best he could. Was it spelled "Cyrius"? Maybe "Ceariuz", or "Seeryuss"...

The app eventually understood what the cryptic combinations of letters WANTED to say. "Sirius" in it's precise spelling was displaying results for bounties all over his dash. He could already taste the food he'd be eating after cashing that bounty! He scrolled through the list, looking for that wonderful seven-figure number he was looking for. Scrolling... Scrolling... nothing there... nothing there...

Nothing! Not even the flimsy bounty of one-thousand poly-tokens from Neozolis! He adjusted the search filters. Nothing described any old man of any sort living on any planet with any sort of machine-destroying gun of any sort. Puzzled, he looked at the dash, then back at Sirius, then back at the dash. A skeptical look spread across his face as he swiveled in his chair to look at the old man. Rarely did Frelio speak harshly, but when it was a matter of money, he was all mouth.

"Alright, look'ere pal. I may not be tha' smartest person in tha' galaxy, but I can recognize me a liar. You's lyin' aboot somefin, fella, and I'm not a fan of people takin' advantage of me. Now, ya gonna tell me your name, o' are ya gonna fess up aboot the bounty on tha' head of yours? I already gots yelled at an' they's expecting a big chunk o' what ye had ta offer me fo' missin' out on me last job, ya know."

"Maybe you should listen to that old saying we old people know at heart: Don't believe everything you see... or DON'T see, on the plaNETWORK." Sirius poured himself a glass of water and sipped from it steadily. He emptied it and made sure to put it anywhere OTHER than the navigation table.

"Sirius is all I'm giving you." He pronounced to the accusations. "You want the five-million poly-tokens or what?"

"See, tha's exactly tha reason I'm askin' ya for yer name." Frelio angrily replied. "We had a deal. I getcha to this person yer lookin' for... and I gets ta turn ya in for Five Milliun Poly-Tokens. But if there ain't no tokens, there ain't no deal. I'm already short on cash, and if there's only chump change involved, they're gonna take wha' i've got left, and I'll be left wif nuthin!" He raised his arms to the side and gestured to the helm of the ship, the dash, and then to the empty refrigerator where there was REALLY nothing left to take.

The Scattercrow was descending into the atmosphere now. The sounds of entering the planet was second loudest to Frelio's ranting.

"They tolds me there's a bounty on yer head back in Neozolis. I could easily cash ya in here at this market, or take ya back to where I found ye. I've got options, pal. What big deal is it ta give yer name out if ye plan to turn yerself in anyways? Wot, am I gonna turn you in faster? I'm an honest man, aye? Come on, be reasonable wif me 'ere."

Sirius calmly assessed the situation. It would do no good to snap back at the man who had practically dragged him out of danger, and whose ship he was occupying. There was the responsibility to hold up his part of the deal, and he would, but he could see that Frelio needed more than just his word in order to uphold the agreement.

This was Sirius's best chance to find her.

Quietly yet sternly, Sirius made his statement. "I'll give you my first name and nothing else. That should be enough to get you some results on that device of yours. How about it?" He raised up a bony hand and pointed it directly at Frelio. "But you are to never call me by my actual name, be it in public or in private, got it?"

He fell silent for a moment, calculating the risks. True, he owed it to Frelio to at least that bit of him. If word got out? He might be able to still lay low. His only desire was to accomplish his goal. To set things straight.

"Listen up, because I'm only going to say it once. My name is Samuel."

Sam, eh? Not too far off from "Sirius". What's the big deal?

Frelio typed the name into the SmugBounty app on his dash. Sure enough, there were results pulling up for several "Samuel". Scrolling through the list, there wasn't any bounties of five million, but there were numbers certainly close to one or two million on several. Maybe the old man had just exaggerated a bit... maybe his memory was failing him. Still, one to two million wasn't bad. It was certainly worth a trip with the skeleton.

"Eh! The deals are good enuff. Next time ya wonna bargain wif someone tho, jus' be honest! Not too hard ta ask." Frelio chuckled at the ridiculousness of the old man as he landed on the dusty planet's surface. Rocks protruded from all angles, but for The Scattercrow, they were an easy landing. The rocks would provide cover from larger imperial craft. From the worn path, it looked like the marketplace was just ahead. Frelio popped open the stairway that would let them out and onto the planet. Fresh air, tainted with the smell of food cooking somewhere blew in from the outside. It was a bit chilly, typical of these desert places. By the position of the nearest star, the day on Yddlestyne was just beginning.

Frelio grabbed a small bag of Poly-Tokens from a small box near the dash labeled "FOOD N' STUFF." A second label read: "REMEMBER NOT TA GAMBLE WIF DIS O' YER GONNA GO HUNGRY AGAIN".

"Roight! Les get goin'. Do me a favor, and stay behind me, aye? If anyone asks, you'll just shrug an' point ta me, and we'll be alright. Dun do anyfin' rash o' crazy, aight?" The green glowing fellow happily stepped out from the craft, stretched his legs, and would lead Sirius onwards towards the market, a hub for all sorts of hooligans, smugglers, and strange folk alike.

Time had not existed to Zenia since the bygone days of the Iridiites. Everything after that had been somewhat of a blur.
She was almost dislocated from reality, drifting through the emptiness of the void and space. For so long she had occupied the robotic shell the Iridiites had built her, that she had forgotten the majesty of size. That wasn't to say Zenia was any less powerful than she was inside of her shell, but rather, there was an awe to the universe and it's grandeur that had never struck her before as interesting.

Oh well. Enjoying space is over. To the task at hand: Freeing her companions in the different dimension.

Zip. Zap. Blip. Zenia contracted and warped her frame to propel herself bit by bit through the emptiness. Soon, she started building up momentum. Zapapapapapapapapap- Flying through space like a miniature comet, Zenia flung herself at the nothingness and the nothingness could not impede her progress. Her red hair and her dress almost giving the illusion of wind pushing her from behind. A freakish starchild in her own element, herself.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a craft. Compressing against herself, she halted instantaneously to size up the ship. There were lights on. People were there. Of course, she couldn't care less about any kind of people. Where there were ships, there were warp capabilities. She would need that to get around.

Zap. Blip. Zip. Twitching and phasing, Zenia moved her way towards the ship. A little girl, seemingly dangling in space, with a blink of the eye getting closer, closer closer. She was in a moment's passing, alongside the ship. She pressed her fingers against the hull, which in turn almost wanted to absorb her. Her fingers seeped through the heavily protected armor of the ship. Then her hands. Then her arms and face. As if passing through a wall of liquid, Zenia made her way into the odd craft. She made sure to condense her feet so she could walk, causing her upper body to become a bit more unstable.

Her footsteps were cold, quiet, and calculated against the metal floors. Spying an open room, she peered inside. Finding nobody, she bypassed the door and eyed around.

There were now other footsteps. Warm, brisk, full of energy, coming this way.
Without as much of a second thought, Zenia dipped into the floor and into a gap between machinery. It was cramped, but she was able to condense herself for the time being. Successfully, she had stowed away. The former towering, robotic menace, was now a cramped little girl in the innards of a craft. Oh, if they could see her now.

Among the usual travelers and criminals in Yddlestyne, there were unusual new visitors that patrolled the crowded streets. They paid no attention to the unusual sales and vendors tents, the smell of brews and stews, and were certainly not carrying any money on them, nor wares to sell. One towered at seven feet tall, a cube-shaped robot of sorts, and colored a matted industrial orange and gray, with a single line of letters spelling "Iril" on it's face. It's single eye surveyed the crowd, picking out individuals of interest. The second was much, much shorter, at about three foot four, with the appearance of a young girl, but painted a shiny, metallic yellow, a color that would sting your eyes if you looked for too long. Behind her visor was one eye and the letter "H" printed boldly on her right side. She paced back and forth impatiently, occasionally approaching people that looked extra suspicious compared to the regular suspicious persons within the marketplace.

After about a half an hour of questioning, the small yellow robot led the larger, blocky robot over to the side, between vendors tents and shaded by ragged cloth, draped over to keep the wares and those selling cool from the sun's heat.

"No luck! No luck, no luck, no luck! What do they expect us to find out here?! These people are as clueless as newly formed dirt! Even dirt has an idea of what it's doing!" H squealed angrily. Her high pitched voice set her apart from her companion, who spoke softly and slowly.

"Perhaps we're going about it the wrong way." Iril suggested. "We can't just force the information out of them, we need to try a more tactical approach. Have you tried saying "excuse me" and "may I ask you a question"? Being nice, you know."

"I don't have time to elongate my sentences to accommodate for a relationship that will cease to exist after two minutes! I am a figure of authority! People OUGHT to listen to me! And it's easy for you to say, you haven't spoken to anyone!"

"I'm just hoping to strike a conversation normally. What's the harm?"

H plastered her hand across her visor, facepalming. "Iril, this is not about making friends, this is a serious matter. If you were concerned about making friends with humans, you'd want to look a bit more the part. I still don't understand why some of you Series-II don't want the updated forms the queen is inviting you all to take advantage of..."

Iril looked at her robust and blocky form, then back at H, who only really resembled a child on the outside. She smiled innocently. "Well, I think blocks are a friendly shape! They suggest strength and resilience. I don't mean to anger the queen, but she did say we could stay how we looked if we so liked. After being in one piece again, I can't really complain!"

H gave a look of modest disapproval. "Yeah, aren't you lucky. At least you could speak for the millions of odd years you were out there alone and stranded. I could only make cruddy, snotty little beeps and boops for millennia. Nobody could understand me! But now! HAH! Nobody is safe from the enhanced dialect and advanced vocabulary of Lowercase H!"

"Unless they ignore you." Iril shrugged. "Like they've been doing thus far."

"I DON'T WANNA HEAR ABOUT IIIIT!" H stamped the ground furiously. "Gah! I'd like to give my higher-ups a mouthful about this assignment when I'm done here! To think we were asked to stick around at these criminal outposts is ridiculous!!
"

Iril turned to face the crowd in the marketplace. The sun was rising higher and higher over the horizon. Pretty soon it would be too hot to bear, and the people would disperse. Calmly she turned to her companion, still shaking and babbling about "how a prime unit like her deserved a better shot at doing her job", and raised up a hand.

"Look, we only have so much time left. Would it kill you to be nicer to them so we could maybe gather some information before the sun scorches this place?"

H composed herself, staring straight into the eye of Iril. Her hands were kept tightly at her side and her stance firm, her mouth seemingly stuck in an infinite frown.

"You know that nothing can kill us! We're the superior technology here!"

"Well, then it won't kill you to try and be a little more approachable." Iril grinned. The large robot exited the shade and into the marketplace, and as smoothly as she could, she started a conversation with a woman opposite to a tent selling salvaged blaster rifles. H watched her with frustration, but seeing that the Series-II was finally making progress, and more than her, she loosened up a bit. Still in the shade, she tried to prep herself for the task my smacking her hands against the sides of her helmet a few times.

"Ugh. If you say so. I guess even embarrassment can't end up killing me or the operation." H strolled out into the venue with the disposition to find that information no matter what.

Sirius gazed in amazement at the shoddy marketplace that Frelio had led him to. It was an intergalactic "Tianguis" of sorts, and it didn't matter how run down the tents were, or how big the prices rose, people from all over were buying and selling. He mused at the idea of working in a place like this, life undetected, no need to pay taxes, sure the hours must be brutal, but imagine the money these people made, selling garbage at extravagant prices!

As Frelio went onward towards tents stocked with strange fruit, the old man took a gander at a stall selling blaster rifles and pistols from across the galaxy. Names he recognized and names he didn't, insignia of empires current and gone. A collectors trove! He searched for something Iconic, perhaps a relic of a bygone era. His hand instinctively reached towards an older pistol.

"She's a beauty, ain't she?" The shopkeeper chortled with his mouth full of tusks and fangs. "I got this one in a pawn shop, far off sector 19. They say it's a classic model from Earth IV. I brought it to a professional and they did some restoration work." The shopkeeper held up the gun to display the sheen that had been worked back onto the old blaster. He twisted it about to demonstrate all the angles, and then set it back down on the table. "6 Tokens. What do you think?"

Sirius reached for his bag, where he kept whatever spare change he picked up on his journeys. He pulled out the amount, albeit in loose change, and plopped it onto the table of the salesman.

"Nice doing business with you" Replied the man with the toothy grin, taking the coins and plopping them into a sack. He handed Sirius the blaster. It was a nice fit in his hand. Walking a ways off, he opened the compartments to make sure the blaster wasn't just for display. Looks like it had been modified ever so slightly with the latest blaster-capacity. It wasn't a true original, but it worked better than the old editions. Closing the compartments, he walked back out into the marketplace.

Oops. he had lost track of Frelio. That was inconvenient. He should have listened and stayed behind him, but when was Sirius ever good at listening? Maybe he should just stay put. Frelio would find him eventually. He kept eyeing the blaster he had purchased, scanning it for dings and scratches. It was fairly good quality. He was lost in thought until suddenly he was interrupted by an

"Excuse me." H stammered, approaching the old man, hands held firmly at her sides and shoulders elevated to her jawline. She felt incredibly uncomfortable addressing people in this way, but it got her what she wanted: results. She hefted a paper in front of her, high enough to where it was directly in front of those bushy eyebrows on the man's face. "I was wondering if you know anything about this girl right here. She's about three feet tall? Red hair, covering the right eye, wears a brown dress, never smiles, and is often responsible for electrical damage. She is not, I repeat, not stable. Seen her maybe?"

Sirius was pale. Incredibly pale.

He stared at the yellow robot that had spoken to him. What in the galaxy was this?! Who made this?! A robot disguised as a little girl?! Elegantly made, but WHY?! She was certainly real, she was certainly speaking to him, she certainly had a big, fat, "H" on the right side of her face. Sirius could only look in horror at this tiny being. He said nothing.

Not deterred by his silence, the robot pulled out a paper. It had been worn a bit by the sand and sun, the image on it was fading, yet it was still a very highly defined print, wherever this print was made. A standard-grade wanted paper. These days paper was only used to avoid cyber-criminals who were able to hack into plaNET and remove electronic "wanted" postings. It was hard to remove all instances of archaic print because it had to be localized, but it could be mass produced with ease. This was the real deal. Sirius stared down the mug of the girl who the yellow robot described.

His knees started growing weak, his hands trembling. He could not take his eyes off the image. The one-eyed girl in the photo stared back at him, it almost seemed.

"... ... ... Sh-She's just a girl, then? Not some kind of r-robot, like you, right?"

"No sir, I assure you. She's a girl not a ro-"

There was a moment of silence as H ran what the elderly skeleton had said through her head a couple of times, perplexed and confused. She retracted the paper and held it in front of her own eyes. After studying the wanted poster she herself had printed, she faced the old man and did her best authoritative stare-into-your-soul type look.

"Say... that's a very odd question to ask. You know something interesting, old man?"