Dear Space Diary

Monday, March 19, 2012

Sixty-Third Entry

March 13^th, 2037

1300

Dear Space Diary.

No further communication from NASA. They appear to be as in the dark on this one as I am.

The skeleton in the closet (I moved it to the closet. It was creeping me out.) is not who I thought it was.

Maybe.

It appears to be the skeleton of a 17 year old girl. Whereas I should be looking for approximately a 35-40 year old skeleton.

But yet, in all other respects, it matches Mary's own skeleton. So what's going on? Who was it? Did they stow away on the ship? For 20 years? Why would they do that?

And... if that's not Mary, then where IS Mary?

It's entirely possible that Mary might not be dead. Which could explain why the system applied her name to the various rooms.

On the other hand it's entirely possible that Mary is still dead, but elsewhere.

It concerns me greatly that this skeleton isn't Mary. I gave her a funeral! And it wasn't even her!

It's disconcerting to not know who's decomposed head you've used as a utensil.

As is that sentence. In every way imaginable.

Either way, I might not be alone out there. That's either very reassuring, or downright terrifying.

Well, asking questions to this log isn't going to solve anything. (Unless NASA feel like contributing? No? Thought not.) I should go out and keep searching for my ship and get out of here. At the same time, I can hopefully find out something about who my unexpected companion is.

No time to waste!

1305

Hang on, it's lunch time.

1320

Hmm. This table is a little wobbly.

1333

Oh hey, I never finished that crossword.

1600

Rather successfully wasted all the time I didn't have. Better get a move on.

1630

Decided I should continue my plan from yesterday, and head in a straight line, keeping an eye out for any signs of my spaceship. Not very likely as I'm pretty sure the Blues will have tidied them all away, but it's about the best chance I've got of finding it before the rescue craft gets here. I could just go home with them, but I don't think NASA will be especially pleased they have to go scouring all over the planet looking for it's homing beacon.

...There's an idea.

1715

Back in the Zubrin again. I'm not procrastinating, I promise.

NASA are working on my suggestion to help me create a localised tracker for the ship's homing beacon. If we succeed, I don't need to search for it, I can just head straight to it.

NASA are having a little difficulty in creating a GPS system for a planet that doesn't have a global positioning satellite in orbit around it. That's a bit of a deal breaker apparently.

1745

INCOMING TRANSMISSION

WE HAVE A SOLUTION. WE'RE GOING TO NEED A LIGHTDOG, A MISSILE, AND SOME DUCT TAPE.

END TRANSMISSION

1748

...I think I'm going to like this plan.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sixty-Second Entry

March 13^th, 2037

0910

Dear Space Diary.

…What?

You’re right, NASA. I don’t understand. How could I understand? What do you mean that isn’t Mary? Who else could it be?

0940

WE DO NOT KNOW. ALL WE CAN SAY IS THAT SKELETON CANNOT BELONG TO MARY. UNLESS SHE HAS MAGIC POWERS.

0942

Magic Powers?

1010

YES. MAGIC POWERS.

I BELIEVE WE’VE SPOKEN TO YOU ABOUT YOUR USE OF SINGLE SENTENCE QUESTIONS IN OUR CONVERSATION. IT TAKES HALF AN HOUR TO GET A RESPONSE BACK TO YOU. IF THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION IS A SERIES OF YES/NO ANSWERS, THIS WILL – QUITE LITERALLY – TAKE ALL DAY.

PLEASE SEE ATTACHED X-RAY. THIS WAS TAKEN BY NASA DURING ROUTINE MEDICAL CHECK-UPS FOR MARY SHORTLY BEFORE HER DEPARTURE.

YOU WILL NOTICE SOMETHING STRANGE.

1015

Hmm. Well, it’s a skeleton alright. And it looks pretty much identical to the one lying in the corner over there. Not sure what NASA expected me to find.

I should ask… oh hang on, another message.

WE TOOK THE LIBERTY OF ASSUMING YOU MANAGED TO OVERLOOK THE GLARINGLY OBVIOUS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE X-RAY AND MARY’S SKELETON AND SENT THIS MESSAGE ANYWAY BEFORE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO ASK.

THE SKELETONS ARE, FOR THE MOST PART, ENTIRELY IDENTICAL. BONE SIZE AND STRUCTURE IS A NEAR PERFECT MATCH TO OUR RECORDS FROM HER ORIGINAL TESTS.

(That’s what I said! They’re perfectly identical!)

HOWEVER, THIS IS ACTUALLY THE PROBLEM. THE SKELETON YOU HAVE THERE IS FROM A HEALTHY 17 YEAR OLD GIRL.

YET, IT TOOK AROUND 20 YEARS FOR MARY TO REACH THE PLANET SPLAT. AND WE KNOW SHE WAS ALIVE AT LEAST FIVE YEARS AFTER SHE LEFT. YOUR EVIDENCE WITH THE ROOM NAMES, WHILE NOT CONCLUSIVE, DOES SUGGEST SHE WAS ALIVE UNTIL WELL AFTER THE CRASH.

SO THAT SKELETON SHOULD BE APPROXIMATELY 40 YEARS OLD. BUT OUR ANALYSIS SHOWS IT COULDN’T BE MORE THAN 20.

1025

…Well, I don’t know, NASA. I know you’ve got your records, but it doesn’t sound very conclusive to me. Your analysis is being done on a photo of a skeleton, taken by me, and then electronically transmitted light years across the galaxy to you, where you check it against a 20 year old photo. There’s bound to be some loss of accuracy. Are you sure about this?

1050

FINE. WE’LL ACCEPT THAT’S A POSSIBILITY.

THEN CONSIDER ANOTHER FACT. THE 20 YEAR OLD X-RAY HAS SEVERAL METAL PINS INSERTED IN A FRACTURE IN THE LEFT LEG, AND A METAL PLATE IN HER SKULL FROM AN ACCIDENT WITH A SHOPPING TROLLEY, A HILL, AND GRAVITY. YOUR SKELETON HAS A PERFECTLY FORMED LEFT LEG AND HEAD, WITH NO FRACTURE, PLATE, PINS, OR ANY EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THEM.

WE WIN.

1055

…You didn’t want to mention that before the rather tenuous age difference?

1130

THIS WAY WAS MORE FUN.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Sixty-First Entry

March 12^th, 2037

2100

Dear Space Diary

All jokes aside, this is really rather unsettling. I can’t quite… Astronomical. Hehehe.

Ahem. Anyway.

It’s getting late. I should ask NASA if they have any insight into this. they’re about fifteen years behind in terms of logs, given Mary stopped sending them, but still. Maybe they can think of something. Or do a scan for weird stuff. Can they scan for that?

2107

Heading downstairs. Mary’s room is about five floors above me, so that means I’ve got… what?

2110

This room has Mary’s name on it too!

2115

And this one!

2133

The whole building. Every last room. Belongs to Mary.

What is going on? Why are all these rooms assigned to Mary? What were you up to, NASA?

2155

No time to explore every room of every building, but I’ve checked out a couple more. All the buildings I went in to had the name Mary on the name plates.

Either Mary needs a lot of personal space, or… I don’t know the or, actually.

I shouldn’t panic. It’s entirely possible there’s a reasonable, bizarre, yet plausible explanation for this, probably born out of bureaucracy, incompetence, negligence, or just plain stupidity. Yeah. That must be. NASA will know what’s going on. This is their city, after all.

2215

Back at the ship. Just forwarding the logs to NASA now, and then they’ll make everything clear.

2245

WE GOT NOTHING.

2250

…Great.

I’m going to bed.

March 13^th, 2037

0810

Woke up. It’s still dark out (will be for another 12 hours or so), but it’s technically morning, if you go by Earth time. Paste for breakfast.

There’s a depressing sentence.

NASA sent me through a large, fairly convoluted series of blue prints. These appear to be the designs that are hardcoded into the Lightdogs. Interestingly, it’s not the blue ones that do the building. They’re just the maintenance guys. Apparently the builders are white. Haven’t seen any of them yet, but then, the city looks pretty much complete over here.

Apart from the lack of water and food. You know, inessential stuff.

All NASA’s message said when they sent the files was “Page 997”. Ok, let’s take a look…

0822

Ah ha! I knew it was simple. The city is hard wired to dole out accommodation to registered travellers. Due to a bug in the programming (which they’ve highlighted for future repair), in the event that there are less travellers than rooms, it simply goes back to the top of the list and keeps allocating.

And with Mary the only “Registered” traveller in the system so far, she now owns every single room in the entire city. Posthumously.

Hurrah!

WE’RE WORRIED.

It’s ok NASA, I read your report. It all makes sense.

0900

YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. WE’VE BEEN LOOKING AT THE PHOTOS OF MARY’S SKELETON YOU SENT US.

AND THAT’S NOT MARY.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Sixtieth Entry

March 12^th, 2037

2040

Dear Space Diary

Officially a little freaked out.

Literally. I’m noting it in this log. Freaked out. Officially. It’s official. I’m freaked out. Freaked out. I am.

2050

Ok, coherency would be good at this point I think. Deep breaths.

It’s entirely possible I’m overreacting. If I were being honest with myself I perhaps have a tendency to do that. It was in my yearbook and everything. “Scream first. Ask questions later.”

Which was a bit of an exaggeration. But anyway. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for this.

Option A: It is entirely possible, after all, that there could be two people named Mary. That happens on Earth all the time.

There. That’s rational. It’s less possible, I agree, that there could be two people named Mary in an otherwise uninhabited city on a planet far distant from our own where there are only two recorded people to have ever set foot here, and one of them is most definitely not named Mary.

…On to option B.

Option B: If we accept the hypothesis that Mary survived the crash and spent some time still alive on Splat, including the occupation of a bedroom. It is not a great extension of that to allow for the possibility that Mary could have had TWO bedrooms.

Again, rational. Except the original hypothesis means that Mary had to stay alive long enough for the city to be built, which would be a decent amount of time. NASA estimated the ship crashed here at least 18 months ago. Which is a short time to build a city in, but a long time to be stranded on an alien planet.

…I better not be stuck here for 18 months. Otherwise NASA are going to get some very irate voice mails.

The other thing - and this is probably a small niggle, but a weird one nonetheless - is this. Say Mary did survive 18 months (which I guess she could have done given the near unlimited supply of food), why would she then move to a building that – while it contained a comfortable bed and modular reading chair with included desk light at no extra cost (there’s a pamphlet here) – contained no food supply? I’ve seen no evidence of any food out here. And I don’t even know how she got up here; the Zubrin was found hours away in a rubbish dump. Unless the ship has been moved since she got here (which isn’t out of the question, closer to the city would seem likely), the commute for food would be a fair hike.

And then, if we allow all that, why move to another building even further away, that still doesn’t have a food supply?

Or indeed, plumbing. I mean, there’s a shower, but I’m guessing they’re missing whatever it is Mars had that enabled them to provide running water.

Either that or she didn’t pay her water bill. I imagine the regional rates out here are… ahem.

Astronomical.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Fifty-Ninth Entry

March 12^th, 2037

1830

Dear Space Diary

I’m going to have to stop the search for today soon. We’re approaching night (although ‘Night’ is about 24 hours here, so I should perhaps instead just say it’s getting dark) and it’s starting to get difficult to see.

The spacesuit does have a flashlight. Not an especially good one.

So far I’ve found no trace. Which seemed odd at first, you’d think there’d be something given how crumbly everything is around here. But then I remembered how fond the Blue Lightdogs are of repairing things. Any trace would have been long ago patched over.

But the main question is where did the ship actually GO? It can’t have just vanished.

1845

Not a huge amount of light left. I left the Zubrin’s headlights on so I can at least see the glow from here, so it should be easy enough to get back, but much less easy to do any actually helpful searching. Unless you’re looking for shadows and banged shins. In which case, I got you covered.

1859

Should probably head back.

1900

…Ok that was a little creepy.

Every single building just lit up as their lights all turned on at once. First it was worryingly dark, now it’s worryingly light.

Still, at least I can keep searching.

1920

Nothing. There’s a LOT of the city I haven’t seen yet, but I’ve seen not a single piece of evidence that it’s anywhere near at all. Which is strange. I can’t help but feel it’s been right under my nose.

1925

There go Green and Blue, busy destroying and rebuilding the city. One of those circle of life things. Green just went through the wall of that building. Blue patched it up like you’d never know something just went through it.

…Hmm.

1930

It’s entirely possible that the ship is inside one of these buildings. It’s reasonably small, and the buildings are reasonably huge. But where to start?

Probably best to start close. If my theory is correct, the ship would have shot out of the tube it was sucked up at quite some speed. Everything’s pretty weak around here, so it could have gone straight through a wall, out the other side, and into a building.

But how many?

I’ll start at the closest building to the exit. Then outwards in a straight line.

1955

Phew. I’d walked further than I thought. Took quite the march to get me back there. Just need to catch my breath for a moment.

1958

Ok. Here’s the first building.

2010

Five floors up. Not much to report. Just room after room. Mostly bedrooms, but there’s been what look like office spaces as well. Nothing works, apart from the lights.

2025

Ten floors up.

2040

Fifteen floors up. All pretty identical. No sign of an oddly out of place spaceship.

Odd, this bed looks like it’s been used. Either that or the Blues are getting sloppy.

Hang on. There’s a name here, too.

“Mary.”

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Fifty-Eighth Entry

March 12^th, 2037

1710

Dear Space Diary

Alright. Blue and Green are engaged in a cycle of death and rebirth. Mary is engaged in a fairly static state of having passed on.

NASA have gone home for the night, and can’t ask any more morbid favours of me.

I think I’m finally ready to actually go look for my ship and go home.

About bloody time.

1725

Just stepped inside the fallen building. Taking a proper look. Apart from the inferior materials they had to work with, these are really quite well made. I’m in a bedroom of some kind. This is to say, it has a bed in it, so one presumes.

Odd though. Most of the buildings I checked out (and mind, I was only looking at the ground level, whereas this is the… 37^th floor) didn’t have any furniture in them. Whereas this is quite well furnished. Or it was, until it fell sideways.

Looks like Blue did a repair job on those as well, though it didn’t seem to know how to cope with the fact that everything was 90 degrees to the right. It turned all the furniture sideways. And then given it couldn’t get everything to stay on the floor/wall, has just stacked it all neatly on its side in the corner.

The bed and the wardrobe are welded to the floor, so they’re currently halfway up the wall.

Hmm. There’s a name on the wardrobe. That’s a bit pre-emptive of… Mary??

Why would Mary’s name be on a wardrobe here? Did she survive the crash? But I’ve seen her! She’s definitely dead.

Hang on, leaping to conclusions. Mary’s a common enough name, no reason it couldn’t just be a coincidence.

Mind you, her skeleton was pretty pristine. No breaks or fractures, so it’s entirely possible she survived the crash landing and then simply died later. People do that.

I wonder if there’s anything around here that’d prove it. If it’s just a normal room, then there wouldn’t be anything in the…

1735

Ok, no Mary definitely did come here.

There’s a copy of her log in the desk drawer.

Hmm. I guess it doesn’t change a whole lot. So she survived the crash. She’s still very much dead and taking up space in the living quarters.

Hmm. I’ll take the logs with me. Maybe these are a bit less corrupted, so NASA can get a few more entries out of them. I’ll check later.

On we go.

1800

I can’t find my ship anywhere. Need to keep looking. There are just rows and rows of buildings. Dotted along the edge are a lot of depot rooms, where those giant metal tubes connect up to. The rubble gets sucked into the rooms, and then the lightdogs cut up the material and use it to keep building. Meanwhile, other lightdogs roam the surface, collecting rubble (and wayward travellers), and bringing it in.

Quite a nifty system from a distance.

Downright terrifying while you’re in it.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Fifty-Seventh Entry

March 12^th, 2037

1510

Dear Space Diary

With Blue and Green successfully destroying and rebuilding the city at a fairly constant rate, I’m free to try and track down my space ship.

Although NASA have assured me that the air inside the city’s dome is breathable and quite safe, I’m taking the space suit. One crack in the dome and suddenly I’m very subtly breathing lead.

I’d prefer not to be breathing lead.

The other advantage is that in a space suit (and I’m phrasing this as tactfully as I can) food and waste management systems are built in, meaning I can be out for longer without having to make a return trip.

1530

Just about to head out. NASA sent me a quick message asking me to bring a camera and take pictures of the city as I explore, in the hope that this will appease their employers, and potentially encourage them to pay overdue invoices.

I’m inclined to point out that if they haven’t paid in 20 years they’re unlikely to pay now, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take a few pictures for them.

I must be going soft in my old age.

Just waiting for a reply from NASA, and then I can – oh here it is.

1534

…Are you KIDDING me?

I need to find my ship. I can’t go home without it. NASA knows this. So what do they ask me to do?

Perform an autopsy.

Well, ok, that’s a bit dramatic. But they’d like me to collect and account for Mary’s remains, photograph them, and send them a report.

Can think of few things I’d rather be doing less.

You know what? Fine. I’ll assemble Mary for you, but then I’m off to find my ship, and you’re on your own.

1540

Ok, let’s track these down. Everything got a bit scattered in the - several - crashes that I’ve been through since finding the Zubrin. But it shouldn’t be too hard. How many bones can there be?

1544

206. Damn.

1547

There’s Mary’s skull. That’s a good start. She looks pleased to see me. She can’t stop grinning.

Ok, tasteless humour stopping in, 3, 2, 1. And I’m done.

1603

The foot bone’s connected to the… ankle bone.

The ankle bone’s connected to the… leg bone.

The leg bone’s connected to the… arm bone… bugger.

1623

Dem bones, dem bones, dem, dry bones…

1635

Ok. At last. Done. That took way longer than I wanted. At least Mary has a bit of dignity, or something.

Photo taken, I’ll scan it in to NASA, and then I’m out of here.

Mary’s just lying on the floor in the corner now. Feels kind of odd. I wonder if I should say some words.

1645

Ok, well, I never met you Mary. You know, while you were alive. But, your ship saved my life. Thank you.

Also, I’m sorry I used your head as a pair of tweezers. That was pretty crappy of me.

Fifty-Sixth Entry

March 12^th, 2037

1350

Dear Space Diary,

I have successfully reprogrammed a Lightdog, so that it’s now a mindless tool of destruction, instead of what it used to be, which was a mindless tool of construction.

And it’s currently headed towards the spaceship I’m currently living in.

Whoa, there. Not that way.

Fortunately, it seems to be hard coded to stay away from humans, perhaps out of fear of accidentally slicing one up and packing it neatly into a rubbish pit.

Lucky me.

Either way, I’ve managed to steer it away from the Zubrin by placing myself in the line of fire. Fortunately, as previously mentioned this is not as dangerous as it sounds.

Off it goes, right towards the door with the fallen building behind it.

I wonder if it’ll work.

I wonder if the building is too big to cut up.

CRASH

I wonder if I should have opened the door.

That’s kind of moot now. There isn’t a door there anymore. That’s quite the cutting laser it has there.

BZZZZZZZZ

There goes the wall.

BZZZZZZZZ

And the other wall. It’s through the building! I’m free! There it goes, floating off into the distance.

…I don’t actually know how to stop it. This could be a problem.

1420

Been following the Lightdog for about half an hour. It’s slowly carved its way through 7 buildings now. Doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon. Fortunately the cuts are quite neat, I don’t think any of the buildings are going to fall down, but surely it’s only a matter of time until it slices open the wrong corner and we get a domino effect of frighteningly non-metaphorical proportions.

Been racking my brains but I can’t think of how to stop it. Sure, I could just keep standing between it and buildings, but that’s a lousy way to spend the rest of my life, and I’ll need to sleep at some point. That’s 8 hours of mayhem I’d prefer to avoid.

The only thing that’s stopped it so far has been crashing into the Zubrin itself, and that was when it was in repair mode. I’m not sure I’m that eager to repeat while it’s in crush kill & destroy mode.

Speaking of repair mode, there goes one of the blue Lightdogs now.

Hmm.

1425

Here boy. Over here. Come on.

…I just whistled at it. I’m not sure what I actually expected that to achieve.

1435

Took a little herding, but I’ve managed to shoo the blue one over to the first upright building the green one cut through. It’s busy repairing it now.

1455

Boy, I’m tired. Need to sit down for a moment. I spent 20 minutes going round in circles keeping the green one away from any more buildings until the blue one could catch up. Now as soon as the green Lightdog cuts through a building, the blue one should start patching it up again.

…That’s quite possibly the worst solution to anything ever.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Fifty-Fifth Entry

March 12^th, 2037

1305

Dear Space Diary,

Well, it’s a very nice building I suppose. More sideways than I would normally like, but mustn’t grumble.

It’s large, clean, well proportioned, fully furnished, and capable of accommodating thousands of workers and residents.

It is also very neatly blocking the door.

Meaning, I’m kind of trapped in here.

Given up until recently I thought I was kind of trapped on this planet as a whole, in some ways it merely comes down to a narrowing of mental boundaries. But as I now know I could have left at any time were it not for the fact that SOMEBODY forgot to mention this, it’s rather constricting to now be stuck inside a small room.

Well, it’s not that small. There is a spaceship in it. But still.

Also a Lightdog, which seems to have decided the building is finished and has wandered off to find more things to fix.

1307

It’s currently heading towards the Zubrin. I had better stop it before it -

FZZZT

- Crashes into it again. You would think with all the advanced circuitry, and AI they would slip in somewhere “don’t crash in to things.” But apparently not.

At least they built them to take a pounding. Two head on collisions and not a dent on it.

I’ll leave it off for now. Otherwise I’ll be doing this all day.

1320

Back inside. Had lunch. (Today’s meal was paste. Again.) Now trying to decide how best to walk through walls.

1330

Have concluded it’s almost certainly impossible, and don’t really wish to try. I’ll sit down and have a think.

Ow. Something just jabbed me in my pocket. What on earth do I have in… AHA! It’s the USB drive! The one Mary used to reprogram the Lightdogs to destroy the asteroid! If they can destroy an asteroid, they can destroy a building. No problems.

1333

Where’s the blasted usb port?

Ah. Found it. It’s behind the cover marked “USB slot.” NASA: 1, ME: 0.

Ok. Turned it off, batteries in. Put the USB stick in.

Beeped at me. Is that a good sign? Or is it about to explode?

Mind you, that would probably still help me get out of here.

It’s stopped beeping. Two lights just flashed. Blue, then green. I think that means it’s reprogrammed.

Here goes.

CLICK.

1336

Closed my eyes first this time, so score one to me. Let go and it floated out of my hand.

1337

Is it far enough to open my eyes yet?

1338

How can I tell if I don’t open my eyes?

1339

I guess I better open my eyes.

GAH!

1340

Nope. It was still too close.

1342

Ok, vision back. It’s just kind of floating there. I wonder how I get it to start smashing stuff.

Took a step towards it. It backed away.

Another forward. It backed away.

I think I can herd it towards the building. Carefully…

1345

No, not towards the Zubrin!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Fifty-Fourth Entry

March 12^th, 2037

0815

Dear Space Diary,

Here’s what I’d like to do today.

I’d LIKE to go put on a spacesuit, leave the Zubrin, go out that door over there, and explore a fragile empty city in the vain hope of finding my spaceship and my only chance of getting out of here.

Actually, scratch that. I would not like to do that. I’d like to have a quiet afternoon on Earth, eating macaroons and yelling at the television. It doesn’t even have to be on.

What I NEED to do, though, is find my ship.

Problem is I can’t. The remains of a broken skyscraper are blocking the exit to the room I and my space ship are in. Not through poor town planning, but rather because it fell over.

Though now that I think of it, that probably still counts as poor town planning.

I need to find my ship. What I need to do more is move an entire building.

So much for macaroons.

0825

No bright ideas. Any suggestions on building moving, NASA?

0900

INCOMING TRANSMISSION

JUST GET A PROCESSING UNIT - OR “LIGHTDOG” IF YOU MUST - TO MOVE IT FOR YOU. HONESTLY.

END TRANSMISSION

0905

Well that’s a great idea NASA. Why didn’t I do that already? Oh that’s right, it’s because all the Lightdogs are out there, on the other side of the building. Not to mention that I have little to no control over them anyway.

0935

INCOMING TRANSMISSION

YES, BUT THEY’RE PROGRAMMED TO REPAIR PROBLEMS. A FALLEN BUILDING SOUNDS LIKE A PROBLEM TO ME.

ALSO. YOUR TONE. WATCH IT.

END TRANSMISSION

0937

Watch my tone? WATCH MY TONE?

Look, even if I could direct a Lightdog, there just isn’t… actually there is that broken one outside. I wonder if it works.

0944

It’s pretty scuffed, but seems to be in one piece. There’s even an “on” button. That’s nice and simple for once.

CLICK

CLICK CLICK CLICK

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK

Blast, it’s not working.

Hmm. Battery panel.

0946

Double A’s? Really? Space exploration, faster than light drives, city building robots, and you’re still powering these things with something from the local electronics store?

Oh well, at least they’re using rechargables. And they’re obviously energy efficient. That’s actually pretty good design.

One is loose. Pop it back in and… gah!

0950

My eyes! It burns!!

0953

Vision back to normal at last.

Turns out a bright blue ball of light really stings if you turn it on right in front of your face. That’s probably worth remembering.

Anyway it’s on and heading straight for the rubble from the building!

One of NASA’s plans worked. I’m actually impressed.

1300

Been a few hours, should be done by now.

…Oh.

Well, it certainly repaired the building. Unfortunately it didn’t think standing it upright was necessary.

So instead, I have a large skyscraper blocking the door that is now in perfect condition.

I guess that’s a step forward.