A Knife!

Tags: Slice of Life, AAA Original Characters

Published: 14 January 2022

Word Count: 462

Summary

Stabby the Blood Roomba CSU Ready Room's cleaning bot gets a knife! And a name! But the knife's the important part.

(I blame the Murderbot Discord for giving the Squad a cleaning bot for their ready room. Of course I had to give it a knife.)

Epsilon stepped out of its cubicle to start getting ready for the mission that had just been sent through, then blinked in surprise. Alpha was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the squad's ready room, the cleaning bot half on its lap and beeping happily as Alpha carefully attached one of its knives to the top of the cleaning bot's chassis. [... What are you doing,] Epsilon asked Alpha over the squad feed.

[I'm giving Stabby a knife!] Alpha replied cheerfully, as if that explained everything.

[... Stabby?]

[Yep! This cleaning bot helped Upsilon out when we couldn't, and the humans are always mean to it, so I'm giving it a knife and naming it Stabby! Maybe the humans will stop kicking it now.]

Some days (most days), Epsilon just didn't understand how Alpha's mind worked. Today was definitely one of those days. [You are almost definitely going to get into trouble for arming the cleaning bot,] it informed Alpha tiredly.

[That's okay, I get in trouble for lots of things, one more's not going to make any difference,] Alpha replied, taking a moment to grin up at Epsilon. [Besides, I'm running out of room to store knives.]

[Well maybe if you stopped collecting every single knife you come across in the first place...]

[But then the humans will still have them, and humans carrying weapons is bad. They could hurt themselves, or each other, or try to hurt us and then we'd have to hurt them back. Better for everyone if I keep the knives!] Alpha paused, then added, [and give some to Stabby.]

There was no arguing with logic like that. Epsilon had tried in the past and never gotten anywhere. [You are only giving ONE knife to Stabby. No more. And you should be prepping for the mission anyway, not arming the cleaning bot.]

[I know, I know, I'm almost done! This is like the only chance I have to do this. I'll be ready well before everyone finishes waking up, anyway.] That wasn't a lie, at least. Somehow Alpha was always the first of the squad to cycle out of standby and back to wakefulness whenever new mission orders came through.

Epsilon finally gave in to the urge to sigh, sighed heavily, then began pulling on a fresh suit skin.

Alpha finished securing the knife, then coaxed Stabby back out of its lap. "There you go!" it told the cleaning bot. "Just make sure not to stab any of us with that, okay?" The bot beeped a perky affirmation and trundled back to its recharge station, steering clear of Epsilon on the way. Alpha kipped back up to its feet and bounded over to the armour racks. [Race you!]

Epsilon resisted the urge to just climb back into its cubicle.