The baying mob advanced upon Sean’s quarters. Burning torches and pointy sticks were held aloft, and an ominous, rhythmic chanting echoed around the corridors of the sleeping ship. Well, the ship would have been sleeping, were it not for the chanting baying mob.
“BURN THE ASS, BURN THE ASS, BURN THE ASS OF THE ROBOT KILLER!”
A rather-too-convincing effigy of Sean was held aloft, and pointy sticks were thrust amidst its nether regions from all directions. One of the torchbearers set a flame to the likeness, which caught alight in an instant. ‘whoomph’ went the fake Sean. The inferno was brief, the effigy consumed. Fortunately, they had others as well. The mob approached Sean’s door and rapped upon it with their sticks-apointy, rousing him violently from his fitful slumber. Fully awake now, Sean took in the chanting, realised it was directed at him. He could feel the heat from the flames that burned outside of his fireproofed, heat-proofed door. Sweating, terrified, Sean twisted out of his bed, grabbed for something, anything with which to defend himself. The door hissed open, and Sean brandished the golf club he had pulled from the elephant foot umbrella stand just next to his bed. He was confronted with a burning image of himself, and a crowd of desperate, cruel and homicidal faces. Sean limply dropped the golf club and shrank back into the corner of the room. It seemed certain that he would die a horrible, painful death unless…. Sean lost control of his bowels, as he faced up to certain death. Unless…. unless……
Sean woke with a start, in a cold sweat. He gibbered for a while, and shivered, and was afraid to move. Looked for the non-existent elephant foot umbrella stand. That should have been a dead give-away, he thought. Then he noticed that it wasn’t just a cold sweat he had woken up in. That focussed his mind.
“Ewww”.
Sean showered for a long long time that morning, once he had slung his sheets down the re-cycling chute. He didn’t really want to use those again. Reflecting on the dream, Sean tried to read something positive into it. Maybe the burning effigy was symbolic of how much he had grown and changed, into a new and better man? Unlikely. It was more than likely a representation in his subconscious of all the horrible things that were likely to occur if the play didn’t happen. More than ever, he was convinced that the play HAD to happen. The dream wasn’t real, but the mob was. He’d seen them.
Much as he had been attempting to delude himself to the contrary, he knew his scheme was a long shot. With luck, he could somehow retain the whole cast until Sunday so they could at least put on some kind of show, no matter how awful. If he could just get that one show out, then maybe it would all be OK, maybe the audience would actually want to see it again if only for comedy value. Then the robots would have the chance to heal themselves… he was a practical man, he knew the odds. But he’d made his hard choices. Was lying in a bed of his own making. He just hoped he didn’t have another one of those dreams, he was running out of bed linen. Almost as an afterthought, he sent Claire a message suggesting she meet him for dinner that night. They deserved a break.
In spite of the situation, Sean still had to go to work every day, under the pretence of carrying out the fabled ‘scheduled maintenance’. That was incredibly boring and stressful in itself, even if there wasn’t also an angry mob to contend with. He left his quarters with extreme caution in mind, and stealthily moved his way towards where the corridor led out onto the plaza, ducking into doorways as he went. As he approached the theatre, the sound of chanting carried tinnily to his ears.
“Oh dear.”
Sean scrambled in through the side door and sat up against the inside wall, breathing heavily and brushing rotten fruit from his clothing. He had hoped that the reassurances the mob received from the balcony the previous day would keep them away, but if anything their numbers had grown. Their mistrust was entirely justified, he knew that for a fact. Not only that but the formation of an angry mob was probably the most interesting thing any of them had ever done in their lives. As ever, the robots stared blithely back at him, seemingly unconcerned by the fuss they had caused. Sean had, in effect, nothing to do. No robots to maintain, no sets to erect and no lighting to test. Just the broken robots staring back at him. He decided to spend the day polishing them until they were nice and shiny, more out of guilt than necessity.
