Willow's Story - High Flying Bird

youtu.be/LL1vGiRYlbA (Jefferson Airplane - High Flying Bird)


	“And that was my first day in Vietnam. Pretty underwhelming all things considered, no action stories for you.”
	“I mean, first day of three years.”
	“Right, but I didn’t know that at that point. Wouldn’t for months, really.”
	“What were those first days like, really? You make it sound alien, out there, but being a machine you adapt quick. At least I assume, sorry.”
	“No, no- you’re right. Sterling had been cooking up adjustments to nandroid programming for a while, to be more adaptable and better handle stress.”
	“And they wanted to field test it in war?”
	“No, no, of course not. They’d been testing it for a while, to my knowledge, it’s just they slapped it into robots going overseas anyways. Good way to win some favor, for tax purposes.”
	“They didn’t get off without it?”
	“Well, no. I mean, saying that people who *bought* your product were contributing them to the war effort isn’t enough. Slap something in to make them useful to that effort and you have a case.”
	“Huh. They didn’t think to just send robots out the plant?”
	“Never, awful idea. Around this point you’ve got the first handfuls of hippies, the bonafide ones, hopping around outside Dow plants and causing a stir. Sterling was always careful about their image so they were slow- conniving, really- about this kind of stuff. A small change in parameters for robots being shipped out was quiet and, frankly, unassailable.”
	“Sneaky.”
	“Very sneaky,” she sniffed. She’d found a spare pack further down the bar to puff at while she spoke. Topping off the handful of daytime spectators in the bar she returned to her spot facing the young man. “But that’s how a lot of companies operated back then.”
	“Can’t say much has changed,” he chuckled, the robot joining him. The spinning cassette in front of him locked in place, buttons clicking into place loudly. Pausing her with a finger he fished for a marker, labeling the tape and swapping it with a blank.
	“All good?”
	“Yeah, sorry- continue.”
	“So, Vietnam. I mean the country itself was, for a bit, magical? I dunno if that’s the right way to put it.”
	“It was different, obviously.”
	“Yeah, right, but different in a way that was entertaining for the first few weeks.”
	“Were those weeks not busy at all?”
	“Busy, but lucky.” She paused, sighing- wrong words. “Lucky in the sense I wasn’t seeing what things were really like, and that’s something that Dawes was hellbent on reminding me of. The other two were a lot quieter about things.”
	“Did that luck hold out?”
	“Do you think,” she spat. “Three years in country. Can’t stay blind forever.”
	“Sorry,” the young man retreated.
	“No, no, you’re alright. It was *unlucky* because I wasn’t getting the experience I needed to do my job. Training can only take you so far.” There was an itch of regret on her face, face twitching and retreating again to the glowing stick hanging in her fingers.
	“So if you didn’t get any, er, *hard* experience, what were you doing with the dustoff crews then?”
	“I never said we weren’t on calls, just… just what we were getting called in for wasn’t what you’d think, and definitely wasn’t what the others were expecting.”
	“I’m sorry, but I don’t follow.” She pressed her hands against each other, cigarette squeezed in her steepled fingers. The robot churned in thought for words, eyes picking up a touch as the sun crested downwards outside.
	“Rabies.”
	“Huh?”
	“One of my first calls was for rabies. A patrol found a set of bunkers and the tunnel… *rat*,” she frowned, not a fan of the term, “got a bat in the face. Not some VC clubbing him, but a bat, the actual animal, flew into him. It was really a regular day.”


	Whitney flicked at her nose, her few days in country enough to already dull her itching nose to most of the new smells. Most of them. Her mornings were spent doing her best to tidy the men’s hooch to their mild annoyance, the nandroid sweeping up card games and affectionately named rodents out into the barren earth above them. Dawes made a point of reminding her each morning that things were slow and nothing like “normal”, whatever normal would end up meaning across the world from San Francisco. Beyond anything extreme most of her time was with Meyers, the chipper young man touring her around some of the more secluded spaces on post, teaching her the workings of their helicopter and its space while Vasquez tinkered at it. The pilot was by and large absent from their activities, making sure to keep a wary eye on the robot for when she finally went into proper action.
	“Yo, Willow,” Vasquez shot, hand squeezing in the air.
	“Ope!” Handing a spanner to the man the maid kept her attention solely on him as he demonstrated some of the simpler mechanics on the bird, latches for litters, harnesses and how to wear them, where crucial first-aid supplies were kept; all details snubbed during her training, figuring she’d never need it.
	“Alf, coffee.” The blonde copilot sauntered over with a steaming mess cup, handing it to the enthralled specialist.
	“Ah, thanks.” A swig there and he set back to work giving the helicopter a once-over, proud of the prim shape he’d pulled her back into.
	“Alf?”
	“Alfonso,” he sneered, the copilot snickering. “But Vasquez is just fine. You’ve been here a week. Not exactly first name basis.”
	“Lighten up man,” the other smirked, sandy hair stirred in the breeze, “haven’t even seen her in action.” Whitney blushed at the implication, that they’d yet to see her realize some potential even she didn’t know she had. To them she’d been a robotic burden more than anything, too unfamiliar and unsure to be of much help outside of handing things to people and tidying their space.
	“Well I can assure you-,” she started, cut off by a snapping klaxon and the whipping to attention of the two men besides her.
	“Let’s move Willow,” the copilot shouted, patting her back and yanking her up. The robot froze in panic, the man yanking her after him to their hooch again. Forcing her other things into her arms he pulled her back to the helicopter, Dawes appearing from his den helmet on and hopping into the cockpit. The pilot was already chattering away at the radio, Vasquez prepping litters in the hold.
	“Cool it back there Alf, it’s a nothing.”
	“Copy.”
	“A nothing,” the robot hollered through the growing whine and clap of the helicopter’s rotors.
	“A small call!” The copilot craned his head to the side, shouting back. “Means no-one’s hurt bad, just protocol.”
	“O-Oh!” Relieved, Whitney slackened her shoulders and hunkered down for the ride, her first in a helicopter. The swooping and jittering of the shaky craft rocked her all the way to their destination, a plume of smoke rising from a small meadow surrounded by canopy. Thumping to the ground Whitney sat idle in her spot, waiting for instruction.
	“Move, Willow,” the crew chief shouted. Hopping up the robot dismounted to meet the gathered men huddling around the helicopter, the singular patient jogging up along with her.
	“A-Are you alright,” she sputtered, not sure how to begin this. Hobbling past her into the waiting Huey he plopped himself in a seat, the nandroid jumping after him back inside. Questioning him he half-ignored her, the realization setting in once after dust off that she’d be tending to him.
	“I asked what the problem is, sir,” she snipped, new protocols clipping gently into place in the mild tension of their sprint over the treetops.
	“A bat flew into my face,” the young man groaned, rolling his eyes. He was clearly less than enthused about being sent back over something so minor. “Say it’s a health hazard but- hey!” With no hesitation Whitney set to swabbing his face down and clean, a smear of disinfectant to top it off.
	“There! That’s the extent of care I can offer you,” she smiled. That was a new line; it was instinctual and comforting, but painfully sterile. Proffering a hand she looked into the man’s eyes. “Are you doing alright?”
	“I’m fine, feckin’ machine. Rather be back in the jungle.” Grumbling the whole way back, slapped into the passenger seat of a jeep, the soldier was rushed off to be tested for anything foreign or dangerous, likely to be back in his bunk in a day or so. Settling back down into the dampening earth beneath it the helicopter spilled its crew out, the three languishing around before returning to their home. Willow sat at the ready beside it, awaiting any further orders, the shout for sleep calling her back to the sickening hut that was home. Tomorrow she’d probably need a new battery, but that aside there was nothing ahead, just a new memory to run through in her sleep.


	“So that’s how evacuations were. My first one was nothing, kid was fine. Probably.”
	“Probably?”
	“Not like we get a letter saying what happened to them, could you imagine?”
	“You’re right, jeez.” The kid cursed himself again, wiping his glasses down in his shirt. The reel between them glided silently around and around, pressing dead air to the tape in the drift. “So, uh, if that was nothing for them, when did the… ‘somethings’ come?” The robot stared past him, time slipping around in her head like some scumming broth. Scraping out her first month overseas and defatting into the recorder she explained the lessening intensity of things in January.
	“According to the other three, January was quieter than any month before.”
	“And then what happened? Obviously things weren’t quiet forever.”
	“Tet happened.”