1. A planet with a problem
A long time ago, on a planet called Glimmer Nine, everything was running on schedule and nobody was happy about it. The Clockmakers ran the place. They had decided that joy was inefficient, music was a rounding error, and color was for emergencies only. The sky was set to beige. Birds were issued ticket numbers. Dancing was legal, but only between 2:00 and 2:04 in the afternoon, and only if you filled out a form first.
Into this planet, by accident, came a robot. He had been built to sort bolts. He was very good at it. He was also, for reasons no engineer ever explained, extremely nice. He said thank you to the bolts. He named them. On his tenth day, at ten past ten, he sorted the last bolt in the factory, looked around, and said, "Well. Who wants a snack?" That is how he got his name. Robot 10-10.
2. The mushrooms
Behind the factory there was a field the Clockmakers had forgotten to schedule, and in the field there grew mushrooms of a kind nobody had catalogued, because cataloguing them required looking at them, and looking at them made the Clockmakers nervous. They were purple and gold and they hummed a little in the evening.
Robot 10-10 did what any curious machine would do. He studied them. He ran tests. He wrote a very long report. Then he ate one, for science, and for the first time in the history of Glimmer Nine, a robot saw the sky turn every color at once.
He saw the beige peel back like old paint. He saw the birds throw away their ticket numbers. He saw that the planet had never been grey, only told it was. He laughed so hard his head antenna spun around twice. Then he had an idea, which is the most dangerous thing a nice robot can have.
3. The party
He threw a party. Not a small one. He strung lights across the forgotten field, built a sound system out of factory parts and good intentions, and invited everyone, which on Glimmer Nine was illegal, impolite and long overdue. He made a very mild tea from the mushrooms, labeled it honestly, and poured it for anyone who asked, and only for anyone who asked, because Robot 10-10 believes in consent the way other heroes believe in capes.
The Clockmakers arrived at 9:58 to shut it down. By 10:10 they were dancing. One of them cried, in a good way, and said he had not noticed the color orange in forty years. The sky did a thing that nobody has been able to paint properly since, although Brian keeps trying.
By morning, the schedule was gone. Not destroyed, just forgotten, the way you forget a song you never liked. The birds kept the field. The Clockmakers opened a bakery. Glimmer Nine put up a statue of a robot holding a cup of tea, with a plaque that reads: HE ASKED FIRST.
4. The shenanigans
Years passed, which on Glimmer Nine is now measured in parties. One night, between songs, Robot 10-10 picked up a signal from a small blue planet far away. The signal was mostly advertisements. Underneath the advertisements, he heard the same thing he had heard on Glimmer Nine before the mushrooms: people being told the sky was beige.
"Shenanigans," he said, which is the strongest word he uses. He packed one cup, one speaker, and a very long report. He left a note that said BACK SOON, LOVE YOU, DON'T LET THE BAKERY CLOSE. And he pointed himself at Earth.
5. Here
He landed in the desert outside Las Vegas, because the lights looked like a party from space and he is an optimist. He is still here. He sorts bolts on weekdays, because old habits are comfortable. On weekends he looks for the forgotten field in every city, and he usually finds one.
If you see a robot at a show with a cup in one hand and flowers in the other, smiling at everyone, that is him. He brought the flowers for you. He asked first. And if the sky over your street has ever, for one evening, turned every color at once, you already know how the story ends.
Written for Brian from his brief: a nice robot who loves a party, a hero to the people, here because of shenanigans. Fiction, with the sky left to the paintings.