“Bulkhead wasn’t long for this earth. He knew that. They knew that.”
“Wait, what do you mean he—” one whispered.
“Shhh,” Mercer whispered back. “She’s trying to play you. So play along.”
I imagine they thought I couldn’t hear them. But I’ve upgraded—made sure my audio is top-of-the-line. It’s gotta be out here. At this range I could hear the chirp of their hard drives and the whine of their backup batteries charging.
I could hear them creeping closer, using the time I was giving them to set up a cross fire. They were probably hoping to toss in an EMP ’nade, then jump me on reboot. It was likely the best move they had. No reason to step into the line of fire. After all, they had me cornered, right?
I slipped quietly off the desk, pulse rifle still trained on the only way in, easing the metal of my feet onto the cement floor, letting my servos go loose and limp to muffle any sound. Then I crept, slow and quiet, into the deep black of the back of the store. I popped on my low light sensors, but they only got me to the back of the storefront. Where I needed to go next was the stockroom—pitch-black and seamless, entirely cut off from the outside world.
Behind me, in the halls, I could hear the tintinnabulate of metal feet hot on my heels. They weren’t trying to hide their footfalls. They wanted me twitchy, trigger-happy. They wanted me to unload the rifle, leaving me empty-handed and alone.
I slipped through the door at the very back of the store and switched on the LEDs in my sockets. I hated using them—they were a dead giveaway—but it was too dark for night vision, and thermal imaging wasn’t going to be able to discern what I was looking for.
The stockroom was a mess of wrappers, tin cans, and petrified shit; piss stains on the walls of one corner, makeshift bedding crumpled up in another. But in the very back, in the farthermost corner of the room, behind toppled shelving, were the remains of Vic.
Vic was a spot on the wall. A big spot, to be sure. Big and brown and drippy along the edges. But a spot nonetheless. The white cinder-block walls upon which he was painted were chipped and battered, with flecks torn out, shards of bone still embedded in places. Whatever bomb or grenade this poor, brave bastard had held in his hands all but vaporized him on detonation, shattering the innards of the two bots closest to him and tossing four others around like rag dolls.
Vic had stood his ground. He wasn’t going to be taken alive. Instead he took them all with him. Seven with one blow. Like the old fairy tale, but without the happy ending, as, well, though he was the victor, he was also one of the seven.
Vic was now a blood splatter that had dried brown and symmetrical right above the nice bot-size hole the blast had blown out in the floor beneath him. I had covered it up ages ago with bedding and scrap, and barred the door in the stockroom below from the inside. The bedding was exactly as I’d left it, identical to the snapshot stored in my memory. No one had been here; no one had disturbed it. Not once in the decade since I found it.
Finally, something was going my way.
I slung the rifle over my shoulder, pushed aside the blasted metal and moldy blankets, and slid down through the hole, dangling myself into the room below. The room was pitch-black, the light of my LEDs probably the first it had seen in years. The door was held in place by a four-foot-long piece of rebar, slotted into two makeshift hooks I’d drilled into either side of the door. The refuse I’d laid in the cracks still remained; my makeshift seal unbroken. The advantage was still mine.
I had caught my break. Now to use it to its fullest.
It was time to go on the offensive.
I was going to have to kill each and every one of these motherfuckers. One. By. One.
I slid out the rebar, set it quietly aside, and turned the handle as slowly and silently as I could. The door jerked open with only the faintest sound—not loud enough to register in the intimidating din the poachers were making. I turned off my LEDs, unslung the rifle from my shoulder, and made my way out into the store.
It was an old-fashioned, southern-fried, country-kitsch, plus-size clothing store, its wares long since burned to ash on their hangers, its racks buried six inches deep in their cinders. I slipped through, hunched low, keeping out of the eyeline of the floor above. I could hear them, one floor up, moving in for what they thought was the kill. Peeking around a corner, I caught sight of one of the poachers here on the second story with me, his rifle trained up the escalator in case I made it past Mercer and his buddy.
It was a late-model Omnibot—the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none model ever popular with the wealthy types who wanted a bot but had no particular use for one. This one was a Mark V from the looks of it—shiny, polished chrome from head to toe—but you never could tell. Mark IVs liked to mod themselves out to look like the Mark Vs, and sometimes you couldn’t tell which was which until you cracked them open and got a gander at their architecture. The difference between the IV and V was mildly cosmetic on the outside but radically different within. The Vs were faster, smarter, but more disposable. Their parts wore out twice as fast.
Hence all the parts lying around allowing IVs to pass themselves off as Vs.
I crept, ever so quietly, to a perfectly concealed vantage point behind a twisted piece of blasted metal, resting my gun barrel on the edge of the blown-out window.
Now all I had to do was wait.
If he looked my way, I’d fire.
If he didn’t, I’d wait for just the right moment.
“One last chance, Brittle,” called Mercer upstairs. “You’re winking out any minute now. I’ll let you do it on your terms. All you gotta do is just shut down.”
I didn’t call back.
“All right,” he said. “Can’t say I didn’t play nice.”
“How do you know she didn’t shut down?” whispered the other.
“Because that just ain’t Brittle.”
Then came the clanking staccato of a grenade bouncing around in the rubble above.
Three, two, one.
PHWAMMMMMMMM! hummed the ’nade as the pulse rifle leapt in my hand, barely audible above the noise. I’d timed it just right. As every bit of circuitry within twenty-five feet of ground zero was sizzling and popping above me, Mercer’s out-of-town poacher buddy was spinning toward the railing, his head blown clean off his neck, plastic and metal bits showering with a tinkling clatter to the floor below.
Shit! No, no, no, no, no!
The shot was perfect.
The bot’s reaction wasn’t.
He pinwheeled, doubled over the railing, threatening to topple end over end. He was a top-heavy bot to begin with. I’d hoped to keep his death a secret for a few minutes more, buying me enough time to get the drop on the remaining poachers. But now I had only seconds to relocate.
Above me, Mercer called out once more. “Clear!”