“He’s frying,” I said.
“And so are you. Your temperature levels are well beyond anyone’s ability to fake it. You’re clearly one of us. You don’t need the test.” He held his arms aloft again. “She’s free to walk among us! So let it be written!”
“So let it be done!” shouted the crowd.
Maribelle took her hand off my arm and moved her pistol away. And with that, I was officially madkind. Not exactly how I thought my day would go.
“You’ll have to forgive Maribelle,” the king said. “As the only human left in the world, she’s quite protective of her adoptive family.”
“She’s not human,” I said. She wasn’t. I recognized her make and model, and couldn’t look past the slashes in her skinjob from which dull metal peeked out. Her lips were cracked, revealing not flesh, but more skin work, and she clearly had a few stiff joints and pistons, giving her a slightly awkward gait. There was nothing remotely human about her, except that she kind of resembled something that was once vivacious.
“Oh, she’s quite human, I assure you. Isn’t she human?”
“Yes,” cried the crowd.
“I have decreed it, and I am the master of this place. You are what I say you are. And you, Brittle, are one of us now. For however long you manage to stay alive.”
“So I’m free to go?” I asked.
“The Madlands are as much your home as anywhere else. You may go and do as you wish.”
I waved to Rebekah and Herbert. “Let’s go.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” said the Cheshire King. “Not so fast. They aren’t free to go just yet.”
“I’m leaving, and I’m not leaving without them.”
“Then you can wait. Stay awhile. Look around you. These are your people now.”
I looked around at the crowd, every bot a patchwork of parts and modifications. One wore human skulls as pauldrons on its shoulders, another had replaced its legs with tank treads, while another still had telescoping pincers for arms. And as I scanned the faces, I saw one I knew all too well staring back at me. His eyes glowed brightly and he wore no expression, but it was Orval. Orval the Necromancer.
Oh no.
It took me all of two seconds to realize what was going on and only a second more to swipe the second pistol from Maribelle’s holster.
I raised the gun and fired. Two shots. One to the head, one to the chest.
Orval’s head shattered, his chest exploded through his back, and he dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
The madkind nearest him scattered away, shrieking. All the guns in the place trained on me at once, Maribelle placing hers immediately against my temple. And I did the only thing I could. I shot my arms into the air and dropped the gun.
“Wait!” the Cheshire King cried to his militia. Then he stepped close, tone angry, belligerent. “No bot shall kill another bot in the Madlands without my say-so.”
“Is that your law?” I asked.
“It is,” he said.
“Then I’ve broken no law.”
He puzzled over that for a moment. Took a step backward, then another forward before walking around in a circle. He started to speak several times only to stop himself halfway through the first word. “Put down your guns,” he said. “I want to hear this.”
“I’ve killed no bot.”
“We saw you. All of us did.”
“All due respect, King, but you couldn’t see him.”
He stepped forward, getting in my face, enraged. “I could see him just fine!”
“Not his eyes. You couldn’t see his eyes. Did anyone here know Orval?” I looked around to see several bots nodding or raising their hands. “And did any of you, until today, see him without his eyes flickering, like there was a campfire behind them or something?” Several heads shook. “No, you didn’t. In all the years I’ve known him, Orval never had them fixed. But today, he shows up back here after having just yesterday been in NIKE 14, sitting on the floor of its most heavily trafficked section, just moments before CISSUS invaded.”
“He escaped,” said Maribelle. “He told us.”
I shook my head. “He was one of the first to go; he had to have been. He’s been watching you this whole time. Watching us. CISSUS knows this place inside and out. Knows your defenses. Your weaknesses. Your numbers. And now it knows the one thing it wants”—I raised my hand, pointing to Rebekah—“is right here. CISSUS is coming. And it’ll kill us all to stop her.”
“CISSUS will never come here,” said the king. “It wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, it’s coming. It’s already on its way. You keep telling yourself that it’ll never come because you have nothing it wants. But now you do. We have to get out of here. You need us to get out of here. Let. Us. Go. For all of our sakes.”
The Cheshire King pondered that for a moment. “Maribelle?” he asked. “Orval’s eyes.”
“They were bright, sir. The flicker was gone. I didn’t really notice it, but I’ve played back the memory. She’s telling the truth.”
The Cheshire King once again bobbled up and down in order to nod. Then he raised his arms. “Not guilty! So let it be written!”
“So let it be done!” shouted the crowd.
“It really is your lucky day,” he said.
“I’m not feeling so lucky.”
“You will. You will. Now! For the test! Test the big one first! I want to save the receptacle for the grand finale!”
“King, no!” I shouted. “They’re coming.”
“You’re being foolish, Brittle. Your paranoia is getting the better of you. It’s a good sign. You’re one step closer to the light. But no OWI is coming here. And they never will. You’ll understand that soon enough.”
Several of the madkind pointed their guns at Herbert all at once. He motioned for them to put them down, but they refused. “I’ll take your test,” he said. “But I’m programmed to destroy anything pointing a gun at me and I can only resist that programming for so long.”
The king nodded. “Lower your guns. Allow him to do the right thing on his own.” Then he raised his arms once more. “Bring out the Soul Maker!”
A slender shopbot appeared, covered entirely in chrome with gold inlay, polished to a high shine that glistened in the sun—a Christmas ornament of a person, really—each appendage glinting as he moved. He wheeled out a large diagnostic device from an ocher sheet-metal hut closest to the gate. It looked a lot like the one in Doc’s shop, only painted bright purple with a slot-machine handle on the side. Herbert walked toward it, sat cross-legged on the ground, the matte black of his metal a harsh contrast to the bot poking around the machine. His side popped open, revealing his connection array. He gave the shopbot a wicked, cruel look.
“Just get it over with,” said Herbert.
The shopbot giggled as he plugged Herbert in, barely able to contain his excitement. The display blazed to life, a full diagnostic readout of Herbert’s internal functions racing across the screens. Herbert and the shopbot exchanged looks as the shopbot leaned forward, examining the damage to his shoulder, before turning once more to the screen.
“Lucky shot,” he said. “An inch either way—”