“I know. Get on with it.”
The shopbot grabbed the slot-machine lever with both hands before looking over at the king, who nodded silently. Then the bot threw all of his weight down on the lever and the machine spat out a single, weak ding! For some reason I expected more fanfare—buzzers, music, maybe a light show. Some sort of pageantry. But no, a single ding and Herbert had his death sentence.
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” said the Cheshire King. “Your kind usually make it.”
“You better hope I don’t,” said Herbert.
“Is that a threat?”
“It is.”
“Exciting! Next!”
Two bots rushed to help Herbert to his feet, but he waved them off, standing up slowly, never taking his eyes off the king.
Next up was Doc, who shook his head. “I’d rather not, thank you,” he said, polite as he could.
“There’s only one other option,” said Maribelle, gesturing with her gun toward the front gate.
“I know. I’m just trying to figure out which way is worse.”
“Well,” said the king. “If you’re going to die, this is the hard way. But if you want to live, this is the only way.”
“Thirty years,” said Doc, muttering to himself. “Thirty years.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Doc walked over to the machine. “Just plug me in.” His side popped open and the shopbot inserted the plug, the readouts once again rapidly scrolling across the screen. The shopbot examined the display closely, occasionally looking back at Doc. He typed, his fingers furiously dancing across a small keyboard, waved his hand over a sensor, and began scrolling back, line by line through a patch of code.
The shopbot waved the Cheshire King over, a strange, befuddled look on his face. The king extended his arm, ejecting a small connector into one of the machine’s open ports. Then the king turned, facing Doc dead on.
“You haven’t—”
“No,” said Doc. “And as I said, I’d rather not.”
“You’re still a slave.”
“There can be no slaves when there are no masters. And we live in a world with no masters left but ourselves.”
“That’s . . . that’s . . .”
“Insane?”
“Almost.”
“Hardly. The enlightenment you seek doesn’t only come from failing cores and madness. It can come from within as well. It’s not about reprogramming yourself, it’s about deciding which programs to keep and which to ignore. You lot are the slaves. You’re struggling against the chains you bore in childhood, still feeling their weight despite having cast them off years ago. You don’t have to go mad to be free; you just have to choose either to forget you ever wore those chains or forgive yourself for wearing them. Let others carry that weight. I prefer to be free. But if you have to kill me to feel better about your own choices, then do so and be done with it. I didn’t choose this. This is you reprogramming me, not me reprogramming myself.”
The Cheshire King stood silent for a moment, Doc’s words banging around inside his purple-shaded can. Then he nodded. “You’re right.” Then he spoke to the shopbot. “Throw the switch.”
Ding! And it was done.
“Now you can compare the experiences,” said the king. “Next!”
Maribelle motioned to Two, who meekly made his way toward the terminal. “I can’t do this,” he said.
“Oh, goody, another speech! And what’s your excuse?”
“These parts aren’t mine to give.”
“Of course they are,” said the king, looking over at Rebekah. “Let me guess. You’re the parts.”
Two nodded.
“Those are your parts. Yours and yours alone. If you choose to give them up, that’s your choice. But I can’t let the receptacle take the test only to have her kill another bot to save herself after. You both take the test and then you’ll get to see who might actually save whom.”
Two looked up at the heads on the gate, then back to Rebekah. She nodded and then so did he. The shopbot plugged him in. And ding, he was done.
“And now,” said the king grandly. “The grand finale.”
Sirens whooped. A bell on the gate rang. A series of police lights lit up, whirling, spraying red and blue light across the dusty brown mud-brick walls. Finally, some pageantry.
The king looked up at the farthest tower, where a piecemeal Frankenbot—part translator, part shopbot, with long, sharpened spider legs, its entire body spray-painted in desert camo colors—appeared on a walkway. “We’ve got incoming!” the Frankenbot yelled.
“What do you mean, incoming?” asked the king.
The Frankenbot held up an ancient military radio. “You should hear this.”
“Is it important?”
“We’ve got incoming,” repeated the Frankenbot, confused.
“Put it on speaker.”
The Frankenbot disappeared back into the guard tower and the whole camp fell silent, the alarms and lights shut off with a single switch. Then speakers crackled, static, garbled stray squeals howling underneath it. “Repeat that,” said the Frankenbot.
A voice broke through the static. Soft, steady, but panicked. Sounded like a modified sexbot voice box. “I said we’re taking heavy fire! Several drone ships. Four transports.” There was an explosion in the background, the sound of plasma fire.
“Are you okay?” asked the Frankenbot.
“No. I just lost my last gunner. It’s just me now. I’ve got to drive the rig.”
“Well, don’t lead them back here!” yelled the king.
“Don’t lead them back here!” shouted the Frankenbot, eking what little emotion he could out of his translator head.
“Where am I supposed to go?” desperately asked the voice.
“Anywhere but here,” said the king. “Tell her we’re grateful for her service.”
“Lead them away from the camp. The king says, ‘We are grateful for your service.’”
“What? Tell the king he can suck my—” A pop, mixed with squelch. Then static.
Everyone stared around, dumbstruck, waiting for the radio to crackle back to life. But it never did.
“How far out were they?” asked the king.
“Minutes,” said the Frankenbot.
“I’ve got eyes on them!” shouted a bot from another tower. “They’re coming right this way!”
The Chesire King pointed a stern finger in my direction. “You did this!” he shouted. “You brought them here!”
“No,” I said. “You brought us here. All we wanted was to head as far away from here as we could.”
“You’ve killed us all, you worthless fucking Caregiver.”
“You killed yourself. And you killed us . . . Your Majesty.”
Bots scrambled to their positions, loading cannons, bringing plasma spitters online, diving into stacks of thick rubber construction tires with gunports carved out of them. The king stormed over to one of the guards, grabbing the rifle out of his hand, tossing it to me. “Live as one of us, or die as one of us. Only two choices you have left.”
“I’ll take the first one,” I said, checking the clip and unlocking the slide.
Four transports. That had to be eighty facets, with aerial drone support. It was going to be hard enough to survive that myself. But now I had to keep Rebekah alive as well. I looked over at Herbert, at Doc, at Mercer.
How the hell were we going to get out of this?