by Jay Kristoff
Except I’m not free at all, am I?
He’d never been in this position before. He’d always been beholden to humans, sure. And Evie had sometimes told him to be quiet when he’d wanted to speak his mind. But she’d never forced him to do something he’d hate.
He realized how lucky he’d been, serving people who cared about what he thought. How he felt.
And now?
“Juves and juvettes!” came a cry through the PA above his head. “Disciples and believers, get yourself situated! Tonight’s main bout is about to begin!”
Cricket fixed the boy in his glowing stare. “PLEASE, I DON’T WANT TO—”
“Shuddup!” Murph hollered, kicking him so hard he hurt his foot. “Dammit…you speak when you’re spoken to! Now, you get up there and you fight!”
“…ACKNOWLEDGED,” Cricket said.
“You’ll do fine,” Abraham promised quietly. “You’re built for this.”
“In the blue zone!” came the cry above. “From parts unknown, weighing in at seventy-one tons, get yourselves rowdy for tonight’s challenger!”
Cricket felt the platform beneath him shudder, the broad hatchway above his head grinding open. The crowd’s howls washed over him, gaining in volume as the platform slowly brought him up to the killing floor. Floodlights arced over the Dome, the flash compensation in his optics kicking in as he scoped his situation.
It was a long way from good, true cert.
The arena was a few hundred meters wide, scattered with the broken bodies of bots who’d been destroyed in earlier matches. Barricades of concrete and steel littered the ground. A concrete wall ten meters high encircled the arena, and outside that, concentric rings of bleachers rose like the tiers of an oldskool amphitheater.
As Cricket watched, a dome of rusted iron bars rolled up from the floor and enclosed the space. A bright neon sign above his head began flashing:
WARNING: LIVE FIRE MATCH
A motley crowd of scavvers, scenekillers and wageslaves gathered in the bleachers and pressed up against the bars. Their volume was thunderous, washing over Cricket in waves.
“Aaaaand now, in the red zone! All the way from the Edge…” The EmCee’s voice was swamped under a long chorus of boos. “…Weighing in at seventy-seven tons, winner of sixteen hardcore bouts, make some ruckus for…the Thunderstooooorm!”
A blast of oldskool rawk music spilled over the PA as Cricket’s opponent rose into view, bathed in a flood of red light. The logika was squat and quadrupedal, heavily armored. Twin gauss cannons were mounted on its shoulder brackets, its fists crackling with live current. It was painted black, a lightning bolt sprayed in gold on its greaves and chest, its optics glowing bright green.
“HI,” Cricket waved. “I DON’T SUPPOSE YOU JUST WANNA BE FRIENDS?”
“TARGET ACQUIRED,” the Storm called in a booming voice, turning on Cricket. “MISSION: DESTROY.”
“OKAY, THEN,” Cricket nodded. “GOOD TALK.”
The enemy bot stepped off its platform and spread its arms wide, launching off a burst of fireworks from the missile pods on its back. The New Bethlehem crowd obviously weren’t fans of the visiting logika, booing louder as the rockets exploded into showers of red and white.
“Sixty seconds until official betting closes, believers! We remind you tonight’s bout is sponsored by Daedalus Technologies, and brought to you through the generosity of our beloved Sister Dee and her Horsemen! Can I get an aaaaamen?”
Cricket’s optics roamed the crowd as they stamped and roared. He saw Sister Dee sitting in a ringside box, raising her hand in acknowledgment. The woman was still dressed all in white, the skull on her face freshly painted, a plastic red flower in her hair. Beside her sat three men, one tall and fierce, one stick-thin, the last almost pudgy. Each wore the same skullpaint on their faces, the same white cassocks.
The Brotherhood must run this whole damn town….
Cricket saw Abraham standing dutifully beside his mother. He looked small compared to the Horsemen, totally out of place. He saw him speak to Sister Dee, the woman smiling and squeezing his hand as she replied.
The crowd quieted down, and Cricket turned his attention to his opponent, his circuits awash with electric trepidation. It wasn’t like he could be afraid technically. But the Third Law still compelled him to protect his own existence. Problem was, Cricket knew he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.
Silas had never felt the need to program Cricket with combat techniques—he’d been less than half a meter tall for most of his life. In his new body, he could brawl, he was strong, and that’d been enough to see him go toe-to-toe with Faith in Babel. But against a logika that was programmed to mince other bots for a living?
“I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS,” he muttered.
“Ten seconds to full hostile!” cried the EmCee.
Cricket searched the crowd, looking for a friendly face and finding only bright eyes and bared teeth. A countdown appeared in the neon above his head and the mob joined in, stamping their feet in time as Cricket called out to the Thunderstorm.
“Five!”
“HEY, LISTEN—”
“Four!”
“I’M THINKING—”
“Three!”
“WE COULD GO SOMEWHERE QUIETER—”
“Two!”
“AND MAYBE JUST—”
“One!”
“TALK ABOUT THIS?”
“WAR!”
The Thunderstorm raised its cannons and unloaded at Cricket’s chest. The big bot yelped and threw himself behind one of the steel barricades as the shots whizzed overhead. The crowd roared, the Storm followed up with a burst of missiles from the pods on its back. Cricket rolled aside as the shots spiraled through the air toward him, trailing plumes of rainbow-colored smoke. The ground around him exploded, shrapnel ripping tiny gouges in his plate armor, the flashes making him flinch. That kind of detonation would have torn him to pieces when he was little, and his self-preservation subroutines were in full overdrive.
“First strike to the Storm!” the EmCee cried.
Cricket hunched behind a metal barricade, panic flooding his systems.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to cower.
He was never the bravest bot in the Scrap.
But he’d been ordered to fight, and the Second Law countermanded any desire for self-preservation. And so, instead of running away, he was forced to charge. Across the killing floor, feet pounding the steel. As he drew closer, some hidden instinct clicked into place, and he felt the combat software inside his WarBot body engage. A small 360-degree map of the WarDome appeared in his head, tracking his opponent’s movements, speed, ammo count, damage reports, and screaming warning about incoming fire.
The enemy logika let loose with another blast from its cannons, Cricket twisting past the first as the second spanggged off his armored shoulder. He didn’t feel pain, but his damage reports started flashing brighter. He had no weapons, no real advantage. His only plan was wrapping his hands around the Storm and tearing pieces away till there was nothing left to rip off.
“Look at it go, folks!”
The crowd gasped as Cricket wove among the barricades, rolling over a destroyed logika hull and tumbling past a barrage of exploding missiles. He was big, but thanks to his tracking software, he was surprisingly agile. His engines thundered, the twelve thousand horsepower in his limbs rushing like a waterfall. The crowd roared as he drew close, only to howl in disappointment as the Storm fired a jet burst from each foot and sailed into the air. Articulated toes curled around the WarDome’s bars above and it seized hold, hanging upside down over the killing floor like a limpet.
“UM,” Cricket called. “THAT’S NOT ENTIRELY FAIR, IS IT?”
“TARGET ACQUIRED. MISSION: DESTROY.”
“YEAH, YOU
SAID THAT ALREADY.”
The Thunderstorm unleashed another missile barrage. Cricket raised one arm to shield his optics, shells bursting on his armor, the explosions catching him across the back and ripping up his hydraulics. An internal alarm sounded, his body feeding him more damage reports, a TARGET LOCKED message flashing in his displays. Threat washed over his circuitry, the Third Law screaming in his mind. Memories of the fights he’d watched with Evie flickered in his head, the pair sitting in her room, Lemon beside them, watching legends of the Dome throw down before the wondering crowd. But that was then. This was now.
He was alone, afraid.
But beneath and between and beyond that, the big bot was surprised to realize…
He was angry.
Angry at being taken away from his friends. Angry about what had happened to Evie. Angry that these humans had stolen him, put their hands in him, thrown him in here to fight for their enjoyment. He might have been made to serve, but he hadn’t been made to serve them, and the injustice of it all boiled over his circuitry, washing his vision with red. Some electronic instinct, some urging in the software of his new body, made him reach out toward the Thunderstorm. And as the crowd gasped in wonder, Cricket’s right hand folded up inside his forearm, and a heavy chaingun unfolded in its place, firing a hail of bullets right at the enemy bot.
“Looks like our challenger has some surprises up its sleeve, folks!”
The blast was bright, thunderous, shocking even to Cricket. Tracer rounds flew like fireflies, the crowd backing away from the bars even as they roared approval. The unexpected recoil threw off his aim, Cricket staggered backward and almost fell. The wild spray missed the Storm completely, but it did strike the WarDome bars the enemy logika was clinging to. The shots were armor-piercing, explosive-tipped, ten thousand rounds per minute. The steel shredded like wet tissue. And with its footholds blasted away, the Thunderstorm was sent plummeting toward the ground.
“Pro moves from our challenger!”
Cricket had no idea what he was doing, no control over the combat reflexes running through his WarBot body. The crowd bellowed in delight as twin pods of missile launchers unfurled from his back like stubby wings, targeting lasers locking onto his fallen opponent. A salvo of small incendiary missiles burst forth, lighting up the Storm in a halo of bright flames and sending it staggering.
Cricket knew he had to press, charging the fallen bot and kicking it like a football. The Storm went tumbling across the killing floor, flipping over onto its back. It tried to regain its footing, limbs kicking feebly as Cricket fell on top of it and began punching, stomping, tearing, the crowd chanting in time with every blow.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Sparks flew, the Storm’s armor buckling beneath the terrible force of Cricket’s fists. Its fritzing voice box was spitting out a stream of garbled damage reports, its optics flaring bright. With one mighty blow, Cricket smashed the enemy logika’s maintenance hatch wide open, titanium buckling like tinfoil. And with red still washing over his optics, Cricket reached inside, fingers closing around the Thunderstorm’s central processor—the bot’s literal electronic heart.
“P-PLEASE…,” the Storm stammered. “D-DO NOT…”
Some part of him knew he wasn’t really killing it. That the Storm could be rebuilt if its owners cared enough. But Cricket knew he was hurting it. Knew the imperative burning at its core: the Third Law demanding it fight, flail and, finally, even beg to protect its own existence. And in losing, Cricket knew exactly what the logika would be feeling. To fail to uphold the Three Laws was worse than dying.
To fail to uphold the Three Laws was to fail in every sense a robot could.
But still, that filthy dustneck’s command rang in Cricket’s ears. The Second Law burning brighter than anything except the First.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot
must
obey.
“PLEASE…,” the Storm begged.
“I’M SORRY,” the big bot replied. “I’M SO SORRY.”
Cricket made a fist, cables spitting, a blinding flash of white. The crowd roared as he tore the Thunderstorm’s heart free in a cascade of sparks. The EmCee was shouting into the PA, the mob was on their feet, the neon gleaming in the coolant and oil pooling like blood at his feet. Cricket looked at the spent shell casings glittering on the charred floor, the broken hulk before him. He looked at the humans around him, the bloodlust in their eyes, listening to the stomping rhythm of their feet.
“Believers!” came the cry.
The crowd hushed, all eyes turning to the box at the ring’s edge. Sister Dee was standing with a microphone at her lips, surrounded by her cassocked thugs. Abraham stood beside her, giving Cricket the thumbs-up. Behind him stood Murph and Mikey, squabbling once more as they began to realize that selling him for a mere two thousand liters might have been a touch conservative.
But it was too late. The bargain was struck.
Cricket belonged to the Brotherhood now.
“The Lord has truly blessed us this day!” the Sister cried. “Not only have the terrorists who plagued our convoys been brought low, but it seems New Bethlehem WarDome has a new champion!”
Sister Dee pointed to Cricket, teeth flashing as she smiled. “I give you…”
Abraham leaned in to whisper in his mother’s ear, and the woman smiled.
“…our Paladin!” she cried.
All he’d ever wanted was to be taken seriously.
To be treated with respect.
To be big.
Cricket looked up at the roaring crowd, hung his head.
“BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR,” he murmured.
“No.”
“They’re just kids, Hunter.”
“We must bring Lemonfresh to CityHive. She does not understand her importance. Lemonfresh is—”
“Yeah, yeah. Needed. Special. I got it.”
They were standing in the shadows of a closed street-eatery, scoping the Brotherhood’s awful little stage. Red banners fluttered in a cool night breeze. The dozen Brethren leaning against Brother Dubya’s monster truck didn’t exactly look on high alert, but that was no kind of surprise. This was the heart of a Brotherhood settlement, after all. Everyone in this armpit of a town was either on their side or terrified of them. Probably both.
Lemon could hear roars from the distant WarDome, the crash of metal and bursts of heavy weapons fire. It sounded like total chaos in there, and she was grateful for the diversion. A churn and bubble was coming from the desalination plant, black smoke rumbling into the sky. With all that noise, Lemon knew they’d have the element of surprise—even if it was only her and Hunter against twelve B-boys. But Hunter herself was far from convinced.
“Came here for chemicals,” the operative growled. “Have them. Road awaits.”
Lemon scowled. “Listen, can we agree that, as far as unwilling yet gorgeous captives go, I’ve been an absolute effing delight up to this point? Haven’t tried to escape, or shiv you in the back, or warned these lawmen that ‘oh, hey, by the way, this crazy lady is a genetically engineered murder machine with a swarm of killer bees inside her bra’?”
“We thought we had reached understanding,” Hunter said, a little sadly.
“Look, you wanna tell me I’m special, fine,” Lemon snapped. “I find it literally impossible to disagree with you. But those kids are some kind of special, too, or these Brotherhood bastards wouldn’t have nailed them up in the first place. Maybe they just got two belly buttons, I dunno. But nobody deserves to go out like that. Nobody.”
Hunter peered across the way to the Brotherhood scaffold. Trepidation shining in those strange golden eyes.
“And then we leave for CityHive,” she finally whispered.
/>
“Look at these freckles. Would I lie to you?”
The BioMaas agent folded her arms and scowled.
“What does she propose?”
“Almost everyone in this dump is at WarDome. You set your deathbees on the thugs, I get the kids down, we snaffle one of those autos and fang it. Once we’re out of New Bethlehem, you call Mai’a, we give the kids the wheels, then ride into the sunset. Conscience clear.”
“Bees die when they sting, Lemonfresh. We are not infinite. She asks much.”
“Yeah, well, you’re asking me to be the wind that changes the world or whatever, so I figure this makes us even. It’ll be easy as, trust me.”
“Easy as what?”
Lemon shrugged. “Easy as a very easy thing.”
The operative was silent for long moments, clearly torn.
“I could always just start screaming for help?” Lemon offered. “I am still technically the victim of a kidnapping here.”
“She would threaten me?”
“Technically, what I’m doing is more like extortion.”
Hunter narrowed her eyes, a low angry buzzing filling her chest.
“Very well,” she nodded.
Lemon’s stomach was still achy, but she managed a grin anyway. The pair waited until the closest Disciple patrol had wandered past. And when the coast was nice and clear, Lemon moseyed over to the stage, hands in her stuffed pockets.
The Brotherhood boys fell silent as they noticed the short, scruffy redhead wandering toward them. She guessed these dozen were among the crew that had snaffled those poor kids to begin with. They were packing heavy pistols, automatic rifles. The tallest one had an oversized copy of the Goodbook hanging from a thick iron chain at his belt. Bound in cracked leather, it was big enough to beat a burglar to death with, and embossed with faded gold lettering:
The Lord helps those who help themselves.
The Brethren looked her over, eyebrows raised.
“Evenin’, little sister,” a beardy one said.
