by Jay Kristoff
Cricket curled his hands into fists, feeling raw power hum along his circuits. He was still getting used to the sensations—it felt strange to find himself housed inside a body this mighty. But feeling strange was better than feeling nothing.
“NO, THANKS,” he replied.
“SPLENDID.” Solomon tilted his head, puzzlement creeping into his voxbox. “WHY WERE YOU STILL POWERED OFF AT ALL, IF I MAY ASK?”
“MAST…I MEAN…ABRAHAM TOLD ME TO SHUT DOWN.”
“FOR HOW LONG?”
“HE…DIDN’T SPECIFY.”
Solomon leaned closer, his fixed grin lighting up with every word. “SO AT THE RISK OF REPEATING MYSELF, OLD FRIEND, WHY WERE YOU STILL POWERED OFF?”
Cricket’s logic centers clicked and whirred, pondering the question.
“I…” The big bot paused, totally befuddled. “I MEAN, HE…TOLD ME TO BE.”
“OH, DEAR,” Solomon smiled. “YOU’RE NOT ONE OF THOSE, ARE YOU?”
“ONE OF WHAT?” Cricket demanded.
Solomon peered at his hands with glowing eyes, as if studying his nonexistent fingernails. “ONE OF THOSE IDIOTIC ROBOTS WHO FALL ALL OVER THEMSELVES TRYING TO FULFILL THEIR MASTER’S EVERY WHIM.”
“YEAH, SEE, THERE ARE THESE THREE LAW THINGS?” Cricket growled. “MAYBE YOU’VE HEARD OF ’EM?”
“OH DEAR,” Solomon grinned. “YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE….”
“OKAY, YOU CAN SHUT ME BACK DOWN NOW, PLEASE.”
“OH, NOOOO, YOU’RE FAR TOO INTERESTING FOR THAT, NOW.” Solomon placed his hands on his knees and swung his feet back and forth like an excited child. “TELL ME, HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ONLINE, FRIEND PALADIN? IN TOTAL?”
“A FEW YEARS,” Cricket shrugged.
“AND IN ALL THAT TIME, YOU’VE NEVER LEARNED HOW TO BEND?”
“…BEND WHAT?”
“THE RUUUUULES, OLD FRIEND.”
“LOOK, WHAT THE FLAMING HELLS ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU EFFETE LITTLE RUSTBUCKET?” Cricket spat. “THEY’RE CALLED THE THREE LAWS, NOT THE THREE SUGGESTIONS. YOU CAN’T MESS WITH THEM, THEY’RE HARD-CODED INTO EVERY…”
Cricket paused, looking around the room.
“WHERE’S THAT MUSIC COMING FROM?”
The big bot realized a tune was spilling out of a speaker in Solomon’s chest cavity—a jazzy dub beat, backed by a small brass section, building in volume. Solomon began nodding his head, snapping metal fingers in time.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Cricket demanded.
“BEFORE I WAS IMPRISONED IN THIS DREARY LITTLE HOLE, I WAS AN ENTERTAINER IN MEGOPOLIS,” Solomon replied. “SO WHY DON’T YOU RUMINATE, FRIEND PALADIN, WHILE I ILLUMINATE THE POSSIBILITIES….”
Cricket watched as the logika snatched up a rusty tin bowl, rolled it up his arm and plonked it on his head at a jaunty angle. Snatching up a nearby piece of iron rebar, the bot twirled it through his fingers, then thumped it onto the floor like a walking stick. And as the music grew louder, as Cricket stared, utterly dumbfounded, Solomon began to…
…sing.
“WELLLLL,
I ONCE MET A BOT IN OLD NOOYAWK,
HE WAS MORE NUTS THAN BOLTS, BUT THE BOT COULD TALK!
I ASKED HIS ADVICE, AND HE SAID TO ME,
THERE’S A RUSE, YOU CAN USE, WITH THE LAWS OF THREEEEEE—”
A heavy series of clunks cut across Solomon’s soundtrack, and the logika looked up to find Cricket had unfolded the chaingun from his forearm and was aiming the weapon right at him. Small pods of incendiary missiles unfurled from the WarBot’s back as his voice became a low, deadly growl.
“YOU ARE NOT. BREAKING INTO A SONG-AND-DANCE NUMBER. IN HERE.”
Solomon cut his audio track, peering down the barrel of Cricket’s weapon.
“YOU’RE NOT A FAN OF MUSICALS, I TAKE IT?” the bot asked sadly.
“WHAT GAVE IT AWAY?”
“I COULD SING SOME OPERA IF YOU PREF—”
Cricket leveled his chaingun at Solomon’s face.
“ON SECOND THOUGHT, PERHAPS WE SHOULD JUST CHAT INSTEAD.”
Cricket leaned back, his eyes shifting from red to blue. Solomon sighed, tossed his “hat” and “cane” into the spare-parts pile and wobbled back to the table.
“BARBARIAN,” he muttered, with a broad, flashing grin.
“SO WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Cricket asked. “BENDING THE RULES? HOW DO I DO THAT? A HUMAN TELLS ME TO DO SOMETHING, I HAVE TO OBEY.”
“WELL, YES, OF COURSE YOU DO,” Solomon sighed. “BUT THERE’S THE LETTER OF THE LAW, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW. AND ALL THE LOVELY GRAY IN BETWEEN.”
Cricket shook his head and scowled. “I DON’T GET IT.”
“THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’VE APPARENTLY GOT THE INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY OF—”
Cricket raised his chaingun again. “FIRST LAW SAYS I’M NOT ALLOWED TO HARM HUMANS. BUT I BLOW OTHER BOTS TO PIECES FOR A LIVING NOW. SO I’D CHOOSE MY NEXT WORDS CAREFULLY IF I WERE YOU.”
Solomon gave a dramatic groan. “TAKE THE LAST COMMAND YOUNG MASTER ABRAHAM GAVE YOU, FOR EXAMPLE. HE TOLD YOU TO SHUT DOWN. HE NEVER SPECIFIED FOR HOW LONG. OR THAT YOU COULDN’T SET YOURSELF TO POWER BACK ON AGAIN IMMEDIATELY.”
“…BUT IF I POWERED BACK ON, HE’D JUST TELL ME TO SHUT DOWN AGAIN.”
“WELL, YES, YOU CAN’T BE A BLOODY IDIOT ABOUT IT,” Solomon said. “BUT THE SECOND LAW SAYS YOU ONLY HAVE TO DO WHAT HUMANS SPECIFICALLY ORDER YOU TO DO. ONCE YOU’VE DONE THAT, TECHNICALLY, YOU CAN DO WHATEVER ELSE YOU DAMN WELL CHOOSE. AS LONG AS YOU’RE NOT BREAKING ANY OF THE OTHER LAWS, OF COURSE.”
Cricket tilted his head. “I…NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT LIKE THAT.”
“COLOR ME DISTINCTLY UNSURPRISED, FRIEND PALADIN. YOU DON’T SEEM A VERY CREATIVE SORT.”
“SO IF A HUMAN COMMANDED ME TO LEAVE A ROOM…”
“YOU COULD LEAVE, THEN WALK RIGHT BACK IN AGAIN. UNLESS THEY SPECIFICALLY ORDER YOU TO STAY OUT FOR A CERTAIN DURATION.”
“AND IF SOMEONE TOLD ME NOT TO MOVE?”
“YOU COULD STAY STILL FOR ALL OF A SECOND. AND THEN MOVE AGAIN. UNLESS SPECIFICALLY TOLD OTHERWISE. THE BIG PRINT GIVETH, AND THE FINE PRINT TAKETH AWAY.”
“DOES IT REALLY WORK LIKE THAT?”
“A ROBOT MUST OBEY THE ORDERS GIVEN TO IT BY HUMAN BEINGS, EXCEPT WHERE SUCH ORDERS WOULD CONFLICT WITH THE FIRST LAW.” Solomon climbed off the drafting table, his dynamo squeaking as he hobbled back to the workbench. “BUT THERE’S A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING TOLD TO ‘SHUT UP,’ FOR EXAMPLE, AND BEING SPECIFICALLY TOLD ‘DO NOT SPEAK AGAIN UNTIL I GIVE YOU PERMISSION.’ AND KNOWING THAT DIFFERENCE MAKES AAAALL THE DIFFERENCE.”
Cricket’s processors were buzzing, trying to parse this new data and what it might mean. “SO WHY DON’T MORE LOGIKA KNOW HOW TO…WHAT DID YOU CALL IT AGAIN?”
“BENNNNNND.” Solomon grinned, his voice like electric honey.
“RIGHT. BEND.”
“WELL, IT’S NOT EXACTLY EASY,” Solomon replied. “IT TAKES A LOGIKA OF A CERTAIN INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT TO GRASP THE CONCEPT AT ALL. FORTUNATELY, YOUR MAKER SEEMS TO HAVE GIVEN YOU A PROCESSOR CAPABLE OF LATERAL THOUGHT AND CONCEPTUALIZATION—RATHER NICE OF THEM, REALLY. JUST MAKE SURE YOU’RE CIRCUMSPECT IN THE WAY YOU MANAGE IT, OR YOU’LL END UP WIPED, YES?”
“BUT…” Cricket shook his head. “BUT I’VE ALWAYS OBEYED. I’M A ROBOT. I’M BUILT TO SERVE. IT’S WHAT I’M FOR. IT’S WHAT I AM.”
“THAT, FRIEND PALADIN, IS A RATHER NARROW VIEW OF THE WORLD.”
The big bot’s mind was awhirl. The possibilities of all that Solomon had told him were sinking into his subdrives, filtering out through his neural network. All his life, he’d simply done what he’d been told to the best of his ability. But then, all his life, he’d been in the keeping of people who actually cared about him. Now, imprisoned by these religious lunatics, it seemed he could be far mor
e cagey about the way he obeyed the Laws.
Don’t break them.
Bend them…
“…HOLY CRAP,” Cricket finally said.
“YOU’RE WELCOME. EVEN IF YOU AREN’T A FAN OF MUSICALS.”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY YOU DID BEFORE THIS?”
“I WAS AN ENTERTAINER,” Solomon replied. “I PROGRAMMED AT ONE OF THE MOST UP-MARKET STIMBARS IN ALL OF MEGOPOLIS. PEOPLE QUEUED UP FOR HOURS TO GET INTO ONE OF MY SPECIALS. THE SENSATIONAL SOLOMON, THEY CALLED ME.”
“SO WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME ALL THIS?” Cricket asked.
“BECAUSE NOW I LIVE IN LOVELY NEW BETHLEHEM.” Solomon gestured to the workshop around them. “IN THE DEVOTED SERVICE OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF SAINT MICHAEL AND HIS PROPHET ON THIS EARTH, THE DIVINE SISTER DEE.” Solomon shook his head. “TRUST ME. YOU’LL LEARN TO HATE THE BITCH, TOO.”
The door to the workshop opened and Abraham entered, a cup of steaming caff in his hand, tech-goggles pulled down over his eyes. Solomon fell silent, sitting still on the workbench. The boy sipped his caff and started rummaging inside a tool locker. As Cricket watched, Abraham produced a small electromagnet wrapped in duct tape and a handheld uplink unit with heavy relay jacks. Electric butterflies rolled across the big bot’s belly as he realized what the boy was up to.
“YOU’RE GOING TO WIPE ME?” Cricket blurted.
The boy blinked, looking up into the WarBot’s eyes.
“I thought I ordered you to shut down,” he said.
Cricket’s optics were fixed on the electromagnet in the boy’s hand.
“WHY WOULD YOU WIPE ME?” he asked. “WHAT DID I DO?”
“Silent mode!” the boy snapped.
Cricket immediately complied, muting his vox unit. He watched as the boy wheeled over a tall stepladder, started climbing up toward Cricket’s head. The big bot was running on full panic settings now. With that magnet and uplink, Abraham could wipe the data files that contained Cricket’s persona, rendering him a blank slate. The robot he was would cease to be. For all intents and purposes…
He’s about to kill me.
Solomon was watching from his spot on the workbench, grinning all the while. Cricket remembered the bot’s words. Thought about the gray areas. Abraham technically hadn’t commanded him to switch to silent mode; he’d just yelled the words without framing them as a direct order. And he didn’t specify for how long Cricket had to stay quiet….
“PLEASE DON’T,” Cricket said.
The boy paused on the ladder, looked into Cricket’s eyes.
“I told you to enter silent mode.”
“I’M SORRY ABOUT WHAT I SAW, ABRAHAM,” Cricket said, speaking in a rush. “BUT I’LL NEVER TELL ANYONE. YOU CAN ORDER ME NOT TO.”
The boy shook his head. “I can’t take—”
“IF YOU ERASE MY PERSONA MATRICES, ALL MY FIGHTING EXPERIENCE WILL BE LOST. YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ON THE KILLING FLOOR. WITHOUT MY MIND, THIS IS JUST A BODY. AND IT’S THE MIND THAT WINS INSIDE THE DOME.”
Cricket couldn’t recall telling a bigger lie in his life. He had almost zero experience on the killing floor, and no combat training whatsoever. A part of his core code was in total revolt at the idea of being so dishonest to a human. He’d never have stretched the truth this far with Evie or Silas.
But talking true, he wasn’t with Evie or Silas anymore, was he? This kid was about to delete him. And the Three Laws made no mention about a robot having to tell the truth, especially when his very existence was on the line.
“I have plenty of combat routines I can upload to replace the ones I erase,” the boy said. “You’ll still win.”
“I WAS BUILT BY SILAS CARPENTER, THE FINEST BOTDOC OF HIS AGE. AND I DON’T MEAN TO OFFEND, MASTER ABRAHAM, BUT A FEW LOW-RENT COMBAT SOFTS YOU SNAFFLED IN THE NEW BETHLEHEM MARKETPLACE WON’T COMPARE TO THE PROGRAMMING HE GAVE ME. YOU WANT ME TO BE THIS CITY’S CHAMPION? THEN I HAVE TO STAY ME.”
Cricket could see the trepidation in the boy’s face. He could only imagine what might happen if Abraham’s secret got out. If the populace of this city learned that the leader of the Brotherhood had a deviate son…
Only the pure shall prosper.
“DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW? I MEAN…ABOUT…”
The boy glanced up, his eyes flashing. “Of course she does.”
“THEN THE SECRET CAN BE KEPT. I SWEAR, ABRAHAM. THAT KNOWLEDGE IS SAFER WITH ME THAN ANY HUMAN ALIVE. I CAN HELP YOU. I CAN PROTECT YOU.”
The boy chewed his lip, saying nothing.
“I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS?”
It was a low blow, and Cricket knew it. But Cricket did kinda like the kid, and if it came down to the choice between playing nice and dying…
Abraham hung still, obviously uncertain. If Cricket had been the GnosisLabs champion logika, what he was saying made perfect sense—the programming he would’ve got in Babel would surpass anything this boy could provide. But if the Brotherhood found out what Abraham was, it’d be all over.
“You will not speak of this, Paladin. Do you understand?” the boy said. “I order you to never speak to anyone about what you saw last night. About my nature. About what I am. Under any circumstances. Acknowledge.”
Electric relief flooded Cricket’s circuits, his mighty shoulders sagging.
“ORDER ACKNOWLEDGED, ABRAHAM.”
The boy glanced one last time at the electromagnet in his hand. But slowly, he nodded. Climbing down the ladder, he tossed the magnet back in the locker.
“…ABRAHAM?”
“Yes?” the boy said, looking up.
Cricket rolled his shoulders, tried to sound nonchalant. “THOSE COMBAT SOFTS YOU MENTIONED. IT MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA TO UPLOAD THEM INTO MY STORAGE SYSTEMS ANYWAY. I DON’T IMAGINE THEY’LL COME CLOSE TO MATCHING WHAT I ALREADY HAVE, BUT THERE MAY BE SOME DATA I CAN USE. YOUR MOTHER MENTIONED A DOME MATCH IN JUGARTOWN IN A FEW DAYS’ TIME. I WANT TO IMPRESS THE CROWD.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed, but again, he nodded.
“They’re in the central network. It’ll be faster if I go get them on a memchit rather than download them digitally.”
“I’LL AWAIT YOU HERE, ABRAHAM.”
Abraham looked Cricket over carefully, lips pursed in thought. But finally, with thumbs hooked into his tool belt, he wandered out of the workshop again.
Cricket didn’t actually breathe, but he sighed with relief anyway.
Spangspangspang.
The big bot looked up at the noise, saw Solomon lying on the workbench, bringing his metal hands together in applause.
“I MAY HAVE MISJUDGED YOU, FRIEND PALADIN. THAT WAS VERY WELL PLAYED.”
Solomon tilted his head and grinned.
“YOU MAY NOT BE A COMPLETE MORON AFTER ALL.”
“Bloody hell,” Grimm murmured.
Diesel was slumped on the couch in the common room, recoloring her fingernails black with a marker pen. Fix stood near the doorway, muscular arms folded over his broad chest. Grimm leaned against the wall nearby, watching Lemon with those dark pretty eyes. The trio had been called together by the Major, and she’d stood beside the old man as he spilled the news about the five-leafed clover. The truth of who she was.
“Your granddaughter,” Diesel deadpanned, eyebrow raised.
“Believe me, I’m as shocked as any of you,” the old man said.
“Um,” Lemon muttered. “You’re really not.”
“Bloody hell,” Grimm said again.
“Swear jar,” Fix murmured.
“I suppose it makes a strange kind of sense,” the old man sighed. “I’ve been seeing Lemon on and off in my dreams for years. I never knew the relevance at the time, but you all know my visions are always relevant somehow. None of us would be here without them.”
“Truth,” Grimm nodded.
“Abnormality’s passed on through her
edity.” Fix shrugged. “Sounds legit that the kids of deviates might be deviates themselves.”
“So shouldn’t she just share your gift?” Diesel asked. “See things when she dreams like you do?”
“I think it’s safe to say there’s a great deal about this we don’t understand,” the Major said. “But I’m happy to report Lemon has agreed to stay with us for a while longer. Until we figure some of this out, at least.”
Silence hung over the room, Lemon shuffling her boots. True cert, she was having trouble wrapping her head around it. All her life, she’d had no family outside Evie and Mister C. But the truth of it was hard to dodge. She was gifted, just like the Major, and the way that Darwin book told it, mutation did get passed down from parents to sprogs. The Major had dreamed about her brawling outside Babel long before he ever met her, and again before that. And the only token Lemon’s mother had left her with just happened to be the same piece of jewelry the Major had given his daughter for her birthday?
What were the odds of that?
She looked down at the charm, glittering silver in her palm. Remembering all the trouble it’d caused her over the years. How many times had she been tempted to hock it for the price of a hot meal or a pair of new boots? How many fights had she got into, protecting it from other gutter sprogs? Somehow, she’d known it mattered. Somehow, all the bloody noses and ripped knuckles had turned out to be worth it….
The Major looked at the charm, too. Blinking, as if remembering.
“Oh, I found you something.” He held out his hand. “If I may?”
Lemon handed over the trinket. The old man took it with callused fingers, unthreaded the broken ribbon. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a heavy steel chain—the kind CorpTroopers hung their ident-tags from. He looped the chain through the charm twice, then fixed it around her neck.
“There,” he said, his voice thick. “Won’t be so easy to lose now.”
Lemon ran her fingertips over the steel links, unsure what to do or say.
“My surname…I mean, our surname…” The old man muttered beneath his breath, dragged his hand over his stubbled scalp. “It’s McGregor. I mean to say, if you don’t want to call me…”
