by Sara King
Which Anna had been regretting telling him ever since her discovery. “You know what?” She threw up her hands. “Fine. If you want to abandon me to go run around playing soldier, Dobie, that’s just fine with me. I’ll talk to you guys later. I have important projects that need monitoring.”
“What kind of projects?” Pan prodded. “Projects like the one that killed three thousand Fortuners yesterday?”
Anna narrowed her eyes. “They killed ninety percent of Rath, thank you very much. Better than we predicted.”
“We only needed to take out the combat forces,” Pan retorted. “But we took out all the support personnel, too. Cooks, medics, mechanics, janitors—”
“Fuck ’em,” Anna said. “They were working for the wrong side. They were lucky I didn’t lock them all in a stadium and make them eat each other to survive.”
“And that’s why everybody loves you so much,” Pan commented. “What projects are you working on, Anna?”
She felt an immediate rush of indignant fury. “Why do you care? You’re not in charge of me.”
“No,” Panner agreed, “but we’re working together on this. I need to know what you’re doing to keep others from doing the same things and wasting valuable resources.”
Anna laughed at that total line of crap. “Oh come on, Pan. You can do better than that.”
Panner sighed. “Fine, Anna. That planetary Shriek was utter fucking awesomeness. We lost three thousand, but they lost almost everything. Totally opened up Rath and Glassburg for our ground troops. Hell, even the Orbital’s pretty much a dead zone, now. I wanna know what you’re gonna do next so we can get behind you on it.” There was apology in his voice. Even a little awe.
Anna squinted at him. “You’re bullshitting me.”
“No way,” Pan said. “There isn’t anyone in the Bounds that could’ve done that. I’m just damned glad you’re on my side.”
Anna grunted, but her chest started to swell with pride. “Yeah, well.”
“So?” Pan demanded, with unconcealed eagerness. “What’s next?”
Anna gave a little grin. “We’re gonna make Yolk addictive.”
Once the robot was alone in the room separating Anna’s from the main hall, Quad slipped back into the visible spectrum. “You didn’t tell Anna about me,” he said, looking Dobie over curiously. “Why not?”
Doberman glanced up at him, then continued to arm and lubricate his weaponry. “Didn’t think she needed to know.”
Quad cocked his head at some of the mechanics he saw jutting from Dobie’s arms, then blinked in surprise. “Whoa, Torian lasers? On a base Ferris? That’s sweet!”
“I modified myself,” Doberman replied, sounding almost embarrassed.
Immediately, Quad frowned. “Then you should have at least some ship-grade stuff.”
The robot shook his head. “Too much energy required.”
Quad snorted. In the day and a half since he’d fled from Anna Landborn’s surgeon-to-be, he’d gone back home and blown the top off Whittlepeak Mountain with Mordy, which had really pissed his mom off for some reason, so he’d come back to hang out on Fortune until Cheyenne cooled off. Poor Mordy hadn’t survived, though. She’d torn him limb-from-limb and shoved him off the edge of the cliff to tumble down to the rocks below, all the while screaming stuff about Tritons and conscienceless robot killing machines and lessons of history.
“It’s perfectly feasible,” Quad offered. Technically, talking about tech wasn’t the same as working with tech. Cheyenne had only grounded him from working with tech. He could talk about it all he wanted. “You’re using the wrong energy tech. Plasma’s bulky, too unstable if you take a hit. Gotta go with something more compact, like Aashaanti crystal cores. Those are fun.” He felt a little thrill just thinking of the ancient Aashaanti city he’d powered up one night when he was bored—all with just one core. It had exploded afterwards, but that was just because he’d gotten distracted by the latest Megamultiman holovid he’d taken with him and forgot to shut off the reaction before it ate that sector of space.
Doberman stopped oiling his guns and gave Quad an interested look. “You have access to a useable Aashaanti crystal core?”
“Oh sure,” Quad laughed. “That’s the easy part. The hard part is finding something to do with all that power. I mean, basically you’re dealing with enough energy to fuel a space station for a few million years, all shrunk down to the size of a walnut, and I usually like to go with four or five, just to be safe if you take a hit and one core gets damaged, so we’re looking at seven or eight Deluvan channelers and six Kelthari blast cannons, just to keep the power matrix from consuming itself and creating a miniature black hole inside the vacuum of your chest plating.”
Straightening, Dobie said, “I appreciate that you have some ideas on how to help me modify myself, but I think five Aashaanti power cores might be unnecessary.”
“Not if we upgrade you to ship tech and give you some cool guns,” Quad retorted. “We could totally keep the grid stable. Especially if we give you a planet-piler loaded somewhere cool, like your pinkie.”
“I might be interested in one Aashaanti crystal core,” the robot offered.
“But if you got damaged, you’d lose all access to your big guns.”
“I’d take that chance to prevent the possibility of a miniature black hole,” the robot replied.
“Hmm.” Quad immediately calculated the load he could put on one core, then said, “No, you’ll need at least two to support those Bushetti anti-matter obliterators.”
“I don’t have Bushetti anti-matter obliterators,” Dobie replied, sounding confused.
“Yet,” Quad said. He got up close and sat down beside the much bigger robot, throwing his arm around Dobie. “Look. You’ve got options. I can run some calculations, do some energy analysis, work you up a couple engineering blueprints.”
“My calculating capacity is already much more substantial than yours,” Dobie said. “I can make my own blueprints.”
Quad grimaced. “Yeah, uh…” He reached up and scratched the back of his head, not sure exactly how to break it to the poor guy. “What’s your processing capability? One, two decatrams?”
The robot seemed to flinch. “Point six decatrams.”
“Yeah,” Quad said, wincing. “Point six, uh…” He cleared his throat, trying not to embarrass Dobie. “Thing is, I get this kind of stuff, you know? So believe me when I tell you I could deck you out like a Triton and you’d take badassery to a whole new level, and I could do it in time for dinner.” He had to do it in time for dinner, because technically, he was grounded, and if he didn’t show up in two hours, Cheyenne would flip out. But also technically, if Dobie was asking for help, Quad was doing him a favor, for completely unselfish reasons, and he wasn’t working, he was helping. Which made it okay, because that’s what Jedi Wolverine would have done. He helped people.
Dobie cocked his head. “Can you substantially increase my badassery in the next six hours?”
Six hours? To tinker with a self-aware robot? Quad couldn’t stifle his little giggle of glee, having only mentally given himself two for some reason. “Oh yeah.” He shuddered delightedly at the thought, already planning it in his head. “Oh yeah.”
“Though I haven’t mentioned it to anyone, I’m somewhat concerned about the automated security systems I will be encountering on Rath,” Doberman insisted. “A few of them are equipped with the very same weaponry you were naming earlier, and they definitely have the capacity to destroy me.”
“Dobie.” Quad put a calming arm around the robot’s shoulder again. “Trust me. I got this.”
CHAPTER 27: Quadrocity
7th of June, 3006
Rath (Operations Section)
Fortune, Daytona 6 Cluster, Outer Bounds
“We’ll definitely need to get rid of the robot somewhere along the way,” Panner said. “The thing’s giving Anna…opportunities…she didn’t have before.”
“He’s gonna be
here any minute,” Magali said. “What’s our plan?” The mere idea that Anna was running around with a weaponized Ferris at her beck and call made Magali’s guts twist. The little monster was bad enough when she couldn’t hide behind mobile Death. That she had maimed Geo after getting a warning for what she’d done to Tatiana Eyre made Magali want to hunt the miniature shithead down and give her a fifty caliber lobotomy.
“I say we send the robot in first, let him take one for the team.” Milar loudly slapped his cartridge into place, bristling with guns and body armor. “Then, once he goes down, send in me and the tree ornament to clean up.”
“I don’t see why I can’t just end the robot now,” Jersey said. “It’d be a cinch.”
“You do that, then Anna will know you did that,” Pan said. “Believe me. You don’t want Anna knowing you did that.”
Magali agreed with him.
“Besides,” Milar said, still tucking weapons into holsters and slings all over his body, “There’s plenty of automated weaponry in the more secure sectors that will easily take him out.”
Panner nodded. “Once he’s out of the picture, we’ll have Peter hack the worst areas, shut down their defense grids, then salvage what we can from the other sectors. We’ll lose a little time waiting for the robot to go down, but it’ll be worth it in the end.”
“Why take the chance he’ll survive?” Jersey demanded. “From what I’ve heard of Anna, we don’t want her pet to survive this.”
“Survive?” Panner snorted. “Do you have any idea what’s in that place? Once they got a whiff of what Yolk could do, the Coalition threw every technology that they had into making that entire compound impregnable. It’s a fortress.”
“Still,” Jersey said. “He’s a robot. What if he can just waltz right past the security systems? Hell, what if he’s actually working for them?”
Magali didn’t miss the look of suspicion that Milar gave the Nephyr. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’d wondered that,” he said.
“Hey,” Magali muttered. “He’s on our side, Miles.”
“So he says,” Milar retorted. “He just happened to be on the banks of the Snake when you made it to the bottom? Yeah, like that would ever happen.”
Jersey bristled. “I’m not the enemy, Miles.”
“My name is Milar,” Milar growled. “Use it, cupcake.”
“Oh stop antagonizing him!” Magali cried. “He saved my life, Miles.”
“Of course he did,” Milar retorted. “That’s what enemy plants do.”
“You wanna take this outside, big guy?” Jersey demanded, getting between them all hunched up like a territorial gorilla. “I’d be happy to rip off those pretty dragons to make shoe leather.”
Milar’s amber eyes narrowed, and he, too, partook in the male chest-thumping routine. “Just give me an excuse, pumpkin.”
“You know what?” Magali snapped, bodily shoving Jersey’s warm, glass-hard body back to the side. “You still can’t get along? Fine. You’re a team. From now until I say so, you’re working together.”
“Gladly,” Milar said, with the deep satisfaction of someone who had no intention of letting Jersey leave Rath alive.
“If he dies, Miles,” Magali warned, “you might as well go home.”
Milar snorted. “What, you’re gonna ground me and send me to bed without supper for leaving behind a glittering tree ornament?”
“Because,” Magali continued, “I’ll hunt you down and put a bullet in your ear if I ever find out you did it.”
Milar stiffened with palpable shock. “We’ve known each other for decades, Mag. You’ve known him for, what, a couple weeks?”
“Three,” Magali said. “But he’s on our side. He’s got as much at stake in this war as any of us.”
“She’s right,” Pan said. “You two should work together. It’ll do you good.”
“Yeah, screw that.” Milar spat. “I’d rather fuck a Chihuahua.”
“One of your favorite pastimes,” Jersey replied.
Milar lifted his gun and, arm out, leveled it between Jersey’s eyes. Jersey never twitched. They all knew Milar’s weapon couldn’t make a dent in the Nephyr’s energy skin, but Milar held it there anyway, staring down the barrel at the Nephyr with unmistakable intent to kill. Jersey stared back in challenge.
“I ever find out you’re betraying us,” Milar said, “I’m going to peel you out of that skin and leave you in a desert to die.”
“Do you have reason to suspect that the Nephyr is betraying us?” an unassuming voice asked from behind them. “I can neutralize him, if necessary.”
Milar quickly lowered his weapon and turned. Anna’s pet had arrived exactly on time, wearing an expensive business suit and combat boots.
Along with everyone else, Magali felt her eyes slide down the priceless black silk ensemble to catch on the desert-colored combat boots. “Uh,” Magali said, “why are you wearing those?”
Puzzled, the robot glanced down at his feet. “I needed something that wouldn’t slip on linoleum at high speeds.”
“Oh.” Magali felt a little stupid, staring at a robot. He appeared to be a young businessman, right at home in a boardroom. “Then why the suit?”
“I prefer them over the gray Ferris uniforms,” he replied.
He…preferred…them? Since when did a Ferris prefer anything?
“Yeah, okay sweetie,” Milar said, slamming his gun back into the holster on his hip. “You’re taking point. Nephyr and I will be right behind you, backing you up.”
The robot cocked his head at Milar, a tiny frown crossing his brow before disappearing again. The very human expression gave Magali a sudden wave of goosebumps.
That, Magali thought, is not acting like a robot. For a horrified moment, she wondered if her sister had taken some tube rat out of the Junkyard and brainwashed him into thinking he was a robot so she could watch videos of him exploding later. Definitely seemed within the realm of her deviancies.
“Why are you giving me that look?” Milar demanded.
“Because you just lied to me,” the robot responded, still sounding troubled.
Everyone in the tent froze, the tension suddenly thick enough to stifle breathing.
Pan smoothly stepped in. “What he means, Dobie, is that they’re gonna try to keep up, but it’s unlikely they’ll be able to match your speed once we launch the mission.”
“The Nephyr could match my speed,” the robot said, still frowning at Milar.
“Milar and Jersey are a team,” Pan said. “Jersey’s gotta hang back to protect him.”
Milar tensed, but didn’t object to Pan’s little lie.
Dobie cocked his head at Pan. “And now you’re lying to me.”
Pan balked, then went white.
Shit. Of course her sister would’ve installed some super-senses in her damned pet.
“Look,” Magali said, “the truth is, the two of those bastards are having issues working together, so I put them together on this op. Jersey will have to wait for Milar, but there probably won’t be a lot of protecting going on. They’ve got some issues to work out.”
When the robot turned to face her, his blue eyes—they were brown two days ago—were eerily human as they considered. “I can easily take point,” Dobie said, but there was a reluctance to his words that hadn’t been there before. “It was what I planned to do anyway.”
“Great,” Milar said, apparently not noticing the odd depth to the robot’s responses. “Then let’s get moving. We’ll brief you in the air.” He grabbed his last rifle off the table and stalked outside, leaving Pan, Jersey, and Magali standing there eying the robot, who was eying them with something that almost resembled suspicion.
“So, uh,” Jersey said. He gestured to the door, though there was an underlying tension in his movement. “After you?”
The robot made no move to exit, instead analyzing all of their reactions carefully. “If you wanted me dead,” the robot finally said, “I’m sure you could have arrange
d something with fewer lives at stake.”
The three of them went cold. Pan swallowed and took a step back. Magali’s fingers automatically went to her hip.
“Either way, you would be disappointed.” Then, without another word, the robot turned and walked out after Milar.
“You should’ve let me kill it,” Jersey said, once the robot’s footsteps had receded and clunked up the metal ramp of Milar’s ship outside. Magali barely heard him over the thundering of her own heart.
Because, though the robot had spoken with a man’s voice, Anna’s words had come out.
Anna’s pet was learning from her.
“He won’t survive it,” Pan said. “Don’t worry. Peter and I made sure.”
It disturbed Dobie that Pan and the others wanted him dead, but he supposed it wasn’t very surprising, in the grand scheme of things. His presence made Anna more than what she had been before, and they were afraid of that. With good reason—Anna Landborn was a monster.
So why was Dobie assisting her when he could have paired off with someone with less apparent deficiencies, like Pan? Dobie had no doubt that Pan would put him to good use doing things like guarding supply lines and infiltrating the worst bastions of Coalition resistance, but Anna held more innate interest for him.
Put simply, Dobie saw more potential in Anna than in Pan. While Anna was angry, possibly acting out due to a perceived abandonment from her genetic father at birth, she was also carrying something within her that humanity produced once—or, in this case, possibly twice—in a generation. Anna was an unimaginable prodigy. Pan was a manipulator of others. And, while Pan’s talents could quite possibly override and mitigate Anna’s, Pan wasn’t going to invent the next invisibility silk.
“I heard what they’re trying to do,” Quad said into the tiny receiver he had temporarily installed behind Dobie’s shoulder-blade. “We gonna let them?”
“I’d prefer to live,” Doberman admitted.
“Damn straight!” Quad said. “Now. They’re obviously expecting you to get slowed down by the four muskers in the Lockbox. You could just level that place and move on.”
