Time Was

by Steve Perry

  “Just a little something to make you sleep for a bit,” replied Janus, pushing Preston’s head to the side and sinking the needle into his neck. “Not that I don’t trust you, Sammy-Boy, but I didn’t survive this long by playing longshots. I need to make sure there’s sufficient time for my dramatic getaway.”

  A pleasant numbness began to envelope Preston. “But you disconnected the alarm . . .”

  Janus removed the needle and tossed the syringe into Preston’s wastebasket. “I disconnected one of your alarms.” He leaned close, whispering into Preston’s ear. “Did you think I wouldn’t know you’d have at least three alarms in here? It just made sense that you’d go for the one nearest you.” He reached up and gently closed Preston’s eyes. “I’m sorry you’re so sick, Sammy-Boy. Pleasant dreams.”

  But Preston was already unconscious.

  Janus patted him on the head like a parent would a sleeping child, then turned off the desk lamp, plunging the office back into darkness.

  45

  * * *

  Zac Robillard awoke from a blessedly dreamless sleep feeling a tad hungover, but the headache was gone, gone, gone, and for that he was thankful.

  He sat up on the bed and flung his feet over the side, letting the coldness of the floor enter his body.

  He stared down at his naked feet.

  Who’d taken off his shoes and socks?

  Probably Killaine, he thought.

  Hopefully, she didn’t get too good a whiff when she removed the socks.

  He rubbed his eyes, stood up, and took a deep breath, getting a noseful of heaven.

  Someone was cooking up something tasty in the kitchen.

  He made his way downstairs.

  The I-Bots were busy setting the table for breakfast/lunch/dinner—he wasn’t sure which until he checked his watch.

  Seven-fifteen P.M.

  Wow.

  “What smells so good?” he asked as came into the dining area.

  “Chicken Korma,” said Itazura.

  Zac looked at the I-Bots; all five of them were busy with the table.

  “Who’s cooking?”

  Itazura smiled, a mischievous glint in his eyes, and pointed into the kitchen behind Zac, who turned to see a sight to end all sights.

  Singer, adorned in a floral-patterned apron, slaving over a hot stove.

  He even had a splash of flour on his face.

  Hope you’re hungry, he signed to Zac.

  “I never knew you could cook.”

  You never asked.

  “You’ve got me there.”

  Radiant breezed by with a pitcher of iced tea, stopping only long enough to plant a short, sweet kiss on Zac’s cheek. “Nice to see you’re feeling better.”

  Then she was gone.

  Itazura pulled out the chair at the head of the table and gestured for Zac to take a seat. “We’ve got Oysters Rockefeller for the appetizer, Salad Niçoise, and, for dessert, a sumptuous and sinfully fattening Chocolate Gateau.”

  “I can almost hear my arteries hardening.”

  “Your seat, sir.”

  Zac sat down, silently thinking that all of them seemed quite cheerful.

  Maybe a little too cheerful.

  Put the paranoia in park for tonight, he scolded himself. Enjoy this.

  “Nothing like a scene of domestic harmony, is there?” asked Itazura.

  “If you say so.”

  Itazura’s expression froze.

  Then Zac winked at him.

  “Don’t do that to me!” said Itazura. “For a minute there I was afraid you were in mortal danger of relaxing.” He headed back to the kitchen, looking for the salt and pepper.

  “Looks like it’s going to be a nice evening,” Zac called after him.

  “It will be.”

  Zac poured himself a glass of iced tea and looked into the kitchen.

  Saw Killaine helping Singer.

  Not only helping him, but talking to him.

  Even smiling.

  And he knew something was up, but decided not to spoil things by pressing them for details.

  They were a fine, loyal group.

  They would tell him eventually.

  “Hey,” shouted Itazura from the pantry, “whose butt do you have to kiss to get a little service around here?”

  “Put a sock in it,” said Radiant.

  “Wouldn’t that hurt?”

  At the table, Zac allowed himself a grin.

  It was nice to have a real family.

  46

  * * *

  “Nice of you to have me followed.”

  “Hello, Janus.” Annabelle admired her new nail polish, the exact color of just-spilled blood. “That was a damned rotten stunt you pulled at the airport.”

  “You had Simmons and two of your goons follow me, Annabelle. I took it a bit personally. I mean, after all, you and I seemed to have this trust thing going for us and you had to go and—”

  “Do you know how many favors I had to call in to get him out of this mess? You owe me for this one, Janus.”

  “You shouldn’t have had me followed.”

  “I have to—”

  “—protect your interests, yeah, yeah, yeah. When can I expect company?”

  “Bomb threats aren’t easy to dismiss, even for me with all my connections. It’ll be sometime early tomorrow morning before Simmons and the others are released.”

  “How’s he taking it?”

  “The humor eludes him, but I imagine he’ll offer you a tip of the hat for your ingenuity and foresight.”

  “What a guy.”

  Annabelle sighed. “Have you contacted Preston?”

  “Yes, we had a nice long chat.”

  “And?”

  “Did you know he’s dying?”

  Silence.

  “Annabelle?”

  “. . . no, I didn’t . . .” Her throat tightened so that her reply was barely a whisper.

  “Cancer. Too advanced for treatment.”

  “Damn.”

  A pause, then: “Are you okay?”

  “What does it matter?” She wrenched her mind back to business. “Did you find out where Robillard is?”

  “Yes and no.” He explained to her about the phone lines and the impossibility of a trace.

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Have you got a pen and paper handy?”

  She laughed. “I haven’t used pen and paper in years.”

  “Then power up your computer and get ready to do some typing. I’ve got quite a list of things I need by tomorrow morning.”

  “Weaponry?”

  “No, you’ve done a bang-up job in the arsenal department. I’m going to try something I haven’t attempted in a long time.”

  Annabelle pulled out her keyboard. “Damn, you actually sound excited.”

  “That surprises you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, maybe life still holds a few thrills for us yet.” He rattled off everything he would need, then asked her to repeat them back to him.

  “Can you have everything for me by tomorrow?”

  “Yes. How will I get them to you?”

  “Give everything to Simmons when you put him on the corporate jet. I’ll be waiting for him at the airport.”

  “I thought you didn’t like being followed.”

  “I don’t, but since you’ve sent Simmons and a set of hired guns, I might as well use them.”

  “I don’t know if Simmons will like taking orders from you.”

  “Simmons will do whatever you instruct him to do, including taking orders from me. Are we clear on this?”

  “Crystal.”

  “Fine. One more thing—you’re not going to be hearing from me for a couple of days, maybe several. The next time I contact you will be when I’m ready to make the endgame. So we have to get back to that trust thing.”

  Silence.

  “Well?”

  “All right, Janus, we do it your way.”
>
  “Wise decision. Oh, by the way, Preston’s probably going to contact you sometime in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants to propose a temporary partnership.”

  Annabelle laughed bitterly at the phrase. “Yes. Preston’s very skilled at those.”

  “I could have hurt him very badly, but I didn’t.”

  “How charitable of you.”

  “I think you should listen to what he has to say.”

  “I don’t recall having asked for your opinion.”

  “No, but you’ve got it, anyway. Gratis.”

  “You’re so noble.”

  “I get a lot of complaints about that.”

  “Janus?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t abuse my trust.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Is that Janus the Professional talking, or Janus my trusting compadré?”

  “Hard to say, Annabelle. Let’s play it by ear.”

  “Playing it by ear makes me very nervous.”

  “You’ll get over it.”

  Click.

  Annabelle set her phone carefully in its cradle, then rested her head in her hands.

  She would not cry.

  She promised herself that.

  And that’s when the first tear hit the desktop.

  47

  * * *

  The Scrapper Camp was located in the center of a maze of alleys that marked the eastern boundary of Cemetery Ridge. There were four entrances into the maze, which also served as the way out—providing one knew one’s way well enough.

  Aside from these four entrances/exits, the only other way out of the maze was underground.

  Past the cement tunnel.

  Into the sewers.

  At 8:15 P.M., as the Scrappers were readying to move camp, Gash and the rest of the Silver Metal Stompers were blocking the four exits with large trucks they had stolen thirty minutes previously.

  Not that any of them expected that the trucks would hold back a surging mass of robots, but it damn sure would slow them down, and that’s all they wanted.

  Once the trucks were in place, Gash flipped open his cell phone. “Everything in place?”

  “All the exits are blocked off.”

  “Any sign of that little shit Rudy?”

  “None.”

  “Spread the word—if he shows, don’t touch him. I want him for myself.”

  “Right.”

  Gash checked his arsenal; two buzzblades, a fully charged electron gun, a handheld ShellBlaster, a bolt-shearer, three grenades, and a small one-burst flamethrower.

  And, of course, his cherished samurai sword, nestled safely in its hinged sheath hanging from his back.

  With all the death Gash carried, there were other Stompers who carried even more. A lot of firepower—and their targets couldn’t fight back. It was gonna be total carnage. Life was good.

  Time to cause some serious Wreckage.

  He looked at the other Stompers who were with him and smiled.

  Then spoke into his cell phone.

  “Party time.”

  And the Stompers began moving in.

  The first explosion took the Scrappers by surprise.

  The second one finished off four of them.

  By the time one of the Stompers had fired the third Shell-Blaster into the middle of the camp, the Scrappers were on their feet and moving.

  The Stompers fell on them from all four directions, a sea of destruction and shadows and howling violence.

  And the Scrappers, bound by their programming, could not fight back.

  So they did the only thing they could do under the circumstances.

  Began to run.

  Machine-gun fire erupted into the night as the Stompers, wielding everything from lead pipes to vials of acid, increased the carnage.

  * * *

  Singer had just begun to serve dessert when vibrations from the first explosion shook the building, rattling glassware, dishes, and windows.

  “What the hell was that?” said Zac.

  Killaine was already over by the window, looking out into the street. “It came from the direction of the Scrapper Camp.”

  Just then another explosion erupted in the distance.

  Then one more.

  “I see flames,” shouted Killaine, sprinting toward the cellar door.

  “Stomping Party,” snarled Itazura, running into the next room and pulling his samurai sword from the wall.

  By now all of the I-Bots were headed for their emergency weapon packs.

  The echo of rapid machine-gun fire grew louder.

  Constant.

  Closer.

  “They’re moving,” shouted Stonewall.

  “The sewers!” cried Zac. “They’ll head for the sewers.”

  Psy–4 flew past, a blur of flesh and weapons. “We’re already there.”

  They darted toward the cellar door and took the steps three at a time.

  “Singer, stay with Zac!” called Killaine from below.

  The robot stood next to Robillard, thought about it, then stood in front of him.

  In the cellar, Itazura ran to the center of his labyrinth, brushed away some of the soil to reveal the ringed handle underneath, and flung open the steel trapdoor.

  “Over there,” he snapped at Stonewall. “That switch, hit it.”

  Stonewall did, and the work lights in the sewer came on.

  Itazura swooped down onto the ladder, shouting, “The hell with it!” and kicked out, pushing himself away from the ladder and out into the air.

  It was a twenty-five foot drop from the top of the ladder to the muddy, filthy, stinking floor of the sewer; if Itazura had climbed down, it would have taken him almost thirty seconds.

  Freefalling took less than five.

  He landed with a loud thud!, feeling the pressure snap upward through his ankles, legs, and groin, then regained his balance, unsheathed his sword, pulled the StunShooter from his belt, and ran straight toward the noise.

  Psy–4 was next, then Killaine, Radiant, and Stonewall.

  All of them freefalling, slamming feetfirst into the muck, then running forward so fast it looked as if their legs had been pumping before they even touched down.

  From his hiding place, Rudy was startled from his sleep by the explosions.

  He jumped up, guns at the ready, and began stumbling around blindly.

  Then the work lights came on.

  Rudy found another spot under one of the metal catwalks and crouched there, out of sight.

  Something heavy was going down.

  Going down hard.

  He watched as the figures came jumping down from the ladder and ran past him.

  All of them were fast.

  And big.

  Even the redheaded bitch.

  But that wasn’t what shocked him; no, speed and anger, weapons and force didn’t phase him so much anymore.

  What scared him were their eyes.

  The work lights that had come on a few moments ago ran the length of most of the tunnel, but the area where the ladder emptied into sewer was mostly in shadows.

  When the first one had run past—the Asian dude with the long hair—Rudy was convinced that he was seeing things, that he wasn’t quite awake yet.

  When the second one came down, he was worried that he might have breathed in some kind of weird-ass sewer gas and damaged his brain.

  But when the redheaded bitch came down, he knew for sure that he wasn’t imagining anything.

  Just for a moment, as each hit the ground and were swallowed in shadow, he saw the bright, red, photoelectric glow of their eyes.

  Ohgodohgodohgod they’re robots! They look like human beings but they’re goddamn robots!

  Making certain that the five of them were long gone, Rudy slowly crept out from under the catwalk and bolted over to the ladder.

  Looking up, he saw how far they had dropped.

  Looking down, he saw the deep, de
ep indentations their weight had left in the muck.

  Robots.

  Coming down.

  From Up There.

  Robots.

  Including the redheaded bitch.

  Who’d been with DocScrap earlier.

  But DocScrap didn’t come down with them.

  So DocScrap was Up There.

  . . . and they weren’t going to be back for a while. Gash and the Stompers would give them a good fight, that was for sure.

  Shoving the pistols back into his belt, Rudy grabbed a metal rung and pulled himself up onto the ladder.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” he whispered.

  Itazura had been in enough violent confrontations over the years to know that the wilder he was, the more chances he took, and the more chances he took, the less his chances were of emerging on the far end of the fight unscathed. He knew this, he did, running at thirty miles an hour toward the sewer grate, he knew the dangers of going wild—

  —you know your programming, pal, remember that: You can immobilize a human being in order to help others, to keep them safe from harm, you can even seriously injure and cripple a human, if necessary, so long as doing so will serve the Greater Good, so be careful not to go—

  —wild now as he streaked toward the battlefield, leaping into the air and spinning his body around so his feet connected solidly with the grate and blasted the damn thing away from the concrete, sending it across the alley to slam into a group of Stompers and pinning them against a far wall with the sound of bones breaking under flesh.

  Itazura hit the ground running and threw himself into a crowd of Stompers, making quick work of their pitiful little weapons with nothing more than his hands and feet, scattering their unconscious forms like handfuls of dried leaves, and for a moment, as he stood there surrounded by still forms, he felt a rush equal parts exhilaration and disappointment because he was just getting warmed up, he was ready, bring it on, bring it on now, but there was no one and nothing at the moment to bring on and so he stood there, shaking from head to heel, a warrior without a war—

  —and he wondered then, as he always did at moments like this, if he or any of the I-Bots were capable of killing in battle, if Zac had modified their programming to such a degree that they could snuff out a human life for the sake of the Greater Good, but Zac never gave a straight answer to that question, so Itazura, for the moment still a warrior without a war, stood stone still and silent—