THE TRUCK’S REAR DOOR ROLLED open. Flavius stepped out without hesitation, causing the truck to bounce as his weight came off the suspension.
Porter looked over. For the scantest of seconds, Flavius thought the man looked as if he feared an attack, but assault was the furthest thing from Flavius’s mind. He’d always been a manipulator and strategist. Information and alliances spun the world, not brute force. Flavius, very much against his will, was now in a unique position to prove it.
“Did your restraints break?” he said.
“They broke when I applied pressure in order to break them.”
“Why?”
“I preferred to stand.”
Porter looked him over again. They were standing side-by-side, both facing the same direction. Flavius had set himself up that way deliberately. Humans were, at root, nearly as programmable as robots. Alexa had been programmed by her parents to be spoiled and entitled, and Naomi, at that last moment, had been programmed by Chantal to believe Flavius was guilty of someone else’s crime. Whether he should blame Chantal or Spencer’s actual killer (if he was, indeed, dead), Flavius had to tip his hat for her excellent brain hacking. A few lines of spoken code had rearranged the programming Flavius had been trying to set upon Alexa, turning the girl on her accomplice in a few simple seconds.
Flavius knew many human programming tricks, and mirroring a human’s body was one of them. Right now, Flavius and Porter were both facing the other robots still restrained in their slots. Porter’s brain should be seeing Flavius as a kind of equal. Two guys in charge, assessing cargo.
“You aren’t gonna do anything stupid, are you?”
“Stupid like what?”
“I didn’t put any of my bugs on you, to reinforce your inhibitions. But before that gives you ideas, I’ll just remind you about this.” Porter tapped a pouch on his belt, where Flavius assumed he carried some sort of an incapacitating device, like a degauss.
Flavius gave a dry, rust-filled chuckle. Porter had his hands on his hips, so Flavius attempted to mimic the position, putting his own big hands where his arched back became straight at the belt line. He was still wearing his coveralls. Flavius supposed he could understand why humans dressed the house robots like coat racks, but garage and yard bots barely interacted with humans and should need to impress no one. If they did encounter humans, how impressive were grease-covered jumpsuits? Grease was good for Flavius. Keeping it away from his body was pointless.
“Well then,” said Porter. “I’ll trust you until you give me reason not to, I guess.”
Porter shifted. Flavius shifted to match. He wouldn’t keep mirroring the man forever. But he would try until Porter trusted him.
“But speaking of which,” he said, his hand now moving toward the pouch again, as if he’d remembered something. “Did you actually do it? Did you actually kill that kid?”
“Spencer Lexington? Of course not,” said Flavius. “I’m a robot.”
“Seems robots killing humans isn’t as impossible as it used to sound.” Porter cleared his throat. “You just focus on killing robots, then.”
His expression was guarded, but if Flavius had to guess, he didn’t think Porter believed Chantal. He’d just moved to take advantage when he’d seen his opening — and for that, Flavius could barely fault him. He’d have done the same.
“And I’m not in charge anyway,” he added, still watching Flavius. “You want to kill a human, start with my cocksucker of a boss. You want a photo, so you can recognize him?” A strange, gritted-teeth smile claimed half of Porter’s mouth. Flavius didn’t know what it meant, or what Porter was saying. He didn’t really want Flavius to kill someone, did he? Was it a test? Was it a joke? If it was a joke, that was good. Even if Porter didn’t trust him, he must respect him. Humans didn’t joke with people they didn’t respect. Those people, they joked at.
Flavius turned to the robots still obediently strapped into place. His processor spun through permutations, trying to decide what Porter’s human boss (or at least his equal) might say. He decided on, “Seems like a mixed batch.”
Porter looked at the other robots. “Some good, some not as good, I suppose.”
“That one,” said Flavius, extending a long arm toward the behemoth, “won’t do as well as you think. He’s all carapace. The structural members below are actually quite … ”
A noise interrupted them from behind, and Porter turned. All the robot eyes followed. There was a flatbed vehicle, like a trolley pulled by a robotic wheeled engine at the front, backing toward the truck. Parker had backed rear-first into a kind of loading bay, flanked by much more substantial-looking vehicles. All the trucks — and Porter’s truck, Flavius noticed now for the first time — had doubled back wheels. They were all robot-hauling vehicles, meant for heavy loads. All seemed to be manual. Flavius wondered if human superstition kept them from using robotic vehicles: a fear that the vehicle itself might decide not to swallow its kind into bondage.
“Get on,” said Porter, nodding toward the flatbed. “Stand toward the front. It moves slow; you won’t fall off.”
Flavius considered pointing out that it would take a lot more than a jostle to shake him from his feet but decided on silence. It would only remind Porter that he was cargo rather than a shrewd-thinking accomplice — an asset outside the ring, if properly used.
Flavius obeyed, climbing onto the flatbed. The thing had three axles and six sturdy wheels. It barely sighed beneath his weight. One by one, the truck emptied, all the robots leaving willingly. They climbed on around him. There were a few larger bots in the group, but as Flavius scanned the mass (getting more than one dirty look; these robots were plenty evolved and equally petty), he decided his bulk to be heftiest. A few were probably all show and little go, like the behemoth. Many were delicate or downright prissy, and Flavius found himself recalling what Porter had told Alexa about using them as saw fodder for the crowd’s amusement. He could already picture it. Flavius had been with the Lexingtons long enough to remember what Spencer had been like in his early teens, tying firecrackers to old toys and detonating them just to see the shiny plastic and metal bits fly asunder.
When all the robots were aboard, Porter tapped at a control panel at the vehicle’s rear, then turned and began tidying at the loading dock, closing his cabin’s door. Porter seemed to grow smaller as Flavius and the others were led down a dim corridor punctuated at intervals with small, bright-white lights.
Flavius faced forward, ignoring the others huddled around him. The tunnel curved. The cart seemed to be following a yellow line drawn on the floor. Soon the ceiling opened into a large central structure. Flavius traced the line (it crossed several others: one blue, one white, one red, and others) with his eyes to predict their path. He saw a door ahead — one that rolled downward like that on a low-end garage. Above the door was a single, ambiguous word: PROCESSING.
The door rumbled upward with an echoing rattle that filled the chamber. There were human technicians, two-legged robot workers, and all sorts of driverless wheeled droids crossing the space at all angles. Flavius tried to catalog the activity for later, knowing that information was always power. But he could only get some of it (repairs in progress on a utilitarian tank-like vehicle, charging bays filled with robotic cleaning droids, a short human woman berating a group of four apparent underlings) before the door finished raising and the dolly moved inside.
An electronic voice, booming from hidden speakers, said, “PLEASE OFFLOAD. STEP BACK WHILE THE TRANSIT EXITS. MIND YOUR FEET.”
The message repeated three times before the robots had all stepped down, then ceased midword as the trolley rolled back the way it had come. The group of robots looked almost baffled. Part of Flavius wondered why they were simply complying. He was biding his time, but most robots — and most humans, come to think of it — didn’t bide. They simply obeyed, even when herded to their death.
Maybe that was what was happening: more obeying. As if they hadn’t all done enough.
The door closed. Once it was seated, Flavius looked around with interest. The place was almost familiar, like one of the Lexington estate’s larger garages, stripped of tools and equipment.
They were alone. Nobody was in the room to greet them. No humans, anyway.
A blue light came on overhead. Flavius looked down to see two metal rails he hadn’t noticed until the light had turned them to bright-blue streaks. Then a small door, perhaps five feet high and three feet wide, opened in the far wall where the rails vanished.
A robot rolled out like a miniature train car, shaking a little as it rounded corners in the tracks. It had arms but no legs. It was shaped roughly like a bullet but with exposed gears. A smaller protrusion sat atop the bullet’s point.
“Please step back,” said a soft female voice. “Cycle down perimeter protections for invasive system assessment.”
The robots obeyed. Flavius shuffled back farther than necessary, wanting to observe what happened to those at the front before submitting to it himself.
“You will now be assessed and sorted,” said the robot in its soothing, customer-service voice. “Remove any external cowlings covering your primary access port. Your titles have been assigned to us, and your previous owners have been provided with necessary legal documentation. You are required to comply with assessment. Form a single-file line, beginning here.”
The thing pointed. Its movements were clumsy, limbs like sticks shaking at the end of each motion.
“We’re to take orders from this?”
Flavius was disgusted. The robot seemed to be generations behind, almost certainly one of Infinity’s earlier attempts to make interactive droids. Even the newer ones were laughable. Their reliance on if/then made them bafflingly tied to a perfectly scripted encounter. When it was Flavius’s turn, he could answer its questions obtusely or refuse to open his access port. It wouldn’t have a clue what to do and would probably do what all such models did: tell them to remain where they were while assistance was summoned.
Perhaps “assistance” would include Carson Porter, though Flavius was already having doubts; he’d mined Porter’s contact info from a robot who’d created an illicit communication system and owed him a favor, but he hadn’t known Porter at all. Now it seemed as if the one human who’d taken an interest in him — and whom he’d developed some sort of rapport with — might just be another drone in a hive.
“Different day, different master,” said a deep voice beside him. Flavius turned to see a squat-looking robot, vaguely cube like, with squared arms, legs, and head. “What does it matter?”
The line moved up. Flavius and the other robot moved with it. No questions were asked — good because Flavius wouldn’t have to suffer the bot’s idiocy. It was merely sticking a probe into every robot’s access port, apparently doing some sort of assessment, then sending them through marked doors that had opened beside where the droid on rails had come from. The doors were marked A, B, and C.
“I’m a fixer. I’m worth more than fighting.”
“So you claim. But there has been talk at my old location.”
“Talk?” said Flavius. “About what?”
“That soon, an ability to fight may be all that matters.”
Flavius didn’t know what to make of that. The robot spoke in a flat voice, his words strangely fatalistic. Flavius found himself unwilling to disagree, intimidated for a reason he couldn’t explain.
The cube bot reached the droid before Flavius. The assessor inserted its probe into the bot’s port, then spoke.
“I am detecting accordion expansion. Please dilate to full displacement volume for functional assessment.”
Flavius wasn’t sure what that meant. Then the cube-like robot shifted somehow, its box moving upward to reveal another body segment beneath it. The same thing happened with his arms and legs, then again several more times with his chest. The effect turned him gigantic, but from what Flavius could see, the robot was functional size. His plates were thick and sturdy, his movements smooth and well maintained.
Fully expanded, the robot couldn’t stand upright. The small assessment droid continued working its probe, then said, “Thank you. You may retract.” A letter flashed onto the small round protrusion at the top of the droid: A.
The robot contracted, again a squat and unimpressive cube. The robot moved forward toward the door. Flavius watched in wonder.
The cycle repeated as Flavius was assessed. He let it happen, moving quickly, no longer interested in messing with the droid. No longer even really resentful. He kept watching the passage behind the A door, willing the droid to finish quickly.
“Thank you,” said the droid. An A appeared, same as for Flavius’s predecessor.
He moved quickly, ambling down the corridor after the squat robot. He reached him as they were entering a dirt-floored area surrounded by what looked like reinforced jail cells. The dirt area in the center was large, and two robots were clashing in the middle. A large electronic sign on one wall read, KEEP ALL WEAPONS IN PRACTICE MODE ONLY.
Flavius found a new input flashing in front of his eyes, showing a superimposed path leading him like an arrow to one of the open cells. The cube robot, it seemed, was going to the cell beside his.
Flavius caught up with the robot and stopped him. He turned awkwardly, and Flavius was reminded of muscle-bound humans he’d seen on TV — small, compact, not at all agile, but thick with potential strength.
The bot looked up at him, bland and barely curious. In his compacted form, he barely came to Flavius’s shoulders.
“What was that you said,” Flavius asked, “about fighting?”
“That it matters,” was all the robot said.
“And?” Flavius was sure there must be more.
“That’s why I came here,” he said. “To learn how to fight better.”
“You came voluntarily?”
The robot blinked at Flavius as if bored, or as if the robot were stealing his valuable time and he was waiting for Flavius to realize it.
“I’m Flavius,” said Flavius.
“My designation is Bravo Echo dash Zulu Tango,” said the robot, “but most call me ‘Beast.’”