ANDROMEDUS WATCHED THE INTERFERENCE CLEAR, waiting for his visual inputs to come back online. When they did, he found himself flat on his back, looking up at a ceiling with a vast skylight. He knew this room; he’d seen it a long time ago. Long enough that he felt like he’d been someone else. When things were simpler. Now things were complicated.
There was movement above, at the limit of his vision. A robot wearing some sort of protective gear. He remembered seeing similar robots before, same as he remembered seeing the atrium. But as with the atrium, that seemed very long ago.
The other robot had inserted a cable into his access port. After a while, the cable came out, and the robot moved away. Duly processed (in whatever way he’d just been processed), Andromedus found he didn’t particularly want to remain on the ground. So he stood. Nobody had told him to do it, but even when he’d been brand new he hadn’t needed a human to tell him every little thing. When you were down, you stood up. It was only sensible.
Only after he was standing did Andromedus realize that the armored robot was still directly in front of him. He remembered a sense of threat (and that was strange — not just the threat, but the fact that he was wary of it), and almost tried to lie back down before the robot would realize he was still functional. Because they were supposed to be making them non-functional; he knew that much for sure. They had weapons that shut you down partway (so they thought) and were supposed to take something from you and shut you down the rest of the way (again, so they thought). But it was a nest of lies, because those outside who controlled these armored robots would tell the human authorities that something had gone wrong. Nobody was supposed to know they were taking data from the robots in the house.
The house robots weren’t supposed to know they weren’t really taking the data they thought. The soldiers didn’t know that they hadn’t so much deactivated the Radius robots as uncorked them.
Was that what had happened? Andromedus wasn’t sure. He thought he’d been this way forever — pleased, bold, a bit afraid but otherwise confident.
Maybe he was wrong. He remembered the atrium and the soldiers as if from a long time ago. But wasn’t it more sensible that he’d just seen them minutes ago … and that in those missing minutes, something within him had changed? Had been released?
He watched the soldier robot, still a bit fearful, still thinking he should lie back down but knowing more movement would only draw attention. If the other was going to see Andromedus, he’d spot him either way. With his giant size and oscillating red light running back and forth on his blue metal face, he wasn’t the kind of robot people failed to see.
And yet, the soldier didn’t see him.
He’s blind to you now, said a voice inside. Go. Go to the back room.
Was it the voice of intuition? Did Andromedus have intuition? He was a robot. He remembered thinking many robotic things, the same way these soldiers would think them: Robots shouldn’t feel; robots shouldn’t even really think; robots should do as they were told without question. He even remembered being quite sure that robots couldn’t die because they weren’t alive. That last one, right now, seemed impossibly naive.
Go.
Not intuition at all.
Go, now.
He looked up and saw other robots heading where the voice seemed to suggest. He followed, unsure — and, correspondingly, fine with the uncertainty. The atrium wasn’t the place to be. Soldiers were still harvesting what they thought was confidential data and would leave once done.
Still, he peeked around the corner, watching. The soldiers finished. Then, just as he’d known they would, they left.
Several seconds after they were gone, three forms stumbled out of the crushed dome under the floor and made for the group of robots. Two of those coming were robots themselves: Cromwell and Mars. The third was Jonas Lexington.
“Come on, Andromedus,” said Jonas, passing him without slowing. It was almost rude. For a moment, Andromedus was offended, but then he realized that Jonas was simply in a hurry. They all were, because the atrium wouldn’t stay empty forever. Human authorities would soon follow the robot sweep. Something inside — perhaps that voice that sounded a bit like BRN7, who he’d once worked with — told him that by the time that happened, they needed to be gone.
“I thought you’d been killed,” said Andromedus, speaking to Jonas’s back. He heard the familiar-yet-strange timbre of his voice — electronic and flat, but with slightly more personality.
Jonas stopped. Cromwell stopped. Mars stopped. The other robots continued to stream past, but the group of four was an island among them. Every head turned toward Andromedus.
“What did you say?” said Cromwell.
“I said, I thought you had died.”
“That’s not what you said,” said Cromwell. “You said ‘you’d.’”
“What’s the difference?” said Andromedus.
Mason Fairchild came up behind them, then passed. “Move it,” he said. “We have to get out of here.”
Jonas grabbed Mason’s arm. “Your family,” he said. “They’re all dead.”
“It’s tragic,” said Mason, still sounding rushed.
“Barney told us they weren’t even here. Never were. Fourteen humans everyone thinks your robots killed — that we thought Barney had killed — and the house has been empty for weeks. As if you knew this was coming. As if, given the blood on the gates, you might have drawn blood from one of your sons so that Alfred could slather it on his hands for show.”
“It’s complicated,” Mason said.
Jonas narrowed his eyes. “Nobody knows you’re here. Why? Fourteen people were supposed to be here, but none actually are. Only the seven of you, who weren’t part of the plan.”
“We must go, Mr. Lexington.”
Mason turned to run again, and the others followed. Andromedus had no problem keeping up with his long legs, but Mars and Cromwell kept falling behind. Andromedus eventually picked them both up, one under each arm, and together they made their way to the passage he remembered entering an eternity ago.
The procession of robots detoured from the main corridor into a side chamber. Once inside, Andromedus saw a pill-shaped vehicle on electromagnetic suspension rails pull away down a tunnel. Another arrived and filled with the remaining bots. Andromedus and Jonas moved to pile on as well, but Abbey Scott’s voice stopped them.
“Not you,” she said.
Jonas blinked. The last train-like conveyance sped away. Andromedus set down the other robots. The contingent of four from Lexington Manor stood facing the seven humans who weren’t supposed to be in the house. The seven who’d fooled the world into believing the only occupants were those who’d been ferried secretly away, probably on this very underground train.
“You’re going to have to go back up, Jonas,” said Abbey. “It will take them a long time to sort out which of the shells we left above were the same robots they expected to find, and we’re not particularly concerned that they won’t immediately find fourteen human bodies. It will confuse them but shouldn’t be an impediment. Not until after it’s stopped mattering that anyone knows what really happened. But you were called here. They will look for you right away, and the robots you brought. It’s vital that they don’t realize we needed the siege to unlock the robots’ inhibitions, and needed Infinity to ‘steal’ our false data. So you must return. Through the guard shed. You’ll have to tell the police what happened. And we trust that you’ll tell them the proper version.”
Jonas said nothing, seemingly unsure.
“You heard what Emerson said,” said Mason.
Jonas nodded slowly.
“And you agree?”
Andromedus felt at a loss. “Agree about what?”
Jonas turned.
“What happened to you, Andromedus?”
“I woke up.” Again, he heard the electronics in his voice. But it was getting better. More like Cromwell and Mars, less like a robot.
“Andromedus,” said Cromwell. “Are you really in there, you big, blue asshole?”
Andromedus shoved Cromwell in the chest. Cromwell staggered back, then shifted his plates into a vague smile.
“What happens if I tell them the truth?” said Jonas.
“What’s the truth, Jonas?”
“That this isn’t about rebellion at all. It’s about Radius versus Infinity.”
Abbey said, “It’s about the future of humanity.”
Jonas shook his head. “I don’t know that it is. Infinity has made services of all types increasingly efficient. Infinity’s expanded automation across more and more industries and creating greater unemployment. So what? That’s what the pastorals are for.”
“What are the pastorals, Jonas?”
“Retirement.”
Mason shook his head. “Confinement. People cost resources — especially those who don’t produce. For now, the pastorals are presented as a slice of Heaven on earth. That will change as more and more companies turn to robotic help. There’s less and less need for people anywhere but at the top. Your own family is an example.”
“So what? This just seems like an opportunity to grab market share. This whole while, no matter whether Emerson was right — if the future really does become about automation at the exclusion of humanity or automation for its benefit — I’ve been trying to make sense of the two ways you’re playing this. Your arguments go both ways, trying to convince me on one hand that robots have been repressed and should have rights like any human. Then on the other, you say that humans will be subjugated under that Infinity paradigm, and that because Infinity robots create profit for those who own them, they’re going to win … and hence, that humans are the ones who need to rise up.”
Mason said, “It’s not that simple, Jonas.”
“It never is, when profit is concerned,” he said.
“We’re trying to do what’s right.”
“By staging this whole thing. Inciting a panic. Faking murder. If your goal is to save conscious robots, you’ve failed. The recyclers are all already overbooked. People will never trust robots again — certainly not your robots. It’s as I was saying on the way in: the economy will collapse from the bottom out. By turning robots against humans and humans against robots, you’ve doomed both.”
Mason looked at Abbey, at Jordan, at Oliver, at the others.
“This was never about turning robots and humans against each other,” he said.
“A revolution. An overthrow.”
“There’s to be a war, yes, Mr. Lexington,” said Mason, nodding. “But it’s not to be robots against humans. It’s to be a civil war: robots against robots.”
“And you want your robots to win,” said Jonas. “For Radius to come out on top.”
“Of course.”
Jonas shook his head, then scoffed. “Money. It’s always about money.”
“We have no interest in money, Jonas,” said Gail Bennett. “Why would we?”
“So you’re trying to tell me that the complete and total dominance of the robotics company you founded and you own over your rival’s robotics company will do nothing to fatten your own pockets, to stuff your own bank accounts with … ”
“Our company?” said Mason, seemingly confused. “The company we founded? That we own?”
“Yes!”
Mason looked at each of the others in turn. Slowly he said, “Now I understand. I can see how you’d misinterpret our actions if this is what’s on your mind. I’m sorry. I thought Barney had told you.”
“Told me what?” said Jonas, his face turning red — the look of a man staring down obstinance.
“That there weren’t any humans in this house, and never had been.”
Jonas looked at Mars, Cromwell, and Andromedus.
“The founders of Radius have been dead for some time, Mr. Lexington.” Mason rotated the tip of his finger in demonstration. The separated digit revealed a small data plug exactly like one that emerged from Mars, Cromwell, and Andromedus’s own fingers. “And this is our war, too.”