Sable was still hanging onto me like a child. I crouched a little so I was at eye level with her. “Listen, Sable. I need to tell you something. I think—I’m not sure, but I think—Nerimund might still be alive.”
Her eyes flicked up. She searched my face, as if she suspected I might be playing some cruel joke on her in her time of mourning. “What makes you think that?”
“I saw him. Out on the lawn. His statue, his wooden form. It was lying in the grass. Badly burned, but intact. And I could swear to you, I saw something happening… something… changing. Something alive.”
Sable didn’t smile. But the shift in her features spoke of that subtle fluctuation between despair and hope, like a sliver of light allowed into a pitch-black room. She sniffed, wiped her nose, and kissed me on the chin. “I hope you’re right. But how are we going to get out of this?”
I bit my lip, thinking. “Well, my original plan is out. Right, Chaz?”
Across the attic space, Chaz was tinkering with the pile of electronics, brushing aside pieces of broken glass to get to the components he needed. “These are all looking pretty shot, Mull,” he said. “I could rebuild this thing with a few parts from one of the robots. What do you think it would take to disable an automaton and bring it up here?”
“A miracle or two,” I said. “Would it have to be a Mark-Seven?”
“I don’t think so. Any model should work.”
“Chaz… I’m really sorry for getting those parts here in such bad shape. But if this is some kind of punishment—”
“It isn’t,” he said. “There are parts in the robots’ heads, the back panels, and the sensor arrays that should get us up and running.” He brushed his long black hair behind his ear and kept working.
I believed him. “Okay, so you’re saying if we want to take control of an entire unit of robots, we can do it by bringing down just one of them. That sounds like an incredibly poor design on Maclin’s part. How is it possible that they’re so vulnerable?”
“They’re not,” said Chaz. “Well, not really. The parts I need each have certain components I can use to make different parts. Parts that don’t do the same things they used to do.”
“Before I met you, I used to think being able to hotwire a hovertruck was a neat trick,” I said. “Well… bringing down one robot shouldn’t be too hard, right? Let’s pool our weapons together and see what we’ve got.”
The pile we made was unimpressive, to say the very most of it. One hand pulser, one revolver with four pulser rounds, and a laser pistol. Ezra had a few mods that could pass for weapons, but that wasn’t the case with Sable, Thorley, or Eliza. A Roathean biomechanic had removed their knife and cutlass augments before they went to prison. Blaylocke did have a flecker sword. But of course, he wasn’t around at the moment.
“These aren’t gonna do a thing to the robots,” I said, taking my weapons back. “We need something else. Something better.”
“Last night the commoners were knocking robots over in the streets just by pushing them down,” said Eliza, making one of her rare contributions. “The weight alone seemed enough to break them.”
“It’s one thing to knock them down while they’re standing still and programmed not to hurt you,” I said. “It’s another to deal with them when they’re in motion. When they can react.”
“When is the fleet set to arrive?” asked Max.
“Nightfall.”
“That only gives us a few hours…”
“Yeah, so we’d better get moving. First we’ve got to find Tom and Blaylocke. Show me the way through to the rest of the attic.”
They led me over to where the flooring ended. Beyond a section of bare wooden beams, I could see a slanted opening in the sidewall no bigger than the gap between the legs of a sawhorse. Thomas and Blaylocke had crawled along the beams, they explained, and shimmied through the opening on their stomachs, being careful not to put too much weight on the flimsy plaster panels. One slip-up and they might’ve fallen through to whatever room was below us.
“I’ll go find them,” I said. “And whatever’s been keeping them over there, I won’t let it prevent me from getting back.”
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” asked Thorley.
“Stay here and keep an eye on everyone. Chaz, you do the best you can with whichever of those parts aren’t ruined. If we do end up bringing down a robot, I need you to have that thing ready as quick as you can.”
Chaz nodded. “Kind of hard working up here without a light or my magnifiers. It’ll be slow going.”
“Chaz?”
“Yeah?”
“If you can’t do this, there’s no one in the world who can.”
I took off my yellow raincoat and lowered myself onto the beams, crawling along toward the small triangular opening. My left arm ached every time my hand came down on the wood. The skin around the laceration from the hood ornament was red and inflamed, the start of what might become a hideous infection if I didn’t have it treated. Rinsing it with poop-water probably hadn’t helped.
There were nails sticking down through the roof, so I had to stay close to the beams and keep my head low to avoid taking a sharp one to the cranium. When I neared the opening, I shone my eyelight ahead, hoping for a glimpse of whatever was beyond. Something was blocking my view, though. I crept closer.
The obstruction turned out to be just a slanted corner in the roofline. I couldn’t see anything until I’d gone far enough to stick my head through the opening and look to the left. The space beyond was cavernous. The roof came to a peak high above, splotches of old wood wet and rotting from rain and disrepair. Ancient discarded furniture, wall hangings, paintings, and tapestries stood on an island of plywood flooring in the middle of the room. Surrounding that island was another huge area of exposed beam, which was attached to the plaster ceiling of whatever room or rooms were below.
I squeezed through the opening and crawled down another lengthy section of beam before the roofline sloped away enough to let me stand. I made it to the island and immediately saw footprints in the dust, traces of Thomas and Blaylocke’s passing. Following them through the maze of rubbish, I came across a few things I was pretty sure were worth a few chips. If I’d been here to pull a heist, I might’ve just hit the mother lode.
Toward the center of the island was a trap door with a folding ladder, but since the dusty footsteps continued past this point I didn’t stop to open it. Gradually, the island narrowed until all that remained was a pathway of flooring between two crossbeams. This pathway rounded another corner in the roofline and ended at a door. Not another trap door, but an upright door, set into a wall and standing on its hinges.
Curious, I crept over and put my hand on the knob. I pressed my ear to the door, thinking that maybe as soon as I got the chance, I’d have some cochlear implants put in for just these sorts of occasions. I could hear the distant percussion of workers binding the palace’s exterior with cement reinforcements, but from beyond the door there was only silence.
The handle turned easily. I stepped back and put a hand on the wall to brace myself. The hinges squeaked, and I froze. After a few seconds, I leaned forward and squinted through the crack.
There was a long hallway with doors running down either side. Dim daylight glowed through a small window at the far end. A short way down the hall, the floor was missing. I couldn’t tell whether it had collapsed or been torn out. The splintery hole that was left revealed a similar hallway beneath this one. And in that hallway stood two robots.
They were as still as big dumb metal statues. They were facing my direction, and judging by their lack of movement, they had probably turned this way when the door squeaked. One more noise and they’d know I was here.
I paused for a moment, thinking. I looked around, up at the peaked roofline, down at the floor. I was pretty sure I could take them on if I had to. A place like this gave me certain advantages, even without a plethora of augments to help me. But I still hadn’t located Thomas or Blaylocke. I decided there was no getting around it; I wasn’t going any further until I’d found some way to deal with the robots.
Flinging the door open, I waved my arms and shouted, “Hey. Up here, you tin-headed freaks.”
They looked up, registered. Both automatons crouched down to launch themselves up at me. I slammed the door.
I bolted down the plywood path, then turned right before I reached the island and hopped off. My foot hit the first crossbeam, and I tottered in place for a stressful moment until I caught my balance. I swung my other leg and hopped to the second beam. I’d made it to the fourth by the time the first robot came crashing through the doorway.
Come on, you dummies. Take the bait.
They took the bait. The first robot didn’t seem to detect any difference between the covered flooring and the naked wooden crossbeams. He came straight at me. When he stepped onto the bare plaster, his foot plunged right through.
He fell until the first crossbeam caught him by the groin. I could hear the wood straining against his weight, but it held him there, both legs flailing out below. That is, it held him… until the second robot followed. When its foot came down onto the beam there was a crackling sound, like the one a tree makes when it’s about to fall. Then it snapped, and both automatons plummeted through the hole. They hit the floor of what looked to be the palace’s grand ballroom, at least thirty feet below, and broke apart.
I hopped back to the path, wanting to whistle or shout or pump my fists, but knowing I was better off remaining undetected by anyone who might’ve been practicing their dance moves down there when the ceiling broke open. No one seemed to be in this part of the palace at the moment, though.
I ran back to the doorway, which was now a robot-shaped hole, and leaned out over the open wound in the hallway floor. If the synod kept letting these monsters crash through walls like kids through toy blocks, there’d be nothing left of the place before long.
“Tom,” I whispered aloud. “Blaylocke. You down there?”
Presently, two meek shapes emerged from one of the rooms along the lower hallway. Now that I’d gotten a better look at the place, I understood what it was. A servants’ dormitory; old and unused for years, by the look of it. Max must have servants, I speculated. Why abandon a whole section of the palace? “What are you two goons doing down there?” I asked.
“The floor collapsed while we were in the hallway,” said Blaylocke. “When the robots showed up, we hid. They just stood there and never left.”
“Quit messing around and get up here.”
“There’s no way up. The staircase is blown out.”
“What do the rooms look like? Any beds in there?”
“There was one in our room,” said Thomas.
“Okay, I guess we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Grab a couple bedsheets and tie them together.”
We managed to rig up a makeshift rope between the lower hallway and the upper one. I secured the rope to one of the intact crossbeams in the attic. Thomas began to climb up, but I stopped him. “We’re not going back just yet. First, we need to find a way down to that ballroom.”
I slid down the rope. The lower hallway was dusty and run-down, with gaps in the floorboards and large sections of moldy, crumbling plaster. At the end of the hallway, I could see the staircase Blaylocke had mentioned. From here down, the stairs seemed to be intact.
“That looks like a way to the ballroom,” I said, strolling toward it.
“Hold on,” said Blaylocke. “What do we need to go to the ballroom for?”
“Parts. Chaz needs parts from the robots to finish rebuilding the remote.”
“Maclin’s operatives aren’t going to ignore a racket that loud. They’ll send someone to investigate any second now.”
“Look, Blaylocke. Do you want to spend the last day of your life huddled together in a stuffy attic while the Civs drop bombs on us? Neither do I. Crawl back through if you want. I’m getting the stuff Chaz needs.”
“I shall accompany you, Mr. Jakes,” Thomas offered.
“When did you get so brave?” I asked.
“Mr. Jakes,” he said, “you once told me I would never be of any use to you. You advised me to turn back and leave you to your own devices.”
“I said that? Wow, I’m a prick.”
“Yeah,” said Blaylocke.
I shrugged. “Okay. So you were saying, Tom?”
“You only gave me one compliment that day. You said you liked my perseverance. And, well, I… I suppose I’ve been sort of… holding onto that. I want to be useful, Mr. Jakes. I want to be… eh, good.”
“You are good, Tom. Whenever you don’t like something I’m doing, you buzz around me like a gnat until I listen to you. Your perseverance is one of the things that makes you a good adviser.”
“Yes, but… oh, never mind.”
I studied him for a moment. “Tommy. You want to be useful? Okay. Then when we get downstairs, you’re going to be my lookout; keep your eyes peeled for anyone coming. It’s going to take me a while to harvest the parts I need. As for you, Blaylocke, go back and tell the others we’ll be there in a few minutes. If we don’t get captured… or killed, due to lack of manpower.”
Blaylocke sighed. “Alright, fine. I’ll come downstairs with you.”
“That’s a good Blaylocke.” I patted him on the head. He tried to knock my hand away, but I pulled back. “Ah-ah-ah. Be nice.”
“Keep it up, Mull. I really will go back and leave you here.”
“You’re so cute when you threaten me. Come on.”
We started down, every stair creaking beneath our feet. At the bottom, we found ourselves in a narrow, windowless passage with bare walls and worn parquet flooring. To our left, the passage ended in an old kitchen with a brick hearth and a cast-iron oven. To our right, a dead end whose purpose was only apparent by the small door handle in the wall.
“Why do you smell so bad?” Blaylocke asked me.
“Must be all the law-lovers I’ve been hanging around with.”
“No, I mean you legitimately smell like a recently used bathroom.”
“The Civs have a way of rubbing off on even the most hardened criminals,” I said, starting down the hallway.
Blaylocke didn’t question me further.
I pushed the door open and found that its front side was disguised as one of the ballroom’s ornate wall panels; a footman’s entrance for serving from the kitchens during balls and parties. High arched windows along one side of the ballroom descended to become glass-paned doors, which opened onto a wide stone patio. Rain was still coming down outside. Lightning flashed across the darkened sky to illuminate the room in momentary blue.
The robots were both still twitching and humming, disabled by the damage they’d sustained but trying not to be. I pointed to the ballroom’s main entrance and waved Thomas through the doorway. Blaylocke followed me onto the dance floor, cautious under our quarry’s inhuman gaze.
“Crap,” I said as I knelt behind the closest robot. “I brought a whole bunch of tools with me, but I left them in my backpack with Chaz. How are we doing to get this head off, or get the back panel open?”
Blaylocke drew his flecker sword. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”
“That’d be great if we were cutting through synthetic muscle,” I said. “This will be like trying to split a walnut with a plastic spoon.”
“You didn’t think about this before we came downstairs?”
“I’m improvising here. Forgive me if I’m not familiar with the best methods for ripping a robot’s head off. Come on, help me turn this thing over.”
We gave it our best try, but all we managed to do was budge the robot a little. Even with its gears spilled out across the floor and several pieces of its metal plating detached, it was just too heavy. We were discussing some other possible decapitation methods when Thomas darted past us toward the servants’ door. “Someone’s coming,” he said in a loud whisper.
“Told you,” said Blaylocke.
“Shut up,” I said, following them.
We slipped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind us. Retracing our steps, we made it up the creaking staircase and climbed the bedsheet rope into the attic. From there, we could see through the hole in the ballroom ceiling. Five robots—all Mark-Sevens—and a squad of Maclin operatives dressed in black tactical suits were standing around the two damaged robots.
The operatives were talking, but I couldn’t hear them. Another supporting argument for cochlear implants, I thought. One of the operatives looked up at the hole in the ceiling. We all ducked at once. For a second I thought he’d seen us, and my suspicions were quickly confirmed. The operative shouted something, and the ballroom echoed with the rush of sudden footsteps.
I cursed. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”
“What about the rope?” asked Blaylocke.
“You two get moving. I’ll take care of the rope.” I hauled up the sheets while Thomas and Blaylocke took the boarded path toward the island of clutter. The robots might’ve been too dumb to navigate the attic on their own, but it might be a different story when they had operatives to guide them. Maclin’s people were highly augmented, I knew without a doubt. They’d get up here without a rope. No reason to make it easier on them, though.
I could just hear the first footsteps at the top of the stairs by the time I turned and sprinted down the attic path. I made a wreck of the island as I wove between the piles of junk, pulling stacks of chairs and other furniture down behind me to block the way. This was another futile effort, but we had a long way to crawl, and anything that could slow them down was worth doing.
Thomas and Blaylocke were already crawling toward the triangular opening when I reached the edge of the plywood flooring. I needed to move faster than they were, so I hopped across the first few crossbeams until the incoming slant in the roofline forced me to crouch. Behind me, I could hear the operatives’ heavy boots thudding down the path. We had a solid lead, but it wouldn’t take them long to cross the island.
I heard one of the operatives speak a command. This was followed by the metallic thud of the robots’ feet as they thundered down the path. Then an idea came to me. An idea that hinged on the theory that this operative was controlling the robots with one of the remote control units, as opposed to using vocal commands. If he was using a remote—and if I could somehow get ahold of it—we wouldn’t need to harvest robot parts for Chaz. Chaz wouldn’t even need to build us a new remote. We’d have a working remote already.
It was this thought alone which caused me to abandon my pursuit of Thomas and Blaylocke. I turned back toward the plywood island, searching for a place to call home for the next twenty to thirty seconds. My eyes came to rest on a dusty armoire standing along the edge, its doors ajar and facing outwards.
I hopped across the last few beams and slipped inside, bending my knees and ducking beneath the armoire’s upper shelf. It was a tight fit, but I managed. Now it was just a matter of finding the right opportunity.
Something large and heavy bumped into me. The whole armoire rocked forward and went up on two legs. I braced my hands against the sidewalls, expecting the whole thing to topple over onto the crossbeams and plunge to the ballroom floor. After a moment of precarious imbalance, the armoire rocked back and trembled to a halt.
I saw the operatives rush to the edge of the island and shine a light into the recesses of the attic, searching for movement. It was then that I noticed my favorite thing ever: the operative second from the end was holding a remote control unit. Jackpot.
When the light came to rest on Thomas’s prostrate form, its bearer alerted the others with a shout. Thomas’s eyes gleamed in reflection. He turned back and double-timed it toward the opening. Blaylocke was still shimmying along in front of him, though, not moving nearly as fast.
I took my chance. I flung the cabinet door aside and shoved the first operative off the plywood floor. He fell across the beams and plunged his hands through the plaster, shouting in terror when he saw how far up he was. Meanwhile, I drew my revolver and put the remote-wielding operative in a chokehold with my good arm.
“Everybody hold it right where you are,” I shouted, placing my gun to the operative’s head. “We’re gonna do this nice and slow, so we can all understand one another. First things first… toss your weapons out there.” I gestured with a tilt of my head.
Slowly, the operatives obliged me. They couldn’t have known my revolver was only loaded with pulser rounds, which would’ve done just as much damage to my hostage as to me, since I was touching him. I acted like I was ready to take the guy’s life. Which I was, just not with the gun. The man lying across the beams, meanwhile, was trying to pull something from his pocket.
“Good. Now I want all of you to turn around so you’re facing away from me. And you down there, don’t think I haven’t noticed what you’re doing. Hands over your head where I can see them.”
Sheepishly, he slid his arms out in front of him.
“Now, I’ve got a little job for you,” I told my hostage, who was scared but trying not to look it. “What do you call this unit?”
“Delta.”
He made no effort to whisper, and the robots did not respond when he spoke. Either the older models couldn’t follow voice-only commands—which I knew wasn’t true because I’d seen Cordelia Foxglove give them on Maclin—or the operative couldn’t control the robots without his remote. I doubted he was programmed in as one of the masters, so this was most likely the case.
“I want you to press that call button and repeat after me,” I told him.
The operative lifted the device and did as instructed.
“Delta.” When I said the word—before the operative repeated me—I heard the familiar whirring sound of robots getting ready to receive orders. Curious, I thought. “Detain all Maclin operatives in sight.”
The robots moved to obey without waiting for the operative to repeat my command. There was one robot for every operative, a movable prison of perfect coincidence. I let my hostage go as one of the robots dragged him into its welcoming arms, but I made sure to snag the remote first. What I didn’t think about was the operative who was lying across the beams. His robot took one step off the plywood flooring and fell through, landing on the operative and smashing a hole in the plaster. They both dropped to the ballroom floor below, operative-first. His cry was cut short by the squelching sound that echoed through the room when the robot landed on him.
“Thanks for this,” I told the rest of them, holding up the remote. I felt a sense of power swelling inside me. Maybe that was just the medallion, rewarding me for a scheme well-played. Either way, it felt good. This remote works, I thought. This one follows my voice. “And by the way…” I added, “you’re all fighting for the wrong team.” I mashed the button and said, “Delta. Bring the Maclin operatives… over there.”
I pointed at the far wall. The operatives began to object, but the robots were good little soldiers. They left the island’s sturdy flooring and stepped out onto unstable wood and plaster without doubt or hesitation. Beams cracked and snapped. Plaster broke away, and the matched pairs of man and robot vanished one by one, rays of dim light glowing through the holes they left.
I picked my way over the beams amid the sounds of crashing hardware and screaming men. I had to circumvent the whole mess to find a safe path back to the opening. By the time I crawled through and came to meet Chaz and the others, time was running short.
“Not only will the fleet be here soon,” I said. “We’re probably going to have company before that. Chaz, I found a working remote. All the parts you need should be in here, right?”
He shook his head. “I still need transmitter pieces from the robots before we can hijack the subsignal.”
I groaned, realizing I may have just done something too stupid for words. “Oh, no. I just had a bunch of them up here. I didn’t think you’d need them anymore.”
“What happened to them?”
“They, uh… moved. To the ballroom.”
Chaz sighed. “Well, we’re back where we started then, aren’t we?”
“I don’t understand why you can’t use this remote,” I said. “I used it to give commands.”
Chaz’s brow furrowed. “Wait… you did?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me see that.” He opened it up and studied the new remote’s circuitry. After a moment, he smiled. “They must’ve manufactured one of these for each unit.”
“That seems logical,” I said. “They knew an army this size would be unwieldy for any one man to command… not to mention all the different sub-signals they would’ve had to program into one remote to make it work. So they must’ve split up the second and third legions into smaller units and given command of them to their operatives. I’ll bet those jokers got a crash course, given the way they order the robots around as if they’re people.”
“This is a stroke of luck,” said Chaz. “Your remote is already built with higher command privileges than this one. I can use the component that allows this remote to work with anyone’s voice, plus the one in your remote that lets you command the whole first legion. But I still need a way to tap into the sub-signal again, and that means replacing the transmitters and a few other parts that got damaged in here.”
“So we still need the robots down in the ballroom,” said Blaylocke. “We got down there and Muller realized he hadn’t brought the tools to take them apart.”
“Chaz knows what he needs,” I said. “We’ll just have to go back. And he’ll have to come with us this time.”
“Let me just get these components in place,” he said.
We all waited a few minutes while he did so. Sable was vapid and listless, still beset with grief at her uncle’s death. I knew there were no words to comfort her, so I didn’t try. I was there, and that was all I could be.
The more I thought about her grief, the more I kept thinking about the operatives and the many others I’d killed. They had families too, and I’d taken them away. It was annoying, coming to grips with my own hypocrisy. People feel like their enemies deserve to die, while their friends deserve to live. But all my enemies are friends with someone else. Except maybe Kupfer. I couldn’t see how anyone would volunteer to be around that guy.
By the time Chaz was ready to go, I was feeling as morally conflicted as ever. Either I needed to get over this, or I had to swear some solemn vow that I would never kill again. Who am I kidding? I realized. Not gonna happen. I knew myself too well to ever try something that boneheaded.
We returned through the opening in the attic wall, the three of us plus Chaz. This time, I had to show them the way through the minefield of unstable crossbeams. By the time we reached the island, we could hear voices and movement below. It was clear we weren’t going to make it into that ballroom anytime soon without being welcomed by a number of unfriendly hosts. Then we heard heavy footsteps clunking up the stairs.
“Follow my lead,” I said.
I darted through the debris and ran down the plywood path to the opening in the servants’ dormitory. There, we put our backs to the wall and edged along until we reached the closest bedroom door. The floor around the hole sagged under our weight and gave a few disconcerting creaks, but it held. We slipped through the door and closed it behind us.
Outside, we heard the operatives and their robotic unit flooding the hallway below. The operatives were mumbling about the ruined staircase and the hole in the ceiling. Before long, something thudded into the upper hallway, close outside our door. Not heavy enough to be a robot, I knew. One of the operatives, propelling himself up here with the help of some augment or other.
We heard him walking around. Then he called down, “It’s just an attic and a bunch more rooms.”
“Why were they up there?” someone asked from below.
“Beats me.”
“Alright, well… whenever Palmer wakes up, we’ll ask him. Meantime, I want guards posted in the ballroom.”
Not good. I heard the operative jump down and land on the floor below. The herd of footsteps descended the staircase again.
“We’re not going to get those parts, are we?” Blaylocke asked.
“Haven’t you been hanging around with me long enough to know better by now? Of course we’re getting those parts. Chaz, you’ve got your tools, and you know what you need?”
He nodded.
“How long’s it going to take you to harvest those parts and put the new remote together?”
Chaz rolled his eyes. “You should know me well enough by now to understand that you can’t rush genius.”
“What I know is that since we’re all about to die, I can rush anything I want. So are we going to die, or are you going to tell me how much time we need to give you?”
“Between five and ten minutes,” he said.
“So, fifteen minutes, then. Alright boys… this is what we’re going to do.”