After Paige and Gnat collected Scrap’s loose parts into Paige’s satchel, the trio moved further into the gloom of the alleyway, away from the glow and rumble of the Strongbox.
Above them, a wide walkway between the buildings offered shelter from the rain. They huddled in the darkness, listening to the cascading drops batter the city. Then Gnat jabbed her sister in the ribs.
“What? Ugh, fine…” Paige murmured. Then, without turning to Scrap, she said, “Sorry I pushed you.”
“Yeah,” said Scrap. He popped his shoulder back into its socket. “I’m gettin’ used to bein’ -zk- pushed around.”
“Mum said you always stood up for what you believed in,” said Gnat. “She said you fighted every robot in the whole Somewhere to save them.”
“Fought,” Paige corrected her. She turned to Scrap. “Is it true? Did you fight them all?”
For a few moments, Scrap watched the rainfall in silence. “It’s a story I’ve tried to forget,” he said after a while. “I was the only robot on the Black-Necked Stork. I hardly even knew any other ’bots. I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect, but not a -zk- revolution.”
“What’s a ‘reddy-looshun’?” asked Gnat. Paige shushed her again.
“By the time we got to Five One Three, the ’bots had made their -zk- minds up,” Scrap continued. “It was the K11s who did the talkin’ – they told us they didn’t want to hand over the planet, sayin’ they wanted to be free, whatever that meant. They’d decided they -zk- deserved Somewhere Five One Three. I didn’t know where it had all come from … rusted brain-frames or crossed wires. I s’pose I just didn’t think the ’bots would really put up a fight against K1-NG, but they did. And do you know what? That was -zk- fine. That was great. I was right there in the thick of it, one robot against a thousand. I thought I could put them in their place. I -zk- thought I could teach ’em a lesson.”
“Is that why you fought?” Paige asked. “To teach them a lesson?”
“I mean, I wasn’t about to let ’em kick the humans off their own world, but yeah, I guess I thought I could knock some -zk- sense into ’em,” Scrap replied. “Thing I don’t understand is why no one came lookin’ for your parents. Not the colonists, not the Corporation … your -zk- folks helped the colonists get away, an’ for their troubles everyone seemed to forget all about ’em … an’ you gubs had to spend your whole lives as -zk- mole-people.”
“I’m a mole-people!” Gnat happily affirmed.
“I guess I fought for the humans ’cause I was the only one who -zk- could,” Scrap added. “And ’cause I didn’t think I’d lose.”
“But you did lose,” Paige said coolly.
“Of course I lost. One robot against a -zk- thousand? How could it turn out any other way?” Scrap cried. “I thought one ’bot could take on the world. I should have known better.”
“Mum says you even fighted at the end, so the peoples had time to get away,” said Gnat proudly.
“Did she tell you she -zk- lied to me?” grunted Scrap. “I walked into a trap so your mum and dad could escape this cog-forsaken rock, but they stayed. I felt … betrayed. Plus your mum -zk- doomed me with this sorry excuse for a case, presumably just so that, ten years later, her kids could make my life a -zk- misery.”
“He’s talking about us,” Gnat informed Paige helpfully.
“An’ you know what? She lied to you too,” added Scrap. “King of the Robots, am I? You -zk- saw what happened back in the arena. Nobody believed I was K1NG – they took one look at me and laughed. This is my punishment for helpin’ the humans – a lifetime as the lowest of the -zk- low, stuck in this good-for-nothin’ junk case for the rest of my good-for-nothin’ days. That’s what I got for pickin’ the wrong side. No -zk- offence.”
Gnat sniffed.
“You’re still going to help us though, right? You’re going to help us find the ship and rescue Mum?”
Paige let out a strange, stifled groan as she pushed a hundred terrible feelings back down into the pit of her gut.
“Let him be, Gnat,” she said. “You heard him. He can’t help us.”
The three of them sat for a few moments, watching the rain start to ease.
“Yesterday, on the train,” said Scrap, breaking the silence, “you asked me if I could turn my dreams off.”
“Yeah?” Paige said as a question.
“I leave ’em on ’cause, if I’m lucky, I dream of bein’ him … of being K1-NG again,” he explained. “I leave ’em on ’cause then I stand a chance of bein’ someone other than -zk- me for a while.”
“If you hate that case so much, why didn’t you let them upgrade you?” Paige asked. “Why didn’t you let Gunner shift your core into a new body?”
“I couldn’t upgrade without givin’ them my core-code, could I?” Scrap replied. “If they’d found out I was K1-NG … well, you heard what Gunner said – Second Suggestion or no Second Suggestion, she would’ve -zk- killed me. And if not her, then someone else. Back in the war, I junked dozens of cases, fightin’ for the humans. We’re in enough trouble with that hunter, without the whole -zk- city turnin’ on us. So I’m stuck like this. I can’t upgrade, not ever. Which means I’m no -zk- good to anyone. Not you, not your sister, and not your mum.”
Paige looked away. “I could do it.”
“Do what?” Scrap asked.
“Shift your core. Mum showed me how.”
Scrap’s laugh escaped like a cough. Paige glowered at him.
“Wait, you mean it?” Scrap gasped. “You’re -zk- serious?”
“Mum taught me about robots every day. It was all there was to do. I’ve learned design … programming … repairs … and upgrading,” Paige said. “If we had a case to put you in, yeah, I reckon I could upgrade you.”
Scrap rubbed his temples for a long moment. “An’ you didn’t -zk- think to mention this earlier?” he howled.
“You didn’t think to tell me you were King of the Robots,” Paige snapped back.
“That’s not the … that’s a totally different … I could have … argh!” Scrap’s scream echoed through the alleyway. “There were a -zk- thousand empty cases on the Pile! Any one of them would’ve been -zk- better than this! Now we’re stuck in the middle of the city with no charge! Where on Somewhere are we going to get hold of—”
Suddenly Scrap saw stars. A galaxy flashed before his eyes in the sweep of a cape. An instant later he, Paige and Gnat were engulfed in darkness.