Torian

This has to work. But in case it didn’t, I allowed myself an indulgence. I stretched up and kissed Zal’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Zal blinked rapidly, a sheen in his dark eye. “Ah, shite. Don’t go.” His voice, laced with pleading, resonated painfully with the implants in my chest. “You said you were done with them. That you wanted to stay here. With me.”

Edric laughed, a thin, arrogant sound. “What foolishness. Torian is a logical construct. We’ve made it that way. Why would it want to stay here and be destroyed when it could return to comfort, convenience, and usefulness?”

“Usefulness? Making them think all they are is a machine for you to tinker with or a hole to stick your pecker in? I’ll wager you’ve never even heard them sing.”

“Sing? Ridiculous.” Edric shuffled his feet, clearly on edge. “No more delays, Torian. You can commence data retrieval for the detonation protocol codes on the way to the site. Thanks to your antics, our launch window is too narrow as it is, so if you don’t move your mechanical ass—” Edric gestured at Zal with the blaster.

“I’m coming.” I walked toward Edric, keeping my body in direct line with the blaster. I was in no danger. As long as I held the backup files, Edric wouldn’t fire for fear of scrambling the data. But Zal—no, I would not allow harm to come to him.

I’d nearly reached Edric when Zal strode forward, dodging in front of me to face down Edric.

“Don’t do this. We—my people—we’re not some trifling annoyance, like a swarm of insects for you to swat. We have homes, families, a civilization.”

“Really? How long do you think your so-called civilization can go on without our support?” Edric waved the blaster, his finger far too close to the trigger, and I flinched. “That chrysocite, for instance. We gave it to you. We turned those worthless rocks into massive solar cells to study how a society policed with magic would work. You’ve got fewer than half the original number now, and lose more every year. What will you do when your magic doesn’t work anymore?”

“I reckon we’d learn to cope.”

Edric snorted. “You couldn’t. You’re too dependent on it. We’re doing you a kindness by making the end short. Perhaps not painless, but at least quick. A brief flare and you’re done, rather than a long, drawn-out descent into chaos and starvation.”

Zal’s eye blazed. “You’ve no right—”

“I’ve had enough of you.” Edric adjusted the setting on his blaster. “The rest of the planet can wait for the destruct sequence. But you? I’m ending you here.”

Edric pointed the blaster square at Zal’s chest.

I didn’t pause, didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. I acted, grabbing Edric’s bare wrist with both hands and wrenching it downward. I did it with the water, for my own convenience. This time, it’s for the planet. This time, it’s for Zal.

Edric struggled, but my infrastructure was reinforced with materials of the Infomancers’ own making, and no matter how degenerate their morals, they knew their cybertronics. “What—let go. Torian, what are you doing?”

I bared my teeth. “Choosing.”

I pushed the entire charge in my reserve banks through the conduits in my cybertronic network, out the sensors in my fingertips, directly into Edric. This time, I encountered no hidden feedback loops. No safety bypasses. The Infomancers hadn’t coded for this scenario—obviously, they’d never imagined one of their own constructs would rebel.

Their mistake.

Edric juddered and twitched, and his eyes rolled back in his head. I sensed his heart stuttering, but still I discharged.

More, more, more.

Reserves depleted. Shut-down commencing in three… two…

With a jerk of my chin, I disabled the safety protocols and pushed. All of it. Every last joule. Whatever it took to keep Zal safe.

As Edric collapsed to convulse on the ground, I followed him down until the very last spark of energy flowed out of me and into Edric’s corpse.

Danger! Cascading system failu—