Chapter 7 #2
“Greene’s function is to prepare food. Other bots are designed and programmed for different specialized tasks, like inspecting and repairing buildings or manufacturing machinery. Many of us were created with a very specific purpose in mind, and some have retained that purpose through the Blackout.”
“Blackout?”
“It happened a long time ago. Long enough that neither of our kinds remembers what it was. We just…woke up, knowing that some part of us had been lost and that nothing seemed right.”
He replayed those earliest memories, in which there was a snowy flicker in his optics and feedback overwhelming his audio receptors. Nothing remained of who he had been before. There was only static, the slow churn of diagnostics and reboots, and the kindly voice of the one who’d reactivated him.
Lara wore a troubled frown, eyes on the ground. Didn’t humans tell any stories of those times? They must have. All the Creator’s children had experienced the Blackout. Even if their lives were relatively short, wouldn’t they have passed the knowledge down from generation to generation?
“What’s your purpose?” she asked.
For an instant, Ronin’s processors stilled, and everything in him was quiet.
Good evening. My name is Ronin, because I cannot remember what it used to be. How may I assist you?
What response could he possibly give? He’d searched for one hundred and eight-five years and still had no satisfying answer.
They reached the gate leading into the bot district. This one was also open, but only wide enough to allow people through single file. The large flood lights atop the wall were turned on, bathing the area in harsh white light and fighting back the storm’s gloom.
The timing of their arrival was convenient.
“No more conversation,” Ronin said. “I’ll talk if they ask anything.”
Two gearheads stood guard at the gate, one on each side of the opening.
Their weapons were more formidable than those of the bots at the roadblock on the edge of town.
These were pre-Blackout automatic rifles, built with matching parts.
Even without armor-piercing rounds, they had a chance of penetrating Ronin’s casing from this range.
Lara followed close on Ronin’s heels, and the gearheads’ optics flicked from her to him. Though it was slung over his shoulder, his weapon suddenly seemed very far out of reach.
“Dustwalker,” one of the gearheads, a synth, said in greeting. The right sleeve of his coat had been removed, displaying the blue casing of his arm and Warlord’s mark on his shoulder.
Ronin slowed to a stop two meters away from the gearheads. Lara didn’t bump into him this time, but she pressed lightly against his back. His skin flared to life, electrodes firing off a wave of pleasure at her touch despite the clothing separating them. “Cobalt.”
“Heard you had a chat with Warlord last night,” the other bot said. He was a broad-built synth who’d removed the skin from his lower jaw and neck, baring a skeletal row of teeth and the cords of his throat. Went by the name Northside.
Lara stiffened and inhaled sharply.
They didn’t do anything to me.
Then why had she reacted like that at mention of Ronin meeting Warlord?
Battling the impulsive urge to swing his rifle into his hands, Ronin dipped his chin in a shallow nod. “I did.”
The corners of Northside’s upper lip curled in what could only have been a grin. “He convince you to sample some local goods?”
Heat pulsed off Lara, and she shifted as though she meant to move around him. Ronin’s calculations suggested she was likely to launch into one of her outbursts.
Ronin reached back, placing a hand on her hip, and glanced at her over his shoulder. She stared at him with her jaw clenched and her eyes ablaze, but she didn’t move.
“There is an agreement in place,” he said loud enough for the gearheads to hear.
She eased back, tension draining from her body.
Volatile things, humans.
But hadn’t Ronin reacted to Warlord and his gearheads in a similar fashion?
Cobalt waved them on as he stepped aside. “Go on in with her, then.”
“Creators know I’d want something like that after being in the Dust as long as you were,” Northside said, clacking his teeth together. He didn’t move from his place before the opening.
“Why would any of them want anything to do with you?” asked Cobalt, tone flat.
Northside’s optics blazed at Lara. “This one knows why. Has that hunger in her.”
Ronin stared at Northside, optics locked. These words weren’t worth a fight, especially not while they were so close to his residence, which was less than eight hundred meters from the gate.
All he and Lara had to do was walk a bit farther.
Cobalt shook his head. “Let them through, Northside. Been a quiet night. I prefer to keep it that way.”
A staticky scoff emerged from Northside’s vocal modulator as he finally moved over to clear the way. “Send word when you’re done with her, dustwalker. I wouldn’t mind a go. Not many of them have hair like that.”
A twitch skittered over the palm of Ronin’s hand, and his fingers curled as though gripping his rifle. How many gearheads served Warlord? Ronin needed to know how many bullets to stockpile. He’d be sure to save a few extra for Northside.
He led Lara between the two bots and through the narrow opening, crossing the threshold from her world into the supposed sanctuary Warlord had established for the bots of Cheyenne.
Ahead of them, the broad street, lined by automated streetlamps that had come on in the stormy evening gloom, curved away to the southeast. Directly north lay the park, its grass and leaves glistening with moisture in the artificial orange light.
It was the greenest place Ronin had encountered so close to the Dust. Yet he’d never seen anyone within save for the maintenance bots tending the vegetation.
It seemed a waste.
There were only a few brown patches in the grass, which thrived in many spots thanks to the shade of the trees ringing the park. He could just make out the water of the central pond through the trunks.
“They are not touching me,” Lara grated from behind him. “And what the hell did you and Warlord talk about?”
Ronin stopped and turned to face her, scanning the empty street and the imposing, eclectic wall. Though no gearheads were in sight, they were all over Cheyenne, and they all reported faithfully to their leader.
He beckoned her with a hand. “This way. Shouldn’t talk about that out here.”
“I’m not moving another step.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Tell me. Why did you have a chat with that…that thing?”
She’d made her loathing of bots clear when Ronin first met her, but this was different. Though she hadn’t raised her voice, venom dripped from her every word.
And she’d planted herself here, in the middle of the main road leading to the heart of the bot district, where gearheads were likely to walk by at any moment.
Ronin stepped close to her, meeting her gaze. Every trip into the Dust put him in danger, but he had no desire to tempt deactivation here, now. “This is not the place to speak of these things, Lara Brooks.”
“Well, I’m not going with you. Food be damned. I won’t be a part of any plans that involve that thing.” She turned and walked back toward the gate.
“I’m not going to follow you back through. When they see you alone…”
“I’d prefer a bullet in the back.”
“We both know it won’t be a bullet.”
Lara froze. She hung her head, and rainwater streamed over her. Her free hand trembled in a fist at her side. Whatever wounds she’d suffered were still fresh.
He closed the distance between them. She didn’t move away. Softening his voice, he said, “I’ll tell you what you want to know as soon as we’re secure in my residence.”
She turned her head, angling her ear toward him.
Ronin’s brow plates ticked downward. “Warlord is not involved in this, I can assure you. And I don’t want him to be any more than you do.”
Her shoulders rose with a deep inhalation. A moment later, she released a slow, shuddering breath and opened her hand. The red spots on her fingers and palm faded away.
“Come,” Ronin said.