Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Ronin leaned against a concrete wall in the main chamber, watching the activity around him. Though he’d logged two hundred and fifteen unique faces in his memory since arriving at the base, he struggled to estimate the number of inhabitants, especially with so many areas being off limits to him.
The facility was well maintained, but total cleanliness wasn’t possible.
People lived here. They worked and interacted in these chambers and corridors.
Conversations were frequent and typically amiable, and children’s laughter echoed off the walls, weaving above, below, and throughout the steady buzz of activity.
Cheyenne starkly contrasted with this place.
The buildings and grounds of the bot district were impeccably maintained despite limited resources.
Every house had intact windows, freshly painted siding, and precisely trimmed lawns, hedges, and trees.
The streets were free of debris. But there was no laughter, no warmth.
Many of the residences within Cheyenne’s wall were occupied, but the bot district was as cold and silent as a tomb.
The slums outside the wall represented a different extreme.
The ramshackle structures had been pieced together with scrap materials, many of them looking like they’d collapse under the weight of anything more substantial than a passing glance.
Humans stared out from the doorways and windows with dull, hopeless eyes, surviving either out of spite or habit.
It was a place of squalor and desperation, filled with people but devoid of life.
Laughter caught Ronin’s attention, and he shifted his optics to a group of ten children following a tall bot with a boxy torso. KICK ME had been written on the bot’s back with chalk.
At their laughter, the bot halted. The children failed to stifle their giggles as they also stopped.
Slowly, the bot’s head turned around to look down at them with circular optics. “The tone of your amusement indicates mischief. Please explain so we may proceed to class immediately.”
Ronin couldn’t be sure if it was because of the way the bot’s head turned, the tone of its voice, or how it looked with its head backwards, but the children burst into fits of laughter. The bot’s head remained in place as its body ponderously tottered around to face them.
“Explain. Or I will be forced to issue detention slips to all of you.”
Another bot—a sleeker model, but not a synth—stopped behind the teacher. It tilted its head, and after a moment’s pause, raised its foot and kicked the teacher’s backside.
Ronin couldn’t hold back a smile as the children laughed uncontrollably. A few of them doubled over, holding their stomachs, and one even fell to the floor.
The teacher rocked slightly as the other bot kicked it again. Slowly, the teacher spun its head to face behind. “You are disrupting the education of my students.”
“I am only following instructions,” the other bot replied.
“Desist your behavior or I will issue you a detention slip.”
The bot tilted its head in the opposite direction and lowered its foot. A moment later, it raised its other foot and kicked the teacher again.
Somehow managing a glare despite its fixed facial features, the teacher turned its body with a few lumbering steps. “You have ignored my verbal warning. Printing detention slip.”
There was a whirring noise from inside the teacher, but it stopped when a pair of soldiers approached. The students, red-faced, struggled to regain their composure.
One of the soldiers wiped the chalk letters off the bot’s back with his sleeve and shot the kids a half-heartedly disapproving look. The other stepped between the two bots, grinning.
“Come on, Terence. Mr. Mathers has class to get back to. You don’t have to follow every sign the kids write on his back.”
“You are correct. But it is more fun to do so.” Terence leaned to the side, glancing at the children, and closed the shutter of one of his optics briefly before he walked away. The kids giggled again as Mr. Mathers and the two soldiers turned to face them.
“Detention slips for everyone. Printing—ERROR. SPOOL OUT OF PAPER. BLACK INK LOW. CANCELLING PRINT.”
“How many times have we told you kids to stop playing pranks on Mr. Mathers?” asked one of the soldiers.
In unison, the children glanced down at their shoes.
The soldier crossed his arms over his chest. “Listen to him, because he’s got more knowledge than you can begin to understand. He’ll teach you everything you need to know, just like he taught us, and your moms and dads and grandparents.”
“Now what do you say to Mr. Mathers?” the other soldier prompted.
“We’re sorry,” the children said together.
“Due to inadequate ink and paper, your apology is accepted. We must immediately proceed to the classroom to resume instruction.” Mr. Mathers turned and walked forward.
As the children shuffled behind him, one of the soldiers bent down beside a student. “Hey, here’s what you should write the next time…”
The soldier’s hushed words were lost in the din as the group moved away.
Ronin couldn’t recall witnessing anything like this during his travels. In most places outside of Cheyenne, humans and bots coexisted, but nowhere else were their lives so integrated. This was what Newton had meant. This was how humans and bots were designed to interact.
He pushed off the wall and walked toward his quarters; it was time to wake Lara. In the eight days since their first heated exchange, Rodriguez hadn’t attempted to question her again, but the Colonel was done waiting.
The base’s leaders had been generous enough, most likely at Nancy’s insistence, to provide Ronin and Lara with a private room outside the infirmary. Though it was sparsely furnished, with only a double bed, a small table, and a footlocker, it had a working door and was warm and dry.
It was more than they could ever have hoped for when they’d left Cheyenne.
Lara was already awake when he entered their room. She smiled at him, and he couldn’t help noticing the light in her eyes. The swelling around them had largely subsided, and most of her bruises had faded to subdued yellow.
“Feel better after your nap?” he asked.
Her smile faded. “I couldn’t sleep. Not looking forward to being inter…intro…what was the word?”
“Interrogated.”
“Yeah. That. I don’t know what the hell he thinks he’s going to get out of me.
” Lara rose slowly, her movements stiff.
She could walk around without help now, but subtle changes in her expression often belied her discomfort.
She adjusted the lay of her sling around her neck.
“And just because I’ve cooled off doesn’t mean I’m not still pissed, or that I won’t blow up on them again. ”
“Try to consider things from their perspective.”
“I have, and I get it. I would’ve done a lot to protect Tabitha if I had the chance.
But even at my lowest, when I didn’t know where my next meal would come from, I still helped people out.
Because that’s how things are supposed to be.
We’re not…we’re not supposed to see other people suffering and just look away like nothing’s happening. ”
“They inherited this situation, Lara. They were born into it.”
“And I was born to die under Warlord’s boot?
” she countered. “All those people in Cheyenne, they only exist to be his entertainment? You’ve got all those bots who follow him because it’s too dangerous not to, all those humans living in terror…
and the whole time, two miles away, there were soldiers with the numbers, training, and firepower to end him, but all they’ve done is hide.
They might as well be the ones who left us there to die. ”
His processors hung up on the thought of her being left to die, nearly calling up images he didn’t want to see again, but he pushed past it. “They didn’t leave you, Lara.”
She stepped close to him, tipping her head back to keep her eyes locked with his.
“You crossed Warlord, Ronin. You risked yourself to protect me. Why? Why did you go out of your way to bury Tabitha? You’re supposed to operate on logic or some shit, and everything you’ve done since I met you is the total opposite. ”
“I did those things because I love you.”
Something in her expression softened. She placed her hand on his chest, fingers curling to grasp his coat. “You did things before you fell in love with me. Before you even knew what love was. What was your reason then?”
His processors fired through all the memories of his time with her. “You intrigued me. And…you seemed lost. On the verge of collapsing.”
“You helped me at my lowest point. Maybe some of your reasons were selfish, but not all of them. You could’ve demanded so much from me, could’ve turned me into your slave. But even before you loved me, you gave me food, shelter, and safety, and asked for so little in return.”
“Because I had an abundance of those things to offer.” As he spoke those words, the final variable in an unseen equation revealed itself, and he suddenly understood Lara’s anger.
It must’ve shown on his face, because she smiled softly and rested her forehead on his chest. “Warlord needs to be stopped, Ronin.”
“I don’t think these people will risk it, Lara, but I’ll help you try to convince them all the same.”
“Thank you.” She lifted her head, stood on her toes, and pressed her lips to his.
He leaned into the kiss, and an electric thrill pulsed over his skin.
Lara wrapped her right arm around him and squeezed, only to suck in a sharp breath and step back.
Lines of strain appeared around her mouth despite her smirk.
“You’d think I would remember how much that hurts. Guess I just can’t resist.”