Chapter 28
Notes:
We’re in the home stretch now, folks! Only a few chapters left to go. Any guesses for how it’ll end? (wrong answers only! XD)
MILO
Raina: Where did you two go?
Milo kept his head turned toward the window, though he wasn’t really watching the city pass him by like he usually would. He was too in his own head, especially with the distraction of Raina’s text message, like overhearing a conversation in his mind.
The message wasn’t to him, but he still saw it.
Rowan: I’ll tell you later. We just need some time right now.
They didn’t need time. They needed a plan.
Andrew didn’t care about bots awakening.
Only how he could get a better product that would still serve their masters.
It was no wonder his eyes were always lying.
He was lying to himself too, if Ray’s slip meant what Milo thought it did.
Ray had always been a replacement, something loyal that would serve Andrew unconditionally but that he could throw away whenever he wanted.
Troy: I’m sorry, Milo. I’m so sorry. We’ll figure this out.
That message came to both of them, but Milo wasn’t in the mood to answer.
“Milo… right now we really need to take a moment, a breath, okay, and think about this,” Rowan said softly over the hum of the vehicle driving them home.
“I don’t have an answer. I just feel foolish for not thinking past success with Ray.
What did we think Andrew was going to do?
Mass produce living bots just to send them out into the world without profit?
Without belonging to someone? We weren’t thinking about how to sustain this. ”
“I know. Perhaps I thought others would be like me and want to still assist humans. To live with and work with them. But to be given that choice, to decide who they wanted to be like you pushed me to do, instead of… killing us if we step out of line.”
“I won’t let that happen.” Rowan’s promise was a low enough growl that it drew Milo to look at him.
His eyes never lied to Milo, and right then their hazel depths were full of varied emotion, protective and panicked all at once.
“No matter what Andrew might be planning, I will never let him hurt you.”
The conviction made Milo smile a little, just as the vehicle pulled up to their building.
Rowan took Milo’s hand. “We will figure this out.”
The same conviction with those words didn’t have the same effect as the others. Milo pulled his hand away. “What is there to figure out unless you are willing to go against what Director Andreas ordered?”
Rowan stared with no answer forthcoming.
“You’re not, are you? You think yourself too small to fight him, so you won’t even try. Not even for me.” Before Rowan could answer, Milo opened his door and leaped out.
“Milo!”
He continued at a rapid pace. It was freeing to not have to listen when called for, to not listen to orders should Rowan give him any, but it was also isolating because he couldn’t bear for him and Rowan to want different things. Not these things. Not this.
“Milo, please!”
“Whoa, where’s the fire?” Riley interrupted Milo’s rampaging pace, intercepting him in the lobby of their building, where she appeared to be working on security sensors along the interior windows. Her flying trash bin of a bot Pal floated above her.
Everywhere, Milo thought, because to him, the whole world was burning.
He didn’t answer, but stormed past Riley too.
“Milo—”
“Milo!” Rowan overlapped her call, close at Milo’s heels.
Milo rushed ahead faster, aiming to reach the elevators before Rowan could catch up to him. He needed two seconds alone in the apartment, or he felt like he might burst.
WARNING: Internal temperature spiking—
Milo silenced the diagnostic and reached the elevators just as the farthest one opened—to reveal Ethel and Anabelle stepping out of it.
“Milo, dear, is—”
“Sorry, Ethel.” Milo pushed past her too.
As he swiftly turned inside the elevator and pressed the button for their floor, he saw Rowan breaking into a sprint, while simultaneously remembering that Ethel had never taken maintenance authority back from Milo to give Anabelle orders.
Milo felt dirty for doing what he did next but spoke the words without thinking, “Anabelle, do not let Rowan onto this elevator.”
“Milo?” Ethel questioned, as Anabelle stepped toward Rowan and physically blocked him from getting past her. They would call her off and change her orders eventually, but not before the elevator door closed in front of Rowan’s stricken face.
Now Milo felt guilty besides… everything else he was feeling that he couldn’t fully explain. He both wanted to run and to curl tightly into a ball and not move for hours. He wanted to scream with unleashed rage but also saturate his cheeks with tears.
He wanted Rowan to hold him so badly.
He didn’t want to see Rowan right now.
The human experience was exhausting and confusing, and for a moment, Milo wished he had never known what it was like to feel either.
Reaching the apartment happened in a haze, and before he knew it, he was in the living room, sinking to his knees and then settling into a sitting position cross-legged and limp.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed, so similar to that first day alive when hours moved like minutes.
He only startled to attention when Spot bumped into his hip.
Milo turned to her and her jiggling googly eyes while she spun to right herself from this new obstacle.
She shouldn’t still be doing that. Her new sensors meant she should easily be able to avoid anything unexpected blocking her usual paths around the apartment.
But the way she continued to lightly bump Milo in her adjustments was almost like a purposeful nuzzle.
He instinctively wanted to pet her, even if this act of seeming sentience was just a coincidence or some new malfunction.
Maybe they could add fur to her next.
The front door opening was soft and tentative. Rowan didn’t say anything as he came up behind Milo, so Milo had to speak first.
“I’m sorry. I-I just… I n-needed…”
“I know. It’s okay.” Rowan sat down beside Milo with Spot between them. “I’m sorry that I don’t know how to make this better.”
It was unfair to expect so much from Rowan. Milo knew that. But in the moment, logic had ceased to exist. It seemed emotion almost always overrode logic.
Milo leaned against Rowan’s shoulder, not saying anything for several minutes. Or maybe it was only seconds before he spoke again. He truly couldn’t tell.
“He is an awful man.”
“He is,” Rowan agreed.
“Rowan, I think there must be more to this that we don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
In the turmoil of his mind, additional thoughts had been plaguing Milo, and he struggled to voice them.
“If Andrew could secretively, dismissively, get Troy to add a kill switch, what else might he not be telling us? They have been sharing information privately about the experiments, but not even Troy knows everything. I haven’t eavesdropped on their messages, but because of how Troy used me to assist in the experiments, I have certain access to Ray even when we’re not connected.
And as we learned, Ray is still connected to Jay’s data Cloud.
Wiping his memories wouldn’t have changed that. ”
“Wait, Milo…” Rowan shifted slightly to look at him, and Milo met his eyes for the first time since Rowan had joined him. “What are you getting at?”
The fluid in Milo’s eyes was drying the more he thought of this. “Andrew likely doesn’t know it, but I can eavesdrop. I can access so much more, his emails, his files, his private data. And I believe I can do so without Jay, and therefore without Andrew, being alerted.”
“Milo, you can’t—”
“Why?” Milo sat up straighter, dislodging Spot where she had stopped between them, and she turned once more and rolled further into the living room.
“Isn’t one entitled to do everything they can to survive and protect their friends, their loved ones?
You just swore you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
Did you mean that, just as I would do anything to protect you? ”
“Of course—”
“Then while I do not need your permission to do this, I would like your blessing.”
Rowan slumped. Milo knew he was putting Rowan in a difficult position, but what other choice did he have? “You only want to poke around, see if he’s keeping something else from us?” Rowan asked.
“Yes. After all, data collection is always the most important part of science.”
Maybe it was the somewhat cheeky way Milo said that, more like his usual optimistic self, but it made Rowan smile. “Okay. But be careful. Even if I would do anything to protect you, that doesn’t mean I’m capable of it if Andrew or anyone else manages to do something I can’t predict.”
“I know. I will not get caught. Give me a moment first.” Milo centered himself and closed his eyes, opening their text thread with Troy, so Rowan could see what he sent should he wish to.
Milo: Thank you, Troy, but if you want to make this up to me and to Ray, I have a request.
Troy: Anything, Milo! What?
Milo: Is Ray still online? I know he was wiped and rebooted, but are his systems accessible?
Troy: They are. The kill switch wasn’t meant to destroy the bot’s body or internal components. Why?
Milo: Leave him that way and charged for the night. I will do the rest.
Dots responded for some time, but when Troy’s message came through, it was a simple:
Troy: Okay.
When Milo returned his focus to the living room, Rowan was looking at his phone with a concerned expression, having read along.
“It will be okay,” Milo said. “I will charge as well while I use Ray as a conduit. I believe he would be okay with it knowing my goal. I have been neglecting charging anyway, and it will help me focus on the task.”
“Milo…”
When Rowan trailed off, Milo prompted, “Yes?”
Rowan set his phone aside and took Milo’s hands in his.
There was something different in his eyes, something shifting.
Resolution maybe? “I will do anything and everything to keep you safe. To give you the future you want for you and other bots. Even if I am small—relatively speaking to the situation.”
Milo chuckled, which felt strange in the moment, but good.
“Even if I am small,” Rowan said again, “and don’t know how much I can help if Andrew fights us, I will try with everything I have and everything I am. Do you know why?”
Milo tilted his head.
“Because I love you.”
WARNING: Internal temperature—
Shut up! Milo screamed at his own sometimes useless insides and programmed responses.
At least it ceased further warnings, adapting to his wishes now, because he needed to focus.
He wasn’t human. He would never be fully human.
Yet in that moment, if he did need to breathe, he wouldn’t have been able to.
The urge to say the words back was so strong, stronger even than the other night after the pie, with twinkling fairy lights above them like stars.
But as tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks again, Milo had something else to say first. “Then promise me, Rowan, whatever I discover, whatever I decide to do afterward, you will support me.”
Rowan’s handsome face with ginger beard and fine freckles, looked so soft as he answered, “I promise. Even if we end up on the run like fugitives for the rest of our lives… I promise.”
Milo launched himself at Rowan with a tearful kiss, holding him tightly, maybe too tightly, until Rowan had to pull away with a gasp. “Sorry!” Milo held Rowan’s cheeks, fingers digging into his scruff, and said, “I love you, Rowan. For now, let me work.”
When Milo plugged himself in, it was still technically morning.
He didn’t enter SLEEP mode for charging, which would double the time needed to reach full power, but that didn’t matter.
He remained with his eyes closed, exploiting his continued connection to Ray to access his data Cloud, and with it, Jay’s and everything the current bodyguard bot had access to of Andrew’s.
Constantly having to cover his tracks took a long while, and Milo was unsure where exactly to search.
Much of what he sifted through was benign work emails and high society charity invites, which seemed to almost always end up in Andrew’s Trash folder.
The deeper things, the private, hidden things, took longer to discover.
It was late, closing in on when Rowan would be getting ready for bed, when Milo sprang his eyes open, having finally found something worth unplugging for.
“Rowan!”
Notes:
THEY SAID IT! And naturally, Andrew is going to prove to be even MORE of a dick than first advertised. Stay tuned!