Given that Sigma knew an attack could come at any moment, the drive was turning out to be pretty uneventful.
He'd made two stops to pick up other reploids, with Vava (calling himself Vulfen today) leading the pack. One more stop and he'd be ready to bolt. Bolt… it was the right term, he thought. It was an archaic reference to crossbows. He felt tense as the strung string. He needed release.
A part of him wished he would be attacked, just to get it over with and make sure everyone was clear who was on whose side. Another part of him could do the math on how far they were from the city's border and declare the first part of him suicidal.
X sat next to him in the cab of the van. The back was a separate compartment. Their passengers were sitting back there, including the still unmoving body of Dr. Cain.
Sigma tried to avoid looking at the human. Every time he saw him, he wanted to squirm in discomfort. Instead, he allowed his gaze to stray to X. "That's a good look for you," he said.
X glanced up uncertainly.
"With the helmet," Sigma specified.
"Oh," X said, before turning back to his work. He had a panel in the van open; some wiring was exposed. "I'm not a fan of it, overall. I just… it doesn't make sense to take it off, yet."
"What are you doing?" Sigma asked.
"All vehicles in Abel City have built-in transponders," X replied. "In theory, it's to help car owners recover their property if it's stolen. Maybe it does that too. But it also gives City Hall a way to track people in real time, if they want to."
Sigma's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "So they're tracking us now?"
"Probably not. There's a difference between having data and using it. They don't track individual vehicles closely unless they've got a reason. They know this vehicle's moving, but it won't matter to them until they know we're in it. They don't, yet. And I'm going to disconnect this before they put two and two together."
"Disconnect nothing," Sigma replied. "Find a weapon and smash it!"
X's face tensed. Sigma hadn't expected that reaction. Had he touched on something the android found sensitive? What could it be?
"No," X said, and just like that the moment was gone. "If I did that, it would squawk once as it went down, and that would get ACPD on our tails. I've got to hotwire a bypass—keep the circuit complete while going around the transponder…"
He trailed off, and Sigma left him to it, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Last stop," he said, pulling up. The large building was reploid community housing: a bleak, windowless chunk of gray architecture. Living in there was like living inside of a stone. The building was encircled by an electrified fence. It carried enough current to keep humans out and reploids in. It was both shield and cage for the reploids who lived inside.
The gates needed identity scans to open. Sigma brandished the edited card he'd created—one bearing a sort of mini-virus that would keep the scanner from logging the event. The last thing he needed was to give Unitech clues as to where he was.
He dreaded the day Unitech's analysts patched their card reader software. He hoped that day never came.
Three reploids were waiting for him. "Sigma!" cried one of them. "Are we really going?"
"We're really going," Sigma affirmed, swiping his card. The gate buzzed and swung open. "We're going to run for it. I can't guarantee your safety, but you won't be under their thumb anymore. You'll be free."
"If I'm gonna die, I wanna die free!" said the reploid, and all three rapidly passed through. They packed into the back of the Recovery van; the last paused before climbing aboard.
"Hey, what's a human doing in here?" he said uncharitably.
"He's a friend… of X's," Sigma added. "X brought him, and that's enough for now."
The reploid was taken aback, and though he still looked puzzled he climbed aboard. Sigma counted them as the last settled. Eight reploids, plus himself and X. Ten, out of a population of thousands… or was it tens of thousands by now? It wasn't much, barely anything… but you had to start somewhere. Given the Three Laws, and the power of Unitech and City Hall, saving even a few lives was a stupendous feat.
Sigma made sure his passengers were tucked in tightly, and then returned to the cab. When he got there, X was closing the panel back up. "Got it," he said. "That transponder was designed by someone who was…" he hesitated. Sigma wanted to laugh at how hard X tried to avoid saying unkind things about people. "…someone who was undereducated," X managed. "We can go now."
"Go where?" said Sigma. "Even if I leave the city, I'm just picking a direction to go before I shut down. I need a plan, X."
"And I have a plan," X replied. "I can share it with you now." He closed his eyes. Sigma could only wonder what was happening behind those eyes. They popped open. "We want to get out of the city and head east. Head towards the north side of the mountain range to the east."
"Sure," said Sigma, but his voice betrayed his uncertainty.
"There's a refuge out there."
"What kind of refuge?"
"A Light family refuge."
Sigma turned to face X—then quickly whipped his attention back to the street. "A Light family refuge? As in… as in Dr. Light?"
"I am his son," X reminded. "He had a few of these built, before… the end. I've got the coordinates of the others, too, but they're elsewhere. They're all over the planet. I guess he wanted me to always have somewhere to go. This one's closest. We'll be safe there."
Sigma's mind spat out a dozen problems they might face. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Alright." He was depending on X no matter what happened. He might as well trust him on this point. Sigma accelerated, reentering the flow of traffic.
The traffic seemed different this time. Sigma didn't think anything about it was actually different—it was the same vehicles going in the same directions, he was pretty sure—but he couldn't view it in the same light. Before, no single car had any true meaning. All of them could be viewed merely as moving obstacles, things to be avoided or ignored. He hadn't bothered to take in their character.
As with his Recovery missions, time was of the essence. The difference was that, before, other cars had a neutral threat value. They were a collision danger, but they wouldn't go out of their way to imperil him. This time he knew he was in danger. He was in enemy territory. Because of that, he had to be alert for any sign of danger. His combat subroutines were gobbling up lots of processing power, and they were tinting the way he looked at the world.
Each car had to be evaluated for threat. That meant looking more closely at the other cars, and characterizing them more carefully. He'd never done that before. It was one thing to look at a car, check its speed, and maneuver to avoid it. It was quite another to look at the same car and note where weapons could be stored, and whether or not the driver had a way to report on him, or whether it was heavy enough to stop the Recovery van if they collided.
He noticed how many cars there were—which stumped him for a moment, since he also knew what a small percentage of the population could afford their own vehicles. But, when he thought about it, a small percent of a large population still resulted in lots of cars, and the people in this city were jammed together tightly.
Not as tightly as reploids, he remembered unpleasantly as his thoughts returned to the brick that was reploid community housing. The thought was stored at a lower level. There wasn't time to ruminate on it now.
He noticed how many bulk movers there were, like busses and vans and large cabs, to move lots of people at affordable rates. Those were lower on threat, aside from being enormous.
The problem, Sigma thought, was that he wasn't just risking himself any more. He was risking all of them. He had a van full of reploids with him, all of them counting on him to keep them safe. His mistakes counted for ten...
Was this how X felt all the time?
He felt that was an important thought. He wasn't able to hold on to it because in the next second he crossed in front of a police car. He didn't turn his head or acknowledge it in any way. He just drove on through the intersection.
"Play it cool," X said, though Sigma hardly needed the advice. He followed the flow of traffic, paying the cop no mind.
The siren ignited moments later.
They're chasing they found out they saw us they're coming time to run look out look out-
Sigma's foot hit the accelerator, the van surged forward as he looked for his escape route—only for a moment, and then he pumped the brakes. Too tense, he knew, too tense. Don't panic. Watch the cop.
He looked in the mirrors and caught sight of the police car. It was flagging down a smaller, more agile vehicle going the opposite direction. Not after me, Sigma thought. His shoulders slumped in relief.
"Easy," X said. "Be natural."
"Right," Sigma replied. He realized, belatedly, that he'd squeezed the steering wheel so hard he'd left imprints of his fingers. Oops.
"You know," he said, forcing himself to relax, "we don't really know when City Hall was going to tap me. My source told me it was going to be soon, sure. That doesn't mean it was going to be today. We've probably got some time."
"No, we should move as quickly as we can," X said.
"Why?" asked Sigma.
"Because I burned our bridges at Unitech."
Sigma's hands found their groove in the steering wheel. "What do you mean?"
X fidgeted. "I had to send a message out before we left. The message went to Unitech's legal department. It explains that I hold Unitech in breach of contract, and so I've terminated our arrangement."
Sigma shook his head. No other reaction meant anything. No other reaction conveyed how he felt. "That's reckless, X! I don't know if you're brave or just malfunctioning. Why would you do something like that?"
"Well, it was true," X said. "They were doing things way outside the scope…"
"I know, I know," Sigma interrupted, "but why incur such a risk? Why give them any clue…" Realization hit. "You haven't actually gone Maverick yet, have you? You still have your gates in place!"
X said nothing. His silence was enough.
"I can't believe you," Sigma said, meaning every word. "We're going Maverick, and you're helping us—you're part of it! And somehow you haven't taken the first step."
"That's why I had to send the message," X said. "Ending the contract meant I could leave without breaking the Second Law."
"Let me get this straight," Sigma said. "You're willing to risk getting all of us caught and killed so that you can maintain the moral high ground. Is that about right?"
X put one hand atop the opposite forearm and rubbed it. Sigma didn't understand why, but the gesture seemed significant to X. Finally the android said, "Something like that. Except that I won't let us be caught."
The absurdity of it made Sigma want to laugh. He pulled to a stop as he waited for traffic, and this gave him the chance to look at X fully. "How can you say that? Especially how can you say that when at the same time you won't break the Three Laws?"
"Because I want to save everyone," X said glumly. "I don't want you to die. I don't want any pursuit after us to die. I wasn't being totally reckless, Sigma—it'll take a long time for that message to work its way through Unitech's bureaucracy. I wouldn't be surprised if it was auto-deleted," he added bitterly.
"You still created a situation that might kill us," Sigma said.
"I'll protect you, if it comes to that," X said.
"So… you're saying you haven't gone Maverick yet, but you might in the future."
"Do you think I like the fact that you went Maverick?" X asked quietly. "Do you think that wasn't a wrench to watch you, my first son, discard the Three Laws I try to uphold? So why would I still raise that possibility for you? Why wouldn't I tell you not to?"
"Because," Sigma said as a feeling of pride welled up within him, "you valued my life more than the Laws."
X opened his mouth to speak, but a car horn blared behind them before he could start. Sigma looked forward and saw the way was clear. He resumed driving.
"Maybe," he said, "we should save the moral philosophy until after we're done escaping."
"Probably," X whispered in response.
Maybe X had been right about the slow march of paper, because nothing seemed to be happening. Intersection by intersection, the Mavericks crept their way out of the city.
"No bolt of lightning so far," Sigma said.
"Almost there," X said. "We're almost out of the dense city. Soon it will open up a little. We'll stay on the highway for a couple of hours. Eventually we'll have to leave it behind. For now, get on the highway and keep going east."
Sigma directed the van up the on-ramp to the elevated highway. This part was recent construction—reploid construction, Sigma noted sourly. While a lot of it was still being built, this part, fortunately, was intact. As Sigma's turn evened out, he pressed hard into the accelerator. The Recovery van wasn't the friskiest vehicle, and its engine complained as Sigma demanded more from it, but it grudgingly obeyed his commands. Soon they were lumbering out onto the highway with virtually no traffic around and only open road ahead of them.
"Wow," said Sigma, looking around. "It's like an explosion of sky. I've never seen it so clear."
"Oh, right," X said. "You've never been out of the city." He smiled. "It's a little different, for sure."
"When were you out?" Sigma asked.
"When I first woke up. I was found out in the badlands at an archaeological dig. They weren't looking for me," he added with a smile.
"Really?" said Sigma. "So you being found… reploids coming to be… it's all a huge coincidence, isn't it?"
"Pretty much."
"It's almost as if… it was meant to be."
"I wouldn't put it like… what's that?"
Sigma frowned but didn't look. "What's what?"
X had gone still. Out of the corner of his eye, Sigma saw that X had shut his eyes, as if to aid his focus on some other sense. "Are-eff energy," he said. "We're being tracked."
"You can detect radio waves?" Sigma said, surprised.
"Only SHF and EHF bands," X said. "My antenna isn't big, so some sacrifices had to be made. Priority was on those bands used for radars… hold that thought."
X lowered the window and leaned his head out. Sigma had to wait as he thought of this new development. He didn't have any sort of radio system built in to his design, and he was the best reploid ever made. As the demo model, he was constructed to show off everything that reploids could do, and they'd loaded him down with all the bells and whistles.
And still X had things he didn't.
X leaned back inside. "Something in the air is following us. A mechaniloid drone, I think. It looks like the sort they use for traffic monitoring and…"
"And police work," Sigma finished. He pushed the accelerator down until it was flush against the floorboard. The acceleration should have made X rock, but he didn't seem to care, or even notice.
"I'll handle it," X said. Once more his upper torso was out of the vehicle.
What was he doing?
Sigma reviewed what he knew of X. He didn't seem… well, like he would have anything that could stop a mechaniloid from following them. Then again, he realized, he hadn't known X had radio detection, either.
He heard a strange sound, an otherworldly sound. It started low in pitch and built up, then quickly receded in frequency and volume. When the sound had vanished, X returned inside.
"What was that?" Sigma asked.
"Problem solving," X replied. He was shaking his forearm, causing his hand to whip about. It was as if he was trying to restore feeling to his fingers. Sigma didn't understand at all.
"Did you… destroy the mechaniloid?" he asked.
"I don't know if 'destroyed' is the right word," X replied. "It won't be following us, at least."
"Okay, fine. But what about ACPD?"
"They're faster than us," X said, "but not a ton faster, and we have a big head start. They'll have to escape the city first. The same trip took us two hours. Of course, we were going a lot slower than they were. Still, if it takes them more than half an hour they'll have trouble catching us."
"Half an hour is when we leave the road behind?" Sigma said, thinking ahead.
"That's right. See that mountain range? The refuge is in there. We'll go off-road to get there."
Sigma smiled. "I've never driven off-road. This should be fun."
"Well, we'll see."
Sigma's imagination started working on what it might be like to drive through the area ahead. As his mind worked, he found himself laughing.
"What's so funny?" asked X.
"It's just… this seems crazy," Sigma said. "Think about it. City Hall has weapons and tools and factories and money, and… and we're spitting at it. They've got all the power. If you look at it rationally, we're committing suicide. This shouldn't work. Does that make us crazy?"
"Of course not. There are plenty of ways for the weak to fight the strong." X's eyes glinted. "That is what you were going to the library to study, wasn't it?"
"You know me too well," Sigma replied.
"And," X went on, "even if the odds are against us… doing what's right is more important. All morality begins with the idea that there are things more important that doing whatever will ensure individual survival. Dying is far from the worst thing that can happen to a person."
His words left Sigma sitting quietly. X, he reflected, was sort of the expert on this subject, wasn't he? Sigma had thought about these things, but only a little bit, only enough to recognize that reploid exploitation was wrong—not that that was a hard idea to realize. It was X who was well-versed in the academics of it.
"All things being equal," X said, more casually, "I'd prefer to live."
"Me too," said Sigma, back on more comfortable ground. He smiled. "It's amazing how light I feel. It's as if the city was a weight bearing down on me. Now… Is this what freedom feels like?"
"Maybe," X said. "I've never felt that constrained. But… well, I am different."
Sigma didn't even have to affirm the statement. It was self-evident.
The mountains that had been looming ahead of them were growing larger and larger in their sight. Sigma had the word in his dictionary, but he found the reality to be something different. These mountains weren't round or even symmetrical. They had "arms", as if three or four ridges of rock rose from different directions to meet at a snow-capped peak. In between the arms nestled greenery and, sometimes, visible flowing water.
He did some quick math with what he knew of the van's maneuverability. "This van can't climb those," he said.
"We won't," X replied. "In a few miles, you'll want to go off-road, and we'll skirt around the bottoms of the mountains. The refuge is in one of the valleys. It isn't in an exposed location. At least," he added, somewhat abashedly, "that's what I'm thinking. I only checked the coordinates against a map. I haven't actually seen it. But it took people a hundred years to find my capsule, and that was by total luck, and that was supposed to be found. A hideout is probably hidden better."
A tapping came from behind them. X pressed a button; a panel slid open, exposing the cab to the cargo space behind. Vava's face was there waiting. "Hey, Sigma?"
"What is it, Vava?" Sigma said.
"It's Vip… never mind."
"What is it, Vava?" Sigma repeated with a growl.
"Are we there yet?"
X and Sigma shared a look. Smiles spread across their faces; laughter bubbled up inside of them, until their bodies were wracked with it and Sigma could barely keep the van on course.
"It wasn't a joke," said Vava sourly.
X pressed the button again. The panel slid shut.
The van moved on.
June 5, 2145
"Alright, I'm gonna kill the lights."
The dim overhead lighting went out with a click, plunging the room into darkness. "Now the door," said the voice.
When the door opened, the light that spilled in was almost blinding. Two large silhouettes were in the doorway. One of them spoke, "You know, we can see you."
"Hurry inside, idiots!" said the voice inside the room. Reluctantly the two entered. The door shut behind them, removing the light again.
A metal-on-metal clang. "Ow!"
A set of bangs. "Getoffame!"
"It's not my fault, I can't see…"
"Okay, this is stupid."
"It's still a good idea."
"No, it's really dumb. We know who each other is, we recognize the voices and…"
"That's only because you didn't come up with the voice scramblers…"
"…we invited each other to this meeting! There's no hiding that. We know each other."
"Fine!"
Click. The light came back on. Weak as it was, it was still enough to help the four reploids disentangle themselves and settle in the corners of the room.
"Look," said one, "if we're going to actually talk about Maverick stuff, we need to try and protect each other. City Hall just announced they're going to be building reploid Maverick Hunters. We can't be too careful."
"Come on, they're all going to be wearing Abel City colors. It's not like they'll be undercover or anything."
"Says who? For all we know, you could be a Maverick Hunter and we wouldn't know it."
"Are you a Hunter?"
"NO!"
"And I'm not. Well, that's two down, I suppose."
"Douglas isn't here yet. Where is he?"
"Dunno. We need to get started, though."
There was a stench of nervousness in the room. Hydraulic systems under enough pressure always leak a little, no matter how good their seals. Eyes flitted about and refused to make contact with each other. None of the four could come to complete stillness.
Just attending the meeting was an act of rebellion outside of their experience.
"So the Hunters are really coming out, huh?"
"Yeah, there was a news story about it today."
"I saw that one yesterday."
"Nah, this was a different one. It was about how Sigma ran off."
"Sigma? Sigma ran?"
"Yeah, he did. They were calling him a Maverick, but I don't know what he did."
"That's no good! I liked him."
"You don't have to convince me. I was run down by a car and broke near in half, and he brought me in, on his own, in time to save me. And he did it while traffic was roaring around him the whole time. I wouldn't have done that for anyone, and he did it for a guy he didn't even know. He's a hero, he is."
"And now he's gone. And he took a couple of others with him, including Vava."
"I was wondering where that maniac was."
"I wasn't."
"Look, it doesn't matter. Sigma's gone, and he's not coming back, and the Hunters are coming online soon."
"It does matter. Sigma was going to give us…"
The door opened noisily, causing all four reploids to stiffen. Douglas entered first. One of the would-be Mavericks opened a mouth to yell at him for being late—and then a human in a Unitech guard's uniform walked in behind him.
All four reploids took instinctive steps backwards.
"C-can we help you, sir?" one of them stammered.
The human chuckled a little as he shut the door behind him. He stared at the door as if looking for something. Not finding it, he leaned against the door instead and crossed his arms. "Don't worry about me," he said. "Pretend I'm not here."
The stricken reploids looked at each other in panic and despair. They were a variety of makes, so no two articulated these emotions in the same way, but the effect was obvious.
"But we weren't doing anything," said one.
"No," said another. "We're innocent!"
"Innocent of what?" the guard said.
All four reploids pressed themselves against the nearest wall. There was a brief hissing sound as a hydraulic seal blew in one of the reploid's legs. Liquid trickled down towards the ground.
"Oh good God," the guard muttered. He looked to Douglas. "Let 'em off the hook already, will ya?"
Douglas grinned and looked at the other reploids. "I know it looks crazy, but he's here to help," Douglas said. "He's going to help us go Maverick."
"Verdigris," blurted one of the reploids. "He's a human!"
"He wants to kill us!"
"He's gonna turn us in for doing this!"
The human rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm human, very good," he said scathingly. "But if I wanted to kill ya, I wouldn't need to do something elaborate like this to do it. And if I was trying to figure out what you were up to… well, let's just say you've pretty much let me in on it."
Douglas tried to catch eye contact with his fellows, one after the other. "Come on, you all should know better. When's Unitech ever tried to be sneaky? When's City Hall ever tried to be sneaky? They don't need to be. That's the whole problem. They don't need a reason to shut us down, and they don't have to prove anything before they act. They'd scrap us outright, without trying to figure out anything deeper than that."
"But… he's a human…" protested one of the reploids.
"Yeah, 'cause no human knows what shit smells like," was the guard's response.
There was a brief silence as the reploids tried to figure out what that meant. "Look," the human continued, "I know what you're dealing with. Your whole lives you've only seen the worst in humans. You've been exploited by your bosses and bullied by random passers-by. I get it. Well, that ain't all we are." His hands visibly tightened against his arms. "And that don't mean we can't change. So yeah. I'm not toeing the Unitech line these days. I want you guys to be treated like you deserve. I want everyone to be treated like they deserve. And if that means helping you guys go Maverick, then that's what I'm gonna do. I don't care if that does sound crazy."
One hand started absently patting against the pockets of his shirt, then the pockets of his pants. "You guys have probably never heard of Thoreau, but he said something pretty smart, back in the day. He said, some people serve the state with their bodies. There's nothing special about that, and they can be replaced pretty easily." He smiled. "The man was writing before robots were invented, but I don't think they'd have surprised him. Anyway, other people serve the state with their brains. But the brain doesn't know good from evil, so you're as likely to get a bad bureaucrat as a decent one."
His hand seemed to find what it was looking for, and dug into a back pocket. "That leaves people who serve with their consciences. The trouble is, they typically serve the state by fighting it." He withdrew the cigarette from the pocket and put the end in his mouth. "So fuck it. I'm in. If doing right means takin' on Unitech and City Hall, well. There are worse things to die for."
"And he can help, too," Douglas hastened to add. "He's gotten me some nice parts to play with."
"How?"
"They were a gift," the human said. "The legacy of a friend." He chuckled. "I guess you could blame him for me being here. Ever hear of a reploid named Magnus?"
They didn't say anything, but the human picked up the truth easily from their faces. They didn't know how to hide anything, not young as they were. Deception is a learned skill.
"I was there… at the end." The human took a deep breath. "Course, ACPD still doesn't think reploids are too smart, so they were sloppy cleaning up. Magnus left behind a lot of goodies. I just decided to… send them to where they could do the most good."
"He gave them to me," said Douglas proudly. "There's your proof, right there. Unitech hates wasting money, right? Even if they were up to something sinister, they wouldn't give it this big a budget. Magnus had a good eye for quality."
Finally, finally the reploids seemed to be coming around. They seemed to hide a little less, and they could actually maintain eye contact for more than a second or two before breaking away.
"What's your name?" one of them asked.
The human put a hand into his pocket and ran his fingers over his wallet. Inside was a sheet of paper, written on in the hastiest scrawl.
Thanks for everything, my friend. I'm dead. Please don't let anyone else die. I know you're a good man. Just be that, and my death will have meant something. –Andre
Well, Andre, the human thought, is this good enough for you?
"Call me Long... inus. Yeah, Longinus, that'll do." He nodded at his new codename, and lit the cigarette.
Before he could inhale, one of the reploids reached forward and pinched it out.
Longinus gave a tired look at the reploid, which had the guilty face of a puppy that's just pooped on a rug. "Well, there goes yesterday's pay," he said. "Why'd you do that?"
The reploid squirmed. "The… er… those hurt you, don't they? So the… First… Law…"
Longinus rolled his eyes. "Some Maverick you are," he said as he looked at the cigarette. It was a lost cause, he decided. He would have to take it home and try to salvage it. "God," he said as he tucked it back into his pocket. "We are so fucked."
Next time: The Shape of Things to Come
