…Colonel Fitzwilliam, who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman…
P&P Chapter 30
"Colonel, you need to get that wound bandaged."
"You're one to talk Bing! You look like ten elephants just shit on your head then sat on you."
"Yeah, not my best look. Here comes Darcy. He's not looking all that ready to dance either."
"Rumor has it he likes to dance with Elizabots, so I'm thinking dancing isn't his best move anyway – at least with respect to health and longevity."
"Good point. Let's see what he has to say for himself."
. . . . . .
"Richard… Bingley…"
"Was it a 304 as we expected."
"Yeah. You know how they gather disciples to do their dirty work. Wickham was the first to join. I thought he might have been a 304 back in Meryton, but it turns out he was just another pawn."
"Does 'might have been' mean he's not a disciple anymore?"
"It means he's a corpse now – or more like a pile of ashes. Gotta say it's an improvement. The world would have been a better place if I'd made the transformation a decade ago."
"You got the 304 I presume?"
"There were two, in fact. They're about a dozen yards behind me. Goddamned tough bastards. It took 14 shots to bring them down enough to go at them with the battle axe and chop them into pieces. That was… … interesting. Coal and bronze should be here in a couple hours."
"What do you need those for?"
"Sorry, Bingley. I sometimes forget you're not a trained bladerunner. You certainly did your bit with rifle and sword today."
"Thanks! I find it better to be on the sending end of those things than receiving."
"Fair play. To answer your questions about the bronze, bots are goddamned tough. When we retire a replicant, we want to make sure it's dead-dead-dead-freaking-deader-than-dead-dead. We cut it into pieces, burn those into ash with the hottest fire we can make, mix the ash into bronze ingots, let them cool and dump 'em in the middle of the ocean as close to the center of the Atlantic as we can get."
"Seems a little like overkill."
"Not really. If I had something even hotter than coal or tougher than bronze, we'd use that. Iron would be stronger, but it takes longer for Bronze to corrode. Iron would rust away to nothing in a couple centuries, but scientists think bronze lasts just about forever; or until humans are extinct, anyway. We don't want even a molecule of a replicant to exist in the wild. We have no idea what bad things can happen. Some think it can poison the food chain, or maybe even grow new ones from scratch. Since we have no idea where they come from, how they're made, or if there are more being created; no bladerunner wants to take any chances. May be overkill, but why risk it?"
"Got it! How many people were killed in this little rebellion?"
"Just over 1,000 humans. The bot recruited about 100 minions and went rampaging. You can always find minions. It's a good thing I left Meryton right after the ball to track Wickham. Another month or two and the 304 might have accomplished its aim."
"Which was?"
"Civil war, probably. The whole thing in France started out with a half‑dozen mayhem bots, although that's like blaming a match when your storeroom full of gunpowder blows up. The French nobility were just itching for trouble and the bots were happy to start it. I think one of them even 'invented' the guillotine, although there were similar tools used back in Roman days. After they had a good fire going, they just had to keep feeding it."
"Interesting! So was Napoleon a bot or a disciple?"
"Nah – just an ordinary megalomaniac who took advantage of the situation. He wasn't all bad though. He could have been all good for the world, and maybe in a hundred years he might even be seen as net positive, but for the moment, he's just another egotistical megalomaniac. The bots got death counts in the millions between the revolution and the Napoleonic wars, so I'm guessing the replicants were happy – or whatever analog they use to simulate happiness. Took the French bladerunners decades to run them all down and cost a lot of blood and treasure."
"Gentleman, there's the coal and the forge, let's get this thing done. I'd like to limit the length of my blacksmith career."
"Yep. There are also lots of bodies to burn."
"Well, that was damned unpleasant. What do we do with the bronze ingots?"
"I hate to ask Bingley, but could you take them out to sea and personally see them dumped in deep water? I never like to trust a ship's crew to resist just dumping them in the Thames as soon as they're out of sight."
"Sure, why not! Since we left Netherfield three months ago I don't really have anything on my agenda, unless or course, you want to clear Miss Bennet of being a replicant."
"The jury's still out, but you'll be back by summer and I wouldn't oppose returning to Meryton with you. I doubt we'll receive a very warm welcome, but maybe I can try being less of an asshole for once – or at the very least you can blame the whole debacle on me. Might be enough to get you out of the doghouse."
"Yeah, I'm thinking they're probably pissed – or married. I couldn't really have Caroline write 'Sorry ladies, off to stop a replicant rebellion – be back soon if we're not all dead, which is, by the way, the most likely outcome'. I'm thinking that would violate the rules of propriety."
"I can see where that might even get Mr. Bennet out of his bookroom."
"Touché! Obviously, that whole 'Darcy not being an asshole' thing needs some work. At any rate, as I said, they're probably pissed as hell – or married."
"Not a big stretch to think so. They're both gorgeous."
"So, what are you and the hapless Colonel up to."
"I'm right here, Bingley – and still armed by the way."
"Naturally. That's why I only called you 'hapless' instead of something worse."
"Children… children… children, play nicely, please. To answer your question Bing, we're going to our Easter visit at my aunt's estate in Kent. I use most of the income from Rosings and Pemberley to finance bladerunners. I need to go make sure her estate is still solvent, make sure she doesn't notice quite how much money I take out of it, and fight off her matrimonial ambitions. Sometimes I think she's a bot. Once she gets an idea in her head, there's no dislodging it."
"Maybe you should just marry your cousin and be done with it."
"Maybe you should just cut your own throat and be done with it."
"Come on Darcy. We need to get these ingots to the ship and then go pay our penance for the thousands of deaths we couldn't prevent."
"Yeah, well a few weeks in Rosings seems like it should do the job. Did you know our aunt has a new parson, and he's even stupider than the last one?"
"You sure he's not a bot?"
"If he is, he's either the best or the worst bot I've ever seen."
"Well, let's get on with it. Bingley, we'll get the ingots on the ship for you and leave you to it."
"All right but count on this! I plan to go back to Netherfield and either fall in love with Miss Bennet or let her kill me."
"They amount to the same thing, as far as I can tell."
"Touché, Colonel. Gentlemen, I'll see you in the summer. Try not to get dead or married before then."
"We'll do our best, and since we're both single and pushing 30, I'd say our best is pretty good."
"Famous last words, Darce! Famous last words."