“We can’t do that,” Lulu said. She pointed upward. “They won’t allow it.”
“They just want a show,” Axel said. “What if we leave all the honeybees and automated defenses?”
“And what about everyone hiding in the bunkers?” Rosita asked from my side. “It’s too late. Mrs.Xalos is having trouble walking. And your own grandmother is blind in one eye. What are you going to do, leave her here to die by herself?”
Axel lowered his head, ashamed. He looked at Tito just sittingthere, tears in his eyes. And then Axel looked down at the cast on his ankle. It had been signed by many of the town’s residents.
“I…I don’t know what to do,” he said. “We don’t want to die. We’re really scared.”
Rosita moved over and rubbed his arm. “I know. We all are.”
Roger made a clicking noise. “First, let us see what Mr.Opel has to tell us. Then we can formulate a better plan.”
On the screen, the honeybee reached forward and hit the connect button. This time, Cordelia picked up immediately.
“Hello, Cordelia,” Lulu said, keeping her finger on the talk button. “Cindy here. I understand Eli wants to talk.”
“He’ll be here in a minute,” Cordelia said. The woman’s hair was in a completely different hairstyle today, and it was somehow more intricate. She was sitting at the same desk as last time. She leaned in. “Did you guys really have something to do with that Droog guy’s death? His mother just started an account for Pepita—you know, the Chihuahua? She’s the cutest thing I have ever seen. They said it’s barely been a day, and the mom has already quit her job as a lawyer just so she can manage the dog’s account. You helped make that thing go viral. She’s so adorable. Oh, and don’t call him just ‘Eli.’ He doesn’t like that. He prefers ‘Mr.Opel.’ ”
“Yeah,” Lulu said, “that’s really great.”
Behind me, Sam gasped. “We can start an account for Betty Sue. Imagine the views she’d get!”
“And what would we do with it?” I asked. “We’re not allowed to spread ‘propaganda,’ remember?”
Roger beeped. “I have already created an account featuring Cindy the pig and her magic chickens. It is new and has only gathered twenty followers so far. I created it when we were testing our photo-generation capacity. It features many whimsical photos of Cindy and the chickens. All are real except two, which were added to test the system.”
“Wait, really?” Sam said. “Can we do video?”
“Video, yes,” Roger said. “The account is on Happy Earth, a photo-sharing site, but it’s from the same company that owns LoftBase, which is the streaming arm, and I have already connected the two accounts for cross-posting. LoftBase is the same one most of the others use. But I would avoid any sort of live stream for now. Too much bandwidth, and we run the very real chance that the source will get discovered.”
“What is the channel called?” Sam demanded.
“A Pig Plus Some Chickens.”
“Wait, what? The title of the page is literally A Pig Plus Some Chickens?”
“That is correct.”
“Goddamnit, Roger,” Sam said. “You are the absolute worst at naming—”
He was interrupted by Eli Opel appearing on the screen. We all shut up.
“Hello, Cindy,” Eli said, sliding into the seat. He looked almost identical to the last time. Same shiny suit. Same hair, though this time, the man seemed absolutely giddy. “My apologies for making you wait. I was just in a meeting with the boss. I have some good news. We have been green-lit for another location as soon as we wrap up New Sonora. The client isn’t too happy with some of the press, especially that stunt you pulled with Boog, Sloog, whatever his name was, but, Cindy, I must say, you were absolutely right to want to keep the two-way conversations going. They’re a little freaked about your team tearing through the anti-AI protections like they’re paper, but between you and me and Miss Cordelia here, any and all panic is fantastic for our bottom line. I was a little disappointed we didn’t get more back-and-forth this evening, but that’s okay. Those insults you slung at those little nerds were entertaining enough. We’re already at customer capacity for Phase 2. We had to put a rush order in for five more print ships.” He slapped his hands together. He was much less reserved than the last time he’d spoken to us. The man had an almostmanic quality to his voice. I’d never seen anything like it before. It was like he was drunk but the opposite. Was it drugs? I didn’t really know much about drugs, but I knew cocaine was a thing in a lot of movies. Maybe he was on cocaine. “But that money is flowing, baby.”
“How very excited I am for you,” Lulu said.
Opel laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. We have such a small player base. We’re getting the good government cheese, yes, but how is it that we are making this work with so few customers compared to a traditional gaming experience? Well, let me tell you, Cindy. You will go down in history. You have helped usher in a new age in extrasolar law enforcement and police actions. And we’re already in talks for extrasolar fighting leagues. We could end the experiment right now, and we’d be golden. Customers are pissed about how short tonight’s engagement was, but that’s war for you. Still lots of kinks to work out.”
Lulu didn’t answer. On the screen, Opel picked up some fruit I didn’t recognize and bit into it and started chewing loudly. It was like an apple, but it was yellow.
“Oh!” he finally said. “I remember why I had to talk to you. A couple reasons actually. We have some missile refills inbound, plus our scientists are pretty sure they figured out how those amazing EMP land mines you invented work, and we’ve created a gross of them. We’re sending them your way for testing. Also, wanted you to know we’ll be sending in a metric ton of RMI soldiers tonight. They will be surrounding the areas around your farm. We don’t want tomorrow’s assault to go too quickly. Do not engage them, as they’ll shoot back. Also, boss was just talking to the client, and they’re worried about a few things. First off, you have multiple parties in the vicinity who have fled your base. I want you to know we currently have RMI assets on their way now to remove them the old-fashioned way. We don’t want you ruining tomorrow’s fun by having you all get cold feet and running away. We have the area in a blackout and can’t send players after them, so this was the compromise.”
“I am seeing multiple RMI drops,” Roger said.
“Wait, what’s happening?” Sam asked. “They’re attacking again?”
“They’re going after the people that aren’t in the base,” Lulu said, her voice flat.
