Sam stepped forward. “Uh, goodbye, Roger. I’m sorry you’re going to miss our concert tonight.”
“That is quite all right, Oliver friend number three. I have heard plenty of your musical stylings over the years, and I am glad I am missing this one. I fear I might be forced to shoot you before the enemy does.”
Sam laughed. “I didn’t know you could be so funny, Roger.”
“That wasn’t a joke, Oliver friend number three.”
Sam continued to laugh. “I’ll miss you, Roger.”
Shing!
Roger jumped forward and stung Sam.
“Ow, what the fuck, Roger! What did you do that for?”
“That was an advance correction for every swear I know you plan on uttering this evening.”
Sam glowered at the robot. “You know, historians are going to look at this relationship you and I have, and they’re going to be saying pretty nasty things about you, Roger.” Sam rubbed his arm.
Roger made a beep that sounded strangely like a laugh. “You have no idea.”
“Your robot is acting weird,” Sam said.
“Oliver, walk with me,” Roger said as he started to float toward the fence.
All around us, people worked. The tall wall remained. And inside the walled base, the stage rose. It was going to be taller than the wall in front of it, and it would be taller than the barn. It could rotate, so it would face the main force of the attack. The anti-beam shield over it looked like a clamshell. As we watched, a pair of honeybees affixed a pair of newly printed spotlights. Another group worked on antimissile point defense around the stage.
“Are you certain you want the pyrotechnics?” Roger asked. “It takes up some of the precious supplies and printing time.”
“Sam always dreamed of them,” I said. “Add them.”
“Very well.”
Apex had made good on their promise of delivering EMP mines. Roger said they didn’t work as well as the ones we’d made from the honeybee batteries, but they would still likely take out most mechs, and we were planting them everywhere.
Everyone had been updated on the plan. They still didn’t know the details on Roger’s jailbreak, but they did know that everything had changed. We would still get to play our concert, but now as a misdirection. We needed to keep the stream going to hide the fact that we were also using the bandwidth to its absolute upper limits, and we needed to hide that in all the noise.
“I have updated the dossier on all known combatants,” Roger said as we walked.
I reached forward, and I touched the side of the small machine. No matter what happened, I would never see him again, not like this, and that was so incredibly sad.
Roger lowered his voice. “The footage of Hobie Martin stealing the bottled alcoholic refreshment has been posted on the local community net with the caption ‘I keep stealing from this b-word, and he doesn’t do anything about it. He is now my cuck. LOL.’ ”
Hobie Martin was the driver of the very first mech I’d seen several days earlier. The birthday boy. It seemed so long ago.
“You didn’t actually use ‘b-word,’ did you? You spelled it out?”
“Of course, Oliver.”
“What was the reaction?”
“As predicted, the local community group was quick to condemn and identify Hobie Martin, and he has since been arrested by local authorities. He has a hearing in the morning. His father remains in another district for business, and I do not know of the status of the mother, but it appears she has ordered three bottles of wine from the grocery delivery.”
“Good,” I said. “What are the odds that they’ll see the video is fake?”
“The video is not fake. After I gained access to Hobie Martin’s account, I had access to all of his stored media. He constantly films himself shoplifting. The exact text of my post was from a message he sent to a group of friends, so he will believe one of his friends is the one who made the post on the local community page.”
“Awesome,” I said. I paused. “Thank you, Roger. Thank you for all you have done over the years. I know this isn’t really goodbye, but it feels like it is. I just wanted you to know that Lulu and I wouldn’t have made it without your help.”
