22
Happy ever after.
“It’s a lot of work, looking after our humans. They’re so fragile and, to be honest, imbeciles sometimes. But they’re so adorable, aren’t they? With them, humanity persists beautifully, don’t you think?”
Transcription of a communication between Beet and Vex, 2065.
Two years later.
PERRI
I sigh. “I promise, you really don’t want to do this.”
“Shut up!” says the young man holding the gun. He’s sweating profusely and a sneer reveals his yellowing teeth.
We were working on Gandalf’s broken-down hovercar, the late afternoon sun beating down on our shoulders, when a group of five survivors appeared from the shade of a nearby butte. We’re somewhere between Arizona and Utah, deep in Navajo territory.
While the man holds us at gunpoint, his four friends are ransacking Gandalf’s hovercar, taking everything of value and throwing the rest on the red dirt.
Gandalf sighs. “Let them, Perri. Come have a drink with me.” He’s sitting under the shade of his tarp, pouring cold brew in three glasses with ice cubes from his fridge, now emptied by our captors.
Vex sits on a stool on his right, her pale face the only visible part of her artificial body. She loves to wrap herself up in scarves and colorful fabric, like a princess of a desert tribe in a fantasy story. I doubt the man holding us at gunpoint even realized she isn’t human. He and his friends are too busy getting excited about their luck.
Well, I wouldn’t call thatluck. Not when Stellan and Alastair could be back at any moment.
I sit by Vex’s side. She accepts the glass of cold brew Gandalf is offering her. She likes to pretend to drink, and we let her. To us, she’s more human than the dirty motherfuckers ransacking the hovercar as we speak.
She wrinkles her nose. “How inconsiderate,” she says, watching them.
I snort. Vex always kept her dainty personality, no matter how much of the world after the Rise she experienced. She’s a delight.
Our captors tried to steal the hovercar, at first, until they realized it wouldn’t move. Gandalf called us five days ago, asking for help when his ride broke down. That’s how we ended up here, trying to repair it. The local Navajo tribe couldn’t helphim; his hovercar is a tricky amalgam of advanced technology. It required my skills combined with Griffin and Beet’s knowledge, connected through Vex’s transmitter, to understand the problem. And even then, we were still missing a few parts. Thankfully, Jude and Oliver owed us a favor and they agreed to travel fromGears and Gigglesto a rendez-vous point with Stellan and Alastair and give them the parts. They have been gone for a few hours now.
Over a year ago, Stellan wouldn’t have let me out of his sight in the middle of the wastelands like this. But Alastair is teaching him how to relax and allow me space to walk on my own two feet. Well, that and having Vex at my side helps. We’ve also updated her programming, and now she’s giving me therapy sessions to work through my childhood trauma.
“How is it?” Gandalf asks after I take my first sip of cold brew.
The old man must be a few centuries old now, by my guess. His sunburnt face is a map of wrinkles and his white beard is longer than ever.
“Pretty good, actually.” Right as I say this, I notice a cloud of red dust on the horizon. “Oh, it looks like the cavalry’s coming.”
Our captors seem to notice it, too, and they get agitated. They evidently only have one gun.
“Who’s that?” the man holding us at gunpoint asks.
I grin around the rim of my mug. “My husbands.”
He frowns at me for a moment, confused. “Huh?”
The King’s monster truck gets more defined on the horizon as they race towards us. Finally realizing the danger they’re in, the survivors swarm us to try and take us hostage.
But Vex is quicker. She stands up swiftly and puts herself in front of us. The man holding the gun shoots her, but the bullet ricochets off her reinforced armor before going straight through his friend’s leg, who falls on the ground screaming.
Chaos ensues, and Vex fights off two men while I throw my glass of cold brew at a third man’s face. I’m never happier that I changed her programming to free her from the three laws of robotics than when she kicks some asses to save us.
Our four captors try to retreat behind the hovercar, abandoning their wounded friend, but it’s too late, Stellan and Alastair are already pulling up in a cloud of red dust. Before anyone can say ‘oh shit’, they’re both jumping out of the truck, fury incarnate. The survivors empty their only gun on Alastair, who takes it all in stride, the bullets barely slowing him down. He kills the first man he reaches with his bare hands. Stellan is right behind him, shotgun firing.
In less than a minute, they have efficiently gotten rid of the threat.
