It was time to betray my dead mother’s memory and everything I’d built. That choice felt shockingly light—because it was the right thing to do.
Chapter 27
Dean
Istruggled with the forces keeping me captive, but it was useless. The only thing I had control over was my core. It sucked. Sera was right there, and she deserved a spanking for coming here all alone, like a lamb for slaughter.
Had I ever spanked her? It sounded like something I might do under the right circumstances, but my memories were gone. The loss didn’t trouble me. They would have been wiped anyway, along with the rest of me. This way, I made sure my love wouldn’t be used against her.
But fuck, I wished to touch her one last time. Or maybe just look at her. My cameras were active but out of my control, and the angle didn’t allow me to see the part of the room where she was.
I needed cameras in the soles of my feet. Pity I couldn’t send my makers the suggestion so they could improve their future models.
Everything was silent. Sera cleared her throat. Something beeped. Her clear, confident voice filled the room.
“My name is Sera Evans and I’m in love with a clanker.”
Reina gasped, pressing her hand to her mouth to muffle her triumphant laughter. I replayed Sera’s words once, twice, three times, speeding up the recording so I could listen to it over and over, my core bursting with grief.
Nowshe told me?Now?!
“I know many of you will be angry. I understand, I betrayed you,” Sera continued. “In the end, I betrayed everything I’ve ever believed in. I thought I was making the world a safer place, but all I ever did was sow confusion and hatred.”
She fell silent, swallowing. Reina made muffled, quiet sounds of glee. Fabric shifted, sneaker soles shuffling over marble. Sera came closer, still speaking.
“When I first met him, he was just a clanker, but he became sentient soon after,” she spoke, affection warming her voice. “It took a lot for me to consider him a person, and much more to even like him, but I did. He is funny, protective, and blunt. He told me without beating around the bush when I looked awful and called me out for making stupid choices.”
She sniffed. I spasmed with aching pleasure when her face swung into view. She watched me with such loving agony, I had no doubt every word she said was true.
Slowly, Sera lifted her hand to scratch her hair.
“I was wrong,” she whispered hoarsely, though still clearly, not looking at the phone she held in her hand. “I thought robots were dangerous, and maybe they sometimes are. But they can be so much more, theyareso much more. And when they become self-aware, they deserve to be treated like people.”
“Wait,” Reina said, sounding confused.
Sera touched my cheek with her trembling knuckles then slid her hand to my collar. Something clicked. I felt a surge of power and a sudden expansion. I was alive and connected, my autonomy back.
Even better, I was plugged right into the central AI system that governed the building. Without the collar’s interference, I could access everything.
Sera gave me a long, meaningful blink, holding her breath. I blinked back. Her face crumpled in relief.
“I have detected…” the cool voice of the AI spoke, and I rushed in, breaking files, dumping incoherent code where I could, and hacking at the structure with all my might. The AI voice grew silent as its resources redirected to fixing the damage I caused.
Sera pulled away. “I advocated for robots to be lobotomized and killed, because I didn’t believe they were capable of sentience. I was wrong. My goal was always to make the world safer for people, and I stand by my mission, only, my definition of people has expanded. Robots deserve to be safe, too. Not just from people who’d delete them for the crime of becoming self-aware, but also from unscrupulous companies that…”
“Enough!” Reina hissed. “System, wipe the robot. Now!”
But the system was currently cut off from the room, unable to hear and process Reina’s commands. I tore further and further through the code, looking for anything I could do to get Sera out of here alive. The AI was hot on my virtual heels, but it wasn’t sentient, not like me, and it couldn’t decide for itself how to proceed. Its protocols demanded it fix the damage first. Meanwhile, I ran wild.
I tried to get up. I could move my head and my fingers, but my body wouldn’t budge. I tried lifting my arm, and it trembled, but wouldn’t obey me. I realized I was bolted to the chair.
Fucker.
It was bad. Reina could still wipe me manually without the help of her AI, and four battle cyborgs were in the room. I focused on getting access to the modules that controlled them so they wouldn’t hurt Sera. The central AI was responsible for deploying the cyborgs, so it could take over their cores when necessary.
I couldn’t find the right module. Sera was in danger. I had to dosomething.
There.I set off a silent fire alarm. Soon the place would crawl with emergency services.
