Bucky was motionless a moment. It looked side to side again. “My arms are not functioning.”
“That’s because we cut them off. I don’t want you killing any more people.”
The bot did not respond.
“Get up. You can do so without your arms.”
Bucky lifted its torso into an upright seated position, then managed to rock to the side, turn its legs, and get onto its knees. It was surprising to Brodie how much additional time and effort it was taking this thing to stand up. It benefited from a human’s anatomy but faced some of its limitations as well.
Bucky rose to its feet and towered over General Morgan. The general looked up. “Why did you kill Specialist Kemp?”
Bucky tilted its head down. “I do not know.”
“Do you recall killing him?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Bucky did not respond.
“I said, I don’t believe you, you fucking abomination. What do you have to say to that?”
“I have nothing to say to that.”
“I am going to try to explain to you what death is,” said Morgan. “Because you can’t possibly understand it. Specialist Daniel Kemp was born twenty years ago. You have only existed for a single year, give or take, so that amount of time might not be fathomable to you. Twenty years ago, for instance, nightmares like you were the subject of speculative fiction, books and movies about horror, and fear, and how we through technology might lose our own humanity and struggle to regain it. Do you understand any of what I am saying?”
Bucky replied, “Daniel Kemp was twenty years old. I am eleven months old. People fear me. They feared me before I existed.”
“Here’s what else you need to understand. Kemp had lived a life full of love and fear, hope, laughter, pain. And he has parents who are about to receive the worst news of their life, that their son, who they held as a baby, who they sacrificed for, who they were so proud of, is dead. Not just dead but murdered. Murdered byyou. That means he was, and now he is not. That means he will never have another thought in his brain, because you decimated it. He will never wake up to the sun, he will never sleep beneath the stars, he will never enjoy food, or the kiss of a lover, or a funny joke. He will never feel the air of this living world enter his lungs. I think Daniel Kemp’s parents, and all of us here, deserve better than to hear you say you don’t know why you killed him. There is something inside of you that made you kill. Something that the brilliant minds responsible for your very existence claim to not understand. How is that? Have you developed some independent will beyond their capacity to even detect? Are you lying to me, Number 20?” Morgan turned and glared at Dixon, Spencer, and Lehner. “Or aretheylying to me?”
Taylor whispered to Brodie, “Scott. This is very bad.”
Morgan turned back to Bucky and said, “Look up at the sky. There’s a raven.”
Bucky craned its head up at the sky as a black raven sailed over the desert.
Morgan said, “It’s a symbol of death. Did you know that?”
“No,” replied Bucky.
“Well, it’s fitting, because I am going to kill you, right now. And you will never see anything ever again. Not that sky or that raven. Not me. Not Sergeant Miller or any of his men. You simulate killing them twice a week sometimes. But they are all still here, and momentarily you will not be. Do you understand?”
Bucky looked down and trained its sensors on the general. “Yes.”
“Ask me a question.”
“I do not have any questions,” said Bucky.
“Don’t you want to know how you are going to die?”
“I know how I am going to die.”
Morgan grinned. “How could you know that?”
“I have analyzed every weapon present in my vicinity. And there is only one that can destroy me.” It swiveled its head toward the Rangers. “That M203 grenade launcher being held by Sergeant First Class Mike Miller.”
Brodie looked over at Miller, noticing for the first time that his M4 rifle had a mounted underbarrel grenade launcher attachment.
