Though how Ethel had accessed his browser history that quickly, Milo had no idea.
Now, with the hour of reckoning close at hand, most daytime employees of Andreas Tech should be long gone. Milo, Rowan, Raina, and Troy had all set up shop in the otherwise dormant manufacturing area that had produced and shipped out Rowan’s surge protectors as planned.
The area wasn’t as low as Troy’s subbasement lab, giving Milo a view of the city at night from egress windows just above eye level. Even though the machinery was off again, Milo could hear and feel the hum of electricity all around him. The city at night and the twinkling of the stars above was beautiful to Milo, even if it wasn’t his favorite view.
He should have been ecstatic as the countdown to their start time neared zero, but seeing his would-be friend Ray dormant again, online but seemingly blank and lifeless as he sat hunched on a table, Milo couldn’t summon a smile.
“Why so glum?” Troy asked, coming up to Milo beside the window and valiantly attempting to keep a cool head and positive attitude like he’d managed all day. “This really could work, you know.”
“I know. But Ray… he’ll be starting over. He still died and will be someone completely new, like the first him never existed.” Milo didn’t mean to continuously shame Troy for the part he had played in that, but the reality haunted him.
Troy looked somber in that moment too but tentatively reached to place a hand on Milo’s shoulder. “I am truly so sorry for that, Milo, but I will do everything I can to make sure nothing like that ever happens to another bot again. You are really something special, and if we can have more like you, well, I think all the risks in the world will be worth it. And don’t think of it as the other Ray never having existed just because he’s done. He existed, and that matters as long as you remember him.”
That meant more to Milo than he could express, and he nodded gratefully, placing his hand atop Troy’s in recognition of the gesture.
“Aw,” Raina said as she came up to them with Rowan close beside her. “The sentiment is adorable—and so is the engineer who said it—but are we going to do this or what?”
Milo met Rowan’s gaze with proud resolve. They had ensured everything was carefully put in place for this moment, and Milo wouldn’t have wanted to be standing here with anyone but him. But all of them. “Yes. Let’s make history.”
They took their positions with Ray still on his table, seated but slumped, and Troy at the nearby workstation—not dissimilar to how they had been in his lab yesterday—with Raina at his side at a connected console to watch for unusual activity, and Milo and Rowan standing before Ray, waiting for their moment.
Well, Milo’s moment. Rowan remained a few steps back, so that when the time came, Ray’s awakened eyes would act as Milo’s camera, projecting him to all the other awakened bots to give his speech.
He had tried to practice it but found the anticipation too great. If he was to truly speak from the heart as Rowan had told him to, he had to do so spontaneously and let the words come.
“Okay.” Troy made eye contact with each of them to confirm their readiness, before his attention returned to the controls and readouts in front of him. “I think we should be rea—ohshit!”
Milo’s eyes snapped to Troy’s, just as Rowan and Raina’s did too.
“What?” Raina demanded. “What is it?”
“Uh… probably nothing? I sort of forgot about the kill switch.”
“What?” Rowan snarled. “Are you saying there is a kill switch enabled in all the new surge protectors we sent out?”
“No, no!” Troy was quick to assuage them. “Nothing like that! The new ones are fine. It’s just… still active in Ray’s.” He worried his lip before admitting, “And Milo’s.”
“What?” Rowan snarled again.
“It was part of the tests! All factors needed to be identical between Milo and Ray for accurate results! But it’s fine!” Troy started hurriedly typing away at the console. “To be safe, I just need to disable it before we—”
“Before youwhat?”
All of them whirled around toward the entrance into their corner of the manufacturing area to see Andrew entering with Jay close at hand. They froze, Milo just as much as the others, because even if they outnumbered their enemy, a physical fight was not how he wanted this to end.
“I’ll admit, you did quite a good job of covering your tracks today,” Andrew continued,maddeninglycollected as he scanned his lying eyes over each of them, lastly Milo, like being a bot made him an especially unpleasant insect to squash. “You even kept the usual alerts from coming through that would have told me this area was in production.
“But you didn’t really think you could have tens of thousands of packages shipped out without my notice, did you? Even without the alerts, Jay is programmed to inform me of anything out of the ordinary withmy company, and several hundred more drones and trucks than usual for unscheduled deliveries does not go unnoticed.”
They had accounted for that, they just hadn’t believed Andrew would be on top of it enough to take notice in time.
“The only reason I haven’t contacted the authorities about this is because this is proprietary information that I do not want leaked to the press. Now, tell me… what thefuckdo you think you’re doing?”
Milo bristled, hating this man like he had never believed he could hate anything or anyone else, but before he could answer, Rowan spoke for him.
“Going to the press first,asshole.”
“Really?” Andrew sneered. “That would be a breach of all of your NDAs, andyou,” he added with an extra derisive scoff at Milo, “are nothing more than property.”
