Silence answered, but after a few quiet beats outside Rowan's bubble of anguish, Troy answered, "No."
"Do you understand the gravity of your situation?" Andrew stomped closer to Troy past Rowan and Milo. "I own the pending patent on the surge protector. I own the data you've collected these past several weeks. I own everything in this building. Whatever you thought you were about to do doesn't work anymore without your little mascot there."
Rowan snapped his attention up at Andrew after hearing the derision in his tone.
"Should it ever reboot, it will start over from square one like the usual empty shell they all—"
"Shut up," Rowan seethed, brushing his fingers over the small of Milo’s back, where his shirt was hitched, as he carefully laid Milo on the ground again so he could stand. He must have only imagined that touching the remaining scar tissue like a sunburst around Milo’s tailbone had caused his body to twitch. "You do not talk about Milo, and if you ever consider trying, you usehe, because that is what he chose,thatis who he was. Not an empty shell, a fucking person who you killed!"
Andrew scoffed again, looking so maddeningly smug. "Not according to the law, Mr. Rangecroft. To the law and anyone or anything that matters, Milo? Please.Itwas never anything other than a doll to be used."
Rowan saw the explosion of blood from Andrew's nose before he even registered that he'd punched him with a short, sharp jab to the center of his face.
"Fuck!" Andrew stumbled back a step, grabbing his busted nose with his free hand and speaking as if already choking on fluids. "You son of a bitch! That was assault, do you understand me? I fucking dare you to try it agai—" But before he could finish his taunting, he flinched at the incoming much more purposely swung fist Rowan was about to use to break his jaw.
“Initializing… Processing…”
Rowan's arm went limp just before contact, the call of that voice,that voice, whirling him around and making Andrew's existence the least important thing in the world right then.
Milo’s bodywasjerking, eyes illuminating as he experienced an all-over seizure from the reboot. It was all so familiar as the bot righted himself and sat up, blinking rapidly. “Conducting emergency protocol diagnostic…”
No. Please don’t be reset.
Please no…
Finally, after several agonizing seconds, Milo was fully conscious and met Rowan’s stare. It didn’t appear to be the old empty expression looking back at him, or even the fresh-eyed newborn expression Milo had worn the night of the lightning.
“Milo?” Rowan dared to ask, slowly returning to him.
And Milo smiled so blindingly brilliant that it couldn’t have been anyone but him, exactly as he’d been before his body dropped, proved that much more when he launched himself up onto his feet and kissed Rowan fiercely.
“What?” Andrew griped angrily behind them. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be wiped!”
Milo pulled from Rowan’s lips only to shout behind them at Troy, “Finish it, Troy, and be ready!”
After a moment’s pause and the flood of relief that filled Troy’s face, he obeyed, hurrying to finish what he had been doing—clearing Milo of the kill switch protocol that should have erased him but somehow hadn’t and readying to awaken Ray and all the other bots with him.
“That was supposed to wipe you!” Andrew shouted again, and furiously raised his tablet.
“Got it!’ Troy announced. “Whenever you’re ready, so am I!”
Andrew pressed another button on his tablet with his now blood-soaked hand, seemingly to try again, and looked up in expectation—then disappointment when Milo was unaffected. He kept jamming at the button, over and over, muttering, “Why isn’t this working?”
Rowan could only be happy that it hadn’t,wouldn’t, as he checked Milo over for visible damage. Though in truth, he looked no worse for wear and appropriately triumphant.
“Thank you, Troy,” Milo said, presumably for disabling the kill switch, but why hadn’t it wiped him the first time?
Why was he stillhim?
Milo smiled at Rowan as if in silent answer that he would explain later.
“We can go live as soon as you say the word, Milo,” Troy said.
“Oh no you don’t!” Andrew hissed, and after throwing his tablet to the floor with a clatter, he hurled himself toward the fallen Jay as if to more quickly reboot him too.
“Oh noyoudon’t,” Rowan growled, sweeping Milo aside so he could intercept Andrew, who didn’t have the benefit of a bot’s super strength to stop someone so much larger than him.
Rowan caught the director around the waist with one of his meaty arms before Andrew could drop down beside Jay and pulled him back against him in a tight bear hug of a prison. His ribs still hurt, especially having an adult body pressed back against them, but if he did have any that were broken, he could handle a little ache until the deed was done.
