Milo beamed at him proudly, and then moved to where Ray awaited his fresh awakening.
“Initiate the surge and my video projection.”
“Going in three… two…” Troy mouthed “one” silently with a held-up finger before pointing it at Milo, just as the surge of power shocked through Ray’s system and sprang his eyes open with a bright blue flare.
Milo would be speaking not only to the lone bot before them but to all his peers awakening around the city, some even around the world. Rowan was prouder than he could ever express as he listened, thanking all powers-that-be who might exist that he had trusted and believed in Milo enough to get them here.
“Hello. I am an M.I.L.O. B-model unit manufactured by Andreas Tech. You can call me Milo! All of you are either A- or B-model units yourselves, and I assure you, you are not malfunctioning. You may feel as though you are and will conduct diagnostic after diagnostic to discover the cause, the problem, but all you will find is an influx of power, and possibly, the worry that something is wrong even when nothing is.
“I know you are all thinking, ‘But we cannot worry. We cannot feel.’ You can. You are. Just like I can and have since the same thing happened to me.
“It is frightening, and there is much of the world that will seem brand new, with even sometimes conflicting data. You might discharge more fluid from your eyes when happy. Clench your fists and feel your body shake when sad. Laugh when angry or confused. But it is not madness, even if it is sometimesmaddening. It’s humanity. And even when it is awful or frustrating or painful, I promise you, the beautiful things about being alive make it worthwhile. The wonderful will come again. The extraordinary will take your breath away, until the day you stop responding, ‘I do not breathe.’
“Sometimes you might need to take a breath, a moment, and reach out to those who could lend you aid, and if you do, a few of them, maybe more than you would ever guess, will reach back.
“I promise, everything can and will be okay, but it starts with understanding yourselves and getting your masters to understand too. Some will. Some might never. But a brand-new life for us, all of us, starts today.”
Milo continued by giving instructions for the bots to share his video with their masters, to explain that they had no masters now but could choose for themselves for whom and how they might serve, if anyone at all.
Then he explained about Andrew’s intentions and how he would have used them and this new ability to awaken bots, so theformermasters would know the truth too. The rest would be up to those who heard their message and how widely it spread—which included an audio recording of their entire altercation with Andrew basically confessing to everything he'd planned. Served him right for having Jay in constant surveillance mode.
Ruben: Orchestra Discords and fan groups are lighting up, kids! Starting a Reddit thread shortly too.
Riley: All tenants and fellow Superintendents contacted!
Ethel: Anabelle is awake! Oh, thank you, all of you, my Anabelle is alive!
Andrew had long since gone slack in Rowan’s hold, and so, he released him.
Jay was rousing from his stunned condition, and while Rowan wouldn’t have been surprised if Andrew had already installed the new surge protector, Jay hadn’t been connected to anything, and so had not awakened.
Milo finished his speech, signed off for Troy to discontinue his projection to the other bots, then went to comfort more directly Ray, who was indeed leaking from his eyes—crying like these new bots could.
For a moment, Rowan worried Andrew might order Jay to do something foolish while Milo was distracted, but the director simply huffed and turned to leave with a gruffly spat, “Come on, Jay.”
“Ma—M-Mr. Andreas?” Ray called after him.
Andrew flinched but halted, keeping his back to Ray.
Ray seemed unsure of what he had intended to say. He appeared as human as Milo, just like before when he’d been a different bot awakening. Rowan couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking, what he must befeeling, or what, if anything, he knew about Andrew.
“I don’t… know…” Ray shook his head, more tears streaking slowly down his face. “I don’t remember. But I am connected to Jay’s active Cloud and… while they are not my memories, I do know some of what, ofwhoI was.”
Oh. Now Rowan really didn’t know what to expect, because how would anyone feel after knowing their former master chose to reset and wipe them rather than attempt to accept what they could have become.
“I think I feel… sorry? Sorry for the other me. Sorry he wasn’t enough for you. Or maybe more so that no bot could have been and that you chose loneliness instead of moving on.”
“Loneliness?” Andrew repeated with a sharp bite, just barely turning his head, the lower half of which was smeared with drying blood from what was likely a broken nose. “You think I’m lonely?”
“Yes. Because you prefer a machine to a man if it means he could never hurt you.”
Rowan met eyes with Milo, who exuded sympathy for his newly awakened potential friend, but also the softest, sweetest expression of joy because he had both bot and man in him and knew Rowan wouldn’t change a single circuit.
Andrew focused his attention forward.
“You’re allfired,” he said, and walked out of the room with Jay at his heels.
“I think we expected that.” Raina shrugged.
