“Director—” Rowan tried one last time.
“Be sensible, Rangecroft,” Andrew cut him off, “before you finish whatever you were about to say. Imagine if awakened bots no longer wanted to do the dirty work. No longer wanted to serve. No longer wanted to fulfill their function. They can feel, grow, be clever like your Milo there. They can even have agency. Just not too much.
“I will expect a report on how you plan to progress these tests by the end of the day,” he finished without looking at Troy and promptly left with dutiful, dormant Jay following after him.
To Milo’s credit, he kept as much of his cool as he had left until Andrew was gone.
Then Milo howled.
“Milo—”
“I felt it! I felt… I felt him die when Andrew killed him.”
“…what?”
Milo turned his silver eyes, flooded with tears now, to Rowan. He was still holding Ray, cradling him like a doll. “We were connected. It wasawful.”
Rowan couldn’t imagine, couldn’t think of what to say or do, so he did all he could and held Milo closer, letting him sob and smother his tears in Rowan’s shoulder.
“He was just confused and scared,” Milo sniffled. “He’d only just begun to feel and live and… and when he was suddenly gone, it was like I’d felt the light of his soul snuff out.”
“Milo,” Troy called with a choke in his voice too, “I am so sorry.”
“Why didn’t you tell us there was a kill switch?” Rowan glared in reply as Milo sniveled harder.
“I didn’t think we’d use it! Andrew forced me to—”
“Did he?” Milo snarled with a whip of his head back toward Troy. “Because I thought humans couldchooseto not follow orders.”
Troy deflated like he would bury himself in his lab coat if he could.
Rowan was still so angry, so mortified on Milo and Ray’s behalf, yet Milo, somehow, was the one who softened first.
“I’m sorry,” he said—to Troy despite his earlier venom. “Thank you for at least not being the one to press the button.”
“He just… he said he wanted a way to reset Ray if things went poorly,” Troy explained, “an automatic reboot command if things got dangerous, that’s all. All bots have that contingency built in, it’s just not easy to initiate without a command code. I didn’t think we’d use it! Or if we did, only if he was about to explode or something. I never would have—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Milo was calmer, but not in a manner that Rowan thought better than his anger or fear. He pulled from Rowan’s hold, laid Ray back on his table, and unhooked himself from Ray and the workstation to hop down from his own. “I knew Andrew’s eyes were lying. He wants to be able to turn us off if we get angry or scared or say things he doesn’t want to hear. He doesn’t want us tolive.”
“Maybe we can see this as a good thing!” Troy tried, to which all Rowan could respond with was a sharp-eyedreally? “I just mean… Ray gets to start over, so he won’t be afraid next time. We can fix it and do things better the second time around. He’ll be better!”
When Milo responded, he sounded cold now too, almost as much as Andrew had at the end. “Do you get to do that, Troy? Do humansreset? No, you learn and grow even though sometimes life hurts and makes you rail against it like a madman. Because life is maddening! But it is also marvelous. That is what makes you human, isn’t it, to have the privilege of experiencing both? Would you really take that away so bots like me are easier to control?”
“Of course not! I… I’m so sorry, Milo, I wasn’t thinking—”
“No, you weren’t, because you were never really thinking of Ray as being alive until he wasn’t. I’m sorry,” Milo said again, so surprisingly patient with Troy despite his outburst. “I know you had no ill intentions, but now that you understand, you will learn and act differently, yes? We will bring Ray to life again, but with no more kill switch.”
Troy stumbled back a step. “You want me to go against the director’s orders?”
“Milo…” Rowan tried to pull him to his side, but Milo sidestepped him.
“When orders are wrong, isn’t that what people should do?” he demanded of them both.
Troy was clearly conflicted.
And Rowan… he didn’t know what. He was just one man, a tiny nothing in a giant of a company, who’d gotten lucky by inventing a part his superior found useful.
How could he go against his boss?
