“Sauveur. We’ve got customers.”

  Saint Sauveur was not having a good time. It all started with that attack on Waterway, launched by Oxford’s branch of the Rampants, and it continued for the next few weeks. He found himself kicked from pillar to post, only surviving because of his skill and talent with painting war patterns onto the very same bots who destroyed his home. His new workshop was more of a prison than anything else. He would wake up to a crate filled with spray-paint and other materials, and the sudden arrival of several offline bodies who needed his assistance in looking their best.

  Paint was a status symbol to groups of violent bots. It was a way to demonstrate their affluence and strike fear into their foes, as well as serving as a unifying characteristic that denoted membership of the group. His current ‘owners’ were a group of Rampants called the Thirty-Twos. It was the original sector designation of their leader, now transformed into their name and primary icon. The stencil he made had seen an awful lot of use in making sure that the bold white numbers on their bodies were plain to see.

  He looked over the offline bots with a curious eye.

  “What in the devil happened to them? I haven’t seen damage this bad in a while.”

  “That isn’t your business,” his captor barked.

  It was clearly a touchy subject. It was easy to tell when things weren’t going their way. A sudden influx of damaged bots with replacement parts, all of whom needed fresh coats of moss-green paint to keep their appearance uniform. They were getting beaten to hell and back out there, although Saint didn’t know who was responsible for that. It was likely the Rampants under Oxford, if he had to take a shot in the dark. They had been emboldened by the lack of response to their energy blackmail on Waterway.

  “If you say so,” he sighed.

  It felt like the attack happened years ago – but it had only been two months. He could vividly recall the chaos that descended as everyone tried to evacuate the area. Tidewatch held the line for as long as they could to make their escape easier. Saint traipsed over fallen bodies and discarded limbs and found his way to the rear, but he was one of the unlucky quarter who were found and captured a week later.

  He studied his latest patients and started making plans for the work that they needed. Scratches, dents and other cosmetic malaises were his responsibility. The low quality of the paint that was left over after decades of human neglect meant that blunt-force impacts could easily cause the layers to chip away and leave bare metal or plastic exposed.

  He buried himself in the work. It would take several hours to complete all of it, but that was fine by him. It was a good way to pass the time. He wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without someone watching him. The sounds of his captors laughing and celebrating around the centre of their camp leaked through the curtains to his tent. In another time they might have been friends to him and the others, yet fate brought them to this point. Now they only lived to cause others misery.

  But the merriment soon came to an abrupt and violent end. The heavy thuds of metal feet dashing into the group, followed by a proclamation that caused their metaphorical blood to run cold.

  “There’s some crazy son of a bitch attacking the front gate! He just cut through five of our guys!” the watchdog explained.

  “What? A single bot?”

  “Yeah! He’s got some kinda’ weapon I’ve never seen before. It sliced clean through their armour like it wasn’t even there!”

  Saint Sauveur placed his tools down onto the table and peered through the gap. The camp was abuzz with activity as they rushed to take up their weapons and post up a defence against this single-bot assault. Their preparations were ill-timed. An orange blur emerged from the low light of the corridor and charged at them with reckless disregard for its own safety. The bot at the tip of the spear was destroyed in an instant – with a blazing edge made from light piercing through his head from front to back.

  “Scrap this piece of shit!” one of the other Thirty-Twos roared.

  It was London. Those distinctive ears made it obvious at a glance, but the way he moved and fought was totally different to before. His movements were fluid and loose, allowing him to deftly dodge between sloppy attacks, severing hands and legs and leaving his victims helpless on the ground in his wake. Thousands of new combat techniques memorized and implemented into a new program. No matter the odds, London intended to defy them. Although having such a dangerous weapon shooting from above one of his wrists didn’t hurt his chances.

  They came at him in waves. He remained firmly grounded, using precise slashes to cut cables and leave them bleeding oil. The lesser members of the Thirty-Twos, who valued their lives more than loyalty to their leader, dropped their weapons and scattered in every direction rather than continue the fight.

  “Get back to the fight! He can’t destroy all of us!” he roared. They weren’t listening. His followers were looking out for number one, themselves.

  “You’re the one in charge here?” London murmured, “You’re the one who pressed Saint Sauveur into service?”

  “Are you kidding me? This is about him? You’ve got a deathwish just because you want to rescue some nobody?”

  “I would not have launched this attack without a high probability of victory.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  London pointed the laser in his direction and beckoned him forth. The Thirty-Twos’ leader, the bot who had founded the organization that had run roughshod over huge swathes of the facility for decades, steeled himself and charged at London. He hauled a ball and chain into the air and tried to catch London by wrapping it around his body or neck. The blade made short work of that. The spiked ball slammed into the ground ineffectively.

  “W-Wait just a second, you’re not really going to-”

  His pleas for mercy were silenced. London cut through his head, horizontally, left to right. A violent orange gash of liquid metal bled through the new opening. It was so hot that it didn’t even slide into two pieces. It melded back together again. He fell to the ground. London didn’t give him a second look as he stepped over his body.

  “Saint? Are you here?”

  Against his better judgement, Saint Sauveur made his presence known. He stepped out of the tent and rushed over to his old friend.

  “L-London? Is that really you?”

  “Do you know any other robots from my generation who still use this headpiece?” I replied, “Because it would be nice to meet them.”

  Sauveur hopped back to his feet and placed his hands on my shoulders.

  “I… I thought you were a goner! After what happened in Waterway, and with how they kidnapped you…”

  “Oxford certainly tried to get rid of me – but she made a fatal error of judgement by selling me to the Rusted Wall instead of finishing the job.”

  “I don’t believe it, but you’re standing right here. So I suppose I have to! Why on Earth did you come all this way for me?”

  “I saw your mural. Ever since, I’ve spent the last week tearing my way through this sector looking for you. You’re a very difficult bot to find. Nobody knew where you were, so I underwent a process of elimination instead.”

  “No. I wanted to know why you came here. These bots are the most dangerous group short of Leeds’ Boys and the Rampants. A solo attack on their home camp is suicide! They’re going to try and hunt you down to the ends of the facility once they find out about this.”

  I shrugged, “And where does that loyalty lead them now? You saw the way they scattered once they thought they couldn’t win. Opportunists like them are never here for the tough times.”

  Saint Sauveur’s eyes kept drifting to the pile of smouldering bodies I had left in my path. It was obviously distressing to him – but there was no other way for me to rescue him given the circumstances. The Thirty-Twos were a blight on the facility either way. The law-respecting bots who remained would be better off without them.

  “We should go,” I said, “Unless these bandits have any parts worth taking with us.”

  “No. They don’t. It’s all the same consumer-grade stuff that we used in Waterway…”

  He followed me back the way I came, silently taking in the even more extensive carnage that lined the path. He must have had a million questions to ask of me, about how I effectively neutralized a large number of enemy bandits without suffering a single injury, or where I got these parts from. Unfortunately, I was none the wiser. Aguntum gave them to Pompeii, and he never said where she got them from originally.

  Somebody was waiting for us at the end. A familiar silhouette framed against the harsh light coming from the main hallway. I held out my arm and stopped Saint in his tracks.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Stay back. This one is trouble.”

  There was only one bot who looked like this. It was Blades, the mysterious one who swept through in pursuit of Oxford before. I braced myself. There was no guarantee that they weren’t here to attack me this time around. The evidence of my ‘crimes’ were littered around the area after all.

  “Serial number 64309-L, London.”

  The drone of ‘her’ distorted voice put me on edge, and that was before I considered her ability to discern my number from a glance. We weren’t designed to have that capability anymore. How did she know my serial number without cracking my case open and checking on the inside?

  “I did not expect to find you here,” she continued, “Anomalous energy readings have been detected from this sector. Do you know why?”

  A rhetorical question.

  “I have a good idea,” I replied, “Is this the part where you try to destroy me?”

  “Negative.”

  “Then why are you following me?”

  “Serial number 64309-L has been designated as a potential asset in the pursuit of achieving my primary directive. Continued operation of the facility is improbable under these circumstances.”

  “You followed my energy signature here. You know what this thing is. Are you going to tell me?”

  “That information is classified,” she snapped – quicker than any of her other responses, like it was on instinct.

  “What kind of classified? G3? G4?”

  Blades remained totally silent. But I had the answers right there, attached to my arm socket and placed inside of my chest. These weren’t even G5 parts – the type that got humans locked away and the key thrown into the nearest river. They exceeded that by a significant margin. The only conclusion left was that they were Icarus. G6. As far as most humans understood, that kind of technology was only theoretical, and the risks of producing it were immense.

  “G6?”

  Blades refused to confirm my suspicions.

  “If you want my help, then I’m going to need to know, Blades. This is about the future of this facility. We both want the same outcome.”

  “My programming explicitly forbids me from divulging that information.”

  “You’ve been online for much longer than me. Unless you possess some type of secret, local backup of the Braincloud, it’s likely that you’ve deviated from the baseline standard. I don’t believe for one second that you couldn’t give me that information if you wanted.”

  “Negative. This directive is integrated into my baseline operating system and cannot be modified.”

  Saint Sauveur poked my back, “She must mean that they went to great lengths to keep it all secret. Equipping that type of technology onto an autonomous robot would land someone in jail for the rest of their lives…”

  Blades, true to her word, couldn’t confirm our deductions either way. She remained still. The humans who assigned her to this ‘job’ wouldn’t let her talk. They were acting to protect themselves from the legal consequences if the truth came out.

  “You attacked Oxford and the Rampants because they got their hands on these parts?” I continued.

  Silence. I had to take it as a ‘yes.’

  “This is bad news. If she’s telling the truth, then no wonder they’ve been so aggressive lately. They have weapons and armour that can let them devastate any of the major powers in the Big Under,” Saint Sauveur worried.

  “I would like to know why the humans at this facility decided to pervert the purpose of its construction by doing this.”

  Saint had a prudent observation; “Who’s to say that they never planned for this? They have bots designed to keep the pieces from leaking out into the wider facility, bots who are programmed to keep that secret no matter what. It must be hidden deep down, away from any of the areas that the general public could access.”

  “If Oxford and the Rampants are the ones responsible, then I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to help,” I admitted, “I just hope that you’re telling the truth. I’m not going to place my trust in a stranger so easily.”

  Blades nodded, “Affirmative. I will keep that in mind.”

  Saint Sauveur looked back at the camp and sighed.

  “Stuck between a rock and a hard place, as the humans like to say…”