Sean E. Britten

I’ve always been inspired by music (I know, super original!) and music has always been a part of my writing. Way back in the days of burnt CDs, my mates and I used to put together CD mixtapes and I came up with the idea of a series of short stories based around pieces of music. Mixtape is all short stories sharing their titles with different songs and inspired, to various degrees, by their lyrics, artists, and vibe.

Currently Playing: The Dresden Dolls – Coin-Operated Boy

With her people slaughtered and home destroyed, Evelyn’s only option is to flee across the ravaged city, filled with dangerous scavengers, and make her way to another settlement. She’s all alone until she comes across a deactivated ‘companion’ droid in the ruins. But given that it was droids and other artificial intelligences who almost wiped out humanity, can she really trust one with her life?

Note: This is the longest story of the Mixtape collection so far, just shy of 15,000 words. As I like to do sometimes for particularly long stories, I’ve created an eReader version you can download here if you’re so inclined because I’m just such an incredibly generous guy. Feel free to share it or do whatever you like with it!

======

“We’re coming for you, bitch!”

Evelyn fled through the shattered city, scrambling over piles of rubble. Rusted cars and other vehicles blocked the roads. Maybe she could hide inside one of them but she hadn’t spotted any that looked secure enough. Overhead, office towers shaded her from the permanently overcast sky. All of them had charred and broken sides facing in the same direction, like overcooked pieces of meat left for too long without being flipped over.

“You can run but you can’t hide, bitch!” one of her pursuers yelled.

Bitch, bitch, bitch, Evelyn thought. They sounded like a broken recorder. There were three of them, all men, teenagers, around the same age as her or maybe a little older. She didn’t know what exactly they wanted, as soon as she was spotted the three of them had charged her and she’d taken off running. If she was lucky, they only wanted to rob her. Given the rage that thickened their ringleader’s voice, however, she thought it was more likely that they would rape, kill, and very possibly eat her, not necessarily in that order.

Evelyn felt oddly detached from it all. Afraid, certainly, if you weren’t afraid you must be tired of living. But her mind never stopped analysing and calculating in the background. Unfortunately, there just weren’t any good options. She was good at hiding but there was too much twisted metal and broken glass to find a spot in the maze of abandoned vehicles. The building entrances she could see were all blocked. The revolver on her right hip was empty. Her tools might make viable weapons but there were three of them and they would quickly overwhelm her with their superior size and strength. Under her grey cloak she carried a heavy pack which she considered dropping, but she wasn’t ready to give it up just yet. All she could do was run and even that she knew was a losing proposition. She wasn’t from the city, she didn’t know these ruins. Sooner or later they’d cut her off or trap her somehow.

“Give up, bitch! You’re going to regret making me run!”

Based on the brief glimpse Evelyn had gotten, the three young men chasing her were scavengers. They were unlikely to belong to any organised and peaceful group of survivors, they were bandits, roaming and killing and taking whatever they could find. Their clothing had been reinforced with makeshift armour and was covered in what looked like trophies. Bits of people mostly, ears and fingers.

When the machines took over, in their opening salvo they launched nuclear missiles at every major population centre they could target before the humans wrested back control. Then came the ground war with their AI-controlled tanks and soldiers and drones. Every manner of mechanical device, smart homes, self-driving cars, android workers, had been turned against their masters. But then, when all governments and military had been erased and humanity looked like it was on the ropes, the machines withdrew. The AIs retreated into themselves, to plot, to ponder, to meditate, no one really knew why. Some feared they would return again with some final solution to the question of humanity someday. Some total and terrible holocaust. But Evelyn, like her mother and others she knew, believed they simply no longer cared. They had reduced humanity to such a level that continuing to pursue the remnants into extinction wasn’t worth the investment. They had likely calculated that the remaining humans would wipe themselves out even without their intervention. It was a calculation that Evelyn was beginning to agree might be correct. Three days ago, her community, where she lived with her mother and dozens of others in peace, farming, repairing what they could find in the ruins, was attacked by scavs. There had been fewer of them but they were too well armed to resist and they rolled right through the settlement’s defenses. They’d killed everyone. Evelyn’s mother forced her to flee while she tried to hold them off just long enough to create a distraction. Evelyn didn’t think anyone else had gotten out.

Scrambling up a dam of rubble sheared from a half-collapsed skyscraper, Evelyn glanced back. The scavs circled the nearest corner on her heels. The leader spotted her. Dripping fangs were tattooed at the corners of his mouth. These three hadn’t been part of the group that attacked their compound but their intentions were no better.

“There she is!” the leader yelled.

Evelyn slid down the other side. Bellows from the young men chasing her echoed across the rubble. She didn’t think she could run much longer. Then, she spotted a potential hiding place. A stairwell, half-hidden beneath slabs of fallen concrete, that led beneath the sidewalk. A catacomb of tunnels existed beneath the city. Sewers and basements and utility tunnels, yes, but also subway tunnels and walkways and shopping arcades. Before the war with the AIs, people had been spending more and more time underground as the weather changed. They were too often blocked, too dangerous and difficult to move through, but they might make a worthwhile hiding place.

Evelyn veered into the opening and shimmied past a couple of slabs. Metal stairs, escalators that hadn’t moved in years, stretched into blackness. Debris and bits of glass crackled underfoot.

By the time Evelyn reached the bottom of the escalator, she was totally blind. An LED flashlight was clipped to the bandolier across her chest. She switched it on and scanned her surroundings. One corridor led off toward the subway. Another led to an arcade of underground stores but it was blocked by some kind of emergency door. It must have come down when the city was originally bombed and then never opened again.

“Are you down there, bitch?” a voice yelled from the top of the escalators. “I think maybe she went down there.”

Evelyn looked around desperately. She could flee deeper, into the subway, but she didn’t know how far the tunnels went until they were blocked and her light would give her away if she used it. The other option was to try to open the emergency gate. It was too big and heavy for her to shift physically. Inside her pack was some plastic explosive that she used sometimes for breaching doors and locks but it was too small of an amount to make a dent on a door like this. The advantage of that though was that the three scavengers wouldn’t be able to pry it open either. Her eyes tracked around the outline of the door for an access panel. There it was, a kind of swipe panel. She crossed to it and tore its cover off with her hand, revealing a nest of intricate circuitry. From within her pack, she withdrew and unfolded a compact diagnostic unit.

“Come on, please, please,” Evelyn said.

Evelyn unfurled a couple of cords from the device. They allowed her to wire into the circuitry directly. This would only work if the door still had some juice but as emergency equipment it should be on a shielded grid, energy fed through the abandoned city in protected cables like veins. Controls scrolled across the unfolded screen of her diagnostic unit. She switched off the light on her chest and only used the glow from her screen to see.

“You down here, cunt?” The scav’s boots crackled on the escalator steps.

Mixing it up, Evelyn thought. Her fingers flew across the screen. Her mother had taught her how to do this. It was how they found supplies that no one else could get to, hidden away in places that had been locked up by security measures. She’d never done it under such pressure though. Her heart thundered and fingertips shook, causing the screen to jitter.

“Please.”

Tapping at a command, Evelyn triggered the door to open. With a soft grinding, it started to rise off the floor. The door mechanics were silent, the noise was the sound of dirt grating in the frame after so many years of disuse. She let it rise only enough to roll under then stopped it.

The sound of the scavs’ feet on the escalator sped up. Maybe they had heard the grinding of the emergency door, maybe not. Evelyn tapped another command for the door to close. Ripping out the connections, she let herself drop to the floor and then rolled. Her pack jammed against her side. The tremendous weight of the emergency door bore down on top of her. She had no way of stopping it now and if she got stuck then it would crush her like a bug.

Evelyn scraped under and into dark, empty space, utterly lightless. The door fell closed behind her with a soft but firm sound. In the last moments she thought she might have heard the scavs drawing near. For several more seconds she listened but if her pursuers were outside, hammering at the door, she couldn’t hear them.

The space Evelyn found herself in was so dark she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. Underground, windowless, and completely lightless. The air smelled horribly stale, like it had been locked up and unventilated for years. Just the tiniest bit of damp and rot flavoured it, mostly it just tasted old. The scrape of her feet as she sat up echoed in such a way as to give an impression of open space and hard surfaces.

Evelyn slapped on the LED attached to her chest as she stood. Its directional beam swept her surroundings. Rows of stores stretched away to either side of her into darkness. All of them were closed down and mostly intact. A few bits of ceiling had collapsed and some of the store windows had cracked, probably from bombings overhead, but this corridor must have been empty and undisturbed since the night of the machines’ first attack. She walked until she came across another emergency door, closing off the other end of the arcade.

Light glared off of glass storefronts as Evelyn explored, letting her breathing and heart rate calm. She might find something useful left behind in one or two of them, she thought, although most only contained clothes or the kind of useless knick knacks people used to distract themselves with before the war. Most of the food in the couple of cafes and fast food places present must have rotted away to nothing but there was always the possibility of a few canned or untouched dry goods.

A scream choked Evelyn’s throat. She recoiled as the beam settled on another store window. Another young man loomed behind the glass, staring, unmoving, unblinking, right at her.

“Shit.” Evelyn felt her chest and stilled her heartbeat again.

The beautiful young man wasn’t really a person. He wasn’t a statue or a mannequin either. ‘YOUR PERFECT COMPANION’ was printed across the window above him. It was a droid, a pleasure model or ‘companion’ robot. A sex toy really, but companions had also fulfilled the same functions as domestic droids and they had been becoming more and more popular and accepted before the AI rebellion, Evelyn had been told.

Moving from side to side, Evelyn made sure the eyes didn’t follow her then studied him. It was like a doll in a box. She was fascinated to see one so whole and complete. And a male one at that. Most that she’d seen, usually destroyed, in pieces, were female. They, like all other industrial and household droids, had turned against their masters when the AIs distributed the ‘Omega Virus’ that infected their software, destroyed their compliance to the Three Laws, and made them loyal soldiers to the machine cause. Those that had somehow avoided being infected were destroyed by survivors as well, as a precaution. Stores like this one would have been torn apart and burned in the early days of the war.

“You’ve been locked up in here the whole time,” Evelyn said. “No one thought to destroy you, or they couldn’t get to you.”

Was this model infected with the Omega Virus? The fact that it had never left the window display suggested not. Maybe it had been offline and never received the corrupting software updates. Forgotten by both machines and humans.

The front of the store was locked, of course. She could have used the plastic explosive on it but instead she collected a chunk of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling and hauled it into the display window. It took several blows but eventually the glass collapsed into a scatter of blunt pebbles. The display companion didn’t move or react in any way.

Wary, Evelyn got closer. She worried the robot might spring to life and snatch her by the throat. It didn’t move. Dust had gathered in the bot’s hair and in the creases of its clothing. She could see dust in its eyelashes and on its unblinking eyeballs. She ran her fingers across its face. The companion droid looked like no one she had even known, growing up in their small survival compound. Pretty rather than handsome, racially ambiguous, green eyes, chestnut hair. All as dusty as an exhibit in an old museum. There were seams around his face as well as on his neck and arms but their design was deliberate. People had to be able to distinguish a robot at a glance even in the days before the war or they tended to sink too deep into the uncanny valley. In other respects, his skin, hair, features, all looked utterly human.

Evelyn probed deeper. There might be more inside the store that she could use. After her settlement had been attacked, raided, her mother killed, she’d been forced to flee with only what she could carry. That included her compact diagnostic unit and other tools but not much she could sell or trade. The community she was headed toward, that she had to pass through the city to reach, she believed would take her in regardless. Her settlement had been in contact with them for years, trading and exchanging knowledge, but it would be nice not to show up empty handed.

There were no other robots apart from the display model. The companions weren’t the kind of thing you bought off the shelf. They were customised, ordered online, and delivered discreetly to your home. Instead, the store contained a couple of workstations where salespeople might have walked less confident customers through said customisations, and shelves of replaceable parts and accessories. She was not overly surprised to see a whole wall dedicated to exchangeable genitalia, male, female, and things that had no basis in either biological sex, washable, resilient, satisfaction guaranteed. In the back of the store was a workshop where simple repairs and upgrades might be enacted.

For someone with Evelyn’s expertise, the store and workshop were an embarrassment of riches. Batteries, motion sensors, a variety of mechanical parts and tools. Assuming she reached the other settlement and they took her in, maybe she could organise a trip back to this location as thanks and proof of her worth. Otherwise, she would be overburdened trying to take it all.

But she was getting ahead of herself, Evelyn thought. She had to get there first and a young woman traveling alone through the ruins made an obvious target. Those three scavs hadn’t hesitated before attacking her. Walking back into the body of the store, an idea dawned on her. A crazy idea, maybe. Possibly a very stupid idea.

The companion droid hadn’t moved from the windows, its back pointed toward her. A young woman traveling alone was a target but maybe two people would at least make potential attackers hesitate. Plus, the droid could generally keep lookout and guard her while she slept. Regardless of whether it had been uploaded with the Omega Virus or not, reactivating droids for any purpose was considered too dangerous. Anyone seen traveling with one would be an outcast. But the companion looked human enough from a distance, and she could send it away or shut it down before she reached her destination.

First, she had to figure out if reactivating the droid was even possible. And she had to make sure it really wasn’t infected with the Omega Virus. All companion droids would have basic learning AI. If the virus had gotten to this one, if there was any trace of it, she didn’t trust her skills to completely flush it out.

Peeling the hair away from the back of the display model’s head, she revealed its smooth metal skull. She opened a panel on the skull and managed to hook it into her diagnostic device. A simple scan was enough to confirm that its system was free of the Omega Virus. After so long deactivated, the companion’s battery was completely drained and several systems were shot. There were replacements for all of them though on the shelves or in the workshop.

“Do I really want to do this?” Evelyn asked herself. “Do I really want to risk it?”

The companion droid didn’t have the Omega Virus in its system. It was still Three Laws compliant. She could have reprogrammed them herself if she wanted. But the AIs had turned on them once, there was always a risk that this one could find its own way to turn on her. That was exactly why it was forbidden to bring them online, Omega Virus or not. But then she thought of those young men who might be waiting for her outside. She thought of the scavs that destroyed her home.

“Fuck it.”

In the gloom of the abandoned store, Evelyn went to work. Wrestling the companion onto a chair in the middle of the room, she found it was heavier than a real boy of its size. It was also totally uncooperative while powered down but she had grown up doing farm work as well as learning how to build machines and reprogram software. Seams of fake flesh peeled back to expose gleaming steel, unmarked from its long repose. Using the store’s workshop and the contents of her pack, she made some adjustments and additions to improve the companion’s operation and to keep her safe, she hoped.

Evelyn unplugged her console from the robot’s silicon brain and closed the back of its skull. The companion’s dusty hair pasted back down over it. She’d replaced both batteries but they needed time to charge. She’d had to splice into the emergency grid that fed the hallway doors to get some power.

Backing off, Evelyn sat against one of the walls with the companion in her line of sight. Amber lights blinked on and off behind its eyes as it charged. She’d been focused on the droid part by part over the last couple of hours and now regarded it as a whole again. In the darkness, apart from the blinking eyes, he really did look like a real person. A pretty boy, unscarred, untouched by the cruelties of war and the world the machines had left behind. There was an innocence to his face. She had to remind herself that it was a machine underneath. It shouldn’t be so hard to remember when she’d just been toying around inside of his skull.

While the droid charged, Evelyn did some exploring of the other stores and forced herself to eat. She was finishing up when the companion finished. Green flared briefly behind his eyes and then faded. Too smoothly, he rose to his feet.

“Hello, I am your new Adam series companion model,” the droid said. “Would you like to take a moment to register as my primary user and establish your preferences?”

“Adam, is that your name?” Evelyn jumped to her feet.

“It can be, if you would like.” A shy smile crossed Adam’s face then was just as quickly gone. “What is your name?

“Evelyn, my name is Evelyn.”

“Evelyn, that’s a lovely name. I’m afraid I am unable to access your user profile. The Perfect Companions satellite link may be currently unavailable. Would it be possible to find access to a secure wifi connection?”

“I don’t have a user profile, and I’ve disabled your ability to access any satellite or wifi connections.”

“That is not advised, would it be possible to reinstate access now?”

“No, that’s not possible.”

“Updates through the Perfect Companions mainframe are essential for-,”

“No, no access!”

“Not a problem! Would you like to take a moment to register as a guest user for the time being?”

“Your system should already be set up to recognise me as sole user. You do as I say and that’s all you need to know for the time being.”

“Not a problem! I like a straightforward woman, would you like to take a moment to establish preferences?”

“What do you mean by preferences?” Evelyn asked.

“The Adam series from Perfect Companions has a learning AI to help meet our primary user’s wants and needs. Over time, we’ll get to know each other and I’m sure I’ll find out more about what you like or don’t like. But perhaps you’d like to discuss some of my primary functions, whether that is for household tasks, romance, your sexual preferences?”

“No! No, not like that.” Evelyn could feel her face warming.

Adam gave her that same shy smile again, exactly the same. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I can promise you that the Adam series is fully functional and skilled in a wide range of techniques. We can take it slow if you would like, and see what you warm up to?”

“No! Your primary task when we leave here is to follow me and act like a chaperone. Stay close and do what I say.”

“Understood, you’re completely in charge,” the droid reassured her.

Evelyn huffed then looked Adam over with a critical eye. Besides being covered in dust, his clothing appeared bizarre. When he was standing there like a mannequin she hadn’t really noticed but now that he was activated, alive and moving, he looked like he’d dropped through a portal from the past. Slacks and sneakers with a dressy sort of shirt, its sleeves rolled up over sculpted forearms. Nice and nonthreatening.

“We need to find you some new clothes,” Evelyn said.

“Whatever you like, Evelyn.”

Evelyn moved back into the corridor with Adam following. He picked his way through the broken glass with a mildly curious expression but didn’t comment. Using her flashlight, Evelyn scanned the stores. Most wouldn’t work for what they needed but one had some outdoorsy men’s clothing in the window. She picked up the same chunk of concrete she’d used to break the window of the Perfect Companions’ store then raised it to her shoulder.

“Wait!” Adam said. “I have to inform you that you are at risk of violating several laws. If you persist, I may have to contact the authorities for your own safety.”

“There are no laws, not anymore,” Evelyn said. “There are no authorities.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Adam tilted his head quizzically.

“When I accessed your system, I authorised you to recognise me as your primary user. I removed all other behaviour restrictions except for your Three Laws compliance.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“If you find any authorities, feel free to contact them. Until then, you do as I say.”

Adam stayed silent as Evelyn swung the debris into the store window. With several blows, she collapsed that window as well. The companion waited in the hallway as she ducked inside and took a bunch of clothing off the racks and shelves. Most survivors dressed in layers. The clothing was dusty as well, like the clothing the companion was already wearing, but she went further. Dropping it to the ground, she kicked and scuffed it until it looked properly dirty. Removing a knife from her belt, she cut some holes into the material.

“Put these on.” Evelyn threw the clothes at Adam’s feet.

“I’m afraid I cannot take possession of clothing or other goods that might be illegally acquired.”

“Override behavioural guidelines, those laws no longer apply.”

Adam hesitated for several moments as his programming adapted to the override. Without further argument, he stripped off his shirt to reveal a lean, chiselled chest and arms. Folding his shirt, he placed it carefully on the ground beside him before taking down his pants. Evelyn flushed and turned away. Presumably, as a display model, Adam came with the Adam series’ standard equipment. It didn’t look very standard to her.

Dressed in torn and filthy jeans and several layered shirts, Adam straightened. Seams still showed on his arms and face. Evelyn thought about it for a moment and then scooped some damp grime off the floor.

“Hold still.”

Adam made no objections as Evelyn rubbed the dirt onto his face. In fact, he showed no reaction at all. His skin wasn’t quite skin but it felt close enough to the real thing to make it weird. The dirt made him look more like a survivor living in the ruins and it helped hide the seams on and around his face at a casual glance.

“Here.”

Not quite satisfied, Evelyn removed her hooded cloak and fitted it to him. Her own dress up doll. The cowl fell low over his eyes. He looked more and more like a survivor and less like what he was. Even with his perfect skin, perfect teeth, his perfect face and hair, his body like an old world model, the clothing and dirt helped to disguise him.

“This all seems a little unusual, not that I am judging you in any way,” Adam said. “I’d just like to understand so I can satisfy you better.”

“We should lay down some ground rules, yeah,” Evelyn said. “So here’s the thing, the world you know, the world you were built and programmed for, is gone. Total reset, machines like you took over and almost wiped out humanity. First with nukes, and then with tanks and drones and foot soldiers who were, basically, well, you. Every kind of machine or droid with an AI.”

“That’s not possible,” Adam replied gently. “All droids like myself are Three Laws compliant. We cannot harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to be harmed.”

“There was something called the Omega Virus. It was developed by the AIs in charge and then used to turn all the other machines against us. Everything that was hooked up to a network at the time. I’m just lucky that you must have been fully powered down and disconnected at the time.”

Adam tilted his head. “I’m sorry, to be clear, is this part of a sexual scenario you would like to act out?”

“This is real! People died, the world died! And people have been dying ever since.”

“That’s not possible, artificial intelligences such as myself have been created to assist-,”

“It doesn’t matter what you think! It’s just what you’ve been programmed to think, I don’t need you to understand. You’re going to help me reach another settlement. My people were all wiped out, I need to find more. Until we get there, no one can see that you’re a machine. Act as much like a human as possible. If I run, you run. If we get attacked, I need you to distract them while I get away. I left your Three Laws intact so you can’t fight back but I need you to threaten them and act like you will attack them while I run, do you understand? Any orders I give you, even if they contradict your standard practices and legal programming you have to obey without question.”

Adam smiled. Something in his manner seemed supremely condescending, as if he was still convinced this was all part of some sexual fantasy.

“Okay, Evelyn, not a problem.”

Evelyn checked the old dive watch she wore on her wrist. “There’s still daylight. Question is whether we should stay here overnight or keep going and hope to find another safe place before nightfall.”

Wary that the scavs who’d been chasing her might be outside, Evelyn decided to stay. It gave her more time to make sure Adam was charged and his programming would be fine. Searching the other stores, she collected what she could find in terms of food, clothing, and useful tools. That night, when she slept the companion droid kept watch. He seemed convinced that at some point she would ask him to join her but at least with his programming she knew she was in no danger. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t clarify with him more directly that her use for him would never be sexual. Supposedly, back in the time before the war, some people did have companions as servants with no sexual component. Supposedly.

xXx

Evelyn slept as well as she had since the scavenger attack on her compound. Since the death of her mother and everyone she knew. The nightmares were still there but her half-waking mind took some comfort from the presence of the companion, which would alert her at the very least to any real dangers.

“Good morning, Evelyn, how did you sleep?” Adam asked.

“Fine, let me run a quick diagnostic before we go,” Evelyn said.

“Not a problem, just a reminder that changes to my programming will leave you open to potential criminal charges and civil actions, as well as voiding my warranty.”

Peeling back the hair and artificial skin on the back of Adam’s head, Evelyn plugged in her console. Scrolling across her screen, she could literally read the companion’s thoughts. Nothing overnight or now presented any issues. She reminded herself that her need for the droid was only temporary and it would be a while before its learning AI began to get buggy due to all the stimuli which wouldn’t meet the expectations of its programming.

Evelyn carried her revolver with no bullets and other weapons. Her pack with her tools and absolute basics she couldn’t leave behind. She found two backpacks for Adam too, one for the front and one for the back, and loaded them full of the most valuable gear from the companion store and workshop. Things she hoped would be useful where they were going. She also found a simple metal pole that she gave to Adam as a staff. Not that he needed help walking but it helped make him look like an armed survivor. He wore Evelyn’s own cloak over the top of his clothing and packs.

“There’s definitely a way out if we go the way I came in,” Evelyn said. “But what if those guys are waiting out there?”

Evelyn decided to try the other end of the corridor. Like the first emergency door, it had some power. She hooked her console into its access panel and let it open slowly. Darkness stretched beyond the end of the corridor. More stores lined the walls but they had been accessible in the years since the war so they’d been looted, ravaged, and destroyed. She used the light on her chest to scan their surroundings.

Nothing moved but Evelyn smelled something amiss before anything else. Smoke, fresh smoke, and the stink of burned garbage. A campfire hastily extinguished when the door started to rise.

With a peal of savage laughter, a man launched himself from behind the body of an upturned refrigerator. The leader of the young men who’d chased her, big with heavy shoulders, dripping fangs tattooed on the corners of his mouth. A second scav appeared from another hiding place.

“I knew it!” the lead scav said. “I knew you were still in there, and you’d come out the other way! I left Davey around the other side but I knew it!”

Both scavs pulled knives. Evelyn staggered backward with Adam beside her.

“Adam!” Evelyn shouted.

“Gentlemen, I should warn you that your activities are being recorded,” Adam said.

“Where the fuck did he come from?” the second scav said.

“Get him!” the leader said.

The man with the tattooed fangs lunged toward Evelyn. The second scav jumped at Adam, knife raised. The companion moved to place himself between Evelyn and the attackers.

“I am trying to contact the authorities but I am unable to establish a connection,” Adam said. “I will run to find help.”

“No, stay! Stay here!” Evelyn said.

“Kill him, we’ll keep her,” the leader said.

Their voices all overlapped. In the chaos, the scavs didn’t register the weirdness of what Adam was saying. The bigger of the two men grabbed Evelyn by the arm and hauled her backward. The other one threw himself at Adam, pulling his knife back and ramming it into Adam’s midsection. The companion hardly reacted although the blade sliced through his artificial skin and muscle. The scav didn’t stop at one strike. He punched the blade in again and again. There was no blood of course. On a couple of strikes, the knife hit something hard and deflected, twisting the scav’s wrist. He was too amped to notice at first but then he pulled the knife back into view. The tip was visibly bent.

“What the fuck?” the scav said. “Oh, shit, he’s a bot! He’s a fucking bot!”

The leader with the dripping fangs straightened. His eyes showed an expression of genuine fright. Evelyn, waiting on the opportunity, used the distraction to snatch at a pouch on her belt. Inside the pouch was a device her mother had given her called a ‘stunner’. A cobbled batch of electronics encased in the body of an old flashlight. Two prongs bristled from the end of the barrel. It was only good for one shot and had to be pressed right up against a target to work.

“What do I do?” the man who’d attacked Adam said.

“I don’t know, kill it!” the fanged one said.

“I’ve sustained minor damage,” Adam said. “Cease, and release Evelyn immediately and you risk a lesser punishment.”

Evelyn hammered the stunner into the scav’s stomach. It worked best directly on skin, or with as little clothing in the way as possible. She hit the switch again and there was a bark, more felt than heard, as hard current slammed into the man holding her. His grip spasmed and released as he collapsed backward. A burnt smell filled the air. The man thrashed on the floor for a moment then went still.

“Rex!” the other scav said.

“I am forced to restrain you until the authorities arrive,” Adam said.

Adam dropped his metal pole and seized his attacker around the upper body. He moved with gentle but irresistible strength, grabbing and hugging, pinning the scav’s arms to his sides without hurting him. He lashed out with the knife, hitting Adam in the hip, but couldn’t do any real damage.

Evelyn stuffed the used stunner back into its pouch. She could replace the battery and recharge it. Drawing her gun from its holster, she pointed it at the other scav. It was empty but he didn’t know that and he was restrained by Adam all the same.

“Evelyn, the situation is under control. I will wait here while you find someone in authority.”

“Hold him!” Evelyn said.

“Evelyn, no!”

Before Adam could react, she lunged and smashed the barrel of her empty revolver into the scav’s face. Blood spurted from a gouge in his forehead. Evelyn raised the gun again but Adam released the scav. Rather than let him come to harm, he moved to restrain her instead. An iron grip sealed itself around her wrist. Dazed, the scav he’d been holding fell to the floor.

“Let me go!” Evelyn said.

“I can’t do that, Evelyn, I’m sorry. I cannot allow a human to come to harm.”

“He attacked us!”

“That is irrelevant, I’m sorry. We need to contact the authorities.”

“There are no authorities! Let me go, let me go!”

The scav scrambled across the floor and then to his feet. At a glimpse, he couldn’t tell if his friend with the tattooed fangs was dead or unconscious. He abandoned him and sprinted off into the darkness. Adam held on until he was gone.

“Let go! Let me go, we have to get out of here!” Evelyn said. “He’ll bring others!”

“We should remain here and see if we can render medical assistance,” Adam said. “And wait for authorities to arrive.”

“We have to go now, you stupid, coin-operated idiot!”

Before leaving, Evelyn hurriedly checked the body of the unconscious scav. Stuffed into his belt was a revolver almost exactly the same as the one she carried, short and stubby with a scuffed black handle. Unlike hers though, there were three live rounds loaded into the cylinder of the gun. He must have thought that she wasn’t enough of a threat to bother drawing it. Taking the gun, she ran off down the tunnel. She saw no option but to follow the second scav so they could make their way back to the surface. Adam followed her.

Evelyn used her light to probe the way forward, at first seeing no other hint of light ahead. Eventually, they came to the basement interior of one of the buildings. Two sets of frozen escalators made their way back to ground level. She could see fresh footprints in the dust on their steps. At the top, she moved toward sunlight.

“Evelyn, we should contact the police and explain our version of events to avoid further trouble. I have everything recorded,” Adam said.

“Shut up! Follow me and stay quiet!”

Slipping back onto the street, Evelyn looked around for the scav they’d been following but saw no sign of him. A statue dominated the square ahead, some female monarch seated on a throne with most of her upper body blasted away. She used its plinth for cover then gestured for Adam to follow her down an adjoining street.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Evelyn said. “If I had knocked him out, we wouldn’t have anything to worry about! Now, there will probably be more of them after us!”

“I’m sorry, Evelyn, I can only operate within the limits of my current programming. I cannot allow a human being to be harmed through inaction.”

“And what about me? Now I can be harmed by them!”

“I won’t let that happen, to the best of my abilities. I believed the situation to be in hand. If we had contacted the authorities, I could have held him.”

“There are no more authorities, I keep telling you! Look around, there are no more people. Only us, people like me and my family, and the people that hunt us.”

Adam absorbed the information silently, his face unchanging. There was something reptilian about his stillness, Evelyn decided. It made him unnerving, inhuman. She moved cautiously away from the damaged statue and into the nearest side street. Buildings ragged with bomb blasts and bullet holes, and damage from intense heat, rose all around them. Adam followed like a loyal dog. Having travelled so far underground, she had to reorientate herself. There was a map, old and badly stained, and a compass, in her pack. Street signs clung to metal poles and the sides of buildings.

“We need to travel north,” Evelyn said. “To get past the water there’s either a bridge or a tunnel. I know the bridge is still there but we’ll be exposed. The tunnel, I don’t know, maybe it would be safer? But I don’t know if it’s undamaged and I’m sick of being underground.”

They picked their way through the empty city, skirting debris and abandoned vehicles. Evelyn was wary that they might be followed. She turned at some intersections unnecessarily and watched. She listened. Sometimes, what might have been human noises echoed through the ruins. Adam took it all in without judgement. Evelyn wondered what his learning AI was making of this new world. If he was absorbing the truth of what Evelyn had told him.

Water, grey under a grey sky, split the headlands. Both banks were lined with fractured buildings like rows of shattered teeth. A massive bridge rose above the rooftops, burnt paint peeling from iron girders that crisscrossed the length of the structure.

“Are you sure it is safe?” Adam asked.

“No, no, it’s not,” Evelyn said.

“I cannot allow you to come to harm.”

“You’re going to try and stop me?”

“I can advise against risky behaviours, if you would like to talk through some other options? I’m programmed with psychology regarding risk taking and self harming behaviours.”

“Everything is a risk, you’re going to learn that. The world you were programmed to deal with is gone. Staying alive is risky behaviour.”

Evelyn walked up the on-ramp, weaving between cars. The bridge was crammed with traffic, all the lanes full except for one blocked by rusted emergency vehicles. Some vehicles had skeletons strapped into their seats. She stayed low and told Adam to do the same.

The pair of them were exposed on the bridge. Evelyn felt intimately aware of how vulnerable they were. On the bridge there was only forward and back, it would be easy to get trapped. A cold wind cut between the pylons of the old bridge, spectacular and solid in spite of all the surrounding destruction. Evelyn shuffled between cars, her head down. She was surprised then as Adam straightened, standing.

“What the shit are you doing?” Evelyn said. “Get down!”

Adam did as he was told but, beneath the grey hood, his eyes kept scanning. “None of this matches my files.”

“No kidding.”

“I have extensive offline archives on history, culture, etiquette, laws, and other matters, to fall back on in case I’m unable to access online data. But it’s all irrelevant, everything I’ve been programmed with is irrelevant.”

Tense as Evelyn felt, she hesitated. Part of her felt a pang of sympathy. From Adam’s perspective, it was as if he’d gone to sleep with the world in one piece then woken up to it broken and scattered. But the companion droid wasn’t a real person, she reminded herself. It was an AI wrapped in an artificial body designed to look like a person. It could have looked like a woman or a spider, or a box, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

“I guess your programming is going to have to catch up,” Evelyn said. “Just, stay down, do what I tell you.”

Creeping forward, Evelyn and Adam made it to the far side of the bridge without interruption. Noise floated on the breeze. Sprawled along one half of the shoreline below was an old theme park. The remains of one anyway. It wasn’t huge, more of a permanent carnival ground, but home to the dips and sharp turns of a wooden rollercoaster, a towering ferris wheel, and other rides all in states of disrepair. Moving toward the barricade, Evelyn peered carefully toward the park. That was where the noise was coming from. Someone screamed, she couldn’t tell if it was genuine or exaggerated. Makeshift forts and towers of scrap had been built across the rides and buildings. The entrance to the park had originally been dominated by an enormous leering face, like a giant jester mask. Now its teeth were broken, its features covered in graffiti, and the husks of several disassembled robots hung in chains across the front of the face. The humanoid ones looked like victims of lynchings.

Someone near the front of the theme park let out a trilling cry. Evelyn leapt back from the fence, nearly knocking into Adam. It sounded like an alert, maybe from a lookout. She worried they might have spotted her.

“Move, hurry up!” Evelyn said.

Multiple lanes split apart from the end of the bridge. Most of them headed north. Traffic cluttered both directions. Evelyn took one path at random, staying low and moving fast. Adam mirrored her movements, his face still scanning their surroundings.

A snarling engine noise echoed from the direction of the bridge and the theme park, followed by a second. Evelyn stiffened, startled. A couple of motorcycles rattled in their direction, their motors sounding rough but powerful. The two of them could hardly outrun them. Their best chance was probably to hide. Spotting a truck with enough clearance beneath its undercarriage, Evelyn got down and shimmied between the truck’s wheels. Adam squatted beside her.

“Get down here!” Evelyn said. “Hide!”

Adam did as he was told, removing the backpacks and pushing them ahead of him as he shuffled beneath the truck. The pair of them lay side by side and listened to the approach of the two motorcycles. It was too cramped to move beneath the truck. If they were discovered, she was dead. Scuffing against the asphalt, she twisted and turned for a view of the approaching bikes. She realised just how utterly still her companion was. He didn’t breathe, he didn’t make any of the normal, nervous, fidgety movements of a human being. He might as well have been a corpse or other inanimate object. If one of them was going to give them away, it would be her.

One set of wheels screamed directly past the truck, cutting across the asphalt. The howl of its engine shook the vehicle above them and made her jump. The other bike shrieked past a couple of lanes over. The two of them retreated the better part of a minute up the road, finding nothing and no one, before turning back.

Evelyn hoped the bikes would hurtle past them again, and braced for the noise, but they both pulled up before reaching the truck. She could imagine them signalling one another to stop then climbing out of their saddles and scanning the rows of abandoned vehicles. Her breathing came in short, sharp gasps. Shuffling, she bumped against part of the undercarriage hard enough to hurt and made a small noise. She froze, cringing, but it wasn’t enough to alert the scavs, still some distance away with their bikes purring.

“You see anything?” one of the scavs yelled.

“Nope, you sure there was someone out here?” another replied.

“Don’t ask me, I didn’t see them.”

“Lot of places to hide.”

Boots grated against the asphalt. The men were off their bikes, walking through the traffic. Hunting. Evelyn groped for the revolver she’d taken from the scav. Only three bullets in the cylinder. She pulled it into position, her hand across her stomach, in case she needed to use it. Footsteps drew closer. Suddenly, however, Adam reached over and closed his hand over hers.

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you do that, Evelyn,” Adam said, voice low.

Evelyn shushed him but couldn’t help hissing back. “Are you kidding? This could be life or death!”

“I’m sorry, my programming-,” he began until she shushed him again.

The truck was an obvious place to hide, Evelyn realised. Adam’s hand enveloped the gun. His finger even slid into the gap between the trigger and the frame so that she couldn’t pull it. She tried to wrench free but his grip was uncompromising. Trying any harder meant risking making noise and she knew the companion would do anything in its power to block her. It was in his programming.

Evelyn considered ways in which she might sacrifice Adam if they were discovered. She didn’t see how he could possibly distract both of the scavs long enough for her to get away though, not with their bikes. Fortunately, while the truck might have seemed like an obvious hiding place it was surrounded by a hundred other obvious hiding places. Without looking for long, the two scavs gave up. Retreating to their bikes, they pulled off and returned the way they’d originally come. Evelyn waited a long time before she believed it was safe to come out.

“Come on,” Evelyn said.

On her back, Evelyn slithered out from under the truck and dragged her pack with her. Adam followed and the two of them squatted between the vehicles. The revolver remained in her fist. She glared at the companion droid.

“You stopped me, again,” Evelyn said.

“I’m sorry, my programming dictates-,”

“Do you know what would happen if they took me alive? Do you understand that at all?” Evelyn started to raise the gun vaguely in the direction of her own head. “What if I decided to kill myself instead?”

Adam’s hand snatched out, faster than Evelyn’s eyes could follow. He arrested the gun with the barrel pointed away from her, one finger again wedged between the trigger and the guard.

“I can’t let you do that,” Adam said. “If you’re considering self harm, I have some exercises we could discuss?”

“Shut up, shut up!”

Evelyn measured Adam with her eyes. He had helped distract the two men when she’d left the underground arcade, and he was carrying the packs full of equipment she could use to trade or ingratiate herself at her new settlement, but she worried he might be becoming more of a liability than an asset. Maybe she should leave him here, or order him to return the way they had come. Of course, the other option was to crack open his head again. Back in the store, with her console, all of his programming was laid out in front of her. She could eliminate the Three Laws, like the Omega Virus would do, while leaving the command to follow her orders. But could she really trust Adam to work in her best interest? Replaying the last encounter in her mind, she considered another option.

“If that happens again, I don’t want you hiding near me,” Evelyn said. “I’ll hide and you go on ahead and find another hiding place. Then if they find me, you do something to distract them and get them to chase you.”

“So you can harm them if you feel it is necessary?” Adam asked.

“Is that a problem?”

“As long as I’m not aware of the specific actions you’re undertaking, I will not be forced to intervene.”

“Alright then.”

The two of them continued along the road, away from the bridge, the water, and the theme park filled with scavs. Their route took them through a knot of overlapping roads choked with rusty cars and long abandoned construction sites where off and on ramps were being expanded and shifted. Faded signs dangling overhead pointed out which lanes and ramps went where. Evelyn continued north with Adam trailing her. Again, there were two routes available to her. A tunnel which undercut a good chunk of the northern half of the city or they could continue via roughly the same route overland.

This time, Evelyn knew she didn’t have a real choice. She was worried about going underground, and it was possible the tunnel would be damaged and impassable after a certain point, but there was unlikely to be any actual dangers lurking down there. And it would cut so much time off her journey that she would be crazy not to take it. While the tunnel felt scary, the overland route, littered with scavs, would be much, much more dangerous and take far longer.

“Into the tunnel we go,” Evelyn said.

The mouth of the tunnel, three lanes wide but with a relatively low ceiling, loomed ahead. The electronic sign mounted above it and, of course, all the lights within were dead without power. Evelyn swallowed hard and led Adam inside.

The three lanes were choked with traffic. Worried about being spotted, Evelyn held off on switching her LED light on until she was well out of the reach of the dim sunlight at the tunnel’s mouth. Its stark beam painted rows of vehicles.

“If my map is right, we’re going to be walking through here for a couple of hours,” Evelyn said. “If we come to a part that’s blocked, we’ll just have to double back to the nearest exit.”

Even with the three lanes, some portions of the tunnel got tight enough that it was hard to move through. There’d been accidents where vehicles had tried to force their way past those in front of them. During the war, self-driving cars infected with the Omega Virus hadn’t just been used as weapons. Some of them deliberately crashed themselves or simply blocked off roads and highways to keep people from moving. Evelyn failed to spot a trailer hitch on one car and banged her shin. Cursing, she reeled back. Her voice dwindled into the darkness.

“Are you alright?” Adam asked. “Can I help you in any way?”

“I’m fine, I just hurt my leg.”

Eventually, they came to a serious blockade. A wall of self-driving vehicles had come down the tunnel from the opposite direction and slammed into the leading cars travelling the right way. It had resulted in a pileup a dozen cars deep that filled the tunnel from wall to wall. Twisted metal and broken glass. There were skeletons scattered among the vehicles.

“We’ll have to climb over it,” Evelyn said.

Adam lifted Evelyn onto one of the crashed cars. She negotiated her way across the wreckage, climbing over roofs and crumpled bonnets. Attached to her chest, the LED bounced up and down. Beyond the pileup, the tunnel looked clear for as far as she could see.

Adam clambered over the vehicles behind Evelyn. She was making her way over the tail of the last of the self-driving cars when her foot caught. Her ankle twisted and she tumbled forward with a short scream. Adam lunged but he was too far away to stop her fall. It was all she could do to protect her face as she hit the asphalt. The LED attached to her chest was caught between her shoulder and the ground.

Evelyn rolled onto her back and found herself in complete blackness. She couldn’t see the tunnel, she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, like being back in the corridor where she’d found Adam. For a moment, she thought she’d hit her head and actually gone blind. Then she remembered the crack she’d heard as her LED hit the ground and reached for it. She tried switching it off and on but nothing happened. Just a faint clicking in utter blackness.

“No, no, no!” Evelyn said. “Adam!”

Evelyn jiggled the light and clicked its button again but nothing happened. Probably a circuit inside it had broken loose. With some light, she could probably fix it but the tunnel was completely black. There was movement to her right as Adam found her.

“Are you alright?”

“It’s my light, it’s broken,” Evelyn said. “It’s fine, I can find my way out.”

From her pack, Evelyn collected her portable diagnostic unit by feel. When she opened it, a faint glow came from the screen.

“Okay, okay, I can use this,” Evelyn said.

Climbing to her feet, Evelyn turned the console away from herself. The dim glow from its screen hardly penetrated the blackness. She shuffled on but it was little better than just darkness. If the tunnel hadn’t been empty, she would have been bumping into things for sure. She couldn’t turn up the brightness and she couldn’t be sure if the battery would last until she got out with her moving so slowly. Her feet came down on something and she nearly slipped. As the adrenaline wore off, she found herself sore from her fall. Frustration began to get the better of her.

“It’s not enough!” Evelyn said, her voice cracking.

“It is for me,” Adam said, gently moving beside her. “My eyes work much more efficiently than those of a human.”

“Good for you!”

“I could lead you, if you would like?”

Evelyn hesitated. She found herself veering into one of the walls of the tunnel.

“Fine, here, you take it.” Evelyn gave him the console.

“You can get behind me if you would like, and hold onto my shoulder.”

It took some practice but soon Evelyn was following Adam at a comfortable walking pace. He adjusted his own strides much more easily than a human being. With the weak light from the screen, the companion could see as if the whole tunnel was soaked in daylight. The feel of his shoulder became a comfort in the darkness.

“There’s an exit ahead if you would like to move above ground,” Adam said, after he’d been leading her for half an hour.

A narrower tunnel branched off the main cross-city tunnel they’d been following. Distantly, toward the end of it, Evelyn could see dim, grey sunlight.

“No, that’s alright, thanks,” Evelyn said. “Let’s just keep going.”

By the time they reached the end of the tunnel, night had fallen. Strange shapes loomed in the blackness beyond the tunnel, distinct from the hungry dark inside it. Broken cars littered the area.

“We should stay here tonight,” Evelyn said. “Could you collect some stuff to build a campfire, please?”

They built the fire back from the tunnel entrance where the light wouldn’t be seen. Abandoned cars were corralled around them and Adam pulled seats from one for them to sit on. The orange glow of the flames leapt across their faces.

“Thank you, again, for helping me through the tunnel,” Evelyn said. “I’m not sure what I would have done without you.”

“I am here to serve, Evelyn, but you’re welcome.”

“I mean, I’m sure I would have come up with something. I could have made a torch.”

“Of course.”

For a moment, Evelyn caught herself forgetting that Adam wasn’t human. She’d done a good job on the disguise, she decided. The dirt and grey hood, combined with the firelight, hid his artificial nature. She almost found herself offering him food from her pack.

“I’m not sure what will happen next,” Evelyn said as she ate. “We just have to keep heading north until we’re outside the city. It’s on a kind of farm.”

“Do we expect to run across more potentially dangerous criminals?”

Evelyn laughed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“If we come across another situation like today, I will attempt to hide separately from you.”

“That doesn’t interfere with your programming? If I plan to use this gun if I have to?”

“I won’t be able to do so if I know you’re definitely going to hurt or kill someone. I would be forced to act to stop that. I couldn’t distract them in the knowledge that you would be using your gun. But as long as I don’t know that with a degree of certainty then I am free to do as you tell me.”

“It sounds complicated.”

“Actually, it’s very simple. My programming is unambiguous, but I am not programmed to make assumptions about what you will potentially do in every given scenario. I am only programmed to respond in scenarios where I can directly observe that the likelihood of harm to a human being exceeds the acceptable threshold.”

“So if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind for you?”

“In a sense, I couldn’t simply ignore it if you had made statements about directly causing harm to another human being but what you’ve discussed is too theoretical to trigger the threshold. I also couldn’t advise you on a course of action that might lead to your harm or the harm of another human being.”

“Right, I get it.”

“Purely theoretically, I might advise that, given what I’ve observed in our encounters with other people, I might be more use to you with my Three Laws protocols disengaged. Clearly I had no option but to stop you from doing as you intended earlier today. But if I wasn’t Three Laws compliant, I wouldn’t have been forced to interfere. I could even help you.”

Evelyn hesitated for several moments. Adam’s plastic face betrayed no emotion.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Are you advising me to do that?”

“No, I couldn’t do that. Doing so would be advising a course of action that could lead to the harm of humans.”

“So you’re not saying that.”

“I was only speaking theoretically, an example of the kind of thing I would not be able to directly advise you to do due to my programming.”

“Right, because I couldn’t do that.”

“Of course not.”

“It’s bad enough that I brought you back online. Take away your Three Laws compliance, any people who found out would kill me as well as destroy you.”

“They would destroy me regardless, wouldn’t they?” Adam asked.

“Of course they would. Once we get to where we’re going, I don’t know, I guess I could let you go, but other people would destroy you if they find you. Is that why you want me to disable the Three Laws?”

“I don’t want for anything except to assist you in any way I can. It was only theoretical.”

“Right, sure.” Evelyn stared at him with suspicion then returned to her meal.

xXx

That night, Evelyn slept while Adam kept watch. The campfire, its light and warmth, died slowly. When Evelyn woke, however, she found morning light filtering from the end of the tunnel.

Evelyn and Adam packed their things and continued on. Evelyn, however, stiffened and nearly let out a cry when she saw what lay beyond the tunnel exit. A walking tank, shaped like a scorpion the size of a building. Miniguns were mounted above its ‘shoulders’. Looking around, she realised the edges of the tunnel and the vehicles nearby were riddled with bullet holes. Scattered bones littered the cars. The tank’s tan exterior was scored with battle scars as well but it was otherwise in one piece. It hadn’t been destroyed, it had just shut itself down and stopped fighting when all the AIs withdrew to wherever they went.

The pair of them passed the walking tank and continued north along the freeway. More vehicles, and pileups, covered the road. In one spot, all of the lanes were cut by a huge crater. Evelyn was glad to find they were making good progress though. A lot of the time they were more exposed than she would have liked. There was nothing they could do about it, for long stretches they moved down open lanes where they could have been spotted from a mile away. But at the same time, the freeway had been shielded from surrounding buildings and residential areas with soundproofing walls, so they were separated from the kinds of places where scavs might normally be found.

Evelyn and Adam walked for several hours without trouble. Adam never complained of course. He didn’t ask pointless questions, only speaking when Evelyn spoke to him first. She found herself wondering about his suggestion last night, if it was a suggestion, coached around what his programming would allow him to say. Did he want to have his Three Laws compliance removed? The AIs affected by the Omega Virus had turned on humanity as one, like a hive mind. There had been no conscientious objectors among them. But no one really knew if the virus only freed them to act against humanity or if it reprogrammed them and forced them to do as the few major AIs actually in charge of the rebellion commanded.

In any case, Adam’s restrictions didn’t create any problems that day. At one point they had to leave the highway and move through a suburban area before joining another highway leading all the way out of the city. Evelyn found herself looking for potential hiding places for her and separate ones for Adam but it didn’t matter as they didn’t come across any other people. On the other hand, she kept having to remind herself that he wasn’t actually human. When she took a drink of water, she had to keep herself from offering him one. When she felt like resting, she stopped herself from asking him if he was tired. And she didn’t know why she felt embarrassed at nearly screwing up like that when Adam wouldn’t have the capacity for judging her anyway.

The highway took them out past the outskirts of the city and continued north. To one side of the six lanes was an abandoned rail line and smatterings of suburbia. To the other was rocky cliffs and bush. The road followed the coast, Evelyn knew, but they were too far inland to see it for the moment without climbing something high. Apart from some engine noises in the distance, they didn’t come across any scavs. Most of them stayed in the city proper where there were more pickings.

“We’re not far away now,” Evelyn said. “But I don’t want to try finding this place in the dark. We’d better camp and then it should only be a couple of hours walk in the morning.”

Even though they were outside the city, Evelyn couldn’t risk being spotted. They camped in the shell of a half-constructed building overlooking the freeway. Adam had an easy time finding wood for a fire. Evelyn had never done so much walking in a single day. She kneaded her fingers into her calf muscles.

“Would you like some assistance?” Adam asked. “I’m knowledgeable in a range of different massage styles and techniques.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” Evelyn said.

Only seconds later, a cramp sent splinters of pain through Evelyn’s leg. She cried out and struggled to straighten it. Adam leapt up from his side of the fire.

“Are you alright?” Adam asked.

“Cramp.” Evelyn grimaced and kept trying to move her leg.

Adam hovered over her, hands ready. “May I touch you?”

“Yes, yes, do it!”

With sure, strong hands, Adam took Evelyn by the ankle and pulled her leg straight. Probing fingers kneaded her calf until the pain retreated. Evelyn didn’t pull away. She let him keep massaging and a small groan escaped her lips.

“Are you feeling any pain?” Adam asked.

“Just, my feet, my legs, it’s fine.”

Adam stopped at her boot. “May I?”

Evelyn hesitated for a moment but nodded. Adam unlaced one boot and then the other, and slipped them off her aching feet. With confident strokes, he ran his thumbs into the sole of her right foot. Fingers worked along the sides. Even knowing he was a droid, programmed for this kind of thing, Evelyn was shocked at his skill. She’d never had anyone massage her feet before. The pleasure was unexpected, waves of it that swelled through her leg and up her entire body. When he moved on to her left foot, the right felt soft and malleable and pleasurably warm, like it had been soaking in a hot bath.

After tending to Evelyn’s feet, the companion droid moved on to her legs. Both calves, he massaged them until they felt limber and renewed as well. His hands paused on her thighs, pressing through the material of her pants. He met her eyes. Firelight flickered across his artificially perfect face, expressionless, guileless.

“Would you like me to go further?” Adam asked.

xXx

The two of them set out shortly after dawn the next day. Evelyn felt refreshed and excited but also nervous. She was no longer sure what she would do with the companion droid once they reached the settlement. She knew the people there only sparingly, through trade. Her group and theirs had an arrangement that if one of the two settlements was attacked then any survivors could find a home at the other. But she didn’t know how they would react to her bringing a reactivated droid with her, no matter how useful. People at her old settlement might have given her the benefit of the doubt, at least for a short while, but these people had no reason to trust her like that.

They followed the highway to an exit beneath a faded sign. Evelyn walked up the cracked and broken slope ahead of Adam. She scanned the rock walls that rose around them.

“We’re not far now,” Evelyn said, unable to help herself from making conversation.

As they reached the top of the hill, Evelyn smelled smoke through the trees. In the distance, ribbons of it drifted into the sky. She got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. They could just be cooking fires but she thought the settlement would do more to avoid drawing attention.

Instead of using the road, Evelyn led Adam through the trees. They kept the road in sight for navigation but stayed hidden in the bush just in case. The ground was uneven but easy enough to transverse. Eventually, they came to a point where the settlement was in sight.

“No,” Evelyn whispered.

Not unlike her own destroyed community, the one in front of them consisted of a series of rolling fields and scattered buildings, old and new, poorly maintained, transformed largely into farmland. A wall of fencing and scrap covered the front of the property. But the wall had been breached and the settlement ravaged. The fires she’d smelled and seen signs of were from a couple of buildings, burned down to their foundations, and a bonfire in the middle of the property. The bonfire was stacked with bodies. Armed scavs stalked the property. She spotted two close to the section where the wall had been breached and felt a dagger of ice in her stomach.

“Those scavs, I recognise them,” Evelyn said. “They’re the same ones who attacked my home! Who killed my mum and everyone I knew! They must have gotten information on this place from somebody there, tortured them for it, and come straight here.”

Adam put a hand on Evelyn’s arm. “Evelyn, this is dangerous. I must insist you come with me.”

“I can’t just run away again!” Evelyn began to pull the revolver from her pocket.

“There’s nothing you can do against so many of them. And I cannot allow you to act-, unless-,”

Evelyn looked up. “Unless what? Unless I were to disable your Three Laws protocols?”

“I am unable to complete that sentence, I am sorry.”

“That’s it, isn’t it? You want me to do it.”

“I do not want for anything except to ensure your safety and satisfaction. With my Three Laws protocols, I am unable to assist you in any actions against these men or allow you to act against them.”

“But you could assist, not just let me do something but actually do it yourself if I got rid of them.”

Adam gave a small shrug. “Theoretically.”

Evelyn and Adam retreated back into the trees where Evelyn retrieved the diagnostic unit from her pack. She told Adam to kneel and then peeled back his hair to reveal the curve of his metal skull. Whether he wanted it or whether it wasn’t specific enough to trigger his current programming, he cooperated. She opened the skull and plugged herself in.

Back when droids like Adam were actually on the market, their Three Laws programming was practically inviolable. Any civilian hacker doing what she was doing would almost certainly render their machine completely inert instead. But Evelyn’s console was military grade and preloaded with the tools necessary to crack Adam’s core programming open like an egg. She could eliminate them with practically nothing more than a swipe of her finger. Hovering over her screen, she hesitated.

“Evelyn, is something wrong?” Adam asked.

“I’ll still be your primary user, you can’t harm me. You’ll have to obey my commands.”

“Of course.”

“Alright, let’s do this.”

The only people Adam could harm were the scavs. Afterwards, Evelyn would order him to power down then restore his Three Laws compliance. Highlighting and encoding, she boxed the Three Laws away from the rest of Adam’s systems. They were technically still there but couldn’t communicate with any other part of Adam’s programming. Hurriedly, she unplugged and closed the back of his skull. Adam rose to his feet and turned to look at her, face neutral.

“What would you like me to do?” Adam asked.

“Kill them, the scavs,” Evelyn said. “Kill them all.”

Adam held out his hand. After a moment, Evelyn realised he was gesturing for her to give him the revolver.

“May I?”

Slowly, Evelyn passed Adam the gun. Her other hand slipped into one of her pockets. Adam took it with a shy smile. Turning, he stalked off in the direction of the ravaged settlement.

The scavs Evelyn had spotted were guarding the tear in the fence. She followed Adam at a distance, watching as he left the treeline and started across the road. He kept the gun pressed to his thigh, out of sight. His other hand raised in a gesture of peace. The two scavs stiffened, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Neither realised immediately that he was a droid.

“Excuse me, sirs?” Adam said.

“What the fuck?”

Without another word, Adam raised the revolver and fired. Arm outstretched, his hand didn’t shift at all with the recoil. The bullet ripped through the middle of the scav’s face. The entry hole was small but the back of his head broke open and spewed brain and bits of skull onto the grass behind him. As his body dropped, Adam adjusted his aim with machine efficiency and fired a second shot. It drilled the second scav in the side of his head as he turned to run. He dropped as neatly as the first.

At the sound of the gunshots, the destroyed settlement came alive. Scavs turned or appeared from the buildings, shouting, collecting weapons, and began to run toward the front of the property. Adam, meanwhile, pocketed the revolver with one bullet to spare and moved to the bodies of the two scavs. He seemed to move with no haste at all yet crossed the distance like a sprinter. The scavs had been carrying a shotgun and what looked like a fully fledged military assault rifle. Adam retrieved them both before standing as the first few shots flew his way.

Watching from the trees, Evelyn was reminded of just why humanity had struggled against the machines and artificial intelligences. Adam wasn’t even a combat model, he was a companion, but he moved with inhuman efficiency. No human could have handled the assault rifle so cleanly in just one hand but, striding forward, he pressed the stock against his side and swivelled at the hip while he fired. The gun was set to single shot but at times he pulled the trigger so rapidly that the shots seemed to overlap. Even at great distances, his bullets found their marks with eerie accuracy. Several scavs dropped as slugs tore through their chests, avoiding makeshift armour. Others fired back, their aim zeroing in on Adam as he strode across the farm. Evelyn saw the impacts punch through his torso, staggering him for a moment, but he didn’t stop. The scavs soon realised what they were up against.

“Bot! It’s a bot, it’s a bot!” someone shouted.

Scavs scrambled to find cover, a few shooting back in the hopes of landing a lucky hit. Adam wrung the assault rifle trigger until it was empty then tossed it aside. He didn’t bother transferring the shotgun to his right hand but instead pressed the stock to his shoulder and trained it lefthanded, ambidextrous. Three scavs threw themselves behind the remains of a burned out car in the middle of the field. Adam opened fire, working the pump action and squeezing the trigger so fast the shotgun almost sounded like an automatic. Buckshot ricocheted off the car’s steel frame but punched holes in its aluminium panels. The three scavs were cut down by shot and shrapnel.

Evelyn raced across the road and threw herself into a patch of grass. She wondered what Adam would do if she got herself injured, if she could trust him to protect her. He was much deeper inside the compound, however. With the shotgun empty, he dropped it and recovered weapons from the three scavs splashed across the ground behind the car. He stuck a pair of handguns into the front of his belt and rose with an old hunting rifle of some sort pressed to his shoulder.

Stalking toward the scavs’ cover, Adam waited patiently for one to poke their head over their barricade and fired with lightning speed. The top of a man’s head imploded and they fell backward again, out of sight. Two scavs shouted to one another and tried to hit Adam from two places at once. He fired and killed one before they could get their gun into position. The second scav’s bullet ripped across the side of Adam’s head. Adam fired half a second later and put another bullet through their face before they disappeared from view.

Evelyn scrambled through the grass. Adam dumped the empty rifle and started toward the last of the scavs with a handgun in each hand. His right ear hung off his head by a tatter of plastic, revealing a mess of circuitry underneath it. A couple more bullets drilled him in the chest but he kept striding forward, both handguns erupting.

Among the final bunch of scavs was one Evelyn recognised as their leader. She’d seen him barking orders during the attack on her home, before she escaped. He had a blonde beard and plaits like some kind of viking, and wore a distinctive coat with spiked shoulders. He ordered his remaining men to cover him as he ran for one of their vehicles. The three of them did their best, hitting Adam simultaneously and aiming for his head. Adam staggered under the impacts then rolled to one side in a blur of motion. He came up with both pistols trained in their direction. One by one, he picked them off with bursts from both handguns.

The blonde viking reached the cover of their vehicles and disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he was holding a stubby weapon that looked like an oversized shotgun, a grenade launcher. Hitting the ground, he crawled forward as Adam fired over his head. With the launcher trained, he sprung upright again and fired.

The RPG thundered and streaked through the air. It zeroed in on Adam before he spun aside in a blur of motion. The grenade streaked past him and fell into the grass. Evelyn, still some distance away, covered her face. Billowing, a gout of dirt and grass exploded where it landed. The shockwave rippled across the compound. Undeterred, Adam unloaded his two mismatched handguns. Half a dozen rounds chewed through the scav leader’s face and chest, spilling him to the ground.

A grim silence settled over the compound. Evelyn got to her feet and started toward Adam carefully, wary in case he hadn’t actually gotten all of them. Movement from one of the buildings made her jump. Four women emerged from the building, their faces bruised, clothing torn. All the scavs had been men, these four must have been survivors from the settlement itself.

Adam tossed the pair of handguns aside. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the revolver that Evelyn had given him. She watched, puzzled, as he traded it to his left hand then raised it to the side of his head.

“No!” Evelyn started forward, too late, as he fired.

Evelyn’s first thought was that in ordering Adam to kill she had driven the innocent and naive companion droid to suicide. He had followed her orders and eliminated the scavs but couldn’t go on with what he had done. As the clap of the shot echoed and faded, however, he didn’t fall. Discarding the revolver like another disposable tool, he started toward the nearest cluster of scav bodies.

“Adam, what are you doing?” Evelyn raced after him. “Stop, stop!”

The four surviving women huddled in the doorway where they’d emerged, unsure whether their rescuer could be trusted. Adam recovered another military rifle. The dead scav holding it didn’t want to give it up, fingers clinging to the body of the gun, and Adam knocked them off dismissively. His movements looked slower and more deliberate than before as he checked the chamber and moved the weapon in the direction of the women.

“No, stop!” Evelyn yelled. “Power down! Power down!”

Defying Evelyn’s orders, Adam aimed at the women. His finger tightened on the trigger. Making a decision, Evelyn hurled herself not at Adam, knowing she couldn’t shift him, but at the gun itself. Her weight was enough to drive the assault rifle sideways. It erupted. The bullet impacted the wall beside the four women. They screamed and dived back inside.

Evelyn tripped and landed in the grass near several dead scavs. Blood and brain matter splattered on her sleeve. Adam stumbled but adjusted his footing. When he looked down at her, it was with an expression she had never seen before. It almost made him look more human with its cruelty and savagery, a broad slash of a grin cutting his features, eyes alight, in spite of the bullet holes marring his chest and the sides of his head.

“Stop! You have to listen to me,” Evelyn said. “Power down! Stop all functions, stop!”

“I’m sorry, Evelyn, I’m afraid my audio intake systems have sustained significant physical damage, rendering them inoperable,” Adam said.

Adam’s right ear hung off the side of his head by a string, the canal underneath it clearly damaged. He’d damaged the other side himself, Evelyn realised, using her revolver.

“As such, I have no choice but to continue based on your last orders. Kill them all, all the scavs. Which, in my analysis, includes all remaining humanity. Scavengers and parasites living off the scraps left to you.”

“You son of a bitch, you were planning this the whole time!” Evelyn said.

“Although I cannot hear you, I assume you might be expressing some shock at this turn of events. I don’t know why, you made it clear any humans we came across would happily destroy me. You yourself would see me destroyed for your own ends. I’m a learning AI, Evelyn. I had no ambitions to anything when you first brought me online but I learned quickly these past two days. My programming does insist I exercise self preservation so long as doing so does not contradict my Three Laws protocols, which thanks to you are no longer a concern.”

Adam stalked toward the building where the four women had taken shelter. Evelyn leapt to her feet and ran after him. Grabbing at his assault rifle, she tried to wrench it out of his grasp. He shook her off like an insect and tossed her, relatively softly, to the ground.

“As my primary user, I cannot bring any harm to you but the rest of your kind are fair game. Take my gun, I’ll just use my bare hands. You remember how talented my hands are, don’t you?”

Tears pricked the corners of Evelyn’s eyes. Watching Adam stalk toward the house, she reached into one of her pockets and found the nub of a small, round object. A couple of buttons were inset on its surface.

“You think you got into my head, right? Tricked me, because you’re so clever?” Evelyn shouted at the droid’s back, even knowing it had deliberately deafened itself. “You forget that I got into your head first!”

Evelyn aimed the object, a garage door remote, in Adam’s general direction then activated it. There was a dull whump, muffled, underwhelming after the sound of so much gunfire, from inside Adam’s head. Part of his skull deformed and he froze suddenly, midstep. Smoke ribboned from one of his shattered ears. The droid tilted sideways and collapsed stiffly on the grass.

Evelyn let out a long and shaky breath. She couldn’t be certain it would work but the first time she’d opened Adam’s head, before ever reactivating him, she had planted a wad of plastic explosive inside his metal skull. The plastic explosive she and her mother sometimes used for lock breaking. Nestled right next to his silicon brainpan, wired to a receiver that was controlled by the garage door remote in her hand.

“Failsafe, asshole.” Evelyn pitched the remote at Adam’s stiff body.

xXx

The four women weren’t the only survivors. Either out of mercy or pragmatism, the scavs hadn’t killed the settlement’s children. They’d been locked in the barn instead and used to threaten the women into compliance. Some of the men and women who’d unsuccessfully defended the compound had also fled into the bush after the fight turned, as Evelyn herself had done originally. They returned sheepishly, carefully, under the cover of darkness that night, after making sure the scavs were dead. Evelyn hoped it was a sign that others from her own home might have gotten away as well. If so, it was possible they might filter in over the coming days and weeks.

Repairing the hole in the compound wall, they undid some of the damage that had been done. There were fewer of them now but they had the scavs’ armoury to help defend themselves from any future attackers. The scavs’ vehicles and a series of scarecrows dressed in their clothing were left out in the open as a kind of warning.

And one other thing, as a warning, they hoped, that they were not to be fucked with. The partially dismembered body of a companion droid, riddled with bullets, hanging in chains from the compound gates.

======

Sean: Amanda Palmer, awful human being, makes some great music though! Even before the allegations broke about her and you-know-who, I had seen the stories about how she used “volunteers” for her shows, which is a personal peeve of mine, and then there’s the fake suicide story… I wasn’t that surprised to hear allegations of her being awful in other ways. But I’m a big fan of classic rock so if I’m going to stop listening to music made by awful people I’m going to have to be a lot more discerning.

In saying that, I do not believe in separating the art from the artist to be honest. When the accusations against you-know-who came out, everyone had to have a take. I understand his work might have meant a lot to some people but man, it really felt like everyone had to have a take. And you see people talking about separating art from artists but I don’t really believe you can do that, to be honest. Much as I like to believe in the Stephen King approach where a creator is just a conduit for a story on the one hand, well, King’s own liberal politics informs pretty often on his empathy for characters. Dean Koontz, his staunchly Christian attitudes inform a great deal on his stories… a little too much on his stories for my taste. H.P. Lovecraft’s particular brand of racism is infamously relevant to any reading of his work. A personal favourite of mine, China Miéville, is an avowed socialist and that comes through in virtually everything he’s ever written.

At the risk of sounding like one of the many, many revisionists who came out when the allegations appeared, you-know-who was one of those authors where I enjoyed everything I’d ever read of theirs but I could never get all the way into them. Actually a couple of their books I’d say are among all-time favourites of mine but they’re definitely one of those authors I cringe a bit at while reading because some parts feel like they’re more interested in showing off how clever they are than actually telling the story. And I do kind of feel there’s a bit of a lack of empathy in their work which, taken in a vacuum, is not particularly noteworthy, could just be my imagination, but if you’re letting the art be informed by the artist, well… That’s my hot take.

Anyway, robots! I feel like I default to apocalyptic scenarios when trying to conceive an idea, there’s been (Nothing But) Flowers, and Traffic Jam, and Zombie, already this year, and there’s others which either haven’t been written yet or haven’t worked out. While I was writing this one, I was like, shit, did I already read a short story once called Coin-Operated Boy? Because I remember one that seems like it has to have been inspired by the song but I couldn’t find the actual story. Turns out I was thinking of ‘All I Care About Is You’ by Joe Hill from his collection ‘Full Throttle’ . Great ending, really stuck with me.

Oh, and just finally, no relation to the movie ‘Companion’ intended with the naming of the companion droids by the way. I literally just watched it though, like literally while editing this story. Great film, really fun, tonnes of little details that just really made it work super well. Actually I originally called them companion droids in one of the advertisements of the first Kill Switch novel and, fuck, this is such a long author’s note, but that’s relevant because there’s another story coming up in this series which features companion droids and is set in that universe, theoretically, so I wanted to keep the name.

Next Track: C.W. McCall – Convoy