"So why am I still here?"

Sanchez scowled. "Right now, I'm your only friend. You might want to stop giving me lip. This is serious. Even if you didn't kill this guy, somebody went to some trouble to make it look like you could've. Not enough to hold up in court, but enough to keep you occupied. Want to tell me why?"

"Wish I could."

"What about the blood? Want to tell me where you picked that up?"

"Can't."

"This is serious. You realize that there are some very important people who've already put in requests for your permanent deactivation?"

"I haven't done anything."

"Is that supposed to make a difference? You're not technically a citizen yet. Or have you forgotten?"

"I don't forget anything, Sanchez. You know that."

"Well then you also remember that in the end you've got the legal rights of a television set."

I didn't reply, only stood motionless in that unnatural robotic way.

"Had a talk with your shrink few minutes ago, Mack. Tells me you've picked up some kind of programming anomaly. Says you couldn't tell me anything even if you wanted to, and if I tried to access your memory matrix it could lead to total system failure." Sanchez's ears flattened. "But you gotta give me something. Otherwise, the suits upstairs will send down the order to force a download, and there won't be a d.a.m.n thing I'll be able to do to stop it."

There followed a seven second pause.

"You aren't making this easy for me, Mack."

"Sorry."

Sanchez gathered up the photos. "All right. We'll do this the only way we can. Doctor Mujahid thinks you'll be able to overcome this bug with some time. So time is what I'm going to give you. I'll try to keep the suits happy for as long as I can. Get comfortable, Mack. You're going to be here for a while."

He stuffed the photos back into the file, got up and walked out of the room without looking back. It was just me and my automated watchdogs.

I wanted to tell Sanchez what I knew, but as long as Grey's bug was working its magic, I was out of choices.

Gavin's murder could've meant any number of things. Maybe they'd gotten what they'd needed out of him. And maybe they'd gotten what they'd needed out of Julie and the kids, too. Could be they were all dead, and the cops hadn't found Jules and April and Holt's bodies yet. I calculated that as possible, but unlikely. No good reason for the abductors to ditch the corpses separately. No, Gavin was expendable. They'd kept him alive because there hadn't been a good reason to kill him yet. Maybe he'd pushed his luck, and they figured as long as they were going to get rid of him, they might as well ha.s.sle me in the process. Had to admire their efficiency.

Whatever their reasons they'd succeeded in s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g me over. At the very least, I was delayed here for another few hours. At the very worst, I was headed for the sc.r.a.p heap. In the meantime, there was nothing I could do but count the pa.s.sing seconds.

Twelve thousand and sixty of those seconds pa.s.sed before the door opened again. My opticals picked out Sanchez in the doorway. "You've got a visitor, Megaton."

It was Lucia. She was decked out in a lovely dress, her Sunday best. Her hair was put up and she had something pinned to it. A piece of cloth with a veil and plastic flowers. Might've been a hat, but my visualizer wasn't comfortable labeling it as such.

Sanchez glared at her. "You've got five minutes, Ms. Napier."

"Thank you, Detective."

He grumbled something I couldn't detect and slammed the door behind her.

Her heels clicked out twenty-six steps as she walked over to the table. She didn't sit.

"Hi'ya, handsome. Looks like you're in a tight spot."

"I've had better days."

"You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to arrange this visitation. That unpleasant Detective Sanchez was dead set against it."

"He can be stubborn like that," I said.

"Oh, I know he's only doing his job, but still, he was a bit rude and quite inflexible. Fortunately, I'm acquainted with a few influential people. A couple of phone calls, and voila, here I am."

"Voila," I said. "Didn't think you were the type to wear hats, Lucia."

"A lady likes to exhibit a little cla.s.s now and then." She smiled. "Helps to keep the gossip columnists off balance."

I figured she was up to something, and it wasn't hard to figure out. I played dumb though, because I didn't want to encourage her. This would only get her in trouble.

"Aren't you happy to see me?" she asked.

"Sure. You look . . . nice."

"Nice?" She puckered and blew a kiss. "I look exquisite, Mack."

I nodded. "Like you're going to church. Or maybe a very casual funeral."

"No funerals today, Mack."

"Lucia, don't-"

She put her gloved finger to her lips. "Hush now. How many times do I have to tell you? I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself."

"This is different. This is serious."

"I know. That's why I'm doing it. You still want to find your friends, don't you?"

"I'll handle it."

She laughed. "Oh, poor, poor, Mack. You really must learn to accept a helping hand. Even you can't handle everything all by yourself."

"So I've heard."

I wasn't going to talk her out of this.

"I finished putting that little toy back together," she said. "There were some parts left over, but I don't think they were all that important."

I calculated a fifty-fifty chance we were being monitored right now. I could've put an end to this by merely hinting at an escape attempt, but that would only get Lucia in trouble. I might not be able to talk her out of this, but she couldn't make me take her help. A prison break was a hefty rap, even for the Princess of Empire. Sanchez would throw the book at her, and I doubted Lucia knew enough influential people to stop him once he got going. Like I'd said, he was stubborn like that.

She stepped closer. The cannons whirred.

"They warned me not to cross the circle," she said. "Couldn't be responsible for what happened if you tried to use me as a hostage."

"Walk away, Lucia."

"Can't do it, Mack. It's been a long time since I met a stand-up guy. A girl would have to be an idiot to walk away from something like that." She unpinned her hat. "Detective Sanchez was quite insistent that I not be allowed to bring anything in. Also, that I undergo a thorough security sweep. But the sweep couldn't detect this. The little gizmo is practically invisible to scanners."

She pulled the teleportation disk from her hat.

"Oh, d.a.m.n it, Lucia."

I expected the alarms to go off then, but it remained quiet. The door opened, and Sanchez stepped into the room. He didn't have any backup, and his heater wasn't drawn. The only thing in his hand was a small remote.

"No going back now," she said with a smile. "You can either use this or not. Either way I'm in deep now."

"Don't move, Mack. If I push this b.u.t.ton, your internals will be fried beyond recovery. And the lady, if she's caught in the crossfire . . . you don't want to know what these guns do to organic materials."

The hum of the cannons doubled in volume.

"Your call, Mack." Lucia slid the device across the table.

My electronic brain a.n.a.lyzed the situation and offered me choices. None of them ended well.

Using the teleporter was a risky move. It all rested on how accurately I calculated Sanchez's willingness to push that b.u.t.ton. He'd cut me a lot of slack recently, but there had to be a limit. There was no way I could push my b.u.t.ton before he pushed his.

He must've read my electronic brain.

"I'll do it, Mack."

I scanned his face, focusing on his black eyes. They never blinked. Far as I recalled, Alfredo Sanchez never bluffed.

"Do what you gotta do, Alf."

I pressed the teleporter's b.u.t.ton, and nothing stopped me. I detected Sanchez's parting sentiment as the room disappeared.

"d.a.m.n you."

The teleportation took two-sevenths of a second. A biological wouldn't have registered it. A blur of static and darkness pa.s.sed. The trip destabilized my gyros, and my strength regulators were listing as unreliable. I was a clumsy heap of steel, and I was standing in a gla.s.s tube. Not for long though.

I tumbled. The tube shattered, and I ended up flat on my face. Though I'm actually much more agile than my bulk suggests, my gyro issues were making it a challenge.

No design is perfect, and there was a flaw in my neck joint. My upward angle limit is forty-five degrees. Not usually a problem, since I'm a tall bot and I don't spend a lot of time sprawled on floors. From my current improbable position I scanned eight feet on the other side of a shimmering green forcefield.

Somebody asked, "What the h.e.l.l are you?"

13.

My gyros stabilized enough to allow me to stand and get a good scan of the greeting party. The man in front, the guy I a.s.sumed was the leader, had orange skin and angular black eyes. The goon to his left was a giant cricket, and his buddy on the right was unremarkably human to the point that he looked like a circus freak standing next to his buddies. It's all relative.

They wore blue jumpsuits with panels of blinking lights along their sleeves, belts, and chests. The orange guy didn't have a gun, but his companions both had shiny rifles that I couldn't identify. They were in hand and ready, but in a lowered position since there was a forcefield between us.

"Ravager unit report," said the orange man. "How did you get in here?"

I didn't know what a ravager was, but since he was looking my way, I a.s.sumed he meant me. I ignored the question.

The field was my highest priority. If I couldn't get through it, this search-and-rescue mission was a bust. I ignored the goons and put my hands against the barrier. It popped and sizzled and would've melted flesh and blood. My alloy could handle the heat, but the field was solid enough to challenge my servos. I might be able to overload the system with a barrage of punches, but my own battery might drain before that happened. No way to know for sure without specific details of the system.

The orange guy pushed a b.u.t.ton on his belt. "Security, we've got a breach in reception chamber number four. Repeat, we have a breach." He tilted his head and nodded, listening to an unheard voice. "Yes, I know it's not possible, but I'm looking at the intruder right now so maybe you'd like to come down here and tell it yourself." Another nod. "No, it's fine. Subject is contained. Robot: modified ravager model. Shouldn't be a problem. Doesn't look very intelligent. I'm guessing it's a reconnaissance/sabotage unit. Sent to measure our defense and response times, most likely."

I was vaguely insulted that he regarded me as little more than a giant smashing device, but then again, that was basically what I was. He might've wondered why I was wearing a suit if I was a run-of-the-mill auto, but he clearly wasn't giving it that much thought. First rule of the battlefield: a.s.sumptions kill. While I was being dismissed as a harmless nuisance, I figured I should take advantage of his underestimation.

I bent down and began tearing apart the metal flooring. It was tough stuff, but not as tough as me. I peeled away the tiling to expose the wires and conduits below.

"Should we do something?" asked the human.

"Why bother?" said the orange man. "Nothing vital under there."

The cricket spoke in a rapid series of clicks and chirps. I didn't get a word of it, but his buddies seemed to understand.

"You're welcome to shut down the field and deal with it yourself then," said orange man. "Otherwise, we wait for a full security complement."

I guess they hadn't underestimated me that much.

I yanked up a thick conduit line and stripped it of its protective sheath.

The bug clicked.

The orange guy smiled. "Let it damage a few systems. It won't accomplish anything. We'll know more when we neutralize the d.a.m.n thing."

The bug chirped again, nervously this time. He must've seen this coming. Orange guy suddenly understood, and the obvious anxiety on his face made me think this plan had a decent shot of working. Only one way to find out.

I put my hand against the forcefield again while holding the conduit in the other. Power surged across my cha.s.sis, down one arm and into the other. A lot of juice ran through me, and a biological would've been burned to ash before the field shorted out. My alloy doesn't burn and the circuit remained completed the full second necessary to short out the field. My radiation screens protected me from 99 percent of the current, but 1 percent snuck through and managed to damage a finger joint. I never used that pinkie anyway.

The field disappeared, and all of the orange guy's confidence disappeared with it. The two other goons unloaded their rifles at me. Both bolts registered as potentially hazardous in a sustained barrage, but in this situation they were rated negligible.

With the forcefield down, we were right on top of each other. It wasn't difficult to grab both of the rifle-wielding goons and toss them hard into the walls. Since my strength regulators weren't fully functional, it might've been too hard. The bug, in particular, left a glistening pink splatter of what I a.s.sumed was blood where he'd fallen. Orange guy had already dashed out of the door and out of my reach. The human was still moving, which meant he was probably conscious and capable of talking.

Somebody must've sounded the alarm because all the bells and whistles started going off. Every security guard in the place was likely converging on this spot right now. I couldn't have much time.

The human sat up and fired a few more blasts at me. I'm a big target, but his hands were shaking so badly he only scored three out of five shots, and they didn't count for much.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed away his rifle and crushed it into a ball the way Superman always does it. It was an immensely satisfying show of power, ill.u.s.trating how easily I could crush this poor slob and how I didn't need the gun to be dangerous. Judging by the look on the guy's face, he got the point.

I would've grabbed him, but with my regulators on the blink, I might accidentally crush him. Instead, I stood over him, a towering juggernaut of intimidation. I even put my fists on my hips because it seemed the proper thing to do.