“I wouldn’t know,” said Toby.
“Shut up,” snapped Corva. “They’ve got lie detection built into those suits. You just said ‘yes,’ you know.”
“Oh.” He felt himself flush.
“Ha,” said the cop bot, tilting its head to one side. “Good readings off this one. So, kid, who are you, and where are you from?”
Toby looked the cop in its lenses. “I am Toby Wyatt McGonigal, I was born on Earth fourteen thousand years ago, and I own this lockstep and everything in it. Including you.”
There was a second’s pause, then the cop bot stood up, shaking its head. “Detector’s not working after all. It says he’s telling the truth!” There was a general laugh at that idea. The cop bot shook its head again. “What he said about the denners might not be admissible. We’ll have to catch them.”
“Hell!” said another cop bot. “I’ll get ’em.” It raised its arms, much like a professional wrestler showing off his muscles, but in this case the maneuver just made room for two cat-size bots to detach themselves from its torso and leap to the floor. They shook themselves and then flitted silently away.
Corva shouted, “Don’t hurt them!”
“Call them, then,” said the first cop bot. “Save us all a lot of trouble.”
Corva sent him one of her most withering glares. It was the first time, Toby reflected, that he’d seen that look directed at somebody other than himself.
“On your feet, then. We’ll catch up to them.” The cop hauled Jaysir up and reached down a metal hand for Toby, but he brushed it off.
“They’re down this way,” said the cop whose cat bots were on the hunt. He stalked off into one of the corridors and everybody followed him in a tight group.
“So,” said the first cop. It had hooked its white metal thumbs into the conspicuous holsters at its waist and was sauntering next to Toby like a man with his hands in his pockets. “You came here to do some looting, then? —No, no, don’t answer, it happens all the time, and, hey, I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth or anything.”
“Yeah,” said Toby. “That’s why we came.”
The cop bot shrugged at the civilian observer. “Don’t know what’s wrong with this detector.”
“Has this happened before?” asked the observer. Unlike the flat artificial voice of the cops, its was clearly human. Female, mature, perhaps even elderly. Though, as with Kirstana’s white-haired priest of Anti-Origin, you could never be sure.
“What the—” The cop whose body parts were hunting Wrecks and Orpheus paused. Then he swore and started running. From somewhere up ahead came a strange swishing sound.
They caught up with him in a big industrial kitchen. Everything was chrome steel and ceiling-mounted chef assemblers. These were all dormant, but there was a lot happening at floor level.
The cat bots were trapped back-to-back in the middle of the room. Careering and hopping around them were six spinning pinwheels of white spray: pressurized dessert-topping bottles whose valves had somehow come loose. They were coating every nearby surface with white topping, and the cat bots had gotten a liberal layer. The things were back on their haunches now, scrabbling at their cameras to try to clear them.
And then, with majestic slowness, the heavy industrial fridge behind them began to lean in their direction.
“Hell!” The cop bot leaped forward but skidded in the icing and ended up on its back just as the fridge came down like a hammer on it and the cat bots.
The fridge bounced once then settled a few centimeters. The cop bot lay on its back, arms and feet splayed and its head under the heavy fridge. Suddenly it crossed its arms and ankles, and Toby heard a muffled voice say, “Well, this is just great.”
“Get it off him,” said the lead cop. It was impossible to tell, but Toby imagined his voice sounding tired.
Two other cops lifted the fridge as if it weighed nothing, and the one on the floor clambered to its feet. Its head was a bit lopsided, which was nothing compared to the state of the two cat bots.
The civilian observer shook her head. “But how did they…? Oh!”
Behind the fridge were boxes and a long metal tray that must have been used as a lever. Toby felt a prickle up his spine as he realized that the denners could have had only a few seconds to improvise this trap.
He looked to the others. “Are they as smart as…?”
Jaysir shrugged. “Best not to worry your head about it.”
A couple of meters away, an icing-smeared cop bot was trying to fit two squashed subunits into slots in its torso. They wouldn’t fit, and finally it threw them away in disgust. “I’m gonna kill those little freaks,” it said.
Another cop gestured from a nearby doorway. “They went up,” it said. “They’re somewhere in the greenhouse.”
“On civilized worlds,” said the iced cop, “they make crime impossible.”
Corva quirked a smile at it. “Where would be the fun in that?”
It cursed and walked away. Instantly Corva’s smile disappeared. She turned to Toby, and he could see the worry and disappointment that were her true feelings.
“Time to let you earn your pay, heir to the lockstep,” she murmured.
“What?” He nearly tripped as they were hustled up a flight of steps to the open, window-wrapped greenhouse. “You think I can—?” He nodded at the cops.
“I really think you can,” she said, and next to her, Jay nodded. “If you are who you say you are, you can override any Cicada Corp equipment.” When he just stared at Corva, she rolled her eyes and said, “These bots are Cicada Corp bots.”
Toby swallowed. If he ordered these bots to shut down, he’d reveal himself. There was no going back from it. These cops would be kicked out of their system and find themselves back at headquarters, and they’d see that it was a McGonigal override that had taken them out. As if that weren’t enough, they’d have it in his own words: “I am Toby Wyatt McGonigal…” There’d be no hiding anymore; he’d be meeting Evayne and Peter soon, but too soon, far too soon.
Corva hissed at him. “What are you waiting for?”
Toby called up the Cicada Corp console. He could see the activation symbol hovering over the heads of the cops. All he had to do was tweak that, and they’d fall right over. Similarly, he could open the doors. He’d woken the dead just now … He could do this.
“Uh-oh,” said the lead cop bot. They were walking across the greenhouse, and it abruptly stopped and turned to the others. “Did you get that? One of them’s come in person.”
The iced cop swore. “Why?” It turned to Corva and Toby. “What did you do to attract the attention of the Guides?”
Corva gasped. Toby was about to ask Jaysir what a Guide was, but there was no time. Corva turned to him, suddenly frantic. “Do it!” she hissed.
“Do what?” asked the cop even as Toby focused his eyes on the virtual glyph over its head. With a slight squint he turned it from green to gray, and the cop bot froze, its torso leaning back in a skeptical pose, its head tilted to one side.
The others hadn’t noticed yet, so while the leader was saying, “They’re not even going to tell us what it was all about,” Toby shut them down.
“Are they just gonna take over like they always—?” The last cop bot suddenly realized it was alone. “Hey—” Toby shut it down.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” Corva was wavering between outrage and delight.
Using the console felt like cheating. It felt criminal, like an assault on the legitimacy of the whole lockstep. But he couldn’t say that; she wouldn’t understand … and he would sound like a McGonigal. He just shrugged.