I stared at Maya with pity and horror. Which was a mistake — I shouldn’t have made eye contact.
"Bitch!" she suddenly screamed. All her placid conversation boiled off in a heartbeat. "You want to kill me, don’t you, bitch? That’s why you’ve chased me all over Demoth. That’s why you tracked me down here. You’re not human, no, you’re possessed… and you want to stop me because I know the truth. You destroyed the Green-striders, and you think you’ll destroy me."
"Maya, I don’t want to destroy…"
"Kill her!" Maya shouted to the android. "Kill her now."
"Stop, you’re making me allergic!" Festina yelled behind me.
The android took a step forward.
"Uh-oh," I said.
"Do you think I wasn’t listening?" Maya asked. Shrill. Breathy. "There are monitors all through this installation, and they still work. I’ve been watching you people since you came down the tunnel. When you were stupid enough to destroy that keypad, I was the one who opened the door for you. And closed it behind you. I’ve had plenty of time to reprogram this robot not to be fooled by your ridiculous allergies." She slapped the android on the back. "Shoot the bitch. Now!"
The android lifted its gun and fired.
When I’d joked about using the Muscle as a shield… sometimes our Faye is all talk and no action. I dropped to the bridge, Muscle and me together, trusting Festina would also have the sense to duck the incoming acid. She did — a blob of jelly just doesn’t travel as fast as a bullet, and if the shooter isn’t at point-blank range, you’ve got time to get out of the way. The wad passed over our heads and splashed somewhere behind us.
Then Festina was firing her own jelly gun — a quick shot, snapped off as she bellied down onto the bridge. Maya shrieked and threw herself behind the android… who just stood there, dumb as a stump. Programmed for offense, not defense. When the acid splatted home, the center of impact was plumb on the robot’s gun hand: goo spraying over the pistol, the fingers, and halfway up the elegant white sleeve.
"Nice shooting," I said.
Festina muttered, "I was aiming for his chest."
"Shoot them!" Maya screamed at the android. "Shoot, shoot, shoot!"
The robot’s arm lowered, pointing the gun muzzle straight at my face… and nothing happened. Festina’s shot couldn’t have hurt the pistol itself — an acid-shooting weapon surely must be resistant to acid. But the android’s hand was smoking with corrosive gunk, not to mention a dozen burning patches all the way up to its elbow. With so much damage, something had buggered the robot’s ability to squeeze its trigger finger: a wire cut, a servo off-kilter, some crucial mechanism pitted to pate.
Maya continued her squeal, "Shoot, shoot, shoot!"… as if the word had stuck in her brain and wouldn’t let anything else out. The robot kept aiming dead zero on my face but didn’t have the smarts to do more than that; didn’t switch the gun to its good hand, or even use its free hand to pull the trigger.
All of which gave time for Festina’s pistol to pressurize. Bracing herself, firing with a two-hand grip, she landed a wad smack on the android’s sternum — making a beautiful splash pattern that scattered droplets as high as the robot’s throat, as low as its groin. Those pretty white mourning clothes boiled away in instants; then the acid began to eat through artificial skin into the circuits below.
The gooey thwock of impact snapped Maya out of her, "Shoot, shoot, shoot!" fit. She slapped the android on its shoulder and yelled, "Go after them! Throw them off the bridge! Now!"
For a split second, I let myself hope the robot was too damaged to obey. But no such luck. With a sudden lurch it broke into that full-out sprint I’d seen from the other androids, a thunder-footed run across the bridge toward us. I was on the ground; I only had time to scuttle backward, hoping that maybe when the robot came for me, I could knock it off-balance with a kick in the shins.
Only one problem — the robot wasn’t coming for me. When I’d ducked the robot’s first shot, Muscle and I had dropped down together. Now that I’d retreated a pace, the Muscle was closest to the android. Apparently that’s all Machine-Man cared about: never mind that Muscle was unconscious, while Festina and I were still threats. Simple-minded robot algorithms said if Muscle was closest, Muscle would take the high dive first.
Which I didn’t realize till the android reached down and grabbed Muscle by the leg. "Hey!" I shouted. "Leave him alone. I’m the one your boss wants dead. I’m the blessed Antichrist, aren’t I?"
Robots don’t know from Antichrists. Lifting Muscle by the ankle, the android jerked him up and over the abyss.
Festina fired — a close-range shot straight into the robot’s ear. The same second I dived forward; the android was holding Muscle head down in front of me, leaving Muscle’s arm dangling limp within my reach. I snagged Muscle’s wrist just as the robot toppled: Festina’s last shot had fried one too many circuits for the machine to keep its balance.
Clunk, the android hit the bridge… and now it was twitching with mechanical death spasms, half its servos cycling at random while others squeezed tight or snapped wide-open, clanky jerks shuddering through the robot’s body. Then like a fish flopping in the bottom of a rowboat, the android bounced clear up off the bridge, landed with a crunch, bounced again… and flipped over the side, smoke streaming off its body.
It kept its grip on Muscle’s leg. The robot’s hand was locked in place, clutched frozen on the dipshit’s ankle.
For one screaming instant, I held the full weight of Muscle plus the android by my one-handed grip on Muscle’s wrist… just long enough to dislocate my shoulder, a cracking pop, loud as thunder. I was lucky my arm wasn’t ripped clean off; but my fingers gave first, and I was holding nothing. Grasping at air as robot and dipshit plunged out of sight.
I might have fallen myself, pulled over the edge by the jerk of their weight… and dizzy-sick-nauseous from the wrenching agony of my shoulder. Teetering, teetering, wobbly on the brink; but Festina stopped me: grabbed my legs and pulled me back from the edge, till I was lying sweet-solid on the bridge.
"Bitch!" Maya shrieked. "The devil’s always on your side."
I couldn’t answer. The pain from my shoulder was driving me fast toward blackout. Festina called, "Let it go, Dr. Cuttack. There’s no reason to keep fighting. What do you want? To tell the world how wicked Faye is? I can arrange that; I’m an admiral."
Thanks a bunch, I thought.
"Just open the door so we can go back," Festina told Maya. "You’re obviously a gifted archaeologist; you’ve got full control over the nanites in this bunker. Just tell the nanites to open the door."
"Yes," Maya said softly. "I could speak to the nanites…"
I didn’t like the tone of her voice.
Next moment, she shouted something in a language I didn’t recognize — the ancient Greenstrider tongue, I guess, calling a command to the control center.
Under my body, the solid granite bridge began to turn gooey.
"Oh shit," Festina said. "Oh shit."
The bridge was made of nanites too. Of course: the bunker’s last line of defense. If the place was under all-out attack, with enemy troops crossing the bridge in such numbers you couldn’t shoot everyone… then you just told the bridge to dissolve itself. Send everyone plummeting to hell.
The bridge surface had turned as soft as mud. The edges were beginning to drip into the chasm. Far to the opposite end, Maya laughed; the stone was melting under her feet too, but she didn’t care. "Got you!" she crowed. "This time I got you, bitch."