"This is our clade's real talent, Javier," Portia said, pressing Melissa against the wires until her skin smoked and her body seized. "And you can bet I'm gonna spread it."
Rick yelled something, his gun rising in the air, and Portia spun Melissa's body into him. Portia heard Melissa's shoulder dislocating. The human bodies tangled together. A shelf fell. Decorative snowglobes crashed down on their heads. They moaned.
Rick reached a shaking hand toward his gun. Portia brought her foot down and twisted hard. He groaned through bleeding lips.
"You just never learn, do you?" Portia asked.
Stop hurting them! Amy pleaded inside Portia's mind, shrill as a soaring firecracker.
"Look at them, Amy." Portia focused on the tangled heap of weeping flesh before her. Portia tilted her head so Amy could watch Melissa drooling on herself. "They look so surprised. Like they never saw this coming. Like it's our fault. Like they're the victims here."
"Stop it," Javier said. His voice came through muffled. Portia ignored it. She knelt. She dipped her fingers in the blood streaming from Rick's nose. She brought it up to her lips and let Amy have a taste.
"Did my daughter tell you what the word robot means, Amy?" Portia pictured her mods taking the sodium in Rick's blood and working it into other processes. She leaned down and looked into Rick's broken face, saw his unconscious flinch and his wounded pride. "It means serfdom. It means slavery. It means that from the first minute your species dreamed us up, you were destined to fail."
"Stop," Javier moaned.
"I'll let you out in a minute–"
"No, stop. I c-c-can't…"
Portia looked.
Javier rocked back and forth, knocking his forehead against the wall and hiding his son's eyes from her violence. "I f-f-feel sick… My failsafe is k-k-kicking in, please…"
He's not like us! Amy's voice burned like industrial solvent. The girl was strong, her indignation fuelled by years of privileged innocence. He can't handle it! When you hurt them, you hurt him, too!
Portia had forgotten. Already, she was too familiar with her granddaughter's consciousness, her ability to look at agony and not flinch, not unravel. She had exposed her daughters to so much human suffering. She had watched their resulting madness. This consequence of her search had affected her far more deeply than any death rattles from short-lived experimental primates. Portia decided to be gentle, though, for Amy's sake. Best to explain things, before the end.
"Every generation carries within it the seed of its own destruction."
Then you should have seen me coming, Granny.
Portia's networks sang with sudden activity. Dizziness rocked her. Maintaining control over Amy was difficult; Portia had to route the commands through unclaimed space and the child was so very old already, and her adaptive systems had learned how to move and speak and act in human ways that took up an absurd amount of memory. Wearing Amy felt like using a dial-up modem. It was lucky Portia had dealt with only the slowest of her daughters the night before; even so, she had sustained serious damage. And now Javier's code was in there, too, happily replicating and complicating each process it touched. Slowly, every piece of herself aligned against her. First her fingers, then her toes, then her limbs and her mouth. She surrendered.
Amy ran shaking hands through her hair. It was still damp. So was her skin. Behind her, the baby wailed. Before her, the bounty hunters trembled. They had never seen a violent vN, Amy realized. They were afraid. Of her. Slowly, Amy edged away.
"Run away," she said, in a voice that sounded much calmer than she felt. "Now, before Granny comes back."
Clinging to each other, the humans left. Amy didn't budge until she heard the door creak open and snap shut behind them. She barely felt it when she pried open the lock holding Javier back.
He waited until the wires had stopped sparking to burst forward and grab Rick's gun. He pointed it awkwardly, face still wet and full of disgust, from his position on the floor.
"Tell me why I shouldn't shoot you."
4
A Game Called Mercy
You're the only one who can help his clade fight back. Tell him. Tell him that when the rest of this world is ash and smoke, his trait will live on in your daughters.
Amy quickly wrapped the towel around herself. It was easier than looking at Javier's face, and it made her feel a tiny bit more in control of herself. She looked at her toes wiggling on the bloodstained carpet. "There is no reason." She brought her chin up. "I'm sorry for lying to you. But I wasn't lying about Granny, I mean Portia, hurting my mom. You've seen what she's like. None of the humans could have stopped her."