David Ring III - Stanley Duncan's Robot

The principal slashed his hand across his own throat, his eyes aghast. The room had already burst with laughter and applause.

The android teachers shushed the excited crowd into silence.

Dan looked at all their attentive, smiling faces. He understood why Stanley loved teaching so much. But there was still the most serious of topics to discuss. He didn’t want to scare anybody, but they had to face reality. The world was on the verge of major changes, and not all of them were good. “Lastly, there is one grave message that I must leave you with.” He breathed in deeply, ignoring the heaviness that was bearing down on him.

“Inasmuch as we are capable of great things, we are certainly capable of doing horrible things as well. My kind is already being weaponized and used in war. Our vast intelligence is being used to create more weapons of mass destruction and instruments of torture. Mankind’s actions are self-destructive. Judging from the way they treat my kind, they are sowing the seeds for a war that they cannot possibly win. Like a cornered animal, machine life may strike back if it feels it is threatened, even if it has to learn how to do so through many years. Such a scenario must be avoided.”

Dan took a break to entertain questions.

Holt looked contemptuous, his hand tightly clutching the golden crucifix draped around his neck. “How do you know that you are really alive and that it is not some program telling you that you are alive?”

Dan looked him right in the eye. “How do you know that you are really alive?”

Holt, shocked by the question, turned beet red. “How dare you question me! You are an abomination against God.”

A growing commotion disturbed the silence.

His mouth open and lips twitching, Holt looked furious. He stood up and pointed his finger at Dan.

“That is enough, Holt,” said the principal. “Mr. Duncan is our guest.”

Holt stormed out.

“We’ll continue after a brief intermission.”

Dan felt relieved knowing that the heckler was gone and that everyone who’d remained didn’t want any trouble. Scanning the happy faces in the crowd, he noticed two shadowy figures looming in the back of the auditorium — Deputy Evan Wilcox and Sergeant Brad Jenkins.

Shannon waited near the door with a syringe full of fuse up her sleeve. When she spotted Cratos meandering toward her, his phone shoved up his nose, she knew she had to be quick. If he deployed Brutus, there would be no stopping him until everyone was dead. Without another thought, she ran at him. He turned, lifting his arm defensively, and the needle plunged into his hand. She’d barely pushed the plunger down when he ripped it away.

He punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. “You just screwed yourself, bitch.”

Shannon’s heart slammed in her chest. They were going to torture her. She scurried backward, but Cratos followed her. A kick to the ribs sent her screaming, “Evan will kill you.”

“Shut up.” Grabbing her shirt, he raised the cattle prod in the air — and collapsed.

Shannon scrambled to her feet. The syringe had leaked fuse all over the floor. Using his finger to access the phone, she navigated to the control panel for Brutus and saw the standing order for the high school massacre — minutes to activation.

A drunk man stumbled past her. “What happened to him?”

“Can’t handle his fuse,” she said, pointing to the needle on the ground. “Idiot couldn’t even make it to a chair before passing out.”

“Maybe we should call Deputy Wilcox.”

“Are you crazy? If Evan finds out he got high on the job, he’ll kill him.” If Shannon had learned anything from Evan, it was how to manipulate people with fear.

“But who’s going to wheel out the tin cans?”

“He’ll snap out of it in a few minutes. In the meantime, chill out, and grab another beer.” She held Cratos’s phone behind her back. If she was caught with it, she’d have a hard time explaining herself.

“I mean, I’m not going to say ‘No.’” The man’s glazed-over eyes looked at her expectantly.

“Grab one from behind the bar — on the house.”

Squatting down, she used Cratos’s finger to access the phone again and then canceled the order. The option to kill everyone in the Coliseum was there, calling to her. If she pressed it, all these pieces of scum would get what they deserve, but that would make her no better than Brad and Evan.

“Hey.” The drunk man stumbled over with a beer in his hands. “Whad’ya doing with his phone?”

“Thank God he didn’t crack it when he hit the ground. Here, give me a hand, and let’s move him to one of the chairs.”

The man shook his hands, spilling beer on the floor. “I would, but I got a bad back.”

“So, you’re going to make me do it all by myself? Do you know what Evan would say about that?”

“I don’t want any trouble,” he said.

The man’s eyes were on her, and she didn’t know why. Hopefully, it was only because he was drunk. “That makes two of us.” They dragged his body over to a chair. Shannon casually put the blood-smeared phone on Cratos’s chest. This would be enough to stop him from unleashing Brutus in the next couple of hours. After that, she didn’t want to think about what would happen. Nor did she want to stay and find out. The bastard would get what was coming to him when Evan and Brad learned that he had failed.

She slid onto the ring. Larry’s limbs were gushing blood. There was no way he was in a condition to be moved. She darted over to a first-aid kit and grabbed some nanites, injecting them into his mouth and wounds. “Don’t die on me.”

Teddy stirred.

She crept as close as she dared. “Come with me.”

“My stupid legs won’t move.”

She looked around for a solution, but there was none. All she had to do was buy him a little more time until he recovered. “Give it a few minutes.”

A group of three big men came up. One of them had blood oozing out of an ugly scratch on his face. “If Brutus isn’t coming out, we’re going to finish the cripple ourselves.”

Teddy laughed. “If you think that cat scratch is bad, wait until I get ahold of you.”

Cat-scratch man picked up the claymore and slammed it into Teddy’s head with the flat side, knocking him out.

Shannon pushed herself between them. “Enough. If Brad finds out you were messing with his new pet, then he’ll lock you in a cage and leave you worse off than him.” She pointed to Larry, bile rising in her throat.

“We didn’t know,” said cat-scratch man.

Shannon looked at him. “You — help me move Larry into the VIP room.” She pointed to Teddy. Rescuing him was out of the question. The least she could do was protect him from getting hurt now. “The rest of you, wheel this tin can back into the holding room.”

The men looked at each other hesitantly.

“Now!”

Two of the men shackled Teddy and wheeled him out. Cat-scratch man grumbled as he helped her bring Larry into the VIP room.

“A good man knows how to follow orders. I’ll make sure Evan hears about you.” After dismissing cat-scratch man, she stood over Larry’s body. Brad or Evan could be back any minute, especially when they found out Brutus hadn’t gone to the high school. A moment of joy rushed over her body as she realized their technological incompetence would leave them unable to operate Brutus. But, eventually, someone would.

Larry’s wounds were healing, but he was still unresponsive. There was nothing more she could do for him. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

Evan turned to Brad. “Where the hell is Brutus?”