Stanley Duncan's Robot: Genesis, David III [best ebook reader android .TXT] 📗

“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?”

“He should be here any minute.”

The delay annoyed him to no end. This freak show should never have been permitted to carry on. “In ten more minutes, once the abomination goes back up on stage, I’m arresting it. I won’t permit the poison to spread any further.”

“I’ll make sure that whoever is responsible for the delay pays.”

“You be sure you do. This is war. We can’t have insubordination — that’s treason.”

Brad looked away. “What about Duncan?”

“Hiding scared at home,” said Evan, a delightful sensation filling his head. “The janitor’s on his way to clean up that trash.”

As Stanley’s program ran on the computer, he sat at the table and listened to Dan’s press release. Signing away a new signature every few seconds, his heart thumping and mixing in with the buzzing of the drones outside. A news alert played during a commercial in the press release, making allegations that Stanley was wanted for questioning by the police for the murder of Officer Michaels. Stanley nearly lost it. He could see what they were doing — destroying him as a way to destroy Dan and Machines with Dreams. But he was not going to let them do it.

Finally, an alert sounded from his computer. Stanley rushed over and saw the IP address that had spoofed the call and unleashed a suite of security tools scanning for vulnerabilities, finding one instantly in a third-party script. With a few commands, he could root and destroy the harasser’s computer. But first, Stanley wanted to see the face of the man who’d had the audacity to harass him.

The next thing Teddy realized was that they were dragging him back to the holding area, limbs barely responding to his commands. Tortured and driven to insanity, he was going to die here. But he wasn’t ready to let that happen. Not because he wanted to be alive but because he needed to kill Brad.

Looking around the room, he