Free Siege by Mark Alpert Page B

“No, that’s not going to happen. I don’t want to share circuits with you now. And I don’t want to be your girlfriend anymore.”
    I feel like I’ve just stepped on a land mine. Although the room is perfectly still and nothing is exploding under my footpads, I’ve just lost everything. A blast of grief hits me, jolting my circuits like a pressure wave.
    â€œShannon…no…please.”
    In response, she turns on the video screen in her robot’s head. But it doesn’t display the usual video of Shannon smiling and laughing. Instead, it shows her face as it looked after the cancer ravaged her. Her parents must’ve recorded video footage of her in the last few weeks of her human life, and now she’s using those images to create this simulation on the screen. Half her face is paralyzed and her left eye is swollen shut. Her simulated lips droop diagonally as they mouth the words coming out of her robot’s speakers.
    â€œYou hurt me, Adam. After my body died, I didn’t think I could be hurt this way again. But you proved me wrong.” On the video screen, her right eye is glistening. After a moment, a tear slips down her lopsided face. “Please go. I need to talk to DeShawn. There’s work to do.”
    I stare at the virtual tear on her cheek. When we were both human, I never saw Shannon cry. But even if I had, it couldn’t be worse than this. Unable to stop myself, I raise one of my steel hands toward Shannon’s screen. But I can’t wipe away this kind of tear, no matter how much I want to.
    I turn my Quarter-bot away from her and head for the door.
    â€¢ • •
    As I walk away from her room, I hear Marshall Baxley shout my name. His voice is loud and serious, with no trace of his usual gossipy tone. I turn around to see his Super-bot clanging down the hallway, its steel feet battering the floor. He’s in a panic.
    â€œAdam!” He stops in front of me, decelerating so suddenly that he sways on his footpads. “Did you hear the news?”
    â€œWhat news?”
    â€œThere’s been an outbreak, a biological attack!” Marshall’s so upset, his plastic face is contorted. “They’re airborne germs, carried by the wind. Thousands of people are dying!”
    I extend my arms and grip the Super-bot’s shoulder joints. “Whoa, calm down. What—”
    â€œHawke thinks it’s anthrax. Sigma’s anthrax.”
    My circuits ring like a fire alarm. This is it. The siege has begun. “Where’s the outbreak?”
    â€œIn Yorktown Heights, New York. Your hometown.”

CHAPTER
5
    I never thought I’d see New York City again, but there it is below me, a narrow island packed with skyscrapers, all of them glowing in the late-afternoon light. I’m piloting a V-22 Osprey aircraft, my circuits wirelessly linked to the plane’s controls. The other Pioneers are with me inside the aircraft, which is racing north at three hundred miles per hour.
    We picked the V-22 for this mission because it’s a tilt-rotor plane—it has a pair of gigantic three-bladed rotors that can be tilted in different directions depending on what you want the aircraft to do. When you want to take off, you tilt the rotors straight up, and the Osprey rises like a helicopter. But once you’re in the air, you can tilt the rotors forward and they become supersized propellers that speed the plane to the battlefield.
    Soaring over the Hudson River at maximum velocity, I zoom past Manhattan and the Bronx, then throttle down the turboprop engines and start to descend, heading for the suburbs north of the city. The handling is a little rough because the plane is hauling some heavy cargo. Our robots are loaded with all the weapons they can carry.
    Actually, I’m occupying two machines right now, the V-22 and my Quarter-bot, which is standing inside the aircraft’s cabin next to the other Pioneers. To