“It has been twenty minutes,” Jeff says. His voice and pulse both signal his impatience.
I’m as ready as I’m going to be. I turn off the acoustical signaling mode and feel Andrea’s cloud disconnect. I’m alone again with my brother.
“Yes,” I answer.
“Yes, as in you acknowledge that twenty minutes have passed? Or yes, as in you agree to my terms and will work with me?”
“Both,” I say flatly. I want him to recognize my reluctance. If he thinks I’m too eager to jump onto this ride, even someone with his limited social skills will know I’m lying.
“Excellent,” he says, and his pulse quickens. He’s got something else he’s nervous about.
“So I just head up and kill them then?”
“Of course,” he replies. “I do not imagine it will be too difficult for you.”
“No, I guess not.” I turn to head back down the tunnel.
“Just two things first,” Jeff says, calling me back.
“What?” I ask in the same reluctant tone.
“First, you will want the proper transmission sequence to pass through the swarm above safely.”
“I didn’t realize that was an option. They do know how to talk then?”
“They can’t send, just receive. I’ll transmit the proper code sequence and frequency, just repeat it at least once per second for ten seconds and any parts of the swarm in range will temporarily deactivate.”
My bots’ receivers capture his transmission. It should be easy to copy that.
“Please do not think that this will work on my failsafe devices, because it will not. Those have no deactivation sequence.”
I nod and turn to leave again.
“One last thing,” Jeff says. His pulse is racing.
“Yes?” I turn back to him.
“I do need some assurance that you will not simply emerge, rally the rest of our family, and return here to dispatch me.”
“I would have thought that your failsafe boxes would be enough for that.”
“In a world where we were all rational actors, that would be the case,” he says. The manic gleam is back in his one good eye. “But we both know that is not the case. Not for me, and certainly not for you.”
So much for him thinking I was the coldly rational one. I guess I’m not as good an actor as I hoped.
“Spit it out, Jeff. You already have me killing the two people in the world that I love the most, what more do you want from me?”
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Even as I say it, it feels somehow wrong. I think there’s someone else that I love more, but I can’t think of who. That seems like something I should make sure to remember. I’ll have to check back in my log when I have time.
“I indicated earlier that we had wronged each other and that we should set our differences aside,” Jeff says, clearly trying to stay calm when he’s more excited than I’ve ever seen him. “That is true. But the scales are far from balanced between us, and I need to monitor your actions. Two birds. One eye.”
No.
Really?
“No!”
“Would you prefer to be restrained?” he offers without a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “It would minimize the risk of unintentional damage.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No,” he says, his voice terrifyingly gleeful. “Last chance for the restraints.”
“No!” I shout with all the force in the world.
The whole room comes alive. He’s got as nearly as many bots in here as I had wielded up above. They had just been in some dormant mode that hadn’t allowed me to detect them. The walls, ceiling, and floors erupt with them, wrapping me and my entire bot armor suit. I try to get my faceplate reformed, but they’re all over me. Not that it would have done much good when I’m this outnumbered. I start to scream, but my mouth fills with his bots. Even my muffled shrieks are silenced when my nostrils fill as well and all my airflow is sealed up.
The pain is even worse than the aneurysm I had earlier. Excruciating. Worse than anything I could have imagined. I’m glad that I can’t see what he’s doing to me. Once he’s past the surface of the eye, the intensity of the pain subsides, but I can still sense him digging in. My good right eye sees the bloody chunks of its destroyed twin being carried away by Jeff’s bots. I smell a horrific aroma of scorched flesh as he cauterizes the socket. The space feels empty for a moment before I see the air in front of me darken and fill with bots forming a small sphere. They insert themselves into my left eye socket. I feel my eyelid blink over an eye that isn’t mine.
He took my eye!
“There. I think we can call ourselves even now for your betrayal,” Jeff declares with a satisfied smile. The frantic emotion that had filled his voice a moment ago has faded away completely. “As I’m sure you’re aware, I can now see everything you see. The eye has an audio pickup as well. I can also kill you quickly, should you decide not to honor the terms of our agreement. Do you understand?”
I gasp as his bots clear from my mouth and nose. For a few minutes, all I can do is sob. Jeff waits patiently, his maniacal rage abated. His bots have disappeared again.
He took my eye!
“Do you understand?” he repeats.
“Yes,” I finally say, getting myself under control.
“Good. I look forward to a fruitful partnership then. Please return when you have completed your task.”
“One more thing,” I say, forcing my voice to sound as composed and calm as I can. It quavers anyway.
“Yes?” he responds, the tiniest hint of curiosity in his tone.
“You’ve changed the terms of our deal, and now so will I. When I get back, I want the locations and triggering mechanisms for all of your failsafe devices. A gesture of good faith from your side. If I’m committed to this plan of yours, I don’t want it to fail if you have a heart attack or something. If you have a knife to my throat with the eye, you don’t need one threatening the whole continent.”
He ponders for a moment.
“Fair enough,” he finally says, returning to that same damn emotionless voice. As if he hadn’t just maimed me. “I will provide you with the information on your return.”
I turn to the tunnel and stalk back towards my family.
He took my eye!
I probe around where my eye used to be, where Jeff’s new eye rests. His isn’t connected to anything, other than the growing trail of bots keeping it connected to his mesh network. The eye isn’t trying to hook into my optical nerve or anything like the implant does. Good. I don’t think he’s got any way to break the encryption on my console and overlay, but he’s not even trying to. At least my thoughts are still my own, even if my vision and hearing aren’t anymore.
I switch my bots back to the acoustical signaling mode and send another burst of sonic information up through the rock and earth above me as I begin the long walk back up the tunnel. A dozen steps later, I feel the connection to the other cloud running in this mode.
To Andrea: I’m coming. Be ready.