Pel sat at the dining room table of her mother’s penthouse apartment, pensive, and frustrated beyond belief.

“You’re sure there wasn’t an error?” she asked. “The notification went through?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the robot replied. “If you like,” he added, “I can send it again.”

“Yes, Ferdinand,” Pel said, with a nod. “And, please ask her to send a reply. I’m worried about her.”

The robot nodded. “Certainly,” he said, blue light flashing in his voice tubes.

Pel was worried she was losing her mind.

In the drive to the penthouse, she’d confronted impossible horrors—the stuff of nightmares, made flesh. Pel liked to think she was a sensible person, and, as a sensible person, that meant that when the world was churning out monsters and madness, she would have reassessed her priorities accordingly. Survival was what mattered now. Aches and pains and other little troubles no longer mattered.

Yet here I am, she thought, freaking out that Mom is here, but—for some reason—isn’t talking to me.

It shouldn’t have mattered. Pel knew she should have just been patient and waited, but she couldn’t. Right now, seated at the dining room table, she felt more worried about her mother than she was about the zombies or the end of the world.

“Ferdinand,” she said, looking up to the robot butler standing beside her, “am I going crazy?”

The lights of Ferdinand’s mechanical brain flickered with activity. Sparks of electricity leapt between the coils in his head

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I should be thankful that we made it here in one piece, but… I’m not. I’m still worrying, and about my mother, no less.”

“It’s just stress, Pel,” Ferdinand replied. “You’re probably still in shock.” Ferdinand’s motors whirred as he took a step away from the table. “Shall I go fetch your consoles from your car?” he asked.

She’d forgotten the PortaCons in the car.

Pel shook her head. “No, please stay.”

Ferdinand, Ariel, and Gonzalo.

The three robots had been part of Pel’s life for as long as she could remember. The DAISHU-made machines looked like eggs legs, if by legs you meant two stout columns made from a sequence of truncated spheres stacked on top of one another. Save for their body colors—Ferdinand was red, Ariel was blue, and Gonzalo was yellow—the three machines were of identical design. Their arms were more slender than their legs, consisting of several interlinked joints tipped by three-pronged hands far stronger than any human limb.

The Revenels’ robot butlers were Prospero units. Originally designed to serve as combat units, their sluggish, awkward movements doomed any hopes the model would be able to serve in a military capacity. And though that issue could have been fixed, unfortunately, classic Trenton paranoia had its way, and no one wanted to buy them, for fear that DAISHU’s “battlebots” were part of secret plot to conquer the world.

Obviously, this was silly. Why waste money on battlebots when international finance and economic imperialism could give you your conquest for a fraction of the cost and orders of magnitude of higher revenue?

So, DAISHU just cut their losses. Late in development, they reinvented the Prospero series as personal servants to be marketed for the ultra-rich.

Boom. Profit.

“I appreciate your company,” she added.

The robots had massive heads. Making up nearly a third of their total height, their heads jutted out from the top of their bodies’ central chassis in an egg-shaped plastic dome. The dome was their skull, and it was transparent throughout. The sights of the robots’ minds at work had fascinated since she was little.

Coils sparked. Lights flashed. Phosphorescent circuits glistened and hummed.

“Should I get Gonzalo?” Ferdinand asked.

Turning, Pel looked out through the double doors from the dining room to the living room, where Gonzalo stood, doing his best to keep Jules and Rayph amused. At the moment, Gonzalo was using his holographic projector to superimpose fantastical scenery on the living room and its furniture, turning make-believe into reality.

She remembered what I’d called it: Augmented Reality Gaming.

From the look on her face, Jules seemed happy enough to play along, even though it was clear to Pel that Jules was mostly doing this for her brother’s benefit. Pel could see me in our son; both of us were endlessly fascinated by the robots’ parlor tricks.

As for Ariel, the lone “female” of the robotic trio, she was busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner, while Ferdinand was here, in the dining room, helping Pel with her worries.

Of the three, Gonzalo was far and away Pel’s favorite. The yellow robot brought up so many memories. She’d been incredibly close to him as a child. For better and for worse, Pel’s parents hadn’t really been cut out to be parents—her mother didn’t have the right temperament, and her father was simply too busy with business—so, more often than not, the three robots had had to step in and act as their surrogates. As a result, they had more or less raised Pel and her older brothers.

Suddenly, Ferdinand’s servos whirred as he spoke up. “Pelbrum,” he said, “I’m happy to report your mother has responded.”

“Oh, thank the Angel!” Pel said. She clutched the icon of the Angel on the necklace under her blouse as she sighed in relief.

“She says: ‘I told you to expletive wait. I’ll send someone up soon enough. Stop worrying. Don’t be like your husband.’”

As usual, when relaying spoken words, the robot used a digital recreation of the speaker’s voice.

Pel sighed in resignation as she let her arms come to rest atop the silk tablecloth.

“It’s just Mom being Mom, I guess,” she said.

“Is there anything else I can do, ma’am?” Ferdinand asked.

Pel shook her head. “Not at the moment.” She smiled. “Bless your heart, Ferdy.”

The red robot tilted its egg-head forward in a slight bow. “It’s my pleasure.”

The light show playing out inside the robot’s head quieted as he stepped back and leaned against the wall, putting himself to sleep.

Pel stared at the machine with envy.

I wish I could go to sleep that easily, she thought.

It had been several hours since they’d arrived at her mother’s place. Much to Pel’s and Jules’ surprise, they’d stepped out of the special express elevator only to find the Revenels’ penthouse apartment suite eerily empty—save for the robots, of course. After rousing them from sleep mode, Ferdinand had explained to her what had happened: Margaret was having lunch with Rufus again when some guests had arrived, upon which she’d moved to Forty Feet Under to give them a proper reception.

Oddly, when Pel pressed Ferdinand for more details, he said he couldn’t give any, nor could Gonzalo or Ariel. When Pel had asked why, Ferdy had said it was on Margaret’s orders. Frustrated, she’d then tried to call her mother using her console, only to realize she’d left it in the car, and when she asked ALICE to contact her mother, the penthouse suite’s AI responded much the same way the robots had: Margaret had asked not to be disturbed.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Jules had described the situation as having left her with “mixed feelings.” Pel wanted to chastise Jules for that, but she couldn’t manage to go through with it, because, secretly, she envied the way her daughter felt. Pel would have much rather had mixed feelings than the distilled, unadulterated dread that weighed on her chest.

Getting up, Pel pushed her chair under the dining room table and walked into the living room where Gonzalo’s projections were hard at work. Though the holograms could work in a well-lit room, for maximum effect, you’d need to dim the lights like Rayph had done. It made the colors really shine, and it added to the illusion that the objects and scenery depicted in the full rendered 3D holograms were truly there. It took Pel a couple of seconds for her eyes to adjust to see the scenery instead of the outlines of armchairs and sofas.

Jules and Rayph stood at the edge of a picturesque marsh, rural and rustic. Cat-tail reeds soughed in the wind at the sides of the dirt path. Green hills rolled out behind them, projected onto the mantlepiece and the curtains. Rocky concretions on the hilltops reached up at the holographic sky.

But it wasn’t just the scenery that had changed. Gonzalo’s projections had also put the kids in outlandish clothing. Jules wore a flowing red robe with a matching, pointed, wide-brimmed hat. She held a gnarled wooden staff in her hand, topped by a polished jade orb.

She was playing a wizard; an Evocation specialist.

Her brother, meanwhile, was a knight in miniature, covered head to toe in armor.

Actually, he was playing a paladin. Specifically, a paladin of Lexar, the god of justice.

His weapon? A two-handed sword, swathed in magical flames. As far as Pel could tell, they were currently fighting some kind of imps.

Goblins, not that Pel knew the difference.

Waving her hand, Jules shot a narrow blue beam at one of the creatures. The water around the imp’s feet froze, locking its legs in an icy hold. With the imp unable to move, Rayph lunged forward, free to strike with impunity. He swung his flaming sword in a wide sweep, drawing copious amounts of blood.

“Repent, evildoers!” he said.

Rayph was definitely more into it than Jules was, though that was par for the course.

Had Pel not been fighting as hard as she was to maintain her composure, the smile on Rayph’s face would have probably brought her to tears.

She needed to stay strong, for her children’s sake.

She also thought of me, and the embarrassment I’d caused her by playing along with the kids. That was one of the most painful, deeply discomforting experiences of happiness that Pel had ever known.

Regardless of what I felt about the ultra-wealthy, I had to hand it to them: they certainly knew how to have fun.

If you had the money—both for the holographic projector system, and for the actual game itself—you could pay for interactive augmented reality versions of a wide range of triple-A titles. I fully and freely admit to having used some of my in-laws’ sweet, sweet lucre to order an augmented reality copy of Vaults of Moránn. At the time, I’d justified this to Pel by saying the purchase would make me more likely to visit her parents, which it did, because there was no way in heck I’d pass up the opportunity to play one of my favorite RPGs as if I was my character. To that end, the Revenels’ Prospero units were a match made in Paradise. With their built-in holographic projectors, the robots could project the game environment onto our surroundings.

He really could be such a child at times, she thought.

Of course, as far as Pel was concerned, I’d been taken over by a demon, who, even now, was hard at work, slowly transforming my body into that of a monstrous Norm.

Shaking her head, Pel leaned back against a support column. The program Gonzalo was running for the kids reminded Pel of the Fairyland program she’d played with as a child.

She treasured her memories of those days.

On rainy days when her brothers had been ganging up on her because they were being too dumb to have known any better, she could retreat to her room with Gonzalo at her side, and when the lights dimmed, the yellow robot turned into an enchanter, using his holographic magic to make her bed and dressers into a palace, her as its little princess, on a mission to suss out its mysteries.

I’d once told Pel that the (in my opinion, unjustified) affection she felt toward her parents was a result of her deep, unfulfilled need to earn their validation and praise. In being distant and elusive toward their children (or, in Margaret’s case, utterly disinterested), Mr. and Mrs. Revenel had created circumstances that would naturally lead their children to develop an unhealthy desire for their parents’ approval.

The harder something was to earn, the more desirable it seemed.

While I genuinely don’t know whether or not Mortimer had planned all this from the beginning, I certainly wouldn’t have put it past him. He was just that kind of a guy.

Suddenly, a soft chime rang out from down the hall. At first, Pel was the only one to notice it; Rayph and Jules were too caught up playing their game. But then—without stopping the holograms—Gonzalo slowly turned his head to face the source of the sound.

Pel waded through the holographic river between the sofa and the big TV console, and past the thick, gnarled tree projected onto an intruding corner of the room as she moved toward the sound. From the dining room, she heard motors whirr and hydraulics hiss.

Ferdinand was waking himself from sleep mode.

Turning, she saw the red robot lumber out into the living room.

Down the hall, Pel saw the express elevator slide open.

A young man staggered out into the hallway. He was blonde, handsome, and disheveled, but—most of all—he was missing his left arm, which had been amputated just below the elbow. The wound was horrific. Thick clumps of clotted blood clung to the edges of the recently cauterized flesh.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Pel was aware her mother had said she’d send someone up, but, at the moment, that line of thought was out of reach. Instead, all she saw was a wounded stranger with a frightfully intense look on his face.

Pel staggered back in shock. “Help!”

Warmth smacked her back as she collided into Ferdinand.

Turning around, Gonzalo joined Ferdinand in marching toward the hallway, his metal footsteps dully thudding on the carpet. As the yellow robot left the living room, he took the holograms with him, so that the only light in the living room came from the dining room and the hallways.

Short struts emerged from compartments that opened up on the two robots’ flanks, bearing small, rocket-shaped laser pistols that they aimed at the intruder as they turned down the hallway. The rings near the tips of the pistols started glowing as the weapons powered up.

If you’re wondering, “Hey, why don’t they use robots to attack the fungus?”, at the risk of getting ahead of myself, the answer is we did, it’s just that the military’s artificial intelligences weren’t in human(oid) form. Our armed forces were thoroughly equipped with AI, from the HUDs on our soldiers’ helmets to the auto-aiming algorithms in the gyros in our rifles, or the digital co-pilots that helped man our tanks and aerostats.

The kids scattered. Jules bent over to help her mother off the ground.

“Gonzalo!” Pel shouted.

The intruder’s eyes went wide. “Don’t shoot!” he yelled, raising his one remaining arm. “Don’t shoot! Margaret sent me!”

At the mention of Margaret’s name, the noisy, red-hot glows building around the robots’ lasers petered out.

Pel motioned for the kids to move off to the side as she stepped forward, squeezing herself into the narrow gap in between the two robots.

“ALICE,” she said, “lights.”

The living room’s wall sconces lit up in response, giving Pel a better look at the stranger. He looked even worse in the light than he did in the dark. His brown hair was a mess, as was his stained white, buttoned-up shirt. A striped, red and gold tie hung loosely around his neck. A lone, dark thread of fungus grew up the side of his head, and he coughed and wheezed.

Seeing that, Jules’ eyes bulged like saucers. “Shit!” she cursed.

Sticking one hand on her brother’s mouth and the other on her own, she pushed Rayph away from the stranger, and then skittered away with her brother the very next second. A distant door slammed shut a moment later.

Pel glanced at Gonzalo. “Gonzalo…” She tilted her head in the direction the kids had dashed off in.

Bowing his head, the robot trundled toward the bedrooms. Ferdinand, meanwhile, kept his laser pistols trained on the stranger.

“ALICE,” Pel asked, covering her own mouth with her hand, “are there any masks in the house?”

“No,” the AI replied.

Shit, Pel thought.

The stranger coughed and laughed. “Oh, that’s adorable.”

“Stop coughing and start talking,” Pel replied. “You say you know my mother?”

“Yes, I do.” The one-armed man nodded. “Very well, in fact.” He coughed. He looked in the direction the kids had run.

“Those were your kids, I take it?” he said. “Jules and Rayph?”

Knowing that he knew her children’s names made Pel’s heart race even faster.

“Who are you to my mother?” she asked.

“My name is Eyvan Midspew. I work for a non-profit organization. Your mother is one of our principal benefactors.”

“This is one of Lady Revenel’s guests, Pelbrum,” Ferdinand said. His motors quieted as he slowly retracted his lasers into his body. The compartment doors closed with satisfying clicks.

“Really?” Pel asked.

Electricity leapt between Ferdinand’s head coils. “Yes, Pel, really.”

Sighing, she turned to Eyvan. “Well, out with it? What are you doing here?” she asked. “And what is my mother doing down in the bar?”

Pel couldn’t help but flinch when Eyvan coughed and cleared his throat.

“Ma’am,” he said, “would you describe yourself as a woman of faith?”

Pel nodded stiffly. “I would.”

Eyvan smiled. “Ms. Revenel, a miracle has happened. The Lost Lassedite is Lost no more; Mordwell Verune has returned.”

“W-What…?” Pel stammered. She felt her words die in her mouth.

“He is Blessèd, Sister. He is the Godhead’s chosen. The Moonlight Queen pulled him from his time into ours. He has powers like you wouldn’t believe. He rivals the Lass Herself. And he’s here.” Eyvan’s voice trembled. “He’s down below, with your mother and my… associates.”

Pel gripped her icon of the Angel and made the Bond-sign.

Eyvan nodded. “I wouldn’t have believed it either, but… I saw it with my own eyes.” He beckoned with a wave of his hand. “Come, Ms. Revenel. Bring your children, too. The Angel’s messenger is here… and He wants to meet you.”

Pel felt like the world was spinning around her.

Eyvan smiled. “You don’t need to be afraid any longer. He has come to save us all.”

And then, from beyond the corner, where our daughter watched in stunned disbelief, Jules quietly mumbled, “What the fuck…?”