Stanley Duncan's Robot: Genesis David III (english reading book .TXT) 📖

“I want the same, but it needs to make sense. Stanley wouldn’t program Brutus to attack himself, but he would send it to murder press-conference attendees. As soon as I arrest Duncan for the murder of Officer Michaels — cameras rolling live — unleash Brutus. I’ll make a list of traitors. Have Cratos program them in as targets. Once the media captures enough of the chaos, I’ll put an amorphous bullet in him.”

“Duncan and his abomination need to die.”

“With the cameras rolling, we have to play it carefully. If they attack us, waste them.”

“And if they don’t?”

Evan took a small black device out of his pocket. “I’ll activate this electromagnetic pulse. By the time the cameras get back online, the traitor will have died during capture.”

“You’ll be a hero.”

“We already are,” said Evan.

Tears flowed down Shannon’s face. She slammed her phone against the occupied bed. “Asshole.” Disconnecting the patient’s tube, she took a dab of fuse on her finger and licked it. The taste was bitter but bearable. A light euphoria filled her body. Problems disappeared. This is what she needed to do. Her final mission on Earth. Lifting the bag above her head, she opened her mouth wide.

“Help me,” called out a weak voice.

She looked down and saw the enfeebled man in the bed looking up at her.

“Help me,” he repeated. “I need to get out of here.”

Evan walked into the high school, disgusted by the sight of the news vans. He thought, Nobody should be giving these abominations any attention. They should be put down without mercy, and anyone who resists should be locked away. This is about the survival of the human race, and there isn’t any room for traitors.

The janitor stopped sweeping. “Good morning, Deputy.”

Evan motioned for him to follow, entering an empty classroom. “You remember when I got you this job — right, Holt?”

“I’ll never forget it. I had been — ”

Evan silenced him with his hand. “The time has come for you to return the favor.”

“Of course. What can I do to help?”

“Do you remember how you lost your trucking job?”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“Well, the man who wrote the program that took it from you is coming to the school today. I want you to let him know how you felt about it.” He handed him an anti-AI poster. “Start by getting him riled up by protesting outside of his apartment. When the press conference starts, I want you to really turn it up, trigger him completely. The safety of the country depends upon it.”

Brad stormed into the Coliseum.

“Get me a baseball bat, and set up three toasters for me to destroy.”

“Right away,” said Cratos.

Brad took the wooden bat in his hand and charged at the first of the slow-moving androids. His first swing snapped the bat in half. “Stupid toaster!”

“Perhaps another weapon? How about a crowbar or our ultra-sharp falchion — Ike’s favorite weapon.”

Brad needed something stronger. An amorphous-steel blade would be too easy. He needed to crush these toasters flat. “Give me Brutus’s war hammer.”

Cratos went over to Brutus and grabbed the huge weapon. It didn’t budge. “It’s too heavy.”

“No. You’re too weak.” Brad thundered over like The Incredible Hulk and yanked the hammer out. It was insanely heavy, close to a hundred pounds. He went back over to the first android and swung as hard as he could, smashing its head right off its body. Brad’s muscles burned. “This will do.”

For the next ten minutes, Brad laid into the androids until they had been flattened to less than an inch high. Large chunks of the concrete floor had been blasted out. Sweat dripped down Brad’s exhausted body, and his arms shook. “I want you to program Brutus to destroy these freaks.” He took out a picture of Dan and Stanley. “I want the whole world to watch them die when they speak at the high school.”

“But that means Brutus will need to be destroyed afterward. What if — ”

Brad backhanded him.

Blood dribbled from a large gash in Cratos’s lip, sliding across his chin and burying itself in his shirt. Two red teeth had been knocked backward. His next words were spoken slowly and with a lisp — but, goddamn, did he choose them carefully! “My apologies. I’ll do it immediately.”

The doors to the Coliseum opened. Shannon and another man walked in. She froze when she saw him.

“Come here,” said Brad.

Her ghost-white skin glowed as she crept toward him.

“What are you doing here?” He snapped his head toward the man standing way too damn close to Evan’s girl. “And who the hell are you?”

“My name’s Larry — have we met before?”

Brad wanted to smash him. “I hope not.”

“No, no … I think we have. Eddy, right? My memory is a bit foggy after coming down from fuse, but I’m pretty sure we met in the hospital. I was on the way to get my shrink’s signature when — Teddy Perkins, that’s it.”

“What did you say?” Brad glared at the weak-looking man, his breath rising from thoughts of smashing him with the war hammer. Larry had no clue what sort of danger he had put himself in by saying that name.

Shannon turned to Larry and pulled hard at his wrist, searing him with a look of grave seriousness. “Stop talking. We’re leaving.”

Brad yanked him back. “You’re not going anywhere!”

“What do you want?”

“How do you know that name?”

“So, you’re not Teddy?”

Brad clenched his fist. “Answer my question, or you’ll end up uglier than Cratos over there.”

Cratos turned around with a blood-soaked towel pressed against his face. Reaching into a refrigerated medical kit, he took out a syringe of nanites and injected it into his gums.

Shannon swooped in. “Let me help you with that.”

“Leave me the hell alone,” said Cratos.

“Okay!” said Shannon, suspiciously retreating without a snarky comment.

Brad didn’t care. His attention was on this weak excuse of a man. Grabbing him by the hospital johnny he was wearing, Brad prayed for him to say something stupid so