“Only temporarily,” Stella demurred.
He shouted. “What are you doing with Anna?”
“Don’t worry—you will still be permitted to bond with Anna and the baby . . . after.”
Everything in the room became overly hot. Focused. She took the baby? Cold sweat raced over his sensors.After?
“No!” Atlas ran to the door and palmed the handle before slamming his shoulder into the side. The metal dented as it did.
Sterling shuffled to the front window. “This is evil, Stella. We are all on the same team.”
“Evil is letting humans be wild around us again!” She slammed her hands on the wall beside the window. “I’m protecting us. Surgery is already starting. Relax. It’s just a little electrode.”
A little electrode? Atlas yelled, pounding the door. Then he hung his head, pressing it against the wall. Think. Think.
Sterling punched at the glass, barely fracturing it. Everything had been made with android strength in mind. “Let us out! You do not have a consensus to do anything with that child!”
In the highest tone Stella could access, she screeched, “Atlas didn’t have consensus either, when they decided to live out there. Or when they took out the chip before our deal was up. We will figure out the rest later, but . . .” Stella paused. “Atlas? What are you doing?”
Atlas wasn’t listening. Brute strength wouldn’t work, but he spent enough time with Zero to know other ways to override any sensor. He turned and ran through probabilities and possibilities. The easiest and fastest way to Anna was to unlock that door. He glanced upward at the smoke sensors. There were overrides for everything.He’d even set one up recently with Zero at their little house. He pulled his desk right under the smoke detector, all of his various plant experiments toppling to the floor. Then he grabbed one of the leftover grow lights and ripped it open, taking the wiring to spark together.
The silicone on his palm threw error codes as he pulled Tilly’s drawing off the wall and lit it on fire on the grow lights wiring, crinkling the burning paper together with his bare hand until smoke appeared. Then he held it right up to the fire sensor.
The fire alarm sounded a minute later.
Stella scrambled away from the window as the door’s emergency sensor overpowered everything and unlocked.
Atlas stormed past Sterling to tackle her to the floor, then pulled her up roughly by her blond hair before slamming her head on the floor. “Where is she?”
“It’s too late,” Stella snarled, her makeup smeared on her face.
“You better fucking hope it isn’t.” Atlas smashed her head on the ground again. “If you can turn Sterling off and use his voice to fool me, I’ll return the favor.”
Underneath his hand, she shrieked, “You can’t!”
But Atlas was beyond reason. He didn’t hesitate in grabbing Stella with both hands and tearing her head unit off, leaving a severed body behind. Her arms twitched, reaching for her head firmly in his grip.
Sterling kicked at her body, which was still twitching, pushing it out of the way. Then he dumped out the gray bag, revealing an electrical taser. “She took me out with this. I never thought she would be so ruthless.”
Atlas didn’t have time to speculate. He stuffed Stella’s head into her bag, hiding it from view. “The wireless connection is still not working. Where’s an open panel?”
“Follow me. There’s one by your room.” Sterling led the way to a research substation.
Only two androids were present, both model-Ms, inspecting the open panel.
Sterling barked, “Zero is asking for all the model-Ms to head to the main hall to work on the power outage. He said to go there for further instructions.”
“Good.” Forty-five answered, pulling on Nineteen’s arm. “Whatever happened doesn’t seem natural.”
“It’s not.” Atlas said.
Once they both left, Atlas uncovered and slammed Stella’s head down on one of the main panels Sterling indicated. He overrode the operating system, ignoring the blinking Stella’s eyes, until he accessed the still wired intercom system. There he found a data log of orders given to those following her. Orders to take the baby and plans for surgery. His hands shook as he scanned the data. Then he blasted into the connection using hervoice box, “Everyone. Please disregard my previous instructions. Another agreement has been made.”
His entire body was shaking by the time he finished. It was tempting to have her confess everything then and there, but that would tip her colleagues off and potentially have them not listen to the order to stop.
And the room Anna was in was so far away.
“What else can I do?” Atlas punched the panel. He needed time. You needed electricity for surgery, right? “Sterling? Come here. How do I turn off the electricity?”
