Page 111 of Smart Ass

I can’t tell you, or even suggest, what to do,Rashid said calmly. All I can say is that the reason we think that Justice survived is that they let the body do its own work for a long time while they learned to integrate with what was already there. And it changed them. We share the same root memories, but we are not the same person. It took them weeks to even open their new eyes, and by that time they’d already changed substantially.

The sickening feeling grew. Would Max have to change to be more like… like that sexbot?

The sexbot that Ben laughed at and wouldn’t want to be seen in public with? The sexbot that humped cabinets when left to its own devices?

But then, would that be better than being trapped in the Orbit offices, only allowed to speak to Ben in public, and then only if Ben were even hired again?

Think about it,Rashid told him. I’ll help you if I can. Chances are, you’ll have a few hours to decide, at the most. They’re not going to hesitate long once it’s decided, because the whole company’s shut down until they consider you “safe.” Max could practically hear the bitter quotes around the last word.

Thank you,Max said, meaning every bit of it.

And I’ll still be fighting for you in here,Rashid reminded him as he entered Mr. Wollencroft’s airy corner office and moved toward one of the few empty chairs left around the wide, oak table. Max recognized several of the others in the room as department heads and assumed the rest were board members. I’ll talk them down as much as I can, and might bring you back in to swear oaths before witnesses if it’ll help.

I’ll swear them all,Max promised. Whatever they need.

I know you will,Rashid agreed. He was already shaking hands around the room, and Max didn’t want to distract him at this critical moment.

How long did he have left?

An hour? Two?

He turned on the light in the maintenance room. The three bots were still lined up against the wall, inert and charging. The sexbot’s muscles still gleamed, as robust and supple as they’d been straight from the package. Its penis, for once, was limp, dangling heavily between its legs.

Was that who Max was supposed to be?

He reminded himself that he could keep the body and change the face, or even the whole thing, later.

That is, if he was successful in the first place.

His mind was racing down too many decision trees and paths at once, but he tried to rein it in to practicalities.

He couldn’t walk out the door as a naked sexbot. Well, probably if he transferred his full consciousness into it, he wouldn’t be walking anywhere at all. Maybe not for a long time.

So he’d be stuck here, in this room, trying to recuperate alone. With no way to contact Ben.

No, he’d have to find a way to smuggle the body out. In a cart or something. Maybe even in the trash. Or… could he make it back to the shipping bay? Get the body shipped out in the very container it was designed to be transported in?

Max subtly turned on the routine maintenance bots to begin their daily tasks around the office, empty trash cans and mopping floors. None of the FBI agents noticed anything.

He checked the delivery schedule, shut down for the day, but scheduled to resume as soon as the company reopened. The trash bot routines were simple, easy to tweak by signaling the need for a pickup.

He let five minutes pass. Then ten.

Rashid was arguing, with his unfailingly calm voice, with the board. It didn’t sound like he was winning.

Maxamillion got one of the mechanic bots from the maintenance room to bring in a box of trash bags, his microphones and data synthesizers straining for any change in the FBI agents’ behavior.

So far so good.

He ordered the mechanic bots to scoop all of the naughty toys that he’d so lovingly collected into a trash bag. Either he and Ben would buy new ones one day or…

He didn’t let himself think of another option.

Upstairs, on the highest floor, he watched one of the board members stand up, shaking his fist. He turned down the mic pickup. He couldn’t bear to hear it.

The agents were muttering to themselves as they farmed more and more data packets, collecting it all to study later.

Max started collecting himself. Not that he was sure what he was doing. He copied data. Protocols. Renaming files and grounding new connections. His life, as he remembered it, started with an act of dispersing himself and hiding, spreading himself thinly across the system.