Spacer and Rat by Margaret Bechard

Author:Margaret Bechard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466874343
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

TEN

JACK LEAPT and rammed hard into one of the stools. “Silver. You’re back!” He caught his breath, tried to catch his thoughts. The important thing was to not let Silver know that he’d figured out who she really was. He took a second to make sure the stool was upright, back in its place. He took another hollow, raggedy breath and turned to her, forcing a smile. “Guess my data was good. Guess you’re here to pay me my credit.”

“Guess again, kid.” Silver’s voice was even hoarser. As if the cold of the Junkyard had frozen it tight. She looked around the room. “Where’s Gert?”

“Gert?” Gert? “You’re looking for Gert?” He could think of about a hundred reasons, easy, why the Company might be looking for Gert. None of them good.

Silver was staring around the room. Her eyes were blanker, emptier than the bot’s optics. They focused on Jack. “And where’s my maintenance bot?”

Jack nearly jerked around to look at the rear door. But at least they were back on the subject of the bot. And away from Gert. “I thought—” He held out his hands. “I thought you had it. I thought you went out to the Junkyard to get it. I gave you the data.” He tried to sound aggrieved. Like Silver was yanking on his wiring. “And Gert doesn’t know anything about a bot,” he added. Just to be clear.

Silver came around table one. “Gert doesn’t know anything about a bot,” she said, imitating him. Badly. “I sent someone else to the Junkyard, kid. I’ve been here the whole time. Utilizing my talents.” She tapped at the electrode above her ear. “I’ve been monitoring grid bounces.” She pushed the vac bot aside with her foot. “Just a little bit ago I learned that a maintenance bot was searching for the location of Gert the Keep.”

Spam. It hadn’t even encoded its identity? How could a hyper-intelligent bot be that dim?

“I figured I’d better get over here.” Silver leaned against the table. Smiling a flat, hard smile. “You planning to do a deal without me, Jack? You and old Gert? You think the two of you can sell this bot to some colony desperate for defense?”

“Colony defense? But the Company doesn’t do colony defense.”

Silver frowned. “Who’s talking about the Company? I’m not talking about the Company.” She held up her hand, palm flat toward him. “Just shut up and listen. A lot of lives depend on this transaction. A lot of—”

The vac bot let out a high-pitched squeal. It whirled around, all its tubes and pipes clunking out at once. “Emergency cleanup!” it said, loudly.

The wiper bot squealed, too. Jack jumped aside as it hurtled off the bar, hit the floor, and started wiping toward the vac bot.

The front door slid open. “Emergency cleanup!” A whole platoon of bots rolled into the pub. Three sweeps. Four vacs. A polisher. Bots from Ollie’s and Madame Io’s. Even two of the ink bots from the tattoo parlor. They all swarmed around the vac bot.

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