“Five!”
“HEY, LISTEN—”
“Four!”
“I’M THINKING—”
“Three!”
“WE COULD GO SOMEWHERE QUIETER—”
“Two!”
“AND MAYBE JUST—”
“One!”
“TALK ABOUT THIS?”
“WAR!”
The Thunderstorm raised its cannons and unloaded at Cricket’s chest. The big bot yelped and threw himself behind one of the steel barricades as the shots whizzed overhead. The crowd roared, the Storm followed up with a burst of missiles from the pods on its back. Cricket rolled aside as the shots spiraled through the air toward him, trailing plumes of rainbow-colored smoke. The ground around him exploded, shrapnel ripping tiny gouges in his plate armor, the flashes making him flinch. That kind of detonation would have torn him to pieces when he was little, and his self-preservation subroutines were in full overdrive.
“First strike to the Storm!” the EmCee cried.
Cricket hunched behind a metal barricade, panic flooding his systems.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to cower.
He was never the bravest bot in the Scrap.
But he’d been ordered to fight, and the Second Law countermanded any desire for self-preservation. And so, instead of running away, he was forced to charge. Across the killing floor, feet pounding the steel. As he drew closer, some hidden instinct clicked into place, and he felt the combat software inside his WarBot body engage. A small 360-degree map of the WarDome appeared in his head, tracking his opponent’s movements, speed, ammo count, damage reports, and screaming warning about incoming fire.
The enemy logika let loose with another blast from its cannons, Cricket twisting past the first as the second spanggged off his armored shoulder. He didn’t feel pain, but his damage reports started flashing brighter. He had no weapons, no real advantage. His only plan was wrapping his hands around the Storm and tearing pieces away till there was nothing left to rip off.
“Look at it go, folks!”
The crowd gasped as Cricket wove among the barricades, rolling over a destroyed logika hull and tumbling past a barrage of exploding missiles. He was big, but thanks to his tracking software, he was surprisingly agile. His engines thundered, the twelve thousand horsepower in his limbs rushing like a waterfall. The crowd roared as he drew close, only to howl in disappointment as the Storm fired a jet burst from each foot and sailed into the air. Articulated toes curled around the WarDome’s bars above and it seized hold, hanging upside down over the killing floor like a limpet.
“UM,” Cricket called. “THAT’S NOT ENTIRELY FAIR, IS IT?”
“TARGET ACQUIRED. MISSION: DESTROY.”
“YEAH, YOU SAID THAT ALREADY.”
The Thunderstorm unleashed another missile barrage. Cricket raised one arm to shield his optics, shells bursting on his armor, the explosions catching him across the back and ripping up his hydraulics. An internal alarm sounded, his body feeding him more damage reports, a TARGET LOCKED message flashing in his displays. Threat washed over his circuitry, the Third Law screaming in his mind. Memories of the fights he’d watched with Evie flickered in his head, the pair sitting in her room, Lemon beside them, watching legends of the Dome throw down before the wondering crowd. But that was then. This was now.
He was alone, afraid.
But beneath and between and beyond that, the big bot was surprised to realize…
He was angry.
Angry at being taken away from his friends. Angry about what had happened to Evie. Angry that these humans had stolen him, put their hands in him, thrown him in here to fight for their enjoyment. He might have been made to serve, but he hadn’t been made to serve them, and the injustice of it all boiled over his circuitry, washing his vision with red. Some electronic instinct, some urging in the software of his new body, made him reach out toward the Thunderstorm. And as the crowd gasped in wonder, Cricket’s right hand folded up inside his forearm, and a heavy chaingun unfolded in its place, firing a hail of bullets right at the enemy bot.
“Looks like our challenger has some surprises up its sleeve, folks!”
The blast was bright, thunderous, shocking even to Cricket. Tracer rounds flew like fireflies, the crowd backing away from the bars even as they roared approval. The unexpected recoil threw off his aim, Cricket staggered backward and almost fell. The wild spray missed the Storm completely, but it did strike the WarDome bars the enemy logika was clinging to. The shots were armor-piercing, explosive-tipped, ten thousand rounds per minute. The steel shredded like wet tissue. And with its footholds blasted away, the Thunderstorm was sent plummeting toward the ground.
“Pro moves from our challenger!”
Cricket had no idea what he was doing, no control over the combat reflexes running through his WarBot body. The crowd bellowed in delight as twin pods of missile launchers unfurled from his back like stubby wings, targeting lasers locking onto his fallen opponent. A salvo of small incendiary missiles burst forth, lighting up the Storm in a halo of bright flames and sending it staggering.
Cricket knew he had to press, charging the fallen bot and kicking it like a football. The Storm went tumbling across the killing floor, flipping over onto its back. It tried to regain its footing, limbs kicking feebly as Cricket fell on top of it and began punching, stomping, tearing, the crowd chanting in time with every blow.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Sparks flew, the Storm’s armor buckling beneath the terrible force of Cricket’s fists. Its fritzing voice box was spitting out a stream of garbled damage reports, its optics flaring bright. With one mighty blow, Cricket smashed the enemy logika’s maintenance hatch wide open, titanium buckling like tinfoil. And with red still washing over his optics, Cricket reached inside, fingers closing around the Thunderstorm’s central processor—the bot’s literal electronic heart.
“P-PLEASE…,” the Storm stammered. “D-DO NOT…”
Some part of him knew he wasn’t really killing it. That the Storm could be rebuilt if its owners cared enough. But Cricket knew he was hurting it. Knew the imperative burning at its core: the Third Law demanding it fight, flail and, finally, even beg to protect its own existence. And in losing, Cricket knew exactly what the logika would be feeling. To fail to uphold the Three Laws was worse than dying.
To fail to uphold the Three Laws was to fail in every sense a robot could.
But still, that filthy dustneck’s command rang in Cricket’s ears. The Second Law burning brighter than anything except the First.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.