Chapter 23: Chapter 23 – Seventh Heaven (4)

She did not turn around again until she had almost reached her destination. Virtual advertisements dazzled her; otherwise, the street was disturbingly empty. She couldn’t see her pursuers anywhere either, and that was the important thing.

"Did we lose them, Wave?"

Wave propped her hand against the wall of a building, then she leaned against it with both forearms, bent over, and gasped for air. Her sides stung, her lungs burned, and the acrid smell of acetone rose into her mouth. She had exceeded her limits on this run and used up all available reserves. That was getting back at her now.

"I," Wave gasped, "hope so."

They had almost made it. Just around the next corner, and they had reached the location of the Akimoto compound.

Wave pushed herself off the wall and fought against gravity, which was mercilessly trying to pull her down to the ground. Her thighs burned, her calves were hard as stone, and her feet shuffled across the floor as if they were stuck in concrete. She had no strength to lift them properly, yet somehow she made it to the corner, pulled herself around it, and ...

... found herself in a robot demonstration.

They stood in front of the Akimoto building, waving digital placards and shouting slogans. For some, the colorful paint and crude proportions made it clear what they were. Machines that were made for the hard, unpleasant jobs, at construction sites, in the mines, or as security guards. These models were built by the Kanter Corporation, which didn’t care if their models looked good, only that they worked well. Why did they also show up in front of Akimoto’s building? Out of solidarity?

"We have feelings, don’t treat us like machines!" some shouted. And others yelled, "Freedom for our robot brothers!"

In addition to the crude models of the Kanter group, Wave also discovered many that would have normally been almost indistinguishable from a human and came from Akimoto’s factories. They had painted half their faces with metallic paints and Wave understood why they did this. They were supposed to be recognized as robots, not mistaken for humans.

One robot, with a blue head that resembled a retro toaster, spotted Wave. "Down with the human oppressors!" His voice rumbled, sounding like the deep engine noises of the fossil carts from the documentaries, so many of which had driven on the world’s roads at that time.

A cold shiver ran through Wave, and she guessed that she had landed in the very place least suited for escape. She was damn lucky today.

Some of the other protesters must have heard their brother, paused in their slogans, and turned to Wave. She wanted to flee, to force her damn legs to move from the spot, but they disobeyed her. She gritted her teeth and tears of despair mingled with the cold sweat that covered her face. Before she knew it, the robots had surrounded her.

"Hey, I really don’t mind you guys," Wave pressed out. Her lungs were still working at full speed to supply oxygen to her tortured body. Plus, her throat was on fire. Therefore speaking was the absolute stupidest thing she could have done in this situation. "I even have some friends among the robots."

"Anyone could say that," came a tinny voice from the speaker of a green Kanter model they had put an egg on instead of a head. And they were surprised that Akimoto outranked them?

A robot behind Wave grabbed her by the shoulders and the pain of the whole past day multiplied and shot through her body like an electric shock, down to the tips of her toes.

"By the fucking Citadel!" cursed Wave. "Let go of me!"

Another one grabbed her legs, then she was lifted into the air and passed on.

"Throw her against the gate!" one screeched with a voice resembling a chainsaw.

The realization that she might die here and now revived her body anew. Wave wriggled and kicked aside the robot’s arm that was about to pass her on. Then she was free again. She slid to the ground, hitting the hard asphalt and clenching a curse through her teeth. "Bronto shit!" She made herself small and scrambled around among the robots, who stood in their own way and couldn’t get to her. Each painful movement made her whimper softly.

A kick hit Wave in the side and she sucked in a sharp breath. It had been so solid that not even the Synth suit cushioned it. No, it had to though. If the kick had broken her ribs, she would have felt it for sure. But even so, she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to stop and try to clear the black dots from her vision. They weren’t a projection of her lens, they were really bouncing through her field of vision, like an army of fighting ants. The robots took advantage of that to move away from her.

"Make way!" one rumbled. "I’m grabbing her."

At least he tried. He walked up to Wave and reached for her arm. Instead, she grabbed his. She was faster than him, thanks to the power of desperation. She pulled herself up, spun into him, and wrapped her other arm around his neck. With a practiced hip toss, she sent him to the ground. She couldn’t do that as well as Ember, but it was still good enough. Still, every movement hurt like hell. She certainly hurt more than the robot she had thrown. But she had proved that she could fight back, that she would defend herself. If the robots had feelings, perhaps they also knew the fear of lying on the ground and being recognized as weak by everyone else. That Wave was only keeping herself on her feet with the last of her strength and could barely see, they might not even recognize.

Waves pressed her lips together until they formed a line and furrowed her eyebrows. "Who wants to be next?" she growled out of the corner of her mouth.

Silence reigned for a moment and Wave could already feel the triumph. Then laughter rang out from somewhere and others joined in. Even the robot on the ground laughed as it rose again.

The robot that wanted to be next stomped towards her, and the ground shook with each of his steps. He was heavier than his predecessor and didn’t move a bit when Wave grabbed him. Instead, he caught her arm, then a leg, and lifted her into the air with a firm grip.

"Let me forward," he roared, and the crowd parted before him.

Now the last bit of strength left Wave. She hadn’t slept in almost a day, except for the nap on Ember’s couch, and that didn’t count. Her legs ached, her arms too, just everything throbbed and pounded and she felt like a horde of small pachycephalosaurs were ramming their skulls into her entire body. They should just throw her against the gate, her suit would somehow absorb the impact. Her body couldn’t feel much worse anyway. At least that’s what she told herself, pushing aside her knowledge of physics and anatomy, which protested wildly. She gave in to her weakness and went limp.

"Wave!" Aki roared. "Free yourself!"

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"I can’t," Wave whispered, closing her eyes, trying to push aside the thought of the approaching impact.

The robot paused, and Wave could only feel the vibration of the engine keeping the colossus alive. She opened her eyes just a bit.

"I know that voice," the robot said.

Another nodded. "Yeah, that’s Aki, isn’t it?"

"I’m a huge fan!" shouted a third, who actually stood out big from the crowd.

They ... they hadn’t forgotten him yet. But robots never forgot, at least that was how Wave interpreted what Fearless had told her before. That was why she still knew who her parents were.

"Sing for us!"

Others joined in until an eerie chorus of artificial voices shouted "Sing!" in unison.

"Sing!"

They stomped in sync.

"Sing!"

Wave straightened up.

"Sing!"

Then she sat on the robot’s shoulder.

"What should I sing?" whispered Aki as the choir repeated its demand. "I don’t know any of the lyrics anymore."

"Then hum! Hum our song." How that sounded, our song. It almost made her uncomfortable in retrospect to have called it that way. Sure, for her, that song connected her to Aki, connected her to the loneliness he had felt as well at the time. Whether he felt it the same way she did, Wave had no way of knowing.

"Yes," he replied. "Our song."

He intoned the first note and a wave of tranquility spread, beginning at her ear, over her body, and from there seemingly over the whole crowd, for the robots fell silent.

Then he hummed his entire song and the vibrations of the speaker took hold of her body. Wave shivered. It wasn’t just the speaker’s fault, no, it was also the mood that Aki’s humming spread. It was as if the whole city held its breath and only listened to his song. Wave was shaking so badly that she had to cling to the head of the robot that was holding her aloft. But she wasn’t the only one feeling this way. He was shaking, too. If she listened closely, past Aki’s harmonic tones, she could hear an electronic sniffle coming from the robot’s speakers.

Gently, she reached out and squeezed his fingers. The robot looked at her with red glowing eyes and she imagined seeing sadness in them.

They all had to be sad because they were suffering and no one was listening to them. No one understood them, took their feelings seriously, or even believed they were capable of having them. So they became angry. Such was the way of this city. They had nothing against Wave, who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She understood that and she forgave them for that. There was no reason to be angry at the robots ... to be angry at all, no matter who.

"Can you put me down?" she whispered to the robot. He just nodded, knelt with one leg, and lowered the arm Wave was sitting on.

She climbed down and took a tentative, shaky step into the alley that had formed for the robot before. No one reacted. Everyone continued to listen to Aki’s song. Wave took a second step and continued to stare, transfixed, at the robot that had held her a moment ago.

Three more steps and she had left the group. She turned around and looked at the robots. As if frozen, they stood there and did not move.

That was unbelievable. With his voice alone, Aki seemed to have put them all under his spell. A moment ago they were raging, threatening to smash Wave against the building, and now they were as peaceful as if nothing had ever happened.

"They must really love you," she said, "just like I lo-..."

Something flew against her head and Wave felt her knees buckle. The world tilted 80 degrees and before she even reached the ground, someone just flicked out the lights.

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