The city was alive for the first time in a long time.

  Furore and panic fertilized by the actions of Pompeii. Word spread quick. I somehow slipped through the courtyard without being seen and descended down into the twisted maze of alleyways and buildings. They were going to be looking for me. There was no way for me to convince them that I wasn’t involved with what he did. He was my handler, and I was his responsibility. They would happily have both our heads stuck onto pikes and pitched atop the wall if they could.

  There were eyes everywhere. They peered through the darkness and followed my frantic footsteps. None of them called out for the guards – they only saw a dark blur. There was only one destination I could go to, and only one bot who could help me escape from this place. The small fa?ade of Venice’s fake bar, red neon blaring, called to me.

  I knocked. The door opened.

  “Venice.”

  He looked me up and down; “What the hell is going on? I haven’t seen the guards this restless for years!”

  An alarm blared loudly across the city. I ducked inside of the shop and pushed the door closed to keep them from finding me.

  “It’s Pompeii. He planned for this – and he got the tools he needed from one of the other handlers. Rome, Castra Regina and Antioch, he killed all of them.”

  Venice’s eyes widened in astonishment.

  “All three? That guy has a few screws loose in that head of his. Most bots are smart enough to know that fighting their way through a wall of centurions isn’t going to end well for them.”

  I decided to demonstrate how Pompeii did it. I triggered the mechanism in my arm and brought forth the laser-like blade that he used to cut through their armour. It turned those metal pieces into paper, slicing clean through them with no resistance whatsoever. Venice took a step back, fearing what might happen if he accidentally touched it with his body.

  “He used one of these.”

  “That’s some serious freakin’ hardware, pal.”

  The blade dissipated, “But you can’t use it without a special energy generator. Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

  “I’ve heard rumours. There’s always a bunch of wise guys who want the biggest and baddest weapons. But everyone’s got their own version of the story about where these illegal parts come from. They must be from somewhere in the facility, but I’ll be damned if I know where that is.”

  “I see. This is all beside the point. It’ll be a lot more difficult to get out of here if the guards you’ve bribed are put onto high alert. Will the money be enough to make them let us through?”

  He laughed, “The bottom-feeders who get put on border duty don’t exactly have a lot of pride in their work. The true believers are the ones the Committee recruit for the more important jobs. The real problem is if they keep an eye on the exits because they’re looking for a fugitive. They might assign some other bots to the shift to keep ‘em from trading favours.”

  There was an aloofness to his voice that put me on edge immediately. Pompeii had already delivered what he wanted in the form of his prizes from the previous tournament, but otherwise there was no reason for him to follow through aside from his personal reputation.

  “Let me cut to the point. Are we still safe to continue with the plan?”

  He patted me on the shoulder.

  “Don’t you worry that pretty little head, London. Turning my back on a deal already consummated would be bad for my reputation! Around here – reputation is just as valuable as the money that changes hands. The only problem is sneaking you out of here without the guards noticing.”

  Pompeii had planned for us to bring disguises with us. His last-minute decision to get some payback on the Committee had scuppered that. The only items I brought with me was his left arm and the cape they gave me at the ceremony. My restless fingers found the hook holding it over my shoulders and unclipped it. Venice stepped away from me with the fabric clenched between his palms.

  “London?”

  “I think you’ll appreciate having that mantle more than I will.”

  “You’re too generous. Too generous! How could I ever consider leaving you behind when you offer me something like this!” Venice laughed. He gleefully took the new mantle and stored it behind the bar so he could reunite it with its older brother in his office later.

  To me it was not worth holding onto. It was only a reminder of Pompeii’s short-sighted decision to offer himself up to the Committee as a sacrifice. He was an enigma until the very end. And it was the end. I couldn’t foresee us meeting again. Was I projecting my own thoughts onto him as I’d done before with the others? He was not a perfectly rational mind. He went ahead and did it knowing that it would cause trouble for me.

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  What a complicated feeling that left in my chest.

  I was angry with him. That was the long and short of it. He was so focused on getting his pound of flesh from them that he was willing to screw me over. Now I had to deal with Venice and his crew alone, and hope that the heightened security wouldn’t derail my escape from the Rusted Wall. The only benefit of all this was that I no longer needed to bring a bunch of batteries with me to get through the energy desert that surrounded the city. This mysterious core he gave me was still outputting more power than I could realistically use.

  “Ah. We’ll throw a cloak over your head. Should be good enough to fool the bots guarding the old tramway tunnel. Anything you need to do before we go?”

  >> This is your last chance to go back and save Pompeii.

  >> Save him? Impossible. We’re alone – and every part we have short of the laser-blade is worthless. A handful of centurions could turn us into scrap. Pompeii only got so far because he surprised them.

  >> He didn’t want to be saved. This was his choice. He wanted to go down fighting.

  >> Inefficient. Wasteful.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  The fact that I was even debating the possibility showed how deep the corruption ran. It didn’t matter how I thought about it or what angle I chose to take, there was simply no way for me to get back to the arena district, find where Pompeii was being kept, and recover him before they finished him off. Pursuing such an irrational course of action would lead us both to destruction. Pompeii didn’t want to drag me down too, even if his attempts to do so left a lot to be desired.

  >> Self-preservation. Not something an Infrabot is meant to have.

  >> And you’re only just noticing it now?

  “I can round up my boys and get us on the road pretty fast. It’ll be for the best before they tighten security at the edge. You ready to go?”

  “There’s nothing here for me, and I’ve got unfinished business elsewhere. Let’s go.”

  Venice left me behind at the bar and went to gather his crew. It took him an hour and three minutes to get them together with the stuff that they were smuggling out of the city. At the rear of the building was a small courtyard where they prepared the carts. These old, repurposed trolleys were meant for human hands – but they also served as convenient transport in a facility where the usual options were not available. Each one was packed full with various items, like parts and hand-made products from within the Rusted Wall. There were five of them, with the second to last in the queue being the designated battery carrier. The crew would have to swap out their batteries to get through the energy desert that the Committee created to keep outsiders away.

  There were eleven other bots under Venice’s direction, and he made sure to lay down the law on them before we departed.

  “Listen up. Our new friend here paid a very fine price to get taken out of this hellhole, so show him a little courtesy. We’re doing the usual. Just keep in mind that this incident with Rome and Antioch has the guards on edge.”

  The bots who were with us didn’t care about my presence in the least. They wanted to get paid first and foremost. I was going to keep my mouth shut and avoid causing any trouble. I hitched myself to the wagon at the rear and followed closely behind the convoy as it left the bar and snaked its way through the undercity. The lack of guards in the poorer areas meant they could move mostly untouched even in times like these.

  We weren’t heading for the titular wall. There was an old tramline tunnel that ran to the West of the sector. The tunnels around Waterway were long since obstructed and made inaccessible due to various internal conflicts, and there was very little hope of repairing them and using them to travel across the gigantic facility. None of the major powers liked the idea of easy access to their respective territories.

  One of the gang members turned to Venice during the walk; “You paid the guards, right?”

  “Course I did. When do I ever forget to do the important stuff?” Venice replied.

  “Don’t make me list all of the times you did forget something important, man.”

  “Let me handle the talking. If there’s a problem, we turn back and try again later.”

  We approached the tunnel. I kept my head down and tried my best to avoid attracting any attention. The small station platform had been turned into a guard outpost. Venice was right to be concerned about increased security. The place was a veritable fortress, and there was no guarantee that the new guards would be willing to let the caravan through. He was the one who had to approach the gatekeeper and grease their palms with some kind words and a little cash.

  The longer we were forced to wait, the more disconcerted and unsettled the other gang members grew. Some started to glance back at me, as if I was about to go postal and cut a path through the guards watching us. The low-quality disguise Venice handed me was working. None of them could identify me from a distance. He eventually silenced their doubts by returning to the caravan and pointing his thumb to the exit.

  “We’re good to go. Don’t go mouthing off at them when we pass through.”

  I kept my eyes locked firmly to the ground and followed the lead of the cart ahead of me. If they thought that the wait was a struggle, then passing through the gate and into the tunnel itself was even worse. All it would take was one perceptive guard to ruin my escape plan. I kept waiting for the illusion to be broken, for the penny to drop, but it never did. We were away from the city within a matter of minutes. I could take a moment to relax now that we were away from their watchful eyes. There was still a lot of work to do before I was in the clear, however. The journey itself would take time and pose its own share of risks.

  “What’d I tell you?” Venice bragged, “No problem. No problem at all.”

  “This bot must have paid you damn well to have you bring him out with security this tight,” his friend said.

  “That they did. I got something very special from him. It’ll be taking pride of place in my office when we get back, that’s for sure.”

  The casual discussion between the group left me excluded. That was fine. I focused on scanning our surroundings for danger and considered my next moves once we returned to a connected area. The convoy would go on without me and trade their haul at a nearby settlement. It was now up to me to choose my next destination and get the answers I wanted.