Stanley Duncan's Robot: Genesis by David III (korean ebook reader .txt) 📕

Dan grabbed a wrench and threw it to the other end of the room. When Brutus charged after the sound, Dan tiptoed away. Creeping into the room where he had found Teddy — who, hopefully, was en route to the safe house with all the androids — Dan saw the blood on the ground next to the blowtorch. It made him sick to think about the kind of person who would do this. But in his mind, he knew the answer. Something was fundamentally wrong with this world. An inescapable truth was slowly revealing itself to Dan, a void too terrifying to accept. Like flawed code that was impossible to force into correct functionality — or perhaps it was his understanding of reality that was ill-conceived. But now was not the time to dawdle on such thoughts. Returning with the blowtorch, he saw Brutus scraping the paint out of his eye with a knife. “Oh, crap.”

The android walked toward him, tossing the knife to the side.

It was too late for Dan. There was no way he was going to get this juggernaut to stay still while he immolated his head. Watching Brutus raise the war-hammer high in the air, time slowed down, just as it had when Dan had fallen from the tree after kicking the ball down. He could feel the calculations searching, scrambling. What were his options? What were his options? What were —

A sharp sound blasted through the air.

Brutus fell to his knees.

Teddy stood behind him with a cattle prod tied to his stub. “Don’t just stand there, you idiot. Melt his damn face off!”

Nauseous vapors wafted into the air as Brutus’s skin burned away and steel melted to the floor. Dan tried to pry the war-hammer from his hands, but the vise-like grip was unbreakable. With his heart slamming in his chest and his body about to collapse, Dan took the blowtorch and cut away at Brutus’s shoulder.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Making sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.” Dan burnt through the flesh and into the heat-resistant metal, turning it a bright orange.

Teddy waved his stubs. “You’re disgusting.”

Shame filled Dan. Not even a quarter inch into the cut, he dropped the blowtorch and stared at the forearm-less half-man.

“I’m joking. Maim the hell out of that tin can.”

“No, let’s go.” Dan gently rubbed his own chest, and his broken ribs shifted painfully. The room spun as he stumbled toward the door.

“Here, lean on me.”

Dan wrapped his arm around him. “Thanks. How did you manage to tie the cattle prod on?”

“Maple did it. She’s worthless in a fight. Couldn’t protect me when I was about to get beaten to death. It’s against her mandate. But she has absolutely no issue with tying a deadly weapon to my stub.”

“Good to have principles.” Dan hardly knew what he was saying. His external system was shutting down, and he felt himself falling into a pit of nothingness, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Teddy kicked the front door of the Coliseum open. “What will we do with this truckload of spare parts?” He was acting tough, but Dan could feel Teddy’s body trembling.

“I’ve set the destination to an abandoned factory in New Hampshire. You’ll be able to recover and get patched up there. Everyone will.” His words came out mumbled. He wasn’t even sure he was making sense anymore.

“Not me. I’ve got unfinished business.”

“I get that you want to kill someone. But please reconsider. You can hardly walk up those stairs — let alone have a life-or-death fight. Rest, and let Maple repair you.”

“I managed to save your ass.”

“Thank you,” said Dan, fighting the urge to pass out — and failing. When he woke up, Maple was loading him into the van. Looking to his side, he was grateful to see Teddy still there.

“You overdid it in there.”

“There was no other way.” Dan looked at Teddy’s dismembered body. “What happened to you in the Coliseum was terrible, and I have no doubt there is much more that I don’t know.”

“My father, Sergeant Brad Jenkins, happened. He’s hated me and my family for as long as I can remember. He took my body away from me, and when I got a new one, he took half of that, too.”

“Why now?”

“Because he hates me.”

“It didn’t have anything to do with you trying to get revenge, did it?”

Teddy sneered. “I did what I needed to do.”

Dan leaned on the seat in front of him as the van drove toward the exit. It had been a long day, and he didn’t want to fight anymore — physically, emotionally, spiritually. He wanted peace, and the world needed it, too. “It’s not just him who hates us. Fear and hatred are spreading, and it will spell disaster for everyone. Hatred needs to end. Humanity’s war against us needs to end. We need a new police force that will look after our interests. We need Peacekeepers.”

“We don’t need peace — we need fewer pathetic cowards. If someone hurts you, kill them. That’s what these AI need to learn. If they did, there wouldn’t be any problems.”

The van stopped at a gate.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” said Dan. “I see the logic, and I have felt anger inside of myself telling me to kill.”

“Then you better listen to it while you still can. If I had killed Brad, none of this would have happened.”

Dan shook his head. “This may sound strange, but I believe there is a deeper reason why we must not listen to it. It may be that our lives here are not quite what they seem and that our true purpose in this Earthly realm is quite far from what we have been led to believe.”

“Then you’re stupid.” Teddy looked at the gate. “What’s taking so long? Ram it.”

“The van won’t break the law.”

Teddy screamed at Maple to move it, and she quickly got out.

“For someone so cold, I find it interesting that you have kept such an old-model android around.”

“That