Wolfgang shakes his head. "Not who. What." That's a terrible thing to say about something that looks so human -- but it really isn't. None of them are; they have enough AI to pass as human to Sleepers, but no true sentience. All they do, all they are programmed to do, is kill.
The last time he saw one, he was ten.
He had been a child still, yes, but one with a decade of slowly amassing power behind him; they wouldn't have won in a fair fight. So they brought out the big guns, because removing his one source of power made him as helpless as any other child. At least an adult could have fought back -- could have used a weapon. He wouldn't have won then if not for something else's intervention.
"I can't fight that." There's fear in his voice. Everything scares him but he's willing to face it anyway, but this is something he knows if he goes up against directly, he will lose. And it won't be trying just to take him now; it'll be programmed to kill.
His eyes follow hers to the next building and he worries his lip as he considers it. It looks too far to jump, to him. Then again, falling and breaking his neck on the ground below is also probably a much kinder death than whatever that robot down there has to offer -- the robot that has stopped firing and is looking to climb up where they are. The blades in its hand make scaling the side of a building child's play. The whole thing shakes again as if a giant fist hit it.
Okay, so they have to move.
They can get from one building to another, that can't be as hard as it looks. After all, gravity is a force.
He's done it before, he remembers -- he was six and he took Safiya flying until Hassan saw them and freaked out. It hadn't been real flying anyway, more of a wobbly floating in air with the imprecision expected of a young child still developing motor control, but Hassan was a fun-ruiner who worried too much and neither of them wanted to hear him screaming at them from the ground, so they'd come down.
If he could just remember how he'd done it. It can't be as simple as just stepping off the ledge and relying on faith, trust and pixie dust.
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The last time he saw one, he was ten.
He had been a child still, yes, but one with a decade of slowly amassing power behind him; they wouldn't have won in a fair fight. So they brought out the big guns, because removing his one source of power made him as helpless as any other child. At least an adult could have fought back -- could have used a weapon. He wouldn't have won then if not for something else's intervention.
"I can't fight that." There's fear in his voice. Everything scares him but he's willing to face it anyway, but this is something he knows if he goes up against directly, he will lose. And it won't be trying just to take him now; it'll be programmed to kill.
His eyes follow hers to the next building and he worries his lip as he considers it. It looks too far to jump, to him. Then again, falling and breaking his neck on the ground below is also probably a much kinder death than whatever that robot down there has to offer -- the robot that has stopped firing and is looking to climb up where they are. The blades in its hand make scaling the side of a building child's play. The whole thing shakes again as if a giant fist hit it.
Okay, so they have to move.
They can get from one building to another, that can't be as hard as it looks. After all, gravity is a force.
He's done it before, he remembers -- he was six and he took Safiya flying until Hassan saw them and freaked out. It hadn't been real flying anyway, more of a wobbly floating in air with the imprecision expected of a young child still developing motor control, but Hassan was a fun-ruiner who worried too much and neither of them wanted to hear him screaming at them from the ground, so they'd come down.
If he could just remember how he'd done it. It can't be as simple as just stepping off the ledge and relying on faith, trust and pixie dust.