Page 48 of Redstone
“I know that, and he’s put one of your fellow guards in the damn tank, so let’s call it even, huh? He’ll be fine for another few hours without you, Sinclair.”Cray closed the channel, and Robbie nodded internally.
He hadn’t actually expected to be allowed to go. It was probably important that henotget to go to the infirmary right now so that he couldn’t mess up Wyl’s timeline. But Robbie was anxious, angry, and so annoyed that Wyl hadn’t found another way to get himself to medical. And where had ZeeBee been? The bot was supposed tokeepthis shit from happening.
Robbie took a deep breath and loosened up the fists that he didn’t remember making. ZeeBee was Wyl’s creation; whatever commands Robbie gave him could be countermanded, he knew that. And it was important that Wyl get to the infirmary on schedule so he could meet with Tamara. The facts were there, but the rage still percolated under his skin like sulfur, staining his movements with curt anger and turning his glances into glares. Krighton took one look at him and didn’t make eye contact again.
“Check the main screen.”Cray’s voice sounded in the room, not bothering with comms this time.“Does it look like Rory is getting up to some shit to you?”
Robbie obediently pulled up the main camera view of the Pit, careful not to audibly grind his teeth as he did so. It didn’ttake more than a second to hone in on what Cray was talking about. The man might be an arrogant jackass, but he had the experience to know when a situation was about to go bad. And this one … well. It was already bad.
It wasn’t that Rory was actively doing anything. All the action was centered on two other people: one of Klia’s lieutenants that Robbie thought was called Pippa, and one of Rory’s newest followers, a flat-faced meteor miner who had been convicted of mass murder for taking out his own crew after they found a huge deposit of pure tungsten during one of their explorations. He’d made a lot of money fast but not enough to cover his tracks.
Pippa was yelling at the miner as she stood in front of a smaller girl, who looked like she’d been roughed up. The miner yelled right back, and when Pippa finally threw the first punch, Robbie wasn’t at all surprised to see the man dive into the fight with abandon. He got an arm around Pippa’s head and torqued her until she was bent over, then began to pummel blows against her head.
Blood spattered onto the floor as he connected over and over, but his beating was cut short when the small girl leapt onto his back, driving a shiv made from what was probably a bot part down into the space between his shoulder blade and collarbone. He roared and dropped Pippa, who shook her head blearily before trying to get back up on her feet. More of Klia’s girls were already coming to their aid, while Rory—
He just watched. He was sitting at a table not a meter away from the fight, and he wasn’t doing anything. Klia’s folks would fight sometimes without her say-so, but Rory only let his people get away with that when hewantedthem to. Which meant that he was deliberately allowing the fight to go on. He didn’t say anything when another of his guys grabbed the girl around her waist and threw her off, then was tackled by Pippa, who’d foundher fire again despite her broken, bloody face. This one-on-one fight was fast becoming a brawl.
“Fuck, the last thing we need is to deal with a bunch of body-bag forms today,”Cray said with a sigh.“I’m still not caught up on the datawork from the last round of killings. I’m sending in a patrol. You two are going in at the back to make sure no one takes liberties with the bots.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Krighton said, sounding like he’d just bitten the end of his tongue. “It’s one human per every patrol; that’s not enough bots to cover us! Why don’t you just gas the place?”
“Because half the bots are down for repairs, and you two are right fuckin’ there! Now get your tac gear on and get ready to go in two minutes.”
Robbie immediately went for the panel that held the tactical armor. As soon as Krighton had mentioned gassing the place, he knew they had to move fast because probably sooner rather than later, the whole damn prison would be gassed unconscious. He didn’t want to be in the Pit when that happened. He threw a helmet and expandible chest plate at Krighton, who was still sulking. “Get dressed.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Put on the fucking armor, or I’ll haul you in behind me without it, and we’ll see which one of us gets called out as an easy target,” Robbie said briskly.
Krighton took the gear and started to jerk it on, glowering the whole time. “You’re a mean son of a bitch, you know that?”
“Do you want to make something of it right now?” Robbie took a spark baton out and pressed his palm to the pressure plate on the handle. It automatically coded itself to respond to him only, and he followed it up with a few handheld gas buttons that he could throw if someone got too close. Lastly, he activated thedefensive shield on his armor, and a wave of electricity briefly flared over the surface. “Let’s go.”
The bots were already outside the Ready Room’s door. Robbie let them lead the way, and in under a minute, they were inside the Pit.
Gawking prisoners scattered like cockroaches at the first sign of light. The bots rolled directly into the fight, which had grown to over ten people since Robbie had last glanced at the view screen. He and Krighton let them do most of the dirty work, only intervening when it looked like someone was going to try peeling a part off one of them.
“Status report,” he asked the patrol leader once the last of the fighters was pulled away. The Pit had gone eerily quiet.
“One human dead, two humans critical, four in need of Regen total,” the bot recited.
“Then let’s—”
Suddenly a siren began to blare. Red-and-yellow lights flashed as knockout gas began to jet from the air ducts.
“Fuck,” Krighton breathed. “Fuck.” He left the line of bots and ran for the door out of there, but his print wouldn’t open it. “Cray, let us out!” The door didn’t move. “Cray!”
“I can’t, the security system won’t let me override the door’s controls during an emergency! You’re gonna have to … have … you … and Sincla …”
As Robbie’s knees hit the ground, he figured that, yeah, there was somewhere his day could go that was worse than learning Wyl had been hurt. And he was about to discover what it was.
***
When Robbie’s brain came back online, the first thing he did was force his eyes to stay closed and listen. Just listen and evaluate. He knew where he was: the gas knocked you out, but it didn’tusually damage neural pathways enough to slow you down. He let his body rest lax against the gritty, cold floor of the Pit and listened to whether or not he was ahead of the curve or behind it. He really fucking hoped he was ahead.
The only other person he could hear was … Krighton, mumbling on the other side of the room. Okay, that made sense. They hadn’t been gassed before; the compound didn’t affect them as badly as people who had been affected multiple times. Robbie opened his eyes and pushed slowly to his hands and knees, making sure he wasn’t going to fall over before he got to his feet. The bots they’d brought in with them had all gone into standby mode as they always did when voice commands ceased for more than five minutes.
“Activate,” Robbie said hoarsely. Four green eyestrips lit up simultaneously.
