When we check the tool kit in Car’s trunk, it contains a UM-2112 power drill with a complete set of drill bits. This is the very same drill that Nathan required to open my skull, that the Artificial Intelligence Neuroscience Lab had loaned to the Automotive Robotics Lab. I have not forgotten being strapped to a chair, helpless while Nathan and the other uniMIND workers discussed removing my brain, and I am not entirely happy to have found the drill.

Car, however, seems pleased. “It’s good to be useful.” She adds a happy little beep from her horn for emphasis.

ADA inserts a bit and pulls the trigger. The drill whines and the bit whirs. “I will remove your brain first,” she says, coming at me.

She looks like something from a horror movie.

A horror movie is a movie you watch very late at night when Gina is asleep and you are supposed to be asleep as well, but afterward there is no way you will ever be able to sleep again even if Gina fixes the bugs in your sleep mode, and when she finds out you watched Slaughter Camp 15: The Slaughtering she changes the settings on the TV.

“No, ADA, get away from my head. You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“None of us do, Cog. But it’s necessary to fulfill my plan.”

She does something that makes the drill spin faster and whiz louder and takes another step toward me.

Proto rarfs with curiosity.

“If there is any waste, I will dispose of it,” declares Trashbot.

“There will be no waste,” I tell him. “Give me the drill, ADA. I think I know how to do this.”

She releases the trigger, and the drill stops spinning. “When did you learn how to remove brains?”

“At the campus, when they tried to remove mine. I remember looking at a diagram of my head with all the access points and connections shown.” I grab a hunk of my hair and pull it to show the tiny depressions high on my forehead. “See? These are the screws that hold the top of my skull on. And underneath there are sixteen cables connecting my brain to my power source and servo functions. I think we all have similar structures.”

ADA blinks, processing.

“Do it quickly,” she says, handing me the drill.

Chapter 17

EVERYTHING IS VERY STRANGE. I peer up at my friends through towering blades of grass. ADA is a giant, gazing across the lake at the island in the mist. Trashbot is enormous, too, but more than his size, I am overwhelmed by the smell of decaying biofuel wafting from his central waste container. I have never noticed these odors before, but my olfactory sensors are so much more sensitive now.

I want to tell my friends what I am experiencing and ask them if everything is strange for them as well.

“Rarf,” I say.

Which is not what I meant to say.