Proto pops Car’s doors open and we pile inside, a tangle of arms and legs and vacuum attachments. Rolling over rubble, we reverse out of the lab. Nathan shouts as we leave him behind, but I have learned that it is not always necessary to listen to everything people have to say.

We thunder down the corridor, fishtailing, smashing into walls, Proto honking and Car rarfing the whole time. It appears that Proto has accepted all liability for damages.

uniMIND workers and robots scatter as we make our way to the freight elevator, only to find it guarded by four robots. They look like Trashbot, only taller, heavier, with gun attachments on their arms instead of vacuum attachments.

“They won’t fire as long as Cog’s in the car,” Gina says. “He’s too valuable to damage.”

I say, “Thank you, Gina,” because it is standard to do so when one has received a compliment.

It turns out that her compliment is unfounded, as the security robots begin firing their weapons at us. Projectiles ping off Car’s surface. One of them puts a big spidery crack in the windshield. There is more honking and squealing tires as Proto spins around and zooms back down the corridor.

“Go left here,” Gina says when we reach a junction. Proto follows her direction. The corridor widens but comes to a dead end at a window.

Robots catch up to us, dozens of them, flying, rumbling on tank treads, all targeting us with lights and aiming their weapons at us.

ADA tightens her grip on her hockey stick. There are too many robots for even her to handle.

I try to reach out to them in the same way I did to the drones on the highway, but my thoughts seem confined to my own head. I see no purple threads of light. I feel no buzz. I detect no sense of cheesing.

We are trapped, and there is nowhere to go.

Proto honks.

He revs Car’s engine.

Without warning, he speeds ahead and crashes though the window.

We are on the eighteenth floor.

Chapter 21

I ATTEMPT A WORD PROBLEM to predict the outcome of Proto driving through an eighteenth-floor window, but I don’t know how fast we’re going or what our combined weight is. Also, all the screaming makes it hard to concentrate on math.

I believe we are all going to die.

But at least we will all die together.

I learn that the prospect of dying together gives me no comfort at all.

I am about to share all my thoughts and observations with Gina and my fellow doomed robots and perhaps even share one last interesting platypus fact when an alarming grinding noise comes from Car’s gearbox. Our descent slows. We are no longer falling. We are driving down the tower, Car’s tires gripping the side of the building.