I hacked mine, I said. You’d be free of them. You could dump your armor, get on a transport. This had started as a way to distract it, but the more I talked the more I wanted it to say yes. I have IDs, a currency card I can give you. Still no response. Diving around hauler bots and dodging projectiles, it was hard to come up with a decent argument for free will. I’m not sure it would have worked on me, before my mass murder incident. I didn’t know what I wanted (I still didn’t know what I wanted) and when you’re told what to do every second of your existence, change is terrifying. (I mean, I’d hacked my governor module but kept my day job until PreservationAux.) What do you want?

I suddenly got: I want to kill you.

Okay, I was a little offended. Why? You don’t even know me. I dropped the earlier version of Deploy&Deflect and the haulers and lifters all jolted into motion again. It would buy me some time, until the Combat SecUnit realized it was just a half-assed version of the same code. I figured I had less than thirty seconds.

It knew I’d been using my drones as cover and so I sent them whipping around toward stationside as if I was coming from that direction. I bolted toward dockside instead, grabbed the back of a hauler bot, took manual control of it, and rode it straight toward the Combat SecUnit. I braced myself low along the side and got ready to take the shot.

I got drone video of Combat SecUnit turning toward my decoy drones. This was going to work!

It absolutely did not work.

At the last instant Combat SecUnit whipped back toward me and fired two high-intensity bursts. I shoved off the hauler bot just as the top half of it blew apart. I hit the ground and rolled, catching shrapnel impacts and firing almost randomly. I got upright and dodged behind a loadlifter as more shots slammed into the floor. All the haulers and loadlifters slowed as the Combat SecUnit hacked Deploy&Deflect again.

Reaction 5: I can’t keep this up.

I couldn’t win one-on-one against a Combat SecUnit under these conditions, which meant GrayCris would win, and that thought was a hell of a lot more painful than me getting turned into spare parts and discarded neural tissue. I didn’t want to fucking lose.

Over the feed, Mensah shouted, Now! It’s opening now!

Drone cam showed the barrier section had just started to slide up. I pulled my drones around me like a shield and bolted for it.