“Hey!” Nasir said. He ran to stand before the wave of incoming UXOs and waved his hands in desperation. “Stop! You can’t go this way!”

“Nasir!” Laila shouted. “Get away from there!”

“Go back!” Nasir shouted at the UXOs. “Turn away! I’m with the shurta!”

The UXOs rolled on. Nasir froze. They were coming towards him and they weren’t stopping and it was too late to run.

He closed his eyes.

Something plucked him and tossed him high in the air.

Nasir screamed.

“Is he always like that?” Esau said. He held Nasir gently in his palm.

Laila shook her head.

“He has his moments,” she mumbled.

“Huh,” the robot said. It put Nasir down gently on the ground.

“Well,” Esau said. “I can’t stop and chat all day, much as I’d like to. In fact, I can’t stop myself at all. Isn’t that funny? It’s like there’s suddenly a giant magnet in the city, and it’s pulling me inexorably unto itself. I felt it only once, but I never forgot it. Like a sweet and painful ecstasy from which it is impossible to part. I have been half whole all this time, and now I am myself again. Well, goodbye. I would shake your hands but they are rather small. Ma’a salama.”

And off it went, towards the city, joining the exodus of the others.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” Nasir said miserably. “And you know who’ll get blamed for this, don’t you? I will. I should have stopped them. Why are they attacking Neom?”

“I wouldn’t say they’re attacking Neom,” Laila said. She stared after the UXOs. “They seem pretty peaceful, for war machines. Almost like they’re going on some sort of pilgrimage.”

Nasir sighed. Every year Neom filled with pilgrims on the Hajj to Mecca, and at that time the number of tickets he had to give out for littering grew far too numerous.

“Pilgrims,” he muttered. “That’s even worse.”

“Come on,” Laila said. She got back in the car and waited for him behind the wheel. “We’re the shurta,” she said. “We keep the peace. Maybe we can hold them off at the city line.”

“What do robots dream about?” Nasir said. He climbed in next to her. Laila hit the accelerator and the car swerved, threw sand and dust, and began racing back to the city.

Laila said, “Maybe they dream of freedom.”

21. The March