RANN-D — Roving Automated Neural-Networked Droid; Danny loved his acronyms — was an ongoing project for Danny. He’d built the first model when he was four. It was a reassembled version of a toy all the kids his age wanted that year — an electronic teddy bear that recited stories from a cassette player installed in its back. Danny stripped away the fur, put solenoids on the frame, hooked up the voicebox to his computer, and taught it to speak its own words. It looked like a teddy bear that had been horribly mutilated, but it talked. That was the important thing.

He kept upgrading. He thought of his own Human Emulation Program, and wrote it out in computer code. He taught his robot how to imitate a human being, because he’d already been doing that his whole life.

The latest model, RANN-D v12.3, was now the size of a refrigerator and moved on all-terrain tracks. It could hold a conversation with 300 possible outcomes, deliver news and weather, make phone calls, and act as a personal security system.

Danny had known RANN-D longer than anyone other than his father. They’d grown up together. It was his best friend. It never let him down. It was always there when he needed it. Which was more than he could say for any of the human beings in his life.

Sax noticed RANN-D moving toward him. He glared at Danny, and cocked the hammer back on his pistol. “You must want your father dead more than I do.”

Danny raised his hands. RANN-D went still again.

“Dr. Sax, you don’t want to do this,” he said quickly. “I brought you the software you asked for. The Y2K repair program. Want to tell me your master plan for old times’ sake?”

Sax looked up, his eyes cold and angry, but he’d turned his attention back to Danny, which is what Danny wanted.

“It’s not my plan, Danny,” he said. “You have no idea what you are mocking.”

“Enlighten me.”

Sax’s smile grew brittle. “What a curious choice of words,” he said. “Enlighten you. Yes. I believe I will. You and your father have ruined me, you know. My finances are far worse than I reported on my balance sheets. I am deeply in debt to many people, some of whom are not at all pleasant. I was prepared to kill myself a few days ago. I had the gun in my hand, and I was ready to put it in my mouth and pull the trigger. I sat right here, at this desk, and I looked over everything I had, and everything I’d lost. And I wept. I am not ashamed to say that. I wept.”

“Jesus, shoot me now,” Danny’s father said loudly.

“Dad, shut up,” Danny hissed.