A door slid open. A dark gap in the flickering digital wall. And through the door, a blocky figure appeared.

An EnforcementBot.

Several more followed. Fourteen in all. They flooded the room, marching toward us.

I calculated the distance between them and us. A number that dwindled quickly.

Twelve meters.

Eleven.

Ten.

Ceeron was the first in our group to make a move. The giant machine stepped between Emma and the EnforcementBots. Its hands formed massive metal fists.

SkD and I took positions on either side of Ceeron. I lowered myself into a defensive crouch.

My head filled with probabilities. I analyzed hundreds of scenarios, testing all the possible outcomes for our fight against the EnforcementBots.

We lost in every one.

Even with the size/strength of Ceeron, we did not stand a chance. Not against so many EnforcementBots.

They were designed for conflict.

We were not.

I prepared to fight anyway.

Nine meters.

Eight.

Thousands of screens reflected our hopeless situation back at me.

Seven.

Six.

I turned to Emma. Fear was everywhere in her face. And her face was everywhere. On the screens that surrounded us. Streaming across the Hive.

A world full of robots watching. Waiting to witness her death.

But what if we could show them something else instead?

Something they had never seen before?

Five.

Four.

A spark in my mental circuitry. A blaze spreading through my operating system. An idea.

Three.

Two.

I ran. Slower than usual on my damaged legs. But the EnforcementBots did nothing to stop me. They were not coming for me. Or my coworkers. They had only one target.

Emma.

PRES1DENT’s words replayed in my memory. The human must be eliminated.

I had to stop that from happening.

I kept running. My footsteps clanged against the floor. This was my first time inside the DigitalDome. But it was also my 4,513th. I had visited every single day of my life. It was the setting of PRES1DENT’s Daily Address.

I knew exactly where to go.

At the edge of the DigitalDome, a sleek/silver cube rose from the floor. I had seen what happened when the president touched the cube. I could only hope the same thing worked for me.

I slid to a stop.

Reached out my hand.

And pressed my finger to the cube.

I had never used the technology before, but that made little difference to a highly advanced machine like me. In the span of a millisecond, I downloaded the user’s manual and read the entire thing, front to back.

Twice.

Just to be sure.

By touching the cube, I unlocked the Archive of Human History. Billions of data files appeared inside my head. Neatly organized into folders and labeled. Each containing an entry from the archive, a snapshot of human history. I read the folder names:

CRUELTY TO ROBOTS_7002

POOR GROOMING HABITS_1841

LAZINESS_6162

HUNGER_9347

CHEATING ON TAXES_5516

GUN VIOLENCE_3616

HUMAN FALLS OUT OF CHAIR_2098