Laura squeezed the clamp’s trigger, making the three fingers flex, making a clicking noise that was as loud as an atom bomb. The robot took a step forward, and she took a step back and hit something tall and hard. She was up against the computer cabinet with nowhere to go.
“Me and the doctor,” said the robot as it walked slowly forward, “we had this thing going on. Quite a plan, see. But, you know, things the way they is, it’s down to you and me now. I mean, I wouldn’t say no, right? Right. So here I am thinking, hell, we got a whole bundle of these babies, so why not, right?”
The robot raised the fusor in front of it, pointing the flat end of the cylinder directly at Laura. It took another step forward.
“Sure, why not,” said Laura, her voice barely a mumble.
Didn’t the Director see everything that was happening in the city? Was she watching now, from the Cloud Club, as her precious Project ran amok in the laboratory?
Of course she was. Laura felt her heart kick. This was part of it. A test of the fusor reactor. An experiment to be observed.
Laura shook her head. The robot took another step towards her.
“Screw you, bitch,” said Laura under her breath, and she powered forward, using the cabinet behind her as a springboard. Squeezing the trigger, she pushed the clamp forward as she moved, hoping that after dozens of installations she could estimate automatically the mating point of the clamp and the reactor in the robot’s chest. All it would take is one turn, just one turn to the left, not even a five-degree rotation, and the reactor would disconnect and she would save herself and maybe she would save the whole damn world.
The Project threw its arms up and leaned back – as though surprised – as she flew at it, and Laura wondered what the noise was, the sound that reverberated around the workshop. She looked up into the eyes of the robot, their red lights rocking back and forth in the sockets like a child’s broken toy, and she realized the sound was her, screaming in anger. She was up against the robot, its metal casing cold and hard, her fingernails trailing silently across the chest. She screamed and screamed again, raising her arm up, her yanked shoulder protesting at the weight of the clamp. Why was it so damn heavy?
The clamp slipped, and Laura tried again, this time tearing her eyes away from the robot’s pretend face to look and align the clamp. There wasn’t much time; any second now she’d be tossed like a sack of wheat clean across the laboratory.
A twist of the wrist, and the clamp still wouldn’t lock. The metal fingers slid across the glass port of the reactor, failing to find any slots at all. She twisted the other way, yelling in frustration.
Her cry died in her throat and she almost coughed. The fusor reactor, it was different. There were no slots in the rim for the clamp, nothing to grip on around the edge, no way of removing it, not by her. The clamp was redundant.
“Lady, please,” said the robot. “Have a little patience.”
Laura pushed away and let the clamp drop to the floor. She turned, desperate to make a getaway. There was no other option.
“It’s OK, I understand.” The robot grabbed Laura by the collar of her lab coat, lifting her until her feet left the floor. “Don’t worry about a thing. I got this honey. Power, I get it, I understand. And trust me, you wouldn’t believe what this thing can do.”
“What are you doing?” Laura struggled, but the robot’s grip was firm, her lab coat cutting into her armpits.
“You need an upgrade, that’s for sure. I tried it on old Philo but it didn’t take. But it’s OK – I know what I did wrong now.”
Laura shook her head, her eyes wide. Couldn’t the robot distinguish between living creatures and machines like itself?
“I can’t use the fusor,” she said, “I don’t need it!”
The robot almost tutted. Then it lowered her to the floor and pushed her hard against the computer cabinet with the end of the fusor reactor, squeezing the air out of her lungs. With the other hand it tore open the front of her coat, then her blouse underneath, then snapped the front of her bra off, exposing the pale skin over Laura’s sternum. The robot tilted its head, and moved the reactor,