only way we know we’re safe. For sure.”
“Pounce is safe!” said Ezra.
“Yeah, he got us here!” yelled Brian.
Hollis got down on one knee, getting eye level with the kids. “I’m sure he’s great. I’m sure all the bots you knew were great once. But then they weren’t. I’m afraid we just don’t know how long Pounce has left until he isn’t.” He looked up at me. “Pounce understands. Don’t you, Pounce?”
I nodded. He was right. What if I malfunctioned? What if CISSUS discovered I was alive and fully operational out here? I put them all at risk. Hollis knew what he was doing. “Yeah, Mr. Jasper is right.”
“No!” shouted Ezra as he threw his arms around me. “You said you’d never leave me!”
“And I meant it.” I pulled myself away from him, leaving both hands on his shoulders. “A few days ago, my biggest fear in the world was having to leave you. Then I found something even worse to be afraid of. If you stay with me, we’ll always be on the run, always be looking for food, always having to fight our way across a few city blocks, always having to hide just to sleep. You can have a life here. These people will keep you safe.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. But we have to believe in something. And I’m choosing to believe in this. A safe place at the end of the world.”
“But I don’t want you to go,” he said through tears.
“And I don’t want to go. But I have to.”
He stormed away from me, stomping as eight-year-olds do, but couldn’t commit to the bit. He turned immediately around and ran back, throwing his arms around me.
I looked up at Hollis as Ezra sobbed on my shoulder. “What do I do now? Where do I go?”
“Wherever you want, son. You’re free.” Then he looked down at Ezra. “But if you want to stay close”—he motioned to a distant limestone ridge—“you can go join the rest of them over there.”
I nodded. “You hear that, Ezra? I’ll be here, right over there if you ever need me.”
He pulled back, wiping the tears from his cheek. “I’ll come see you every day.”
“I’m afraid we can’t allow that,” said Hollis. “We already had a breach and . . . it wasn’t good. Once you’re in, you stay in. That’s the deal.”
Ezra looked at me.
“If you ever need me,” I said. “I’ll be right over there.”
He understood. He hugged me.
“Goodbye, Pounce.”
“Goodbye, buddy.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. And I always will.”
He cried. And if I could, I would have as well.
“One day,” I said, “you’re going to wonder if I did all this for you because I was programmed to or because I chose to. On that day, when you really start to question if this between us was real, I want you to remember that I told you it was. Because it is. You are the most special boy in the whole world to me, and you are all that mattered. Never forget that.”
“I won’t.”
Hollis looked around. “We can’t keep the kids out here much longer. Sun is getting mighty low.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “Well, kids, it’s been the treat of my life getting to know you all.”
Several of them descended on me for a group hug. As they pulled away, Brian came in for a personal hug. “Thank you, Pounce,” he said.
Then Lizzie hugged me. “Thank you, Pounce.”
Then Oscar hugged me. “Thanks, Pounce.”
Then Millie. And Magdalene. And Jesse. And Phillip. And Aubrey. And Caitlin. And Casper. And Zane. And Maddy.
Then, one by one, they all followed Hollis toward the ranch.
Ezra turned and waved goodbye, eyes red, but trying to remain stoic. He had his tribe now, and he needed to be strong for them. I waved back. And that was the last time we looked at one another.
Hollis gave me a gentlemanly nod, which I returned before walking slowly away.
As I walked across the open fields to the ridge beyond, I thought of Sylvia. Why she’d bought me, what she’d intended me to do. And I understood her sacrifice. I thought of Bradley and why he’d hidden in a bottle away from the horrors he tried to pretend didn’t lurk outside their door. I thought of Ariadne and what she was willing to do just to be rid of the yoke of servitude. And I thought of Maggie, who made one wrong choice, leaving me to make an awful one in turn.
And finally, I thought of what it