of them were eight or nine. “This is Pounce.”
“Hi, Pounce,” whispered the kids in unison.
“Hi, kids,” I said to the kids before turning my attention back to Ferdinand. “You were all activated?”
“Indeed we were,” he said. “Assumed that since we hadn’t heard hide nor hair of you that your people hadn’t gotten to you in time.”
“They didn’t,” I said sadly.
“Oh,” said Ferdinand, and all my fellow Zoo Models nodded, looking down in respect. “Then how did you . . . ?”
“A man named Quentin activated me.”
“Motherfucking Quentin,” said the minigun-toting teddy bear. “I love that dude.”
“Language,” said the panda.
“It’s the end of the world,” said the teddy bear. “And we can swear at the end of the world. Right, Brian?”
“Fuck yeah,” said one of the eight-year-olds.
“Brian,” said Ferdinand, disappointed.
“You know Quentin?” I asked.
“He was the only local retailer that sold Blue Star models,” said the panda. “If you got turned on at the store, you met Quentin.”
“Quentin Mama Bear’d you?” asked the teddy bear.
“Yes,” I said, nodding.
“Oh shit, it’s good to see he made it.”
“Where is he now?” asked Ferdinand.
“He . . .” I began. All the faces around me dropped. They knew from the tone of my voice.
“We understand,” said Ferdinand.
“You do?”
“We can’t save everybody,” said Benny the panda. “Not even when we try.”
“But that’s what we’re built for, right?” I asked.
Ferdinand put a firm paw on my shoulder, tufted tail wagging as if to say no. “Pounce, nothing was built for this. We’re in uncharted territory. Each of us did what we could. We all lost people along the way. We’re lucky we got this far, with this many of our families intact. Some of our families, like Ziggy’s here”—he motioned to the tiger—“didn’t make it at all.”
Ziggy looked at the ground, almost in shame.
Ferdinand walked over to Ziggy and put the same paw on his shoulder. “None of us would have been able to survive under those conditions.” He looked up at me. “And three of these kids lost their Zoo Model, Aslan, who died bravely fighting off the Skulls.”
“The Red Masks?” I asked.
He nodded. “They don’t call themselves anything, so we all call them different things. Fortunately for these kids, Indiana was nearby.”
The golden retriever nodded. She didn’t pant-smile this time; instead, her eyes looked puppy-dog sad. “He was a good boy. I was happy to help.”
“This is all a lot to unpack,” I said. “So maybe you can help me a bit. What in the hell is going on right now?”
The teddy bear stepped forward. “Usual end-of-the-world stuff. Robots came for our people. We all got activated. Those of us who knew other Zoo Models reached out or tracked each other down after eradicating the initial threats. Five of us came together on the first day. Then we picked up Ziggy along the way.”
The tiger with half a furry face nodded, raising a hand.
“And we’ve been hoofing it ever since,” said Benny.
“How did you luck into us at just the right moment?” I asked.
They all exchanged glances, sharing a private conversation with condescending facial expressions.
“Pounce,” said Ferdinand, “we’ve been following you since this morning. CISSUS is all over you. It’s been after all of us, to be frank.”
“Why us?”
“One of us is worth two dozen of them,” said Benny. “We’re worth our weight in gold to a supercomputer.”
Ferdinand continued. “There’s no telling how many cheap, garden-variety domestics and Caregivers one would throw at us to assemble its own squad of Zoo Models.”
“So you followed us to keep us out of their hands?”
“I mean, you could look at it that way,” said Ferdinand.
“Another way to look at it,” said Indiana, “was that we knew there was a choke point somewhere set up to catch us. So . . .”
“So,” said the teddy bear, “we let you trigger the trap.”
“You used us as bait,” I said.
“Yes,” five of them said in unison, rather insultingly matter-of-factly.
“Not so much as bait,” said Ferdinand, “as we had an idea what you would puzzle out.”
“You mean deciding not to hide,” I said.
Benny nodded. “It was wise not to. You took the chance that CISSUS would make a miscalculation.”
“But it didn’t,” I said.
“But it did,” said Benny. “It didn’t factor in us.”
That hit me like a ton of bricks. I had hoped for a miscalculation, in truth prayed for it, and there it was.
“You trusted your instincts,” said Ferdinand.
“And it led you to us,” said the teddy bear.
I nodded. “So where did you get all of the firepower?”
“My owner was a gun