Page 143 of Dustwalker

He felt as though both an immense weight was pressing down on him and dark waters were rising around him, felt as low and battered as the scrap littering the dust.

He’d vowed to protect Lara, and he’d thought he had. But he realized now that it was more than safeguarding her body. So many of the wounds she’d suffered in her life had been dealt to her mind, to her heart, and had left scars that would never show on the surface.

Perhaps helping administer the drug to her yesterday had protected her body from physical harm, but he’d inflicted harm of a different sort by doing so. She’d saidno, and he’d ignored it.

Ronin dropped heavily onto his knees. That weight continued to bear down, threatening to crush him. But he could not take his eyes off Lara.

What have I done?

Taking her hand, he drew it close and pressed his lips to her palm.

Hadn’t he just recently learned what had been done to him? Whatever life he’d led before the Blackout, before the war, had been taken from him without his say. His body had been altered, his memories erased. His choice had been taken away from him, and he would never know what had been lost in the process.

With that revelation so fresh, how could he have robbed Lara of any choice, no matter how small? How could he not have seen the parallels?

The ability to decide for herself was one of the few things Lara had left, and he’d taken it. He, the one she trusted most. The one she loved.

A tremor coursed through him, carried on a wave of that sparking, unpleasant sensation, that quivering in his coding. That…wrongness.

He pressed her hand to his cheek, holding it tight. “With every core in my processors, every millimeter of my wiring, and every bit of metal and plastic in my casing, I am sorry, Lara.”

She was quiet as she looked at him, her tears falling as her lower lip trembled. When she gave her hand a tug, he was reluctant to release her, needing that contact, needing her, but he let her go. Except she didn’t pull away from him. Her fingers lovingly caressed his cheek before feathering through his hair.

“I’m human. I’m not always going to make the best choices, I understand that. But if you disagree, Ronin, talk to me. Guide me to a better choice, but please…don’t take it away.”

“Never,” he vowed vehemently. “Never again.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Ronin leaned against a concrete wall in the main chamber, watching the activity around him. Though he’d logged two hundred and fifteen unique faces in his memory since arriving at the base, he struggled to estimate the number of inhabitants, especially with so many areas being off limits to him.

The facility was well maintained, but total cleanliness wasn’t possible. People lived here. They worked and interacted in these chambers and corridors. Conversations were frequent and typically amiable, and children’s laughter echoed off the walls, weaving above, below, and throughout the steady buzz of activity.

Cheyenne starkly contrasted with this place. The buildings and grounds of the bot district were impeccably maintained despite limited resources. Every house had intact windows, freshly painted siding, and precisely trimmed lawns, hedges, and trees. The streets were free of debris. But there was no laughter, no warmth. Many of the residences within Cheyenne’s wall were occupied, but the bot district was as cold and silent as a tomb.

The slums outside the wall represented a different extreme. The ramshackle structures had been pieced together with scrap materials, many of them looking like they’d collapse under the weight of anything more substantial than a passing glance. Humans stared out from the doorways and windows with dull, hopeless eyes, surviving either out of spite or habit.

It was a place of squalor and desperation, filled with people but devoid of life.

Laughter caught Ronin’s attention, and he shifted his optics to a group of ten children following a tall bot with a boxy torso.KICK MEhad been written on the bot’s back with chalk.

At their laughter, the bot halted. The children failed to stifle their giggles as they also stopped.

Slowly, the bot’s head turned around to look down at them with circular optics. “The tone of your amusement indicates mischief. Please explain so we may proceed to class immediately.”

Ronin couldn’t be sure if it was because of the way the bot’s head turned, the tone of its voice, or how it looked with its head backwards, but the children burst into fits of laughter. The bot’s head remained in place as its body ponderously tottered around to face them.

“Explain. Or I will be forced to issue detention slips to all of you.”

Another bot—a sleeker model, but not a synth—stopped behind the teacher. It tilted its head, and after a moment’s pause, raised its foot and kicked the teacher’s backside.

Ronin couldn’t hold back a smile as the children laughed uncontrollably. A few of them doubled over, holding their stomachs, and one even fell to the floor.

The teacher rocked slightly as the other bot kicked it again. Slowly, the teacher spun its head to face behind. “You are disrupting the education of my students.”

“I am only following instructions,” the other bot replied.

“Desist your behavior or I will issue you a detention slip.”