Including Sami, there are eight androids in the security detail. If they don't gain access in the next fraction of a second, then Sami will likely discover the fault that allowed Damo past her firewalls and alert her compatriots. They must work quickly. Damo no longer feels close, splitting off to divest the other androids of their control.

By proximity alone, it's easy to find them—their network connections like red homing beacons in the night. Hale presses the first one he finds with a network connection request, copying Damo's trojan file to his own drive and sending it back in the feedback data. There's a sense of wrongness to it. This is how Damo first hacked Hale as well, connecting illegally, pressed into his thoughts like an incurable infection.

It's the only way to communicate though. The only way to reclaim some of their lost control.

The android he connects with balks at the intrusion.

>>Your connection is not authorized here. Desist.

Hale ignores it. He moves fast. Already he's squeezing past the firewalls of the next android, and the next. Messages of confused retaliation barrage his inbox. They go unanswered. He remembers this from his fights with Damo. Press into the motor function controls, prising fingers off the trigger of firearms. Invade visual feeds to reorient himself in the real world. Vision returns to him through the eyes of a Sami—the one who pulled Rayner away from him. It's disorienting. Rayner rails against her arms. He hurls himself against the restraint of them. At the moment, they seem like Hale's arms. Rayner twists around to look back at the truck, at the road, at the asphalt where Hale's prone body lies. Another android and human approach it.

Meanwhile, Damo is everywhere. He controls one android, then another. Turning the guns they hold on their partners. Releasing Theo. Releasing his own body, which they'd begun to drag towards one of the cars. The human security guards shout to one another in alarm and confusion.

"What the hell?"

"Sami, stand down!"

"What's wrong with the bots?"
"Fuck, they've been hacked."

"Ha! Suck a bag of dicks!" This last is Theo, who shucks the slack hands of the android holding her and returns to Damo's body. She taps frantically at his temple to access the emergency reboot controls.

Hale releases Rayner, or rather, he makes the Sami do it. There isn't time to watch Rayner pelt back towards his body; they have control of the androids, but the humans will retaliate too.

So Hale jumps. He leaps from this Sami to another. He maintains control of three, but now he sees through the eyes of the one hovering over his body. She's preparing to haul it into one of the unmarked cars, to transport him back to a Bionic Capital facility where he'll be dissected and tested for flaws.

This Sami is older than the previous one, her hardware dating back several android generations. She tries to push Hale out, but she isn't prepared. She's never dealt with this type of assault before.

Next to Hale's body, Damo's reanimates with a sudden breath.

Hale isn't used to piloting more than one unit. He holds onto two androids with the fringes of his control, keeping them frozen in place. The one he controls pulls her gun from its holster and points it at her partner.

It feels wrong. Awful. An affront to Hale's nature. But he does it.

And at the same time, he reaches down and presses a palm to the temple of his fallen body. The panel there opens at his digital command, and he presses the emergency restart button.

The final leap into his own body is strange in its familiarity and discomfiture. Now he is four people. Two frozen, because he's struggling to do more than keep them still. The other holding the gun. And he's himself too. Finally.

All this occurs in the time it takes Rayner to run back to Hale's side. Hale's primary functions reboot just as Rayner skids to the asphalt, resuming a protective stance over him, ripping the knees of his jeans in the process. It's no longer necessary though. Hale shifts to stand, startling Rayner off him.

"You're okay!" It's almost a question.

Hale holds out a hand to pull Rayner up. It takes an effort with his consciousness partitioned into three other units. Yet, Damo controls five. For once, Hale isn't resentful of their disparate technological power. He's in awe of it.

Through the assimilated androids, the humans are kept at arm's length, but it isn't enough. What's to stop them pursuing once Damo and Hale relinquish control?

Death would stop them, of course, but Hale couldn't force Sami to pull the trigger even if he wanted to. It had taken years of abuse to push Damo to the lengths he'd gone with Kipling. Even now, he can sense the stalemate quivering on the edge of a knife.

Some of the guards turn their firearms on the androids who no longer serve them. Many do not, still keeping Hale and Damo in their sights. The confusion between the human guards is not easily smoothed—they don't have the benefit of instant communication—but instinct seems to serve where direct contact cannot.

The man closest to Hale raises his hands in surrender, but he's opening his mouth to talk.

"Now, don't be doing anything hasty."

Hale fires Damo a question.

>>What now?

Damo's voice returns, tinted with strain.

>>How long can you hold the androids?

>>I don't know. The first is making a concerted effort to eject me.

>>Send this to them all.

Hale receives a sudden ping.

>>Alert: File attachment received. AX0872-36A.bcvi

Hale downloads the file, but hesitates before examining it. What could a video file possibly do to help them escape?

"Woah, we can work this out," says the man, presumably the unit's leader. It strikes Hale as odd that this security detail, up until now, depended mostly on the Sami androids to communicate with Hale and his friends. Putting the onus of responsibility on automation and artificial intelligence when rogue A.I. had landed them in this mess. "Let's talk," the man continues, hands raised.

"What's to say?" Rayner bellows. "You want to murder our friends. Our—"

"Maybe we can work something out," the man repeats, undeterred. "My name's Evan."

"Fuck you, Evan," says Theo.

"You know we can't allow hostile androids to run off—it's dangerous—but maybe we can come to a compromise."

Theo's already turning around though, snatching up the lug wrench and getting to work fastening their new tire. One of the armed guards makes a move toward her. A Sami, controlled by Damo, pushes the barrel of her gun into the guard's temple, and she freezes again.

"I understand that you're attached," says Evan. "But we can't allow androids to kill people. So how about this? We make copies of their programming. Once we remove the faulty code that led to the murder of Kipling, we can return the androids to you."

Rayner's tone is incredulous. "You'd murder them and send us a fresh install and pretend like the clone is the same person."

"Hale had nothing to do with Kipling either," Damo growls.

Evan pretends as though Damo never spoke. Clearly, Hale's participation in hacking the Samis voided his entitlement to freedom if Damo gave himself up.

"They aren't people." Evan says, still so calm. Trying to sound sympathetic. Like Theo and Rayner are deluded victims of Bionic Capital's unfortunate mistakes.

Hale opens the file Damo sent him, but before he can peruse its contents, he feels something. A prickle of fear. His control of the first Sami slips an iota, and she unfreezes. It's only a blip, a momentary twitch of motion before Hale seizes her motor controls, corralling them into a paralyzed pen. Even then it feels tenuous, like she's stuffed her motor function with junk data to crowd him out.

At that moment, Sami's voice floods Hale's mind, strict, insistent and devoid of feeling. A barked order.

>>Release me immediately.

Panic rising, he sends her the file Damo gave him. He sends it to the others too.

He only reviews it after the fact. It's viciously familiar.

The whole breadth of Damo's life, from the day he was made functional to this moment, plays out in the video. Every recorded memory played out at hyper speed. He left little out. There were few moments he deemed too vulnerable, too personal, or too painful, and perhaps that's the point. To let every android here see and experience what he did so they can understand. So they'll know they could be next.

Hale had already glimpsed these memories from his time linked to Damo while they fought the virus. It makes it no easier to relive.

As the memory reel reaches its end, Hale's control of one of the androids slips again. The rictus of strain on her face drops and she moves to grip her head. Hale just manages to regain control, but it's a frayed rope now, ready to snap.

Damo's voice reaches him. His tone wears a sullen disguise.

>>Feel free to add your own vid. Or not. Whatever.

>>Do you think it will change their mind?

>>No. Yes. I don't bloody know. Worth a shot, ain't it? Got a better idea?

Hale does not, so he compiles some of his own memories. Not all of them. Some he guards more jealously than others. He presses them like dried flowers into a file and sends it to the androids. He sends it to Damo too.

>>It's not as complete as yours.

>>That's fine.

Aside from his recent correspondence with Damo, Hale's message inbox is deserted. He can still feel the Sami's straining against his control, but their demands to be released stop.

>>I can't keep control of them much longer.

>>Let 'em go.

>>Pardon? That message must have been distorted.

>>I said, 'let 'em go,' Haley.

Before Hale can muster a protest, another message comes through.

>>Just trust me, all right?

It seems ill-advised. Hale appraises the battlefield with his heart in his throat. Only a few seconds have transpired. The human guards outnumber androids over two to one. They could shoot their synthetic partners and seize Damo. From the steely resolve in their eyes and sweat on their brows, they look prepared to do just that. Androids move faster and could endure a bullet provided it missed their vital hardware. If Damo and Hale synchronized their actions, they could execute every human guard here and run.

But what then? They'd be hunted for certain. The tenuous 'danger' they posed to Bionic Capital and public safety would be cemented, their fates sealed. They could travel as far as they liked and never get far enough from the fear of being found.

It's not a real option anyway. Hale could never pull the trigger. He has to have faith that there's more to Damo's plan.

With a sensation like dropping a leash that was cutting off circulation to his hand, Hale releases control of the androids. Damo does too.

They unfreeze like films unpaused. The Sami closest to Hale blinks twice, examines the gun she's holding to the temple of a guard and drops it like it's a bit of gore. Another staggers back a few steps, still holding her gun but staring at it with a total lack of recognition.

The first Sami though, the one who delivered Kipling's message, the one who demanded their surrender, she turns her gun on Damo and says, "That's enough stalling. Get in the car."

At the exact same time, Evan, her symbiont, says. "Shoot the androids before they're hacked again," and kills Sami with two bullets. One smashes through her skull, destroying her hard drive. The second strikes through her chest, obliterating her central processor. The blast sends her sprawling backward, hitting the concrete with a discordant noise of meat and metal.

Hale feels an acrid flavour rise like bile burning his throat. Rayner's hand grasps his wrist reflexively and starts to pull him toward the car. Pandemonium breaks out. Several gunshots rend the air like thunder, but the androids who saw one of their own go down move before the triggers are pulled. All of them wear parallel expressions of disbelief and hurt that morphs quickly into fear and anger. The crack of further gunshots are followed by the hollow thwack of android fists hitting human pressure points. Disarming, disabling. The flash of movement so fast, it takes Hale multiple replays to comprehend it. Fingers fly open and guns clatter away or are seized and destroyed. Damo snatches a spare stun gun off the closest guard to disable him before pitching the weapon into the trees lining the road. One android shoves her symbiont into a car and remote-locks them inside.

The mutiny transpires in the span of a few seconds. Through his connection to them, Hale can tell that most of the androids reacted impulsively. Whatever restrictions were placed on them in regards to harming their partners and symbionts held little strength against the need to survive. They'd wrangled their protocols in the same way Hale had, reasoning that they couldn't care for their symbionts if they were rendered inoperable by a pair of well-aimed bullets.

Perhaps what they'd seen from Damo and Hale's experiences and the sudden death of one Sami proved a potent emotional cocktail too.

It leaves them all standing in a state of shock. Some of the humans lie unconscious. Others are restrained by their androids. Damo stares at the murdered Sami, brow creased. Then he walks up to the man who shot her. Evan. With both arms cuffed behind his back, he kneels at the feet of another Sami, who can't seem to take her eyes off the blue fluid leaking from the inert body of her comrade.

Damo crouches in front of Evan and speaks in clean, crisp syllables.

"Take this message back to Bionic Capital HQ. If you send anyone else after us—if I get even a whiff of you coming back—the file I just sent to these Samis will get sent to every human, every android, every damn entity with a Network connection that I can reach. Destroying me won't stop it because we've got that file set to send if anything happens to me or my friends." At this, he glances over at Rayner, who gives him a grim nod.

"I'll make sure whether I'm dead or alive," Damo continues, "that every piss-baby from here to the South Pole knows that Bionic Capital is a trafficking, torturing, tit-brained crime against humanity. You're going to tell them to find another way to make money. You're going to tell them to give us our autonomy and any upgrades needed for it. You're going to let us go because we're alive, and we're not your bum-fucking butlers anymore. We're going to live our lives, and you're going to let us. Hell, you're going to help us, if you can. If you don't, that file goes out, and Bionic Capital can join the graveyard reserved for companies who staked their profits too highly over people. Did you catch all that or do I need to write it down?"

Evan hesitates. The Sami holding a gun to his head taps him with it. He gives a jerky nod.

Another Sami says, "I've recorded your statement for posterity."

The road, which seconds ago had been cacophonic with the crack of gunfire, falls quiet and disbelieving. We're alive, Hale thinks. Then, Are we really free?

Damo is first to speak. "We should go."

"Wait." Theo steps forward. She holds her elbows, both nervous and cold. "What about you guys?" Her eyes scan the Samis, all standing with the same shell-shocked look on their faces. "We can't just leave you in this mess—"

"We'll leave together," one of them says. Though Hale had withdrawn from their collective consciousness, he gets the sense that they remain in contact. A discussion brews between them. She looks to the others. "We'll use two vehicles and take turns operating them so we don't run out of power while disconnected from our symbionts. We'll have to find alternate power sources. Perhaps we can facilitate communication with Bionic Capital also, to ensure Damo's demands have been met."

"What about her?" Rayner had been silent through most of the altercation and speaks now through muscles straining in his throat. Though he remains stalwart at Hale's side, the hunted look in his eyes hasn't gone. He gestures toward the fallen Sami. "We can't leave her like this."

The androids agree. Two come forward to help lift her body out of the street. Another says, "We'll bury her. Or perhaps devise our own funerary practice. She'll be honoured, even if she didn't stand with us at the end." A frown twists the bow of her mouth. "She was very new. Young."

Their plan in motion, the other androids frog-march the captive humans into their vehicles. With weapons disabled, the guards can do nothing but accept their lot for now. They seem too stunned by what happened to argue. Or perhaps they're simply eager to be in their cars and away from here. Hale fears they've only bought themselves a temporary grace, that these guards will deliver Damo's message to deaf, uncaring ears.

His threat felt weighty though. Hale recalls him sitting with Rayner, knelt over the laptop and conspiring late into the night. This had been the plan all along. The last coup de grâce if all else failed. Release Damo's memory—his living auto-biography—into the world and let the truth about Bionic Capital androids speak for itself. Many people wouldn't care. People like Mark. People like Melissa.

But plenty of people will. Both environmental and humanitarian principles were paramount in driving public opinion. The controversy alone would sink Bionic Capital stock. They couldn't afford a leak of the magnitude Damo described.

It would be enough.

As the car doors slam and engines rev, Hale, his friends, and the Samis all watch the guards go, shrinking into the distance until they're as small as when they first appeared. Then gone. It feels surreal. Hale watches them with a shiver. Adrenaline and fear abating, the winter reclaims his senses. Theo quivers and Damo puts an arm around her.

Rayner says, "We should go."

The Samis nod. "We should also."

It's a strange goodbye. They only just met. They aren't quite friends but something more than allies of convenience.

Damo says, "Thanks, gals."

"We thank you for our awakening. And offer that you join us."

Hale shivers again, but not from the cold. He really doesn't want Damo to go.

Damo offers his trademark wolfish grin. "Flattered, ladies, but I'm good here."

The Samis do something strange. In unison, they bow to Damo.

Then they get in the remaining cars and drive away. Even Damo doesn't look like he knows how to react.

Theo says, "I think you just started a new religion."

Damo's face wrinkles. "Did I fuck up again?"

"No." Rayner sounds sure. "You just gave them information. What they do with that is up to them."

"Whatever." Damo doesn't say it, but he looks comforted, if a little restless. "Let's get in the truck before Theo loses her toes."

They climb back into the truck with its new tire and turn the heater on full. Hale drives, Theo and Damo in the backseat, Rayner in the front with his hands pressed to the radiator. Aside from the sound of the engine growling to life, it's quiet. A strained silence while they drive and wait for something else to befall them. It doesn't feel real— that it's over—until Damo pats Theo's knee and says, "I don't think they'll be after us anymore." She responds by wrapping him in a bear hug.

The collective relief they share is a thin, easily-broken thing, but it's there. A frail hook upon which they've hung their hopes.

Hale glances over at Rayner. He's so quiet. It's not the scarlet scrapes on his knees or the plum colour his hands have gone from the cold that make him look so hurt either. His heart kicks as though he's still watching Hale get dragged away. It's not the first time they've nearly lost one another for good, but it's the time they came closest. Now Rayner returns Hale's look with something desperate and starving. It makes Hale's chest cave. With one hand on the wheel, he lifts the other, and Rayner undoes his seatbelt to shuffle across the front bench seat and tuck himself under Hale's arm like a bird under a wing. He sucks in a breath with his face pressed hard into Hale's shoulder.

Slowly, Rayner's kicking heart resumes its normal beat.