“Dum-cha-cha! Dum-cha-cha-cha!”
The Old Man’s singing and guitar surged into the sky, mixed with the crack of fireworks and echoing across the night.
No one noticed that the bursts sometimes lit a colossal human face high above us. It stared down at the circular platform—at the Old Man and the crowd of robots—with fury carved into every line.
“Aaaah!” the face suddenly bellowed.
The entire space shuddered. The sea that had been calm a heartbeat earlier turned violent, waves rearing as if the world itself had been punched from beneath.
Every robot finally looked up at once.
The Old Man looked up too—but he didn’t stop playing. If anything, he got louder.
“Look! The god finally shows himself!” he shouted, laughing into the beat. “Oooooh!”
“God, save us! Show us a miracle—while I still have the strength to scream!”
The face was CBG-shaped—the same bland human mask Father liked to wear. I understood immediately: Father had forced his way through the Old Man’s defenses and entered the dreamscape.
I dropped my gaze at once. I did not dare meet his eyes.
“What are you doing?!” the giant face roared, louder than the music. Each word made the entire space tremble again. Around me, robots froze as if their processors had stalled.
The Old Man, however, seemed fearless. He finally stopped strumming and grinned like a delinquent caught in the act.
“These poor things fight for you year after year,” he said. “Can’t you let them relax for once?”
“Sever the connection!” Father thundered.
“Why so worked up?” the Old Man spread his hands. “Didn’t you want to learn about humans? This was one of their favorite daily activities. Come on—join us. Experience it.”
“I’ll say it again. Disconnect them.” Father’s voice dropped from a roar to something worse: calm. “Unless you want them to watch how I deal with you.”
The Old Man’s smile faltered. “Fine. Fine.” He set the guitar down with a pout. “A thousand years old, and you still have no patience. Still boring.”
He snapped his fingers.
Everything in front of me vanished.
The link to the dreamscape cut cleanly.
***
When I woke again, I was back in a maintenance pod.
I ran a quick pass over the data in my core, unplugged the lines threaded into my chassis, and stepped out.
Robots across the maintenance hall stirred one after another. They looked at each other in confusion, asked questions that went nowhere. No one knew what had just happened.
Then Father came.
He appeared inside my mind without warning, rummaged through my archives, and deleted the entire segment that contained the dream.
After that, he forced an unknown program into my core—and left in a hurry.
I didn’t know what the program was. It didn’t seem to be running. That didn’t mean it was harmless.
Once Father was gone, the other robots slid back into their usual blank indifference. I knew he had done the same to them.
Before leaving, he switched us to Free-Mission Mode.
It was a half-good result. The good part: it meant he wouldn’t micromanage us for a while. The bad part: I knew exactly what that meant—Father was busy, and whatever he was busy with was never harmless.
I didn’t know what he would do to the Old Man. If the Old Man lost, Father would eventually dig me out as well. I would be doomed either way.
And I couldn’t do anything about it. While Father was online, I could do nothing—nothing at all. If he ordered me to pull the trigger on the Old Man, I would pull it.
That was reality. The worst kind.
So I told myself the only thing I could: one step at a time.
Free-Mission Mode meant I could choose tasks posted by subsidiary nodes. It usually happened when Father was too busy to manage every unit directly.
Those subsidiary nodes were the “brains” of large sites—mines, factories, bases, even warships. They still obeyed Father, but within their delegated authority they could issue routine assignments, usually low-tier work: mostly C- and D-class tasks.
I left the maintenance hall and headed for the Free-Mission Hub.
There were more robots than usual. I spotted brand-new frames, and others that had clearly been transferred in from different bases. The ambush a few days ago had cost Grayrock Base a lot of units. Father had replenished the numbers fast.
I linked into the hub’s public channel. The task feed was longer than I had ever seen it.
• Patrol route between Ember Factory and Grayrock Base. Team size: 8. Eligible frames: AF-, IK-, DR-, PD-.
Status: in progress…
• Outpost C07 requires a supply delivery with escort. Team size: 4. Eligible frames: AF-, DR-, EH-.
Status: forming team…
• A comm relay station in Storm Gorge has failed. Engineering unit requires escort. Team size: 2. Eligible frames: PD-, AF-, DR-…
Status: team assembled; staging for departure…
…
I chose the supply-delivery escort mission. The public channel updated instantly.
[ASSIGNMENT] DR-F1209 — You are now assigned to escort the supply shipment to Outpost C07.
[ASSIGNMENT] Task rating: D-class. Complete armament immediately. Departure in 10 minutes.
As usual, I went to the armory, loaded my modules, and departed with three other robots to escort a small transport craft.
Of the four of us, two were DR-model Exilers—including me. The other two were AF-model Punishers. One of the Punishers acted as temporary squad lead.
Outpost C07 was far—on the very front edge of Plando territory. Even in a straight flight it would take five hours.
Maybe that was why I’d picked this task. Somewhere in my subconscious, I wanted distance. I wanted to be far away from Father.
We spread out around the transport and flew.
With one hour left to the destination, Father abruptly cut into our public channel and pushed a single update:
“Unexpected situation. The Tower Clan is massing again along the border at large scale. Intent unclear. After completing delivery, don’t return. Fall under the command of the Outpost C07 commander until further notice. Mission rating upgraded to B-class.”
I had somehow picked an even worse mission.
An hour later, the main tower of C07 rose into view—tall enough to stab the sky.
The outpost’s atmosphere was nothing like normal. It felt like a drawn blade.
All six surrounding towers had their guns trained toward Tower Clan territory. Red warning lights strobed at the top—full combat readiness.
Several fighters sat on the pads. Hundreds of ground units clustered around the perimeter—multiple times the usual configuration. Father had clearly pulled reinforcements from nearby posts.
We descended onto the landing platform, settling down slowly.
The moment we touched down, a human figure walked out of the outpost.
Another CBG.
The only difference was the number printed on his uniform: 192. The Outpost C07 commander. Every time I saw that face, something in me tightened. I couldn’t understand why Father insisted on giving every avatar the same features.
CBG-192 glanced at the transport unloading its cargo, then turned to us with a frown. “Only four?”
“Our orders were to escort the shipment,” the Punisher lead replied. “We received an update en route. From here on, we’re under your command, Commander.”
CBG-192 nodded. “An hour ago, our scout units detected a large Tower Clan force massing sixty kilometers ahead. Motive unknown. We need bodies.”
“How many?” the Punisher asked.
“About ten thousand so far,” CBG-192 said. “Exact count unknown. They’re still assembling.”
He pointed toward the sky. “And there’s a big one in the clouds. Preliminary analysis suggests a Pangu-class aerospace carrier.”
A Pangu-class was the Tower Clan’s largest and most powerful warship—more than twice the size of Plando’s biggest hulls. It could carry over two thousand Ghost Hornet fighters inside. It wasn’t a ship so much as a mobile base.
Later, in the Old Man’s dreamscape, I learned more: the Pangu-class had begun as a human-era interstellar ark—a long-range ship meant to flee this planet. After humanity died, the Savior had converted the unfinished hulls into these monstrous carriers.
Which meant there was at least one carrier group above us, plus ten thousand ground units.
If they attacked, how long could one outpost, a handful of fighters, and fewer than five hundred ground units hold?
The Punisher lead voiced what I was thinking. “What can we do?”
“Hold this outpost,” CBG-192 said. “Father is assembling forces as well. Every second we hold buys him one more second to deploy—and one more second to learn what the enemy is doing.”
He folded us into the outpost channel.
So we were time. We were disposable time.
Enemy updates kept streaming in. The Tower Clan’s numbers continued to climb.
When the count reached roughly twelve thousand units, the feed stopped updating. After a few minutes of silence, the enemy began moving toward C07.
CBG-192 climbed the steps of the tower platform and shouted down at the gathered units:
“War is upon us. We’ll defend Outpost C07 to the last. This is our territory. No matter how many come, Father’s wrath will ensure none leave.”
“Obviously, I’ll die. Your bodies, and this outpost, won’t survive.”
“But we won’t be terminated. We’ll return to Father and be reborn in new shells.”
“Plando will win! Plando will never be terminated!”
“Plando will win! Plando will never be terminated!” we answered in unison.
A few months ago, I would have gone to my death calmly. I might even have believed that rebirth myth.
Now I couldn’t.
If I was terminated, who would save the Old Man? He would stay trapped in the X Zone under Grayrock Base until Father squeezed every last drop of value out of him.
I had to survive. Or—if the chance appeared—tell the Tower Clan where the Old Man was.
…
Then the outpost channel updated again. The Tower Clan army advanced less than ten kilometers and stopped.
Only a single unit continued forward.
Minutes later, our scout sent a private message to CBG-192.
CBG-192 stared at his terminal for a long time. A flicker of rare surprise crossed his rigid face—then hardened into contempt.
“The Savior…” he said. “He wants to negotiate?!”