Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 105

"Wait, what?" said Will. "Why did it stop? What happened next?"

He turned to Libbi but she wasn't hovering in the same position. She wasn't hovering at all.

Will dived to her fallen body and pressed a hand against the metal. She was overheating. He fanned her a few times, unsure how else to respond. When that didn't work, he grabbed Barry White and held its fluttering wings against her. Either this worked or it had been long enough for Libbi to recover, as her waking groans signified.

He doted on her until she was mostly operational.

"So you were there, watching all that?" said Will.

"Mm," she said.

He didn't know what else to say. I'm sorry? Congratulations for surviving? It must have been tough? It was Paige's situation all over again.

He suddenly felt guilty for not checking up on his old friend, and gave her a call. Barry White circled them, blaring out a few cheesy superlatives, while Will waited for Paige to answer. But she didn't. Probably too focussed on a game, he thought. Hoped.

He then wondered, while swatting Barry White away, if Paige had watched his competition game, and whether she was proud of what he'd accomplished. She had the right fundamental strategy, far more than what he could have achieved if Libbi hadn't helped -- though he wouldn't admit it to her face -- so it may have been a bitter sweet moment. And the end, what did she think of him leaving with the game in the palm of his hand?

Barry White had lost its lock on Will and was scanning the dead faces of decapitated robot heads.

"It'll be OK," said Will, caressing Libbi's...back? Shoulder? That little bent part below the main wings. You've seen selfiebots before, you know the part I'm talking about. "We'll find your body."

Libbi's speaker made a harumph sound that I interpreted as a disdainful robotic scoff. "It's over."

"What?" said Will. "No way. Just because it's not here? That doesn't mean anything! It could be anywhere!"

"Exactly," said Libbi.

She closed her lens cap for a long time. When it opened, Will expected her mood to have changed.

It hadn't.

"Let's go," she said, already leaving.

Barry White was still scanning the robotic parts in the room.

"Hey, I'm here!" said Will. The selfiebot was annoying, of course, but it should still be fixated on him.

Libbi was already angling around the corner by the time Will made it out the room. With Barry White in tow, he jogged to catch up, but she'd cornered another corridor.

"What is it about these places and corridors?" he said, annoyed at the lack of imagination of particular narrators.

Even in the other direction there were a criss-cross of corridors coming off this one. The shapes created interesting geometric figures, with slight curves due to the ageing workmanship. It was made by hand, before sophisticated tools automated much of the process.

Oh, he also saw two upright feet dragged past, out of sight. I probably should have mentioned that to start with.

They were familiar to Will, so he didn't hesitate to switch direction. If they belonged to who he thought, it was starting to make sense. It was also starting to scare him.

Around the next corner he saw them again, the same feet, the same legs, and this time the rest of her body.

"Paige," he whispered to himself.

She was being pulled by one of the brothers, the puffy one.

He raced toward them, without thinking once about what to do when he caught up. He didn't need to worry. After turning the next corner, he almost bumped into the rough arms of a mean-looking Exx, Paige nowhere to be seen.

Will backed away slowly, his mind only now catching up.

"Ah," he said, short of breath, the kind of respiration usually restricted to five minutes before a job interview, "you're just the person I wanted to see."

Exx snarled.