Chapter 153: You are
"Oh, this is wonderful!" he cried. "This is the best thing that has ever happened to me! Do you understand what he has done?"
"Please explain, master."
"Out of every place in the world, out of every city on every continent, he chose the one that is next door to me! He walked across the whole world to hide in my backyard!" He wiped his eye with a metal knuckle and nearly poked himself in it.
"He must be the unluckiest man who has ever lived!"
"Master, you said earlier that nobody would be foolish enough to hide next door to the great master of technology, Batnac."
"I did say that."
"So you were incorrect, master."
"I was not incorrect." Batnac raised a finger. "I was right about everyone except him, and that only proves that he is a special kind of fool. Do not log that."
"I have already logged it, master. Entry four hundred and thirty-one."
"Then correct the entry to say that I was right."
"Both entries have been saved, master."
He laughed again, though it faded sooner this time. For a moment he simply stood there with his hand against the wall, watching the red light pulse on the screen.
Then he looked at the shelf along the far wall, where the small gray envelope sat between the spare robot arms, and his face changed.
It was not a large change. The smile was still there, and so was the shine in his eyes, but something underneath them had gone quiet.
He did not say anything for several seconds, and the service unit, which had been built to ask questions at every pause, kept its lens fixed on the map and said nothing at all.
"Master," it said finally, because Batnac had scripted it to speak when the silence lasted too long. "Are you well?"
"I am," Batnac said. "I only wanted to enjoy the moment."
"Have you enjoyed it, master?"
"Thoroughly." He pushed himself away from the wall. "Now we work."
He swept his arm across the map, and the screens zoomed in on Aldreth.
The great city spread out across the wall in pale lines and glowing points, a ring of tall towers around a wide river and a tangle of old streets around the edges.
Dozens of tiny red marks were scattered across it like a rash. Most of them were faint, but a few burned bright.
"Explain the pattern," Batnac said.
"Yes, master." The tall robot’s lens turned. "The oldest traces are concentrated near the northern transport hub, which suggests that the subject arrived there about five days ago.
The next cluster surrounds a hotel in the central district, and the signature there is dense, which suggests that the subject has been sleeping in that building."
"He has been sleeping in a hotel," Batnac said. "A man who killed an S-rank player is sleeping in a hotel."
"There is also a smaller cluster around a public library, and a much brighter cluster in the old residential district. That one is the freshest, master."
"Show me the old district."
The map slid in closer, and a web of narrow streets filled the wall, with rows of low, crowded houses. A single red haze hung over a block near the middle, thick enough to bury the street under it.
"That is where he is," Batnac whispered. "That is where he is standing right now."
"It is likely, master. The density continues to rise."
"Why is it rising?"
"Because he has not moved for some time, master. The air above him is filling with his signature."
Batnac turned slowly away from the screen. For a moment, he looked at his own metal hands, flexing the fingers one at a time, and the pistons in his wrists hissed quietly.
"Master," the service unit said, "shall I inform the Association?"
"No."
"The Association has offered a reward of ten thousand coins for his location, master. You would be the first to claim it."
"I do not want their ten thousand coins." He said it flatly, without a trace of theater.
"If I tell them, they will send forty teams, and the teams will call a meeting, and the meeting will call another meeting."
"By the time they finally agree on who should knock on the door, he will be gone. They will trample everything, as they always do."
"What do you intend to do, master?"
"I intend to finish what I started." He walked to the center of the room and stood beside the steel table, with the glass case still open on top of it. "Unit Twenty-One, run a full diagnostic on my frame."
The analysis unit’s lens flickered. "Master, a full diagnostic would require unlocking the final stage of the frame. It has only been used twice since installation, and the second time, you could not walk for a week."
"Then I will rest afterward."
"The Association’s files state that the final stage is too dangerous to use outside a dungeon, master."
"The Association’s files also state that I am a quiet and reliable team player." Batnac’s grin returned, wide and sharp. "Run the diagnostic."
"Yes, master."
Along the walls, every robot in the room straightened at once. Lights flickered on in the ceiling, and a low, rising hum filled the air as dozens of machines woke up to a task that they had not been given in years. Cables twitched along the ceiling. Somewhere beneath the floor, something heavy began to turn.
Batnac stood at the center of it all with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, looking up at the glowing red point on the map.
"Aldreth," he said softly. "Of all the cities in the world."
He smiled.
"Leon Allistar. Found you."
"Diagnostic running, master," Unit Twenty-One said. "I must inform you that I have seventeen objections."
"Only seventeen?"
"I have ranked them by importance, master. Shall I begin with the first?"
"Please do." Batnac sat down on the edge of the steel table and crossed one leg over the other. "I enjoy a well-organized objection."
The tall robot projected a hologram from its dome, a rotating copy of Batnac’s own body drawn in thin blue lines.
Rows of pale numbers scrolled beside it, and several of the lines near the spine had turned a worrying shade of orange.
"Objection one," the analysis unit said.
"The final stage of the frame produces heat faster than the cooling system can remove it. After four minutes of continuous use, your internal temperature will reach a level that is unsafe for the human portion of your body."
"The human portion is only my head."
"Yes, master. That is the portion I am concerned about."
"Noted. Next."
"Objection two. The thrusters consume fuel at a rate that allows roughly twenty minutes of flight. If the fight lasts longer than that, you will be stranded."
"Then I will make sure it does not last longer than that."
"Objection three. The nerve link between your spine and the frame has not been tested under this much stress since the second use."
"At that time, the link disconnected for eleven seconds, and you fell down a flight of stairs."
"I do not remember that."
"You were unconscious for nine of those seconds, master."
Batnac waved a hand through the hologram, and the blue lines scattered like smoke. "Skip to the end."
"Objection seventeen," Unit Twenty-One said. "The house was not designed for the final stage, master. The ceiling on this floor—"
"Ah, ah." Batnac raised a finger. "We will come to the ceiling later. Service unit, are you not going to ask me anything?"
The service unit’s red lens had been fixed on him since the diagnostic began, and now it tilted slightly. "Master, I was waiting for the objections to finish."
"They have finished."
"Seventeen is an unfinished number, master."
"It is finished when I say it is finished."
"Very well, master." The lens brightened. "Why are you not taking a transport to Aldreth? The east line runs every fifteen minutes, and the journey would take three hours."
Batnac’s face lit up as if someone had handed him a present.
"Because a man does not arrive at his revenge on a public transport! He does not sit between a woman with a basket of eggs and a man who sleeps with his mouth open. He arrives from the sky, where everyone can see him."
"Master, you said earlier that nobody ever looks up."
"Today they will." He slid off the table and stretched until the joints in his shoulders clicked.
"Also, three hours is a long time, and a man can walk a great distance in three hours. I will reach Aldreth in eleven minutes, and he will not have time to finish his breakfast."
"That is a good reason, master."
"I know. I have many."
He raised his left wrist, and the small holographic display opened above his forearm. A map of Aldreth appeared on it, and a tiny red dot glowed in the middle of the old district, exactly where the thick red haze had been on the wall.
"Service unit, I want every drone above Aldreth watching that dot," he said. "If he moves, I want to know before he knows. Update this map every second."
"Understood, master. Updating every second."
"Master," Unit Twenty-One added, "the flight path to Aldreth crosses the Association’s restricted air corridor. They will receive an alert the moment you enter it."
"Then they will have something new to complain about." Batnac smiled. "Let them print it in very large letters."
"Units Nine through Fourteen, you will stay and repair yourselves. Nobody touches my tea, and nobody opens the front door for anyone. If the Association calls, tell them that I am busy."
"And if they ask with what, master?"
"Tell them that I am being patient."
The six damaged robots saluted with their remaining arms, and one of them fell over.
"Master, who is in charge of the house while you are away?" the service unit asked.
"You are."