Warden

late to cull them all. The people of the Earth had to find a way to peacefully coexist with the bioweapons. That meant shoring up the defenses of their cities and staying mostly within the limits of said urban areas, traveling only by air otherwise—so far man still ruled the skies.
After reading about the monsters of the Outlands, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be a salvager after all, now. Not even for the few months it would take to pay off her debt.
But she had already agreed. She couldn’t go back on her word, even if it meant facing something so terrifying.
And she’d signed a contract.
I’m pretty much screwed.
“Greetings,” Horatio’s voice over the comm heralded his arrival. Glancing at her overhead map, she saw his blue dot was just outside the door. She’d lost track while viewing the Net presentations on the bioweapons.
“Horatio is here,” Rhea called to Bardain, and got up.
She’d lowered her hood while waiting, but she raised it anew to open the door. She realized she didn’t have access to the door’s security interface and had to wait patiently until Bardain remotely unlocked it.
Horatio stood before her in the night, the robotic body silhouetted by glow lamps deployed at various intervals in the street behind.
The inner door opened behind her and Bardain appeared, his cloak zipped tight.
“So, how did she do?” Horatio asked.
“Let’s just say,” Bardain began, “I’m going to have to charge you a little more than I originally quoted.”
“That bad, huh?” Horatio said. But then the robot added gleefully: “Well, that’s okay, we’ll add it to her debt.”
Bardain shut the door behind her when she left.
Rhea followed Horatio between the pools of light created by the glow lamps. Gizmo followed along overhead, invisible in the dark, but still tracked by her overhead map.
She stayed close to Horatio and pulled her hood tighter as she surveyed the dark streets around her. She concentrated on the alleyways but allowed her gaze to linger on the different rooftops as well, given the versatile nature of the creatures she had only just learned about.
There are no monsters here, she told herself. Only men. No monsters. Only men.
Well, and cyborgs.
The streets were relatively dead. The delivery drones had ceased operating for the night, and there were very few of the smaller, insect drones buzzing about. There was no foot traffic.
When they were a short way from the house, Rhea looked away from the dark alleyways and rooftops long enough to tell Horatio: “I’m not sure I want to be a salvager anymore.”
“Master Bardain revealed the bioweapons to you already, did he?” Horatio commented.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said. “I asked what those huge defense turrets surrounding the perimeter of Aradne were for, and Will claimed it was to defend against roving gangs of bandits.”
“We didn’t want to scare you,” Horatio said.
“Didn’t want me to refuse to sign your contract more like,” Rhea said.
“You had already signed by then,” Horatio reminded her.
She folded her arms. “Yes, well, now I’m understanding why you didn’t have anything to say earlier when I mentioned that the terms of the contract seemed fair to me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually mind… I’m looking forward to doing this. I just think a little heads-up would have been good, that’s all.”
“I understand,” Horatio said. “And I apologize. But don’t worry, Bardain’s going to be teaching you all the tactics and techniques you’ll need against these bioweapons, focusing on evasion tactics. He trained Will, who in turn taught me, and look at how well it’s served us. You’re in good hands. There’s nothing to fear.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she commented. “You’re an AI. You don’t know fear.”
“On the contrary,” Horatio said. “I don’t want to die, like most of my kind. Being self-aware does that to you, you know…”
She conceded the point.
“Besides,” Horatio continued. “You’ll have me and Will to protect you out there when the crêpes hit the fan.”
“The crêpes?” she asked, confused.
“Sorry, a figure of speech,” Horatio replied. “I guess I thought it would survive the mind wipe, like the rest of your language skills.”
“No, it survived,” she said. “Though I was trying to figure out why you used the word crêpes. This is all some big joke to you?”
“Excuse my light-hearted attempt at humor,” Horatio implored.
“I can certainly understand why Will tells you not to joke,” she told the robot.
“My comic timing is execrable, isn’t it?” Horatio asked.
“You got that right,” she agreed.
She remained silent for the remainder of the journey, and thankfully so did Horatio. She kept an eye on her surroundings and was relieved when the foot traffic picked up slightly. People were going out for the evening and visiting various restaurants that had set up shop in the former market district. So not everyone was as averse to going out as she had previously thought. Then again, the delivery drone activity had picked up, and there was a constant stream of them flitting to and from the more popular spots.
Horatio turned onto a gloomy side road—half the glow lamps servicing it had apparently blown out. After several paces, the robot stopped before one of the few well-lit buildings—essentially a stack of cargo containers.
“We’re here, Will,” Horatio sent.
“I’ll ping the owner,” Will replied over the comm.
Horatio glanced at Rhea. “It’s a private residence. Will found it on HourlyBnb. He’s booked separate rooms for each of us.”
Rhea did a Net look-up on HourlyBnb, and learned it was an app people could use to find extremely short-term room rentals, usually leased out by the hour courtesy of the homeowners. These particular rentals were sometimes referred to as “love hotels” because they were often utilized by ladies of the night and their clientele. Rhea wondered why Will would rent a place such as this, though she suspected the reasons were entirely financial.
“I have a question for you, Will,” Rhea transmitted. “How much is this training of mine going to add to my debt?”
Will took a moment to respond. Then: “Horatio