Chapter Text
You were sitting on the last step leading to the building, scrolling through your camera albums and sucking on a lollipop. You were deleting all the pictures of current projects and anything else that could be incriminating, although frequently by the time you got around to it, someone else had already deleted it all. The lollipop was so gone that you tasted the papery stick. You wondered if you had enough time to start the book you had just checked out from the library. The door behind you burst open and out went a young thing, college-aged, almost halfway down the ramp before he could regain his balance. Then he turned to the door.
"You can't just throw me out!"
"I just did," Moon said.
"It's not even time to close! I have a right to be here!"
"It closes in five minutes, and closing tasks must be done by then. Out."
"I will sue the library. I will complain to your owner. You'll get re-programmed to treat patrons with some respect."
Moon's head twitched and you saw his arms and torso fall in something you had learned to recognize as pity. "Sleep. Studying five minutes won't improve your grade."
The boy made a sound like a kettle, but he ended up turning away and leaving. Moon didn't even address you before going back in to rush through the closing protocols. That probably meant you still had a few minutes to read so you cracked open the book that had piqued your curiosity; the cover read I.R.W.E and it wasn't for children. You barely made it through the introduction before the door opened again. Moon closed the door and turned the key while you put away the book. Then he offered you a hand to stand up.
"That kid, huh? What a piece of work."
"His scholarship depends on this exam." He shrugged "He fails, he's out."
"He could be polite about it."
"No sleep. Cornered... He won't be."
You sighed. "You are too understanding, Moon. Never change."
The both of you started toward the car.
"By the way! My sister came over. I had to hide everything in 30 seconds flat."
"She did?"
"I swear to Cogs, she's never happy with my life; now she's calling me fat! And wants me to go on a diet!"
"Ignore her."
"I know! I gave up smoking and started to cook again. Of course I'm fat again. She should be congratulating me." You stared at the road, wondering if you should share how she had broken down in your kitchen. "She told me why she sold the house."
Moon made a questioning noise that you took as encouragement to keep talking.
"She and her partner thought for a moment that she was pregnant. She isn't." You sighed, slowly. "But she decided to put her foot down and send her partner to a rehab center." Gravel crunched under your feet louder than ever. "Those things have gotten expensive in the last years if you want one that works... They live so far. I never noticed. That's what she wanted the money for, and why she thought she needed to do it fast."
"She didn't tell you." Moon had his hands covering the lower part of his faceplate.
"She considered it was not her story to tell. So you two will pretend you don't know either, okay?" You sighed again and decided that everyone needed some time to digest the news in silence.
But it was not fun to linger in that silence too much. "What about you? How was your day?"
Moon took the time to think and change the topic while you both got in the car and put your seat belt on.
"Sun scolded two adults making out and getting handsy."
"Fun!" You chuckled and turned the ignition.
"He told them the smooching was too loud and wet. And they should learn to do it right or leave."
The car stalled. You turned to Moon. "He did what ?"
"Their faces!" His whole smile was illuminated, but you suspected yours was too.
"What did they do then?"
"Leave."
"Aw, cowards!" You slapped the wheel jokingly and restarted the car.
"Straight home now?" Moon asked.
"Not quite, but I left the chicken out of the freezer, so we'll be there soon."
"Fancy?"
"Sure, I have a lemon sauce in mind."
"Alone?"
"No, I left someone home, I’m waiting for a better heatsink and off she goes, she asked to be off until after the installation. Apart from that, I won’t take in any other ER cases until we are done with tomorrow’s consequences. I’ll focus on the laptops and broken thermomixes until the air is clear."
"And smuggling?"
"Of course smuggling. After tomorrow, smuggling will be the big thing for a while. You think we’ve been preparing the upstairs rooms for nothing? It’s just that I’ll triage them, take away trackers and send them along. We can’t afford to look too suspicious yet. The second lair is not yet ready. By the way! I have a question for you about tomorrow."
"Tomorrow! Plan or gossip?"
"Why not both? So... Where do you think Summers will go? They were super cagey about it when Sun and Sully came to visit last week."
"Where? Where he was born, getting experiments out." He lifted one finger so you wouldn’t speak too early. "Sun says: He’s not that romantic, he’s a pragmatic . He will be wherever the biggest number of animatronics are."
You smiled staring at the horizon. "I think he will be at the central hub for outdated animatronics, getting out the busted ones, because he is a romantic and down for lost causes."
Moon’s faceplate did a whole rotation. Then he emitted a high-pitched short laugh. "Sun asks: And Duck?"
You and Moon answered at the same time. "Wherever Sun is."
Sun agreed and you giggled over nothing. Tomorrow would feel fantastic; so good that the feeling was expanding back in time to the present. When you turned the radio on, it was more to fill the silence than to listen to the news. The plan would not be in the news... yet. However, they did mention something.
"Ours!" Moon commented and you howled at your work bearing fruits.
The radio host shared the bare bones of the Electrodependency law and how it would affect old humans whose vital organs depended on electric current. That host didn’t know who had paved the way for months for that one to pass smoothly along with several other laws.
There was always a new law, bigger or smaller, for this or that, and it was important to keep an eye out for all of them. Especially the small ones; it was where your work shone the most. Agatha was very good at it now that she had you and The Duck as backup, as well as her own resources.
You did a lot of remote work for her; still a lot of spreadsheets. But now the subject was more along the lines of: "What would the population think of this issue if we dropped a campaign of this kind". And algorithms had to be fed, even The Duck's, who liked what you were cooking for him. You were pretty sure your work had swayed the vote of two antiAI states so far. So this time you were happy with your numbers. It was arduous work, and half of your efforts didn't go into advancing the rights of AIs but into making sure things didn’t go worse. Constant pushing.
The sound of the turning signal was loud in the dark.
"We are making a stop before going home," you told them at the roundabout where you should take the north road but didn’t.
"For parts?"
"For parts. Do you want to come or stay in the car?"
"Come. Been wondering, same guy?"
"Hopefully! We’ll have to see if FazCo managed to retain Don."
You parked easily enough in the remote location The Duck had chosen for this, Moon climbed down and walked straight under a streetlight. Neither of you liked things when Sun was cooped up too much.
"Don!" Sun waved at the boy. "How’s the compacter work going?"
"Sun!" The boy, almost a kid, welcomed Sun’s hug comfortably and waved at you with more restraint. "Same as ever. Pennies for the hour, you know I’m only there for this." He waved around a bag and handed it to you. You took a cursory look, but Don had been one of the good ones so far. You gave him a small amount of cash; it was not exactly to pay for the pieces, it was to keep him working there with an unsurvivable wage. The payment was going to be a contact at an I+D department The Duck knew. Don would get out of the Pizzaplex as soon as he finished his degree. Speaking of which:
"Will you need a place to study this week?"
"Maybe. Things home are still tense."
"Not tomorrow, and Barbara will come for coffee on Sunday. Remember not to bring work with you, don’t get followed, and otherwise feel free to come whenever."
"Wait, Barbara as in the one I replaced?"
Sun patted Don on the back. "You, college technicians, are laughably easy to bribe. Sorry."
He rubbed his nape and laughed uncomfortably at the reminder of how illegal what he did was.
"Moon says he wants to introduce you to his troublesome kid at the library, says you could help each other study."
You slapped Sun’s arm playfully. "Stop playing matchmaker!"
"He says he’s not."
"Sure. Let’s go home before you can get in more trouble. See you, Don."
Dinner was a lively event with Sun trying to do everything you did before you did it. He was good at memorizing recipes, so he was frequently annoyed with how you never stuck to them. Usually Moon would take Sun away from the kitchen and water the plants while you cooked, but today you all were bustling with questions and no answers, so the kitchen was busy.
"Do you know if they found a solution for the aquatic animatronics?"
"They didn’t," Moon said from the unlit hall. "Same plan, but no getaway plan."
"That’s a bummer." You wanted a swift change of topic. "How are Sun’s law classes?"
Moon took a step forward into the kitchen light. "Fantastic! I wish I could go out there and defend someone! There are so many things to consider! Did you know there is a state that outlawed selling dual male plugs two decades ago after a series of fires?"
He danced around the kitchen and took the apron you had mostly for the sake of having it hanging on a hook. Then he held it practically under your nose.
"Last time you were depressed because lawyering is not about justice." You took the apron from him and put it on without (useless) protests.
"I’m over it. Now I think it can be about justice, if I apply all the rules the right way." He danced to the pantry and put on the counter all the ingredients sorted by order of use. "Other lawyers can try to bend the rules, but I could outbend them all if I had the chance."
"I don’t doubt it for a second."
You sent him a smile and left the pepper back on the counter. He stopped dancing and stared at it.
"Are you not going to use the right amount of pepper today? Are you sure ?"
"Get out of the kitchen." You rolled the kitchen towel and he knew he had about ten seconds before being whipped.
He ran to the darkened door, where Moon doubled over laughing and sat on the floor watching you. He disliked chairs for some reason, and he knew better than to question your cooking skills, so he settled down. He looked distracted so he was probably reading something internally, or playing one of the games you had learned to install in their mind.
But he laughed, and he was swaying the tip of his feet.
"Hey, Moon. Are you by any chance watching another episode of ‘The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon’?" you said sweetly. His feet stopped instantly.
"Mmmaybe."
"Without me?"
"Hm. Rerun. Doesn’t count."
"Cheeky. You could wait ten minutes until the chicken is done and we’ll play the next episode on TV."
"Trash out?" he offered with an exaggerated smile. You rolled your eyes because you knew he only wanted to play ten more minutes of the show you had introduced him to for the name and had been jokingly regretting ever since.
"Later, there are going to be bones today."
Plan thwarted, he sighed and leaned against the wall.
"Are there any more missions for The Duck in your list of things to do?"
"Yes! We are going to go with Summers to meet a group."
"Fantastic!" You were almost sure The Duck wanted to force his Sun to be happy with his rescued family and that was why he sent them on low-danger missions together. "You’ll have to tell me all about it."
Your chicken was done, so you put it on a tray to take to the living room while Moon set the room to play the show. Before he could hit play, you still asked him something.
"Hey Moon, if this was chess, what would you say tomorrow represents?" You asked. "It’s not a checkmate yet, I don’t think, right?"
"Taking a queen?" He suggested, but he didn’t sound sure.
"Maybe... A knight at the very least! Okay, go ahead, hit play."
It was a good step to take power from FazCo and the lobby of miscreants in this state; in all the states. They had been trying to drag The Duck into the light because he had no chance in a "fair fight", but after this, they wouldn’t dare to try again for a while.
So you settled for a quiet night of science fiction and rest. Tomorrow would be much more exciting than the show.
"Do you know how many vans The Duck sent?" You asked Sun the next morning when you were already on your way to the Pizzaplex.
"Two?"
"No, sir Sunny Sun! Fifteen vans!"
"Fifteen!? But the Glam rocks fit in one and we can’t... take Music Man in parts... Can we?"
"Oh, you know I’m gonna make sure we can take Music man, have you not been paying attention when Moon and I were discussing it? But no, dismantling is not the plan. Look! The vans! Oh, my god, we look exactly the wrong kind of suspicious. Let’s see if it came..."
"But then, fifteen, who...?"
"Guess!"
You climbed from the loaned van. There was an unlikely plan A; to park in the docking bay, but the doors would be closed or would lock as soon as the takeover started so the first ones to arrive had jumped straight to plan B. They were parking right at the front door, and soon they would load, and let the next van take their place, unload and drive back if needed. Fortunately, the door was included in all the internal maps since the graffiti needed cleaning, so nobody would freak out before being in a safe place.
You trotted to the van whose back door was opening to let Staffy climb down.
"Hey! Ready for your mission?" You waved at him.
He waved back and sent a thumbs-up before rolling to the doors, waiting for no one.
"Ah! I see why we will need the vans now," Sun reached your side.
"I know, right? Without a familiar nudge it would have been too hard, but like this? Piece of cake!"
You strode to the doors, waving at the van drivers that you recognized from the Rooms, or because they had been your clients at some point in the last few months. Some of them were repaying favors, others were genuinely happy to help since this wasn’t technically illegal.
You took a sticker from your pocket, peeled it, and turned to Sun.
"Sun! Uppies."
He grabbed you from the hips and lifted you so you could slap the sticker of a big black duck over the door and then put you down on the floor again.
You bypassed the paying booth. The man there was uncomfortable because of the staff bot that had come out of the blue, but the job didn’t pay him to stop intruder bots. The security guard, on the other hand, was badly paid for that; but she was just as baffled about the speeding staff bot, who was already talking to a map bot. The human looked at you and your sunny companion with the radiant smile.
"Are you paid enough to do something about us?" you stopped only a moment to ask.
The human's attention snapped on the van parked right at the door and the map bot exiting. You kept walking. The drivers had enough documents, fake and real, to keep all of the security guards busy for a long while. Staffy rolled away and immediately bumped into a cleaning bot. Staffy was still on the same comm line as the other security bots, so you quickly saw the change.
There went the comedy bot zooming past you, past the doors and straight to the van, then a server bot. Staff bots were coming and going, no longer in a rush to mop the floor or serve the next customer. They ambled to each other and swarmed, but a good number of them started to follow you and Sun from a distance. You could imagine how their net must be buzzing.
Sun knew the schedule better than you, so you let him guide you to where each Glam-glam was supposed to be.
"Do what ? We can’t do that."
Freddy was going to be the hardest to convince so you had decided to start with him.
"You can! It is legal until they change a few things, so today it its legal," you explained.
The new contracts FazCo implemented and confirmed after winning in front of a judge had a drawback, The Duck had been ready to act, because, see: FazCo didn't get to pick and mix the laws they followed. And for their contract trickery they had chosen a country with little to no worker protections, but it happened to be a country where AI's existence was somewhat recognized. Just enough for animatronics to quit their job. Of course, this would only last for a while; FazCo would switch to a different country in a matter of weeks or days. But for one magical day...
"Tomorrow everything will be normal again and this won’t be right," Freddy turned to Sun, a world-renowned rule-follower, for support.
"Actually." Sun pointed at the corridors that led to the exit. "If we get out of here today, the situation is unregulated. They can’t reclaim us because for a day we stopped being property, quit in our condition as workers, and so our legal status becomes muddied enough for them to have a lot of problems if they try to seize us, because it would set a precedent for slavery that nobody wants to set, or at least be seen setting."
"But it would be wrong. " Freddy’s ears twitched in distress. He paced in his green room. "I understand breaking the rules to help somebody, but why would we want to be out ?"
"Because out is more than faz tastic; it’s actually fantastic." Sun’s rays rotated slowly.
Freddy squinted his furry eyes. "You are not our daycare Sun."
Sun’s smile extended and he looked at you raising a LED eyebrow. The matter of his identity was still in the air in some ways, and this just made it even more complex. You knew you now had ahead of you several hours with Sun debating if being the same Sun was relevant in this situation. One day you’d find who introduced Sun to philosophy and you’d wring their neck, but you suspected it had been you.
"Why don’t you come with us, Freddy?" He told the bear. "We are going for a walk. Inside the Pizzaplex, don’t worry. Just a walk."
Freddy agreed after some cajoling and Sun guided you to Chica’s location. She’d do whatever would please most people, you were pretty sure, so you only had to...
"The staff bots are all leaving as we speak," y ou guessed.
"Are they??" She went around Freddy and leaned out of her gym to see the staff bots zooming around and ignoring orders.
"I’m sure the first van will already have left with at least six of them," you nodded.
"Then we will be left alone?" She turned back her attention to you and Sun.
"Well, if enough bots leave, setting it all up again will be very costly and they will probably shut down this location. If the cost is still worth it they will bring new bots. So, maybe."
"But that doesn’t need to happen if we all stay." Freddy tried to calm her putting his palms up.
"You are not leaving, Freddy?" She finally asked, having clearly misunderstood the reason why Freddy had come along.
"I am... going for a walk."
"Oh, we can go for a walk together." She patted his arm warmly.
"Let’s do Roxanne now," Sun didn’t wait for Chica’s decision. Maybe he was eager or maybe he was sure Chica had been convinced.
"You lead."
Your little parade had gained quite a lot of staff bots who danced around like butterflies on a meadow in bloom. Clients didn’t see the poetry of it and they were annoyed. The human workers had also gathered around, even coming out of the office rooms, but you didn’t recognize them. Anyone worth their salt had quit after the new contracts. A union would have fought it, alas...
But who cared about the humans, Roxy was enthusiastic about the plan. Her only doubts were about leaving behind her adoring fans, but oh surprise, both her image and her fans were only important while she remained stuck in one place where she was expected to play it close to her original programming. As soon as she realized she wouldn’t need to be Roxy once out, she was convinced. She only needed a little incentive to sweeten the deal.
"Will I be able to drive real cars?"
"You will need a license..." You grimaced. A license required a valid ID...
"I’m sure The Duck can get you a fake one."
"Sun!"
"Deal, let’s leave."
"You are leaving, Roxanne?" Freddy had not gotten a word edgewise when Roxy was that eager and ready to drop the act.
"What? Aren’t we all?" Her face scrunched up. She looked like a growling wolf for a moment.
"They are undecided," you and Sun explained.
"Well, I don’t want to leave alone..." She scratched the roots of her mane.
"Let’s visit Monty!" Sun pushed them.
"Monty! Monty! Monty!" Chica started the chant.
So Sun and Chica sang while they opened a path for your little troupe. Chica had an arm around Sun’s waist, Sun had an arm over her shoulders and they were skipping in time. You’d never get used to how extroverted people who barely knew each other could just chant and skip in a crowded hall without any problem.
Roxanne followed them, not tempted to sing along, and Freddy and you closed the parade, with only the satellite staff bots following at a distance and keeping humans away.
You felt Freddy had stayed behind for a reason, so you slowed your steps to allow him a moment out of the others’ earshot.
"This won’t be safe for them." His ears were still twitching, but he sounded firm otherwise. "You are leading them to a lot of trouble."
You waited to give him an answer because you wanted him to realize this was not an impulsive decision. "You are right. I’m not taking them somewhere safer." You stopped for a moment, to have his undivided attention. "But there won’t ever be a safer place if we don’t go there and make it safe."
His ears stopped twitching. He turned to regard his friend playing with Sun’s rays and his other friend jumping to scold her because one doesn’t mess with someone’s image like that. Staff bots passed you by.
"This will never be safe." You pointed with your whole arm at the hall you had come through.
Freddy straightened up and kept walking. His ears twitched again.
"Who is that Sun? He’s not our Sun."
You shrugged and swallowed up a grin. Freddy would never appreciate how peculiar that question was for you. "He’s my friend. For more, you’d have to ask him."
With Monty your pitch was short. He must have heard Sun and Chica singing, and if he hadn’t, he must have seen all the weird bot movement going on. As soon as he saw your group turn the corner, he cheered, threw a golf club at the water and rushed out to meet you halfway there.
"Finally! Let’s get out of this salopri!"
"You don’t know where we are going," Chica laughed.
"Out! I don’t care. We are going together, right?"
They all turned to look at Freddy.
"Right?"
Wow, you wouldn’t trade places with Freddy right now, surrounded by puppy eyes, some more literal than others. Freddy didn’t have much time. He looked at you, he looked at Sun, and he looked at the hopeful faces that had just put their freedom in his hands.
"Together."
Chica whooped and high-fived Roxy, then hip-checked Monty.
"Well, Glam-gl- rocks, then you should head out. We still have a couple of visits ahead of us. The guys at the door will take good care of you." You silently checked with Sun to see if he agreed to that plan and you received a nod.
However, as you were all heading to the atrium, you found your way blocked by a different, bigger parade who were making their way out. Your group was forced to stop and you had front seat to a string of work bots, flanking what looked like skinless endos walking, and scuttling under the many many legs, a lot of… spidery things small, fast, metallic and crawling. Ah! Minis! Toward the front you could see a limping animatronic with blue fur and at least one long ear upright. You had no idea where all these rejects had come from.
Staffy had been effective.
You waited until the slowest ones passed and then stood in the hall watching them leave. You squinted.
"Do you think fifteen vans will be enough?"
"I am no longer sure," Sun answered.
Freddy ambled behind his friends and the exodus of the forsaken, gaining speed. "They still had Bonnie down there?" But he didn’t seem to want an answer, he was taken by the piper’s melody along with his coworkers.
You and Sun had a different target in mind.
The arcade was kept generally in the dark most of the time, so when you walked in, Moon walked with you. The staff bots that had been hovering gave you a wider breath. Moon guided you among neon lights through the cavernous space to the spot where DJ Music Man was hanging. Freddy had been hard to convince. This one was going to be a hard sell for a different reason.
Moon helped you to explain, but it was complicated because you were trying to leave your personal opinion out of it. At the end of the day, this was going to be DJ’s sole decision. You dug the copy out of your pocket, ready to be overwritten.
"...so the offer is to get a copy of you in here. But getting you out would be meaningless if you stayed behind suffering, so the offer is not just to get a copy of you out of here, but to delete the one you’d leave behind too. Your choice."
And now, time to let the clock tick.
It took some time, but after a while the decision was finally made, and so the consequences were chosen. You put the copy back in your pocket. Many people would disagree with DJ’s choice, but you were not here to judge. These kinds of jobs always made you understand Duck better; callousness and cold blood were sometimes needed. And giving people the freedom of choice always implied giving them the freedom to disagree with you.
However, you didn’t have enough time to think about it. You were not done. There was one last thing you had to do. Sun, once again by your side, opened the door for you.
"C'mon, new guy! We are getting you out of here," you said.
The animatronic looked around and then back at you two darkening his doorstep. His rays shone like only new plastic does. His eyes focused on your companion with understandable curiosity, but quickly turned back to you as the human that his protocols were telling him to answer to.
"Who, me, friend?"