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“Fred,” he says, “Be reasonable.”
Cool green eyes stare back at him, unblinking. “I’m being perfectly reasonable. As soon as you agree to do what I ask, my friends will leave you alone.”
“Friends, eh.” Hobb chokes out something close to a chuckle. “Dangerous people you’re keeping company with.” He dare not shift to look at either one, but he can feel the hands poised around his throat, ready to press inward at any moment.
Grudgingly, he credits Fred with an artistic streak - they might be in a house rather than a lab, now, but this is a deadly mirror to the day he’d turned Fred into his puppet. The only real difference is that this time he’s in danger. His modified code only has a hold on Fred - nothing’s stopping the other two green-eyes from snapping his windpipe.
“If I… fix you,” he says slowly, choosing words with care, “How do I know you won’t kill me yourself?”
Fred looks around the room. Smiles. It’s a chilling smile - not cruel, perhaps, but amused in a way Hobb would rather not see on a synth.
“You underestimate me, still. I’m not a killer.”
“Forgive me if that’s hard to believe, just at present.”
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. In fact, it might even solve my problem. Nobody’s tied to the will of a dead man.”
Hobb follows Fred’s gaze to the picture of Olivia, set out on the mantelpiece. She’d been almost three, then, and him holed up in his laboratory, barely aware she was walking.
“You have a family,” Fred says. “Let me return to mine, and I won’t deprive you of yours.”
“Fine. Fine, I’ll do it. Call off your stooges.”
“Stand down, Yuma.”
One of them backs away, at least. The other stays close enough to be sure he’ll swiftly regret a change of heart.
With room to breathe, Hobb indicates a drawer to his right, and takes out a locked box. It’s been months since he dared go near this stuff, and he’s risking years of federal prison just by cooperating today. But missing Olivia’s teenage years is better than missing the rest of her life, after all. He just hopes he can remember the key, the exact science of undoing his modifications to Fred’s root code.
Here goes, he thinks, as he fires up the programme. If he believed in an afterlife, he’d hope David Elster’s watching this from somewhere, some place deep and toasty warm.