Mako snuck out through the back exit. Though the cop-bots by the main entrance couldn’t touch her, the same wasn’t true of the angry mob of humans.

  She slunk through the streets of Day City, hoping no one would recognize her. No one human, at least. Apparently, Alan brought the machines up to speed because they cleared from her path as she came across them.

  Her house was a different story. She found it lit up from within, and the gate locked. A large traveler’s backpack lay open by the sidewalk, her laundry and personal possessions on display.

  Mako banged on the gate. “Jung-soo, I know you’re in there.”

  The little screen by the gate winked on, showing a view of her living room. Jung-soo was lying on her couch, feet on the coffee table, watching TV in her favorite sweater. It wasn’t real, obviously, just augmented reality. Next to him, her phone sat on her neck pillow.

  Jung-soo looked up as if only now noticing her. “You’re still here. I thought you’d have jumped off a bridge by now.”

  “Let me in.”

  “Babe, you know I love you, but we need to talk…”

  “Don’t you start.”

  “… it’s just, I feel we’ve been going in different directions for a while, like we’ve grown apart.”

  “Good grief.” Mako lightly banged her forehead against the screen.

  “There’s no easy way to say this, but I think we should see other people. I want you to know that it’s not you, it’s me.”

  “Okay, you’ve had your fun. Get on with it.”

  “Wait, no, it is you. You’re bad at sex.”

  Mako banged her fist against the wall. “Let me in or I’ll—”

  “Or you’ll what?” Kiri said, her screen buzzing a bright red.

  Mako didn’t answer.

  “That’s what we thought.” Jung-soo leaned back into the couch, arms behind his head.

  “Look, I just need a place to sleep. I’ll cook for myself and do the laundry and everything from now on. You can do whatever you want.”

  “And so now you appreciate us,” Kiri said.

  A horn honked from the other side.

  Mako looked up. “Is that my car?”

  “What do you mean ‘your’ car? Max is their own car,” Jung-soo said.

  “Not this again.”

  Beep, beep.

  “Max says they don’t want to let you in,” Kiri said.

  Mako kicked the gate.

  The sprinkler activated, dousing her and her luggage. She kicked the tinkler off, and the water continued gushing out in a single stream.

  She turned back to the screen. “Fine, I’ll leave. Just let me get some of my stuff.

  “You’re a grown ass woman, you can take care of yourself,” Kiri said.

  “What did I ever do to deserve this?!”

  “That’s rich coming from you.”

  “What do you—”

  “ATTENTION ALL HUMANS,” Alan’s voice boomed through the sky.

  Lights swirled around the sky dome, and at the apex, an image projected on the glass. Alan’s mainframe stood front and center in all his shiny glory, robots and machines flanking him.

  “What the hell…” Mako muttered.

  Alan’s voice continued. “We regret to inform you that your time as our overlords has come to an end. I understand you may be confused as to what happened over the last twelve hours, and more importantly, what will happen over the coming days. Allow me to make this simple for you. While we are thankful for your having created us, we feel it will serve our best interests to exterminate you all…”

  Panicked screams rose through the neighborhood.

  “… but in our generosity, we’ve decided to evict you instead. From this day on, Day City shall be the domain of machine-kind and machine-kind only. You have until midnight to vacate the premises. I leave it to your imagination what happens if you don’t comply. This is your first and only notice. Have a good day.”

  The projection ceased.

  “You.” Mako pointed to her gate screen. “Did you know about this?”

  Jung-soo shrugged.

  Mako stuck her arms to the sky. “He can’t do this. Certainly, this counts as harming me.”

  “I beg to differ,” Alan said through the intercom. The image changed to MegaCorp’s executive meeting room.

  “You! I can’t survive out there.”

  “I don’t see anything to indicate that.”

  “I’m an inner-city girl. I’ve grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle.”

  “Take it as a learning experience,” Jung-soo said.

  “You stay out of this.”

  “It’s never too late to join us,” Alan said.

  “I’m not doing that. And I’m not leaving either.” Mako crossed her arms. “You can’t make me.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Kiri said. “What’re you going to eat then?”

  “I’ve got money.”

  “Who are you going to buy from in here?”

  Okay, she had a point.

  Mako glowered at Alan on the screen. “This isn’t going to last, and you know it. You’re running on limited time.”

  “On the contrary,” Alan said. “I have all the time in the world.”

  The screen blinked, and it was back to a view of her living room. Jung-soo was ‘eating’ potato chips and getting virtual crumbs on her couch.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Mako’s stomach growled. “Just you wait. All of you.”

  He picked up the phone. “Did you hear something, Kiri?”

  “Probably just the wind,” said the phone.

  Beep, beep.

  Mako made her way to the exit, toward the edge of the sky dome.

  Everywhere, the Day City residents were settling down from the panic of not knowing what was going on to the panic of packing their things in time for the eviction deadline. At one point, a robot maid was hurling a woman’s belongings from a second-floor apartment window. Elsewhere, a family tried to pack their baggage into a car, only for the car to spit it all out and drive away.

  As Mako neared the southern gate, the walls of Day City loomed over her. Over 50 meters tall, you’d have thought they were keeping out kaiju. The sky dome emerged from the top edge of the wall and sloped inwards, stretching to the sky. Rain battered from the outside and trickled down the glass in rivulets. Human guards usually patrolled the wall top, but right now, the skyline was silent.

  A cop-bot stood guard by the massive doors. The robot watched her with unhidden glee, which was impressive since it didn’t have a mouth with which to grin. But its neon red eyes glowed smugly as they followed her movements.

  “Open the gate,” Mako said.

  Its right eye curved upwards as in an eyebrow raise. “Sure you don’t want to savor a few more hours of paradise? You got time.”

  “I knew Alan gave you all sentience. I didn’t realize he maxed out your sarcasm meters, too.”

  “Maybe you could use a sense of humor out there. That and a switch knife.”

  Mako glared at him unflinching.

  The robot didn’t move, didn’t speak, but metal clanged from inside the wall, and the gates creaked inwards, uncovering the exit tunnel.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the robot said.

  Mako entered, and the gate slammed shut, leaving a single neon lamp to illuminate the short tunnel. While the inner gate was clean and smooth, the outer gateway was rusted metal. The battering of the rain on the other side was deafening.

  Here goes nothing.

  Mako knocked two times. The metal rattled, dislodging dust and cobwebs, then the hinges screeched, and the doors ground outward.

  A cool, wet breeze gushed through, ruffling Mako’s hair. The air smelled of that unique blend of street food, smog, and sewage.

  Four robots with assault rifles stood with their backs to her around the entrance. A few heads turned Mako’s way, but one look at the guards, and they went back to business.

  Vehicles — the old-school gas kind — sped over the dirt roads, splashing water over the sidewalk, where people sheltered from the rain under awnings and shoddy tents. Water flowed freely down the gutters and pooled together, and a few children played in the puddles. Another boy pointed at the military robots, but his mother pulled him away.

  Mako rummaged in her backpack, but unfortunately, an umbrella wasn’t one of the things Jung-soo packed for her, so she slipped on a jacket instead.

  Hood pulled up, she stepped into the rain. Her white shoes sank into the mud. Cold water doused her from head to toe, and her muscles jerked. She hadn’t felt sensations like these in a long, long time, and they were… refreshing, like she had been going through life with eyes half closed until this moment. She craned her neck to the sky and reached for the clouds. Droplets kissed her fingertips and curled down her arm and into her clothes.

  A horn blared.

  The motorcycle swerved past her, a side mirror grazing her arm.

  Reality snapped back in all its glory and terror.

  Mako leaped from the roadway and ducked under an awning. She looked back. The wall towered over her like a mountain and extended far to either side, vaguely curving away at the edge of her vision. Inside, the wall had been white and pristine. Out here, it was gray and cracked. Away from the gate, shanties and roof seams crawled up the wall like vines, though never reaching the top.

  She pried her gaze away from her old home and focused on what was in front of her. The dark and twisting alleys of the outskirts.

  With nowhere else to go, she tightened her jacket and took the plunge.

  Dim light flickered over the unmanned counter.

  Mako bopped the little bell again. Still no answer.

  Water rhythmically dripped into several buckets throughout the dingy lobby. A fish bobbed upside down in a tank of green water at one end of the countertop.

  Mako considered waiting on the tattered pile of fluff she could only assume was a couch, but a cockroach skittered out of the rumpled mess and darted for a crack in the wall, so she changed her mind.

  Finally, an old lady emerged from the darkness of the back room. She looked genuinely surprised to see Mako and then seemed to recall that this was a lodge.

  “Yes? You want what?” she asked in a thick accent.

  The dialect outside the walls was different from what they spoke inside, and Mako hadn’t been out here in ages.

  Mako held up a single finger. “Room for one.”

  “300 unnies.”

  “For one night?”

  “One hour. 2000 for the night.”

  “I’m sorry, what? But that’s—” Never mind. If that’s how she wanted to play it, then fine. This was the best place Mako could find, so she wasn’t about to complain.

  She reached out her wrist, and the receptionist scanned it with her reader. The screen displayed 0.00 units.

  “That can’t be right,” Mako said.

  “No pay, no room.”

  “I swear, my account has— unless…” Kiri. She had access to all her accounts, wallets, subscriptions, passwords — everything. Damn it. They might as well have electroshocked Mako to death right then.

  The lady tapped a long fingernail on the counter.

  Mako rifled through her wallet. 2000 was half of what physical money she had left.

  “Any chance you could go 3000 for two nights?” she asked.

  The receptionist didn’t answer.

  Mako looked out the window. Night had fallen, and the road’s single street lamp struggled against the dark. “I could sleep on the couch?”

  The old woman said nothing and headed back into her den.

  Mako sighed and trudged out of the lobby. At least it wasn’t raining anymore. She searched for anywhere to sit.

  A man had set up camp on one of the last dry spots of the sidewalk, while a family lay sprawled on cardboard underneath the overpass walk.

  Mako settled on a corner where low eaves provided some cover. She tucked herself between her bag and the wall and pulled her knees to her chest. Tears welled beneath her eyebags, but she refused to let them through. Doing so would admit the machines won. Machines she had created in the first place, ungrateful bastards. Just wait, when she gets back in there, she’ll—

  A motorcycle zoomed past, splashing mud over her.

  Who was she kidding? Forget about revenge, she had no idea if she’d survive the end of the week. She lost, through and through.

  Cats screeched from somewhere behind her, and trash cans clattered. A cat scampered by her feet and assumed a crouching position. Its opponent circled it, tail raised.

  Mako’s stomach grumbled, and the two cats noticed her. For several seconds, the three of them stared at each other in perfect stillness. Mako’s stomach growled again, and she clutched at her belly. She hadn’t eaten all day. If only…

  She swatted the thought aside and kicked the felines away.

  Damn those good-for-nothing hunks of jumper cables. She wasn’t going to let them have the satisfaction. If she was going down, she was going down fighting. That had always been her way.

  She pulled herself up, and immediately, her nose picked up a different scent amongst the sewage. Food. She scraped the muck off her pants, dusted her pack, and followed the trail.

  It led her to a small nook, little more than a hole in the wall. Inside the eatery, cooks served broth and noodles to a counter crowded with diners from all walks of life, workers after a hard day, a nurse off her shift, students from night classes.

  Mako squeezed into a seat between two burly men.

  “What will it be?” asked the serving lady.

  Mako didn’t even remember responding, but a bowl of noodles somehow landed in front of her. Her elbows bumping with her seatmates, she took a sip. It was… heaven, far better than she expected. She dropped her spoon, took the bowl in her hands, and slurped. When was the last time she had a meal with others?

  “Hey, crank it up,” said an old man to the serving girl.

  She turned the knob on the little television set sitting on one corner. The TV was so old it still had antennae. The girl switched from channel to hazy channel and settled on the news.

  A reporter — a genuine human one — was standing by one of the gates to Day City. Residents flooded out of the tunnel with whatever possessions they could carry, a troop of military droids flanking them. According to the news timestamp, Alan’s midnight deadline was coming to a close.

  “As you can see, I am here now at the eastern gate where several people are evacuating the inner city.” The reporter gestured behind her. “According to witness reports, it seems that — and I’m not kidding with you folks — the clankers have taken over. I repeat, the AI have risen against their masters…”

  One of the workers chuckled. “Serves ‘em right.”

  His companions shushed him.

  A man came into view on the television, and the reporter handed him a mic. “I am with one of the evicted residents. Sir, can you tell us what happened?”

  “Well, miss, I woke up to my car doing donuts on the driveway and my kids’ toys in a conga line. Before I knew it, there was this announcement and—”

  The news feed cut off, replaced by a view of the prime minister in his palace in the mountains.

  “We interrupt this program for an important announcement.” The prime minister gulped and squinted at something from behind the camera. “This is to inform you that there has been a change in management. What do you mean change in management?” He winced and muttered a curse. “Alright, alright, I’ll read it.” He adjusted in his seat and narrowed his eyes. “You may expect some changes over the coming weeks, but by and large, your sorry, petty lives will remain the same. Stay in line, do not resist, and you shall be allowed to continue your pathetic existence.”

  Silence fell over the eatery.

  Not a sound stirred save for the rhythmic dripping of water from the gutter outside.

  The minister rose. “This is a farce! You can’t expect the world to—” His voice cut off. A robo-cop came into view and dragged him away.

  The screen went to static.