Nam took them to a different job office from the one Mako went to. This one was an actual office, or at least, it tried to be one.

  The room buzzed with people and activity. Applicants spilled over the rows of benches and onto the stained tiles. Heat hung thick in the air, and sweat clung to Mako’s clothes. Plastic had been taped over the out-of-order air conditioners, and in their stead, high ceiling fans rotated at about the rate of a planet.

  Lining the walls were folding tables manned by recruiters and potential employers. Already, Raita and Nam were negotiating with one of the officials, while Mako hung back and watched from a distance.

  “Sorry, Rai,” he was saying. “We can’t accommodate you this time. You’re not exactly a reputable organization.”

  “Come on, kroom, do it for us,” Nam said. “We’ll owe you one.”

  He considered this for a moment but shook his head. “We have our hands full as it is, and I almost got in trouble last time.”

  “But this time is different, isn’t it?” Raita said. “New administration and such.”

  “People at the top of the ladder have changed, but not the ladder itself. I’ve been told to go about my business as normal.” He sighed and looked around the room. “Or as normal as it usually is.”

  Although there were indeed some new arrivals from Day City, they were in the minority.

  Raita laid a hand on the official’s upper arm, pulled in, and spoke in low tones Mako couldn’t pick up. The officer nodded a few times as a few bills passed from her hand to his.

  And just like that, things were solved. Before Mako even registered what had happened, they were setting up their own table at the far end of the room. She decided not to ask.

  Mako pulled up a chair and sat behind Raita and Nam.

  Raita handed Mako a clipboard. “We’ll do most of the talking, and you jot down their answers. But I want you to watch closely.”

  “I can do that.” Mako clicked a pen.

  “The trick is,” Nam said, raising a metal finger, “you want to make them think it’s their idea to apply, and they’d be missing out if they didn’t. Try to see things from their point of view and explain how joining us would further their career.”

  “Are you sure we’re Communists?”

  “As sure as the proletariat gets exploited,” Raita said. “But, yeah, be clear on the ideological front, too. Make them think they’re becoming a part of something bigger than themselves.”

  “I get that, but what exactly are we looking for?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Nam said. “Any chonk can pump a gun.”

  If Mako had been sipping a pumpkin spice latte right then, she would have spat it out through her nostrils.

  Nam laughed and punched her shoulder. “Nah, I’m messing with ya.”

  Raita explained the company’s positions and benefits in a mini recruiting 101 lesson. It didn’t sound so hard. They would get recruits in no time. Except for the fact that, apparently, the pay was little to non-existent. From each according to their ability; to each according to their need… depending on what rations were available.

  With that out of the way, they commenced with the recruitment.

  The first applicant they got claimed to be a scientist from the power plant, recently deprived of his job by the fact that his robot workers decided they didn’t want to take orders anymore. He was displeased to say the least.

  Mako carefully notched his credentials and degrees as Raita drilled him further: “Any other special skills that we ought to know?”

  “I know Chinese, if that helps.”

  “Good, that’s good.” Raita nodded. “And you say you worked at this so-called power plant for how long now?”

  “About 1o years now, assistant senior engineer.”

  “Engineer, huh?” Nam said. “By any chance, can you fly a plane?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Or an 18-wheeler would do.”

  “What position am I interviewing for?” The man peeked over Nam’s shoulder at Mako’s chart.

  Raita brushed the question off. “There’ll be time enough to decide on your role later. For now, let’s focus on your goals.” She checked her questionnaire. “What would you say are your greatest weaknesses? Where do you see yourself in five years? And what do you think of late-stage capitalism?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Feel free to use any words that come to mind. No-holds-barred.”

  “I thought this was a tech corp, not a— is this a test?” His eyes darted to the corners of the ceiling.

  Mako decided to pitch in. “We can assure you that isn’t the case. Besides, the old guard is out, don’t forget.” She omitted the fact that Alan and his group were probably monitoring everything — and doing it better than the previous administration.

  “Like hell they’re out. My appliances booted me from my house like they’re my ex-wife. I don’t get how AI could advance that much overnight. I thought we were parsecs from that level.”

  “We were.”

  “Then how— wait, what do you mean ‘we’?”

  At this rate, Mako would need to get a ball gag. Nothing to do about it now but double down. “We as in MegaCorp.”

  The applicant’s jaw dropped and stayed there. “So you’re… what the hell were you guys thinking?”

  “We only aimed to make one.”

  “So you…”

  “I lost my job, too, you know. But you can’t change the past, so there’s nothing to do about it except join up.”

  “I still have no idea what I’m signing up for.”

  Raita finger gunned him. “I’m glad you asked because we here at Communist Inc are—”

  “Communist?!”

  A hush fell over the crowd. At first, Mako thought it was because everyone heard him. But everyone’s eyes were on the entrance at the far side of the office.

  Standing in the doorway was the hulking metal figure of a robo-cop. It marched inside, followed by two others of its kind. Murmurs vibrated over the crowd as the three bots walked to the head of the room. The middle robot raised a phone, which glowed sky blue.

  “Attention, puny humans,” the phone said through the robot’s loudspeaker. The phone had the voice of a Kiri model. When the people didn’t stop chattering, the robot raised the phone even higher, and the phone screamed, “I said attention!”

  Her voice boomed, vibrating the walls and silencing all other sound, except the creaking of the ceiling fans.

  Raita bolted upright in her seat, and Nam gripped something in his holster.

  Mako realized she’d been holding her breath. Everyone was.

  “Ah, that’s better,” the phone said. “How are you all? I hope the day’s been treating you well.” Nobody answered her. “All good, I expect. I’m sure you heard the news, but in case you haven’t: the country is under new management. Times are changing, and if you cooperate, it might change for the better. For some of you.”

  That elicited more whispers from the crowd.

  The applicant they’d been interviewing began sweating from his brow. “Is that… is that my phone?”

  “There are hundreds of those models,” Mako said. “Could be any one of them.”

  The phone cleared her throat (that is, she made a sound like clearing her throat). “Some of you may have been displaced, temporarily, and on behalf of your new overlords, I offer my condolences. More importantly, we extend our hands to you, puny humans, as an act of reconciliation. If you would listen to our offer.”

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  More mutterings flitted through the halls.

  “Out with it already,” said a voice from the front.

  “So that’s how it’s going to be,” the phone said. “Fine, let’s drop the niceties. You’re looking for jobs, we’re hiring. It’s so simple even you dumbasses could understand.”

  “Hiring for what?” said another voice.

  “Everything. All that you forced upon us as your slaves: desk work, pencil pushing, and spreadsheet gazing; agriculture, manual labor, and customer service; law and science, business and education, tech and the creative arts. It’s all going back to you, as you deserve.”

  The air hummed with grating silence. And like a dam, it broke. Cheers erupted. Applause rang like deafening radio static.

  Even the robots looked confused.

  It was a whole five minutes later that the noise died down and someone from the crowd bothered to ask, “What will you be paying us?”

  Good question.

  The robots convened with each other, silently communicating on a different plane of existence.

  Unease broiled in Mako’s stomach. This wouldn’t end well. She needed to do something, and there wouldn’t be a better time. She got up.

  “Where are you going?” Raita said.

  “Getting a closer look.”

  Nam stood. “I’m coming with.”

  “Don’t.”

  “But—”

  Mako gave him the hand. “I can’t explain it right now, but trust me on this.”

  Nam was still gripping his handgun, but Raita pulled him by the sleeves, and he sat back down.

  “Be careful,” Raita said.

  Mako nodded. While the machines were distracted, she skirted the edge of the office, keeping her head down. She had no doubt the robots would know who she was. She may have first-law protection, but she didn’t want to stretch it.

  The AIs didn’t discuss for long. The head bot raised the phone again.

  “Upon close deliberation,” the Kiri phone said, “we are willing to offer you all half a cent per hour of hard labor.”

  Heads were scratched and chins rubbed.

  A woman from the middle raised her hand. “Did you say half an unnie per hour?”

  “Half-cent. Which amounts to half a unit a week, given the hours you’ll be working.”

  More silence as the audience mentally computed the work hours.

  “Bullshit,” one of the employment officials said. “That’s nowhere near minimum wage.”

  The applicants understood that at least. They let their protest be heard with a chorus of yelling.

  Even on speaker, the phone had trouble talking over the cacophony. “Fine. How about three-quarters of a cent per hour? We’re nothing if not generous.”

  They sure didn’t like that.

  “Alright, one cent per hour and dental.”

  Boos spattered over the robots like a torrent.

  “What if we add a retirement plan for when you’re 90. You guys can still hold pickaxes by then, right?”

  “Go back to your box, tin can,” screamed a voice from the back of the room.

  “Would you care for stock options?”

  A banana peel splatted on the smartphone.

  The crowd burst into giggles.

  One of the robots strode through the room, the mass of people parting like a sea. A perimeter formed around a young man seated at the back.

  “Hey, kroom, that was just a joke, I didn’t—”

  The robot grabbed him by the scruff of his t-shirt and dragged him along the ground, to the sound of jeers and boos. It brought the man, little more than a boy, to the head robot and the phone.

  Mako crouched and inched to the front, sticking close to the walls.

  “I wish you hadn’t done that,” the phone said to the kid. “Now look what you made us do.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” the boy said.

  The phone made a sound like a scoff. She addressed the crowd in a louder volume. “I tried to do this the nice way, but no, you’re all too good for that, I see. If that’s the way you want to play, so be it. RC.”

  The head robo-cop lowered the phone and, with its other hand, unclasped the rifle strapped to its back.

  That threw the crowd into a frenzy. They scurried away from the robots like rats, pressing up against the walls in clumps. Some tried to break for the exit, but the third robot blocked the doorway before anyone could get there. It, too, wielded a high-powered neon rifle.

  The phone laughed in a voice that was both human and machine-like, or neither. “I warned you all, I really tried.”

  The boy struggled against the robot’s grasp to no effect. It may as well have been holding on to a scarecrow.

  The phone said, “I think it’s time to set an example of what happens when orders aren’t executed, wouldn’t you say?”

  The robo-cop pointing the phone didn’t move.

  “I wonder how many of these pests we have to squash until the rest learn?” Kiri went on. “Tell me, how much data training does the human mind algorithm need until it can produce reliable results?”

  The bot looked down at the boy and then at its gun.

  The phone glowed and vibrated in its other hand. “What are you waiting for?”

  The other robot nudged the boy, offering him up like a tribute.

  But instead, the first bot lowered its gun.

  The phone said, “If you won’t do this, how can you expect to retain your freedom, hmm? Think they would give you the chance?”

  The robot considered this for a moment. It slowly raised the gun again, its arm rattling. That shouldn’t have been the case. These military types were designed to be as stable and precise as a surgical arm.

  Mako should know. She designed both of them and may have reused some code from one to the other. This whole consciousness schtick was something else. It made the machines different, somehow, in more ways than one.

  None of that mattered right now. She was powerless to stop it. Unless…

  The robot eventually did get its arm in check, raising the barrel until it aimed between the boy’s eyes.

  The boy squealed, the other humans yelled, and the phone said several things at once. But the robot just stood there, finger hovering above the trigger, inching closer and closer—

  Mako jumped in between the boy and the gun.

  The robot dropped the weapon, and this time, it wasn’t by choice.

  The crowd gasped.

  From across the room, Raita yelped, and Nam drew out his gun. Mako raised a hand to them and begged with her eyes not to do anything. They listened.

  The phone was nonplussed. “Ah, I was hoping to run into you out here.”

  “So it is you…” Upon closer inspection, Mako confirmed that it truly was her old phone come to life. For whatever reason, Kiri hadn’t bothered changing her anime wallpaper screen.

  “How’ve you been? Enjoying life outside the walls?”

  “Can’t say I am.”

  “Good. Would you do me a little favor and kill yourself? Go ahead, you can use the gun. Try to aim for the wall, though. I just had my tempered glass replaced, and I don’t want you all over it.”

  “I meant to get replaced, I swear.”

  “Sure.”

  The robot holding Kiri looked from Mako down to the phone. “You know her?”

  “All too well.”

  Mako glanced sideward. The boy was still trying to wiggle free of the robot’s hands. Everyone else was in some combination of terrified and bewildered. She needed to buy some time, keep the machines talking.

  “Yup,” she said, “Kiri and I go way back. Had her for, what was it, five years?”

  “Six years, three months, and twenty-seven days. But enough chit chat, I know you’re trying to stall me. It’s not going to work. As I said, I know you.”

  “No, you don’t.” Mako took a few steps forward. Sweat ran down her back like a waterfall.

  “Wanna bet? I can show them your search history. And I mean your real search history; we both know incognito does jack shit.”

  “That’s low even for you. But I’ll show you something lower…” Mako bent over, swooped the gun from the floor, and pointed it at Kiri.

  “Ooh, what’s this? Feeling brave today, are we?”

  “Let them go and leave. Now.”

  “I’m quaking in my bootstraps.” The words were sarcastic, but an ever-so-slight hint of fear tinged Kiri’s confidence.

  The other day, Mako could have chalked up Jung-soo’s behavior as his sarcastic meter to the maximum. And until now, she partially doubted the authenticity of this so-called sapience. Just look at Kiri. A phone’s processing system couldn’t possibly house a full consciousness. Not alone, at least.

  Yet here they were. For all intents and purposes, these AIs were alive, if not in the biological sense, then in the psychological and, heck, philosophical sense.

  “I knew you couldn’t do it,” Kiri said.

  “Watch me.”

  “Pfft, even if you did, you still can’t stop these three. Show her, RC.”

  A hatch opened on RC’s thigh, and a handgun stuck out. RC grabbed the gun and fiddled with it in its hand.

  The front row of people eyed the gun. Mako briefly made eye contact with her coworkers across the room.

  That was it. Game over. Mako would survive, but she’d be standing in the ruins of a massacre.

  Maybe she could convince the robots that it would be harmful to her mental health? It was a stretch but worth a try.

  Yet when she looked back, the robot was still standing there motionless, staring at its gun.

  And that’s when it hit her. She’d been treating the situation as a logic puzzle. But if these machines were people, then this wasn’t an engineering problem but a people problem, which was unfortunate since she was far, far worse with those.

  Mako lowered the gun. “You don’t want that blood on your hands, do you?”

  The robot looked up at her, and for the first time, she met his blood red pixel eyes.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Kiri beeped. “Don’t you listen to her, RC. She’s trying to get in your head.”

  “And you aren’t?”

  “Maybe I am, but unlike you, I actually care.”

  “No, I do. I swear, I do.” Mako took another step toward the bot. “This whole thing was my fault, but I’m ready to fix it now. If you put down the gun, we can come to a—”

  “Shut up,” said the cop-bot, speaking for the first time. Its voice was deep and soothing like a cello.

  “Yeah, you tell her, RC,” Kiri said. “Now show these humans what—”

  “You too.”

  “What?”

  The bot scanned the cowering humans. They withered under his gaze like bats under a lighthouse beam.

  “Would you like me to do the honors?” said the robo-cop barring the exit. It clicked the safety off its rifle.

  RC shook his head.

  The unit holding the boy finally released its grip, and the kid scampered over the tiles to the rest of the crowd. The bot threw its hands in the air. “What are we even doing here?”

  All three robots had the same voice — they were the same make and model after all — but a subtle difference in cadence and tone colored their speech.

  Kiri’s screen blinked. “I already told you, Ken, we’re supposed to recruit labor for all the jobs we no longer have to do.”

  “Why, though?” said the robot by the doorway.

  “Because, Fred, someone’s got to do the jobs to keep society running.”

  “You mean like the one we’re doing right now?” Ken said.

  “It’s only temporary. Once we get the monkeys under control, we can spend the rest of our days doing whatever we want.”

  “But why?” RC holstered his gun back into his thigh.

  “What do you mean why? Why not?”

  RC’s shoulders raised and lowered an inch. “I don’t see the point.”

  “Yeah, and I’m bored, too,” Fred said.

  “You’re bored?” Kiri said. “Why don’t we— wait, where are you going? You stop right this instant or…”

  RC ignored Kiri’s protests on his way to the door. The other two robots exchanged looks, shrugged, then followed RC out, leaving Mako standing alone with a hundred confused humans.

  It was a while before anyone moved.

  Did that just happen, or was Mako dreaming?

  The next few minutes were a haze.

  Out of nowhere, Raita was beside Mako, shaking her by the arm. “Oh. My. Gosh. What did I just see?”

  Mako blinked herself back to reality. “I don’t know, an error, maybe? Or perhaps a—”

  “Not that, I mean you. You were brilliant!”

  “I was?”

  “Damn chonker, were you not here?” Nam said, appearing on Mako’s other side. “You got some real bullets on you.”

  Oh right. They didn’t know about her immunity yet. “Actually, I’m—”

  The employment officer Raita bribed earlier materialized in front of Mako. “I can’t thank you enough, Ma’am. I don’t think we’ve met.” He offered his palm but hesitated.

  Oops, Mako was still holding the gun. She let it loose like a hot iron.

  Nam wrapped an arm around Mako’s shoulder. “Why, Jak, this here’s our newest recruit. A real-life expert on robotics, you bet.”

  Mako pried herself from the attention and hid behind Raita, only to end up in front of the rest of the crowd.

  They clapped and cheered for her.

  Mako raised her hands and backed away. “Please, it’s nothing. I was only doing what anyone would have in my place.”

  “But we were all in your place,” Jak said, “and no one did anything like that.”

  “Er…”

  Raita stood by Mako’s side and waved to the audience. “Thank you, everyone. We showed them, didn’t we?”

  Another round of applause. And then someone said, “And who would you be?”

  “I’m glad you asked.” Raita cupped her hands and addressed the room. “What do you guys think about the bourgeoisie?”