“I’m not lying!”
“Ha.” He laughs. “Pretty much everything out of your mouth today was a lie. You don’t live here, do you? Are you even an engineer?”
“Get off me,” I seethe through gritted teeth.
“Answer me,” he growls, pressing his full weight down on my body.
“I can’t breathe,” I whine.
“Save it,” he snaps. “If you can talk you can breathe. Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Flicka is buzzing in circles just a few feet away. Desperately trying to get her functions back, but failing. Jimmy must’ve activated some kind of bot regulator when he tapped his wristband.
What should I do? What can I do?
I can’t tell him, Tycho’s life is on the line. And I can’t not tell him because he’s got control of Flicka.
“Look,” Jimmy says. “I’m really not a bad guy. I’m actually pretty reasonable. But I’m getting the feeling that everything that’s happened to me today is because of you. So tell me what I need to know and I’ll let you get back on that lift bot and leave the way you came.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“Because why? Just spit it out, Delphi. Your plan, whatever it was, is fucked, OK? Fucked.”
“It can’t be fucked!”
“Why not?”
“Because my brother will die, OK? And I’m not gonna let him die. So if it comes down to you or him, I choose him!”
“Me?” Jimmy says, easing up a little so I can take full breaths again. “What the fuck do you want with me?”
“Let me up.”
“And then what? You run? You spill everything? You try to kill me? What happens if I let you up?”
I suck in a deep breath.
“Whatever it was you were doing, Delphi—if that’s your real name—it’s over. I’m not gonna hurt you unless you make me. So please,” he says. “Don’t make me.”
And then he rolls off me, stands up, and offers me his hand.
CHAPTER NINE – JIMMY
She doesn’t take my hand. Just hikes her legs back and flips onto her feet like some kind of Mighty Warrior.
Which, I admit, I find sorta cute.
She circles me, jaw set, knees slightly bent, like she’s about to pounce.
Also kinda cute.
“What’s all this?” I ask, panning my hand in her direction. “You’re gonna attack me?”
“Maybe,” she says, breathing a little harder than normal.
“So do it. But I’m gonna warn you ahead of time. There’s a timer on that shutdown function I just zapped your little dragonbee with. And by shutdown, I don’t mean it wears off. I mean it kills her.”
“You’re such a dick!” Delphi growls. “Hurting innocent bots.”
“Innocent? No. I know what she is. I’ve seen dragonbee bots in action more times than I can count. We don’t even allow them on Harem Station, that’s how dangerous and unpredictable they are.”
“Mine isn’t. She’s my friend.”
“And yet you called the maidbot a vacuum.”
Delphi huffs.
“So, you wanna play by my rules or not?”
“Let her go first,” Delphi says, jutting her chin towards the spinning and buzzing dragonbee bot on the floor.
I give her a wide smile, then walk over to the bot, pick it up—carefully—by the wings, then walk back over to the bar, drop it inside a glass, and turn the glass over.
Delphi sucks in a deep breath of air. “That’s not letting her go.”
“No, it isn’t. She’s gonna stay right there until we’re done talking. But just so you know, the shutdown sequence is still running. We’ve got”—I look down at my wristband—”six minutes and seventeen seconds before she goes poof.”
“Why are you being such a sun-fucking asshole?”
“Because you’re lying. And you know what? I’m starting to get the feeling all you pinks and silvers are nothing but liars.”
She touches her hair and frowns. “How’d you know I was a pink?”
I roll my eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m fucking serious.”
“Your eyes are pink when you’re angry.”
“Oh,” she says. “Shit. I forgot about that. But I wasn’t really hiding my identity anyway. So whatever.”
“We good?” I ask. “Gonna tell me some truth now?”
She just glares at me.
“OK. What’s your real name?”
“It’s Delphi. I didn’t lie about that.”
“Cool. Good. Why are you here?”
“Here?” she says, pointing down at the floor.
“No,” I say. “Here, as in Mighty Minions.” But actually, now that she mentions it, why is she here in my hotel room?
She growls a little. I interpret this as frustration because she doesn’t want to spill all her secrets.
“Come on, princess. Your jig is up.”
She makes a face. “What’s that even mean?”
“You know. You got caught. There’s no way out but the truth. So spill it.”
She just shakes her head.
“What’s that mean? You still in denial and you want me to believe you don’t have secrets? Or you can’t say?”
“Can’t say.”
“Because you’re afraid of me? Or how I’ll react? Or… afraid of someone else?”
She frowns.
“Hmmm,” I say, thinking this through. On the one hand, she doesn’t look very dangerous. She’s short, and petite, and she’s sporting a uni-horn on her head. And even though I’m pretty sure Mighty Minions is probably where demon worshippers take their kids for fun and she’s dressed up like them, I’m also pretty sure she’s not really a Mighty Minion.