Sharon made sure the barricades were secure, at least for the time being, then went up into the hotel and, moving from floor to floor, blew away all the ‘bots the civilians had found.
This search-and-destroy mission netted ten housekeepers, five custodians, two room-service waiters, and two security guards. According to Merle, that accounted for the hotel robots; this didn’t include the huge bellhop that killed two staff members and a guest before someone picked up a chair and used it to smash the robot’s CPU. That happened on the first day; most of the guests fled after that, along with most of the remaining staff. After that sweep, everyone thought all the ‘bots had been accounted for and destroyed.
By the end of the third day, the thirty-one people hiding in the Wyatt-Centrum’s cathedral-like atrium were down to the last few cans of the junk food a couple of them had scavenged from a convenience store a few blocks down the street. Nobody wanted to venture outside, though – it had become too dangerous to leave the hotel — and the cops were reluctant to tear down the plywood boards they’d had nailed across the ground-level doors and windows. So when Cindy asked Harold if he’d mind coming along while she checked out the kitchen — “It can’t all be fresh food,” she’d said. “They must have some canned stuff, too.” – she didn’t have to twist his arm very hard.
Hunger wasn’t the only reason why he went with her, though. Truth was, he wanted to get into Cindy’s pants. Sure, she was at least twenty years younger and he was married besides, but Harold been eyeing her for the past three days. Only that morning, he hadn’t entirely turned his back when she’d taken a bath in the atrium swimming pool, As afraid as he was of dying, he was even more afraid of dying without having sex one last time. Such are the thought processes of the condemned. Perhaps he wouldn’t get a chance to knock boots with her during this foray, but at least he’d be able to show off my machismo by escorting her through the lightness kitchen. That was the general idea, anyway ... but before he got a chance to nail Cindy, that goddamn ‘bot nearly nailed them instead.
Unfortunately, when Harold visited the kitchen earlier, he and Merle had neglected to check the big walk-in refrigerator. It wasn’t entirely his fault; the two cooks they’d found attacked them the moment they pushed open the door, forcing a hasty retreat. Those were the first robots the cops had neutralized, and Merle believed they were the only ones in the kitchen. But he was wrong; a third ‘bot had been trapped in the fridge when the lights went out.
The walk-in was located in the rear of the kitchen, just a little farther than Harold had gone the first time he’d searched the room. They’d found a carton of breakfast cereal, which would be good for the kids, and Cindy was hoping for to find some milk that hadn’t spoiled yet. She’d just unlatched the chrome door handle, and he was standing just behind her, when they heard the sound everyone had come to dread the last few days:
Tick-tick… tick-tick-tick… tick … tick-tick-tick…
“Watch out!” Harold yelled, and an instant later something huge slammed through the door. Cindy was knocked to the floor; falling down was probably the only thing that saved her from having an eight-inch ice pick shoved into her chest.
The cook was nearly as large as the bellhop. A Lang LHC-14 may seem harmless when it’s stirring a vat of corned beef hash, but this one was hurtling toward them with a sharp metal spike clutched in its manipulator claw. And neither Harold or Cindy were armed.
“Get back, get back, get back!” Harold yelled, as if she really needed any encouragement. Cindy scuttled backward on hands, hips, and heels while he threw himself away from the refrigerator, losing his flashlight in his haste.
Even if he’d hadn’t dropped the light, though, he would have been able to see the cook. Red and green LEDs blinked across the front of its box-like body, the glow reflecting off the hooded stereoscopic lenses within its upper turret. As it trundled through the door on soft tandem tires, the turret swept back and forth, clicking softly as the lenses captured first Cindy, then Harold, then Cindy again. Mapping them, remembering their positions...
“Watch out! It’s gonna charge...!”
The turret snapped toward Harold as the ‘bot determined which human was closer. At that moment, his groping hands found the cold metal surface of something that moved: a dessert cart, complete with the molding remains of several cakes. Torture wagons, his wife called these things, and he was only too happy to one in a less metaphorical way. As the cook rushed him, he dropped the light, dodged behind the cart, grabbed its glass handle, and slammed it straight into the robot.
The impact dislodged the ice pick from the cook’s claw. As it hit the tile floor, he wrenched the cart backward, then shoved it forward again, harder this time. Harold was trying to knock it over, but the ‘bot had been designed for stability, bottom-heavy and with a low center of gravity. He was slowing it down, but he wasn’t stopping it.
The situation was both dangerous and absurd. The cook would trundle forward, its arms swinging back and forth, and Harold would ram the cart into it. The ‘bot would halt for a second, but as soon as he pulled the cart back, the machine would charge again, its claws missing his face by only a few inches. It might have been funny, but when Harold glanced over his shoulder, he saw in the shadowed illumination cast by the dropped flashlight that the cook was gradually backing him into a corner between a rack and a range grill. Dale was right: these things learned fast.
“Cindy! Get this friggin’ thing off me!”
He didn’t hear anything save for the incessant ticking, high-pitched whine of the ‘bot’s servos, and the loud clang of his cart ramming it again. A chocolate cake toppled off the wagon and was immediately pulverized by the cook’s wheels. He had the wild, hopeless hope that the icing would somehow screw it up, make it lose traction...
“Cindy..!” Damn it, had she abandoned him?
All at once, the robot’s turret did a one-eighty turn, its lenses snapping away from him as its motion detectors picked up movement from somewhere behind it. In that instant, Cindy dashed out of the darkness, something raised in both hands above her head. The robot started to swivel around, then a cast iron skillet came down on its turret and smashed its lenses.
Nice shot. Although the robot could still hear them, it was effectively blinded. While its claw lashed back and forth, trying to connect with one of them, Cindy beat on it with the skillet while Harold continued to slam it with the dessert cart.
“Hit it, hit it!”
“Get the claws!”
“Go for the top, the top!”
So forth and so on, until one last blow from Cindy’s skillet managed to skrag the CPU just beneath the upper turret. The LEDs went dark and the cook halted. The ticking stopped.
When Harold was sure that the cook was good and dead, he came out from behind the cart. Cindy was leaning against an island, breathing hard, skillet still clutched in her hand. She stared at him for a moment, then dropped the skillet. It hit the floor with a loud bang that echoed off the stainless steel surfaces around them.
“Thanks.” Harold sagged against a counter. “Tough, ain’t it?”
“Built to last.” Her cotton tank-top was damp with sweat, the nipples of her twenty-two-year old breasts standing out. “You okay?”
“I’m good.” Harold couldn’t stop staring at her. “You?”
Cindy slowly nodded. She brushed back her damp hair, then looked up at him. Even in the wan glow of the dropped flashlight, she must have seen something in his eyes that she didn’t like it at all.
“Fine. Just great.” She turned away from him. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”
Harold let out his breath. Looked like he wasn’t going to get laid after all, even if it was the end of the world.
*
Cindy tried to hide her irritation, but she was still quietly fuming when she and the other guy – what was his name? Harold? – returned to the atrium.