Mick sat in his land-train on an escarpment overlooking the crossing. Below, in the valley, the bots paraded alongside the slowly shuffling line of indentured labourers, their threatening gestures accompanying each faltering step. He counted five bots, one for every twenty humans.
“It’s all about ratios,” he muttered, pulling his scarf up to his nose. That’s how corporations preferred it. Bots were costly; humans were cheap. But everything had a cost. He’d rescued slaves before… for a price.
He pressed the icon to download the unstable, short-lived neuro-ordnance to the knock-off, no-ID, no-provenance embedded projector he’d bought at Yung-Sen market. Disengaging the door clamps, he placed a boot on the gravel-strewn ground, listening to it crunch beneath him.
He took a step forward.
The nearest bot turned its nearly featureless head towards him, its carbine-clad arms twitching like predatory insects.
“Hold your fire, flask-face,” he yelled, pulling his ident out. “I’m a registered trader.”
“Stand still, and extend your arms vertically,” the bot commanded in a metallic rumble.
He stood, arms raised. Once the bot had determined he was holding no weapons, it waved its gun at him. “Proceed.”
He scrambled down the escarpment, feeling the jittery bite of his neuro-ordnance rattling around in his top-level storage, eager to escape. He doubted Archelon’s shaky plan; two auto-carbines would have been better. Still, the old man had persuaded him.
“Too many collateral casualties,” he’d said, his old face lined with a look of sorrow. “Try it my way.”
The bot approached him, “State your business, trader.”
“I want to contract the labour in your charge,” he responded, waving an arm at the ragged line. “We have an agri-project that needs additional hands.”
“These are miners, not farmers,” the bot stated flatly. “And they are not available for lease.”
“I’m willing to pay handsomely for them,” he said, stepping closer.
“You have nothing we need,” the bot said.
“Let me show you what I have,” Mick said.
He held his hands out, palms up, as he stepped into range of the platoon’s Wi-Fi feed.
Connected.
Released the neuro-ordnance.
It burrowed into the topmost layers of the feed, drenching it with imperatives designed to confuse, subjugate, and disable the command net, without undermining the basic operating tasks running on the lower layers.
It took less than a second for the entire troop to be stricken with a willingness to obey his wishes.
He patted the nearest bot on its carapace and growled. “Persuader-ware. Nothing but the best.”
Instructing the bots to walk in a tight circle for twenty-four hours, he released the contract workers and led them up the escarpment. The workforce chatted animatedly; some laughed, some cried, but most looked disbelieving. Contract labourers were born into their bonds and died in them, never earning enough to buy their freedom.
Once they were safely in the land-train, he sealed his compartment and released the refrigerant. The laughter stopped first.
“Of course, fresh meat fetches more, but frozen is easier to store,” he thought.
