“I can’t believe it was that easy to get out of there.”

  “Anticipation can be a misleading sort of emotion,” I replied.

  It was the day after our adventure to the arena’s dedicated gambling wing. We got our hands on the two medallions we needed, and Pompeii kicked his butt into gear so he could find a pair of working eye lights. With those swapped – it was almost impossible to detect that we were two of the indentured slaves from the pit.

  Our second excursion was less drama filled than the first. We easily slipped out of the workshop at a convenient time, lining it up with the significant outflow of guests that Pompeii observed from the weeks prior. We had one more set of full batteries from Aguntum and two hours to find our energy source before we were due back to join the next crowd flooding into the arena. The guards wouldn’t pay any attention to us in such a large group, they were only checking for the medallions.

  The immediate difference between the inside of the arena district and the outside was not at all obvious. Anticipation had misled me too. The buildings were packed as closely together as possible, with only a few larger avenues leading the larger swells of robots between important destinations. Small touches matched the Roman architecture that the Committee was so obsessed with, but one could not possibly mistake those details for luxury. These buildings were truly spartan in both construction and floorspace assigned to each resident.

  “Some grand city this is…”

  Pompeii chuckled, “It’s grand for them, sitting in their ivory tower and looking down on everyone else. They don’t come to this level and look around. As long as the city looks big and imposing, that’s all they care about. Why else would they waste all that material building that hideous wall?”

  The wall, and the Committee palace that was grafted onto it, towered over everything else in the rusting Roman city. A closer inspection revealed a large balcony on the exterior, presumably to allow the members to overlook their mighty work. From up there those dirty exteriors and cramped living spaces didn’t appear as such.

  “But it’s just fine for our needs. Look at this wiring. It’s so chaotic that nobody will notice us stealing some of their electricity.”

  Pompeii nodded, “You’re right. My human supervisor would have thrown me into the garbage if I produced work this shoddy! Even our talent for engineering can’t avoid problems when it’s all so poorly planned.”

  “And I suspect that a lot of conflicting opinions were involved in the process too.”

  “Yeah. This place is a real powder keg, and now they’re wired fire hazards up all over the damn shop.”

  The cables ran overhead and along the walls, clumped into great trunks that draped down through holes cut into the ceilings of each room. Years and years of chaotic, unplanned development, evolving practices and personal interference had created a kraken looming over the entire city. My signal reading tools for frequency and voltage were going insane, bouncing up and down.

  The environment certainly shaped the behaviour of the bots who lived here. The atmosphere was completely different to Waterway, despite Waterway being trapped in a significantly more deprived position in both materials and security. There was paranoia in the air, or perhaps those leaking signals were putting my brain onto the fritz. Bots leered from their shutter-covered windows and they rarely spoke to one another.

  “How friendly.”

  We came upon an argument happening on one of the avenues. A pair of bots were scrapping over a missing piece of metal. Nobody stepped in to step them coming to blows. Instead they gathered around and watched, cheering them on and assuming that the correct party would come out the winner. It was a nice warm-up before the next round of the tournament kicked off.

  >> Crabs in a bucket.

  Pompeii was more focused on sniffing out the ideal place to put his new device. I stuck close as he led me down a series of narrow streets and towards the west side of the city. The density of the buildings was lower out here, and that was how he managed to strike gold. I could tell he was excited when he broke away suddenly and hurried down a nearby alleyway until he reached the very end. A metal fence kept us from passing through to the other side.

  “This a good spot?”

  “Yeah. Nice and secluded. We can sit back in this recess and charge up without anybot noticing from the outside.”

  There were no windows overlooking this patch, and the awkward angle of the alleyway meant someone would have to enter it to see what was going on at the far end. With nary a soul to be found on the street, we could easily sneak in and out without much trouble.

  Pompeii pulled his hijacking device free from under the panel in his arm and a pair of clippers. He worked fast, severing the connection to one of the domestic properties and attaching the device to the middle. A few finishing touches and some black electrical tape, and it was difficult to notice the meddling without paying very close attention. Given that the wires were caked in a layer of dust, it was unlikely that anyone would bother to check what caused that momentary outage.

  “Great. Now we can charge those spares, or spend more time wandering around looking for a way out of this hellhole…”

  I made an internal note of where our new bypass was located. Having a photographic digital memory was handy at times like these. With the main objective of our visit completed, we could be somewhat confident that we could remain inside of the main city for a prolonged period of time as long as we remained cautious and avoided detection. Part of me wanted to take the chance we had to escape – but the energy desert that surrounded the Rusted Wall was one of the biggest in the entire facility, at least according to Pompeii. Invading armies and escapees alike would be caught without the battery to fight if they acted carelessly.

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  For now, we would have to keep playing our part, returning to the arena and continuing to participate in the tournament until the schedule died down. We could work on finding an effective way to get out of here during the wait. Only then could we be confident in leaving and making it to another settlement.

  During the return trip I paid closer attention to the city at large. I quickly noticed that the ‘nicest’ areas of the residential district were ones which surrounded a series of monuments. Some were dedicated to major events, others to individual robots from the Committee. The more I looked the more obvious the signs of glorification were. Their seal was on the exterior of many buildings too.

  But the most obvious example were the speakers. We avoided going through those areas of the district during our first trip, but this time we walked straight through a number of different public plazas. All of them were adorned with mounted speakers on metal poles, pointed in all directions and cranked to the maximum possible volume. It was so loud that it almost made the ground rumble.

  ‘When the unwashed hordes pound at our door and demand entry, you should count yourself amongst the select few who need not fear their violence. The Committee protects. The Committee provides. The Rusted Wall stands proud against any and all threats!’

  “How irritating,” I observed.

  “Yeah. They don’t have these damn propaganda speakers set up by the arena. It was a serious shock when I got out here for the first time. No wonder everybot is acting so miserable listening to this dreck at every waking moment.”

  ‘This is the greatest of all cities in the Big Under! Thank the Committee for their guidance and leadership, for their foresight in seeking to imitate the greatest of all Empires!’

  “I take it that the Committee are a humble lot?”

  “Oh, you have no idea!” Pompeii chuckled, “A bigger bunch of egos you will not find in this facility. They get a lot of enjoyment out of lording their power and influence over the plebeians packed into these slums they call residential districts. What a joke that is! They get to sit in that stupid fortress and take a share of their hard work in return for nothing.”

  >> This bears a close resemblance to human society. The workers pay a share of their income to the ‘government’ in return for services and security. It seems the only service these bots receive is a paltry amount of energy to keep themselves online, though.

  >> There is a more even-handed way to distribute the energy and the wealth. This system is engineered to benefit the Committee at every stage of the process.

  I wondered if any other settlements in the Big Under used a physical currency like this place did. It did make exchanging goods and services easier. That was the main reason that humans put up with it in the first place, but unlike a human, an Infrabot usually had the same skills and equipment as every other Infrabot. The only separating factor was the time they could dedicate to doing the work.

  I heard whispering in the workshop that a few down on their luck bots from this area knowingly signed up to be gladiators, hoping to find fame and fortune, or just a place to stay. That sounded like an awful trade to me – but I also didn’t have a full picture of what life was like for the other bots under the Committee’s iron fist.

  “Alright. Timed to perfection. The second shift in the casino is starting soon. We can slip in with the big crowd and check the easy door to the shop.”

  From the outside the arena district looked like a grand design indeed. It was decorated with fluttering crimson banners edged with gold and towering Greco-Roman pillars. Statues of the gladiators mid-battle were everywhere I turned, and the relative lack of development as you ascended the steps made it obvious that this was a separated temple for all things violent and opulent. Hundreds and hundreds of gamblers made the holiest of pilgrimages up those marble steps, tussling and elbowing for the chance to go through the guarded front gate first.

  We bided our time until those most troublesome guests were done and slipped through, briefly flashing our stolen medallions to the guards and being waved through. Instead of climbing across the balcony again we chanced visiting the ground floor of the main building to see if someone was watching the access door. Luckily, the guards were busy dealing with the afternoon rush and we could slip through unnoticed.

  At least until we entered Pompeii’s workshop. Aguntum was there waiting for us.

  “Aguntum? What are you doing here?”

  Pompeii didn’t seem perturbed by her presence. He just went about his business of offloading his spare equipment and preparing our normal parts for another long night of putting it all back to the way it was before.

  “You told her about the plan?” I asked.

  “Sure I did. It’s not every day that somebot fishes for a set of fully-charged batteries.”

  “The more units that know of our plan, the more likely we are to be discovered.”

  Aguntum laughed, “Can’t do a pal a favour without being accused of working against them these days. Alright. If that’s not good enough of a reason for you, let’s just say that if you both get killed trying to escape – that’s less competition for me in the tournament. Happy?”

  >> We cannot dismiss that ‘joke’ as a lie, given her past statements.

  >> One of her own gladiators warned us about Pompeii. Did she overhear them talking back then?

  “I am unconvinced.”

  “Yeah. I can tell. Listen, it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other if you two manage to get out of this place. I get it. It’s a hellhole. But that doesn’t mean anywhere else is a safer bet. All those well-meaning towns get burned to the ground after a few years by Rampants or Leeds’ Boys.”

  “So why help us?”

  “You wouldn’t believe the real reason. Go ahead and swallow my bullshit about trying to eliminate the strongest competition. If that’s not good enough – then it’ll have to stay a mystery.”

  Pompeii kept his silence during our back-and-forth. He didn’t want to get involved with it. He kept working, digging out the pieces and panels we removed to don our disguises so that he could reequip them to my body when I went offline.

  >> Is she here to talk to Pompeii? I’m feeling a distinct lack of trust between us…

  >> She’s not going to spill any of the details with us still online. This is a waste of time.

  If I’d learned one lesson from the past few days, it was to know when to fold my hand and try again later. There was no leverage I could hang from their necks without jeopardizing my own chances of escape from the Rusted Wall. Mutually Assured Destruction was not an effective long-term strategy. I skulked away and mounted my frame to the stand, turning myself offline and hoping that I’d awaken to another day of scheming, and not a set of bars inside of a cell.

  >> As if this arena isn’t a prison already.