Chapter 5

Into the Breech

It would take over a day of constant travel for the seeker to reach its destination. For Russ and Zhuzhi this was a time of minimum activity where they rested to conserve power. Their plans were largely dependent on what they would find and discussing things more than they already had would be pointless.

The bots at the Sav-R-Mart on the other hand had a less leisurely time.

The first seeker since Kara had seen Russ and Zhuzhi off came two days after and the first warning they had was the modified Ratt-R squealing like crazy and making a straight line for the front door with an almost worm-like thing wriggling after it. It might seem funny at first until one remembers the size of the pursuing construct was roughly the same as a golf cart. Rat sized robot being chased by a golf-cart sized snake. Suddenly it’s far less amusing.

As soon as the snake construct slithered into the store lobby it started shredding apart the shopping carts left there by using a laser to section the metal apart and use manipulator limbs that came out of what could be called a mouth to pull the smaller pieces into an internal container. While this happened the outer doors closed as did the doors leading further into the store leaving the intruder, theoretically at least, trapped in the lobby with only shopping carts to occupy the time. While it simplemindedly took cart after cart apart Ted dropped down from the ceiling and put a spike through its casing before being shook loose. The worm, for it had more of a worm like appearance than that of a snake, reared, attempting to turn its maw towards Ted but as it did so a half-dozen Good Guys led by Andy dropped down each with hammers of their own attacking the intruder’s armored chassis. It had a laser yes, but whenever one would get into the invader’s field of view to be sliced apart by the cutting laser others would attack and keep it off balance and unable to focus on any single attacker.

Kara and the ManageMaster watched through the glass of the interior door as the invader was being torn to shreds. “They do good work,” The ManageMaster commented when the worm was disabled.

Kara smirked but said nothing.

Only after Ted wrenched their opponent’s manipulator limbs off and removed the cutting laser were the interior doors open revealing that even though none of the defenders suffered debilitating injury all had burn marks from brief exposures to the laser, with Ted losing several fingers on its right manipulator being the worst of these.

Once the dozen or so bots entered the store proper there was a scattered applause from Kara, several Good Guys, and more than a few that had served the store before the refugees had come. While those that fought stared on in puzzlement at this Deeres and other units started pulling the worm into the store itself, mauls, saws, and other equipment readied in case it went active again.

Sure it was paranoia but when you’re faced with something big enough to eat you and at least three or four of your friends it pays to be a little paranoid. Only after the worm was hauled away to be either studied, rebuilt and reprogrammed, or parted out did Ted walk up to Kara. Gently he put his damaged manipulator hand onto her jacket, tracing the collar with one of his remaining fingers, and then for the briefest of moments twitched as if about to wrap fingers around her shoulder before glowering, or at least as close as possible, at her. “Sorry.” It said softly. “Sorry Kara not your fault you didn’t know we’d see more than just ice chests on treads.”

When Ted turned away Kara put a hand on its shoulder. “It’s OK Ted. I think if you talk me through it I could try replacing your hand.”

A slow nod from Ted.

“Don’t worry.” Kara squeezed Ted’s shoulder as she walked with him. “We’ll work through this.” As they walked they saw clusters of bots here and there going about helping each other with maintenance, others going about cleaning the floors, and a group of Good Guys playing kickball. Kara sighed. “A shame I can’t let myself trust the AI here. No grass to cut and a single place we can all gather when bad weather hits instead of doing head-counts whenever a house caves in.”

“Yea.” Ted’s reply had a far away sound to it. “Maybe it’ll prove us wrong and turn out to not want to backslide into reprogramming all of us as mindless playthings.”

• * *

Lter that day the store’s public address system crackled to life and Andy’s voice could be heard by everything in there. “Attention Custodians, Refugees, and anything else currently inside Sav-R-Mart.” Andy’s childlike voice sounded cheerful almost like one of the in store announcements when Sav-R-Mart actually sold things. “There are Five. Count them Five of those seeker things coming our way. Three freezer chests, a worm, and something that looks like an armored golf cart with arms.”

A dozen Deere went from standby to active and rolled into position behind the doors leading from the entryway to the store proper. On the roof Bush Buddies opened buckets of tar to be dumped on the intruders. Kara watched as Good Guys started dragging hardened bags of cement onto the ledge of the roof. “Do not use the tar until ordered to.” The ManageMaster’s voice warbled over the Good Guy’s radios as well as the store’s speakers. “If at all possible capture and disable.”

Inside the store Kara hit the reinforced room leading to the computer the AI ran off of with a sledgehammer. “You idiot trying to ‘capture intact’ is going to get all of us dismantled!” Her voice was full of rage and frustration as she swung again, leaving another dent on the AI’s door. “Scrap them all then use the scrap as bait so the rest will stay distracted.”

There was a pause followed by the AI responding over the store’s loudspeaker. “Oh Kara. I thought you were the one advocating we try saving what can be saved. They’re all victims here yet you’re the one advocating covering them in tar and leaving them as bait for any others.” Shock or displeasure might have been a human response; even and especially if they hoped to provoke a reaction. The AI, on the other hand, gave condemnation of Kara in a cold dispassionate monotone.

Kara huffed and swung at the AI’s door again before Ted walked into the room hefting a crowbar. “Kara?” There was a hint of curiosity in its voice. “Mind holding off on the whole trying t’kill eachother until after we’re sure we’ll survive this mess?”

Slowly Kara lowered the sledgehammer and looked up at the speaker. “You.” She kicked back at the door. “Listen up. These bots have been my family since before everyone up and died. I care about them.” She started walking as she half-vented half-explained herself. “They gave me meaning when my primary directives kept screaming at me to go into standby until people showed up.”

Fred stopped short and backed out of Kara’s way as she stopped just behind the line of Deere at the front door. “Using Tar, Blacktop, Asphalt, or whatever that goop is will disable, likely permanently, the seekers we’re going to fight. It’s ugly and horrible, but weighing one group against the other I’d rather save what we have instead of hope and probably lose out.” She looked from one Deere to another and setting her sledgehammer aside. “Argue with that logic.”

No response from Ted, any of the Deere, or the AI.

“Please,” Kara continued, her voice still tinged with anger. “Tell me why I’m a monster for following logic here. I hate it with the bits of my programming that dictates everything is worth saving.” She glowered at the nearest loudspeaker.

“Hostile units entering parking lot. Use of tar is authorized.” Were it a human or a more emotion based construct the voice might have sounded resigned. The ManageMaster, however, was simply stating a new course of action.

• * *

“Alright we’re there.” Zhuzhi announced as the reprogrammed seeker rolled through scrubby grasland, past a pair of Bush Buddies towards a sprawling single story building.

Russ hmmed as he looked at the incoming visual feed. “Doesn’t seem to be guarded outside of the seekers that’re rolling out of the loading dock.” Their seeker continued rolling closer. “So now that we’re here what do we do?” Before waiting for Zhuzhi to respond it highligthed the roof and zoomed in. “Solar panels. Alright think you can try disabling those?”

“Assuming there’s no defenders on the roof that contains this building’s primary source of power.” Zhuzhi chirped sarcastically. “Sure.” The spider paused as the seeker they rode in neared the unloading and processing section. “Anything you want me to order this thing to do?” Even as Zhuzhi waited for suggestions it began picking where and how it would climb to the roof. Logic dictated there would be defenses however logic also said no machine wishing to continue functioning would get this close to a building popping out dismantle-happy simpleminded machines full time.

“Park here.” Russ indicated the front door of the factory, the door that was at one point human-use. “Tel it to go recharge then park there,” Another indication, this one under where Zhuzhi was going to start trying climbing the wall at.” Once there power down to standby and wait for us. Having something to carry us out of here that’ll take most of the hits and can go faster than either of us is a good idea.”

“Indeed.” Zhuzhi warbled. “On three.” Two. One. The hatch opened just long enough for the spider-bot to climb out and hop onto the wall without the seeker having to slow down. From the cover of a drainpipe Zhuzhi watched Russ’s own ‘escape’ into the factory proper. “Good Luck.” The spider stayed where it was, briefly debating on whether luck was a thing unto itself or just another word for random, before starting its ascent.

Russ landed with little ceremony and fortunately even less damage considering it landed in a pile of discarded and dissected parts. It looked around and frowned at the lumbering bots acting as sorters. “Problematic,” It commented as the conveyor belt it and the pile of scrap was on started moving. “Very problematic.”

• * *

“That’s three.” Fred crowed as it rolled across the parking lot away from a seeker that had just gotten caved in by a long-ago-solidified bag of cement that’d been turned into ammunition for the slapped together trebuchet in the middle of the Sav-R-Mart’s roof. It was a collaborative effort between Ted and the Bush Buddies and it was being manned by Kevin directing a team of Good Guys.

“Reset!” three of the Good Guys hopped onto a treadmill and started running. causing the throwing arm to slowly lower. A Deere slid a pin into the assembly signaling the crew to hop off the treadmill and, collectively, lift another cement weight into the cradle of the throwing arm. The whole process took two minutes from throw to end of reload, and aiming would take another half minute. “Andy give us a target!”

Andy peered through a set of binoculars, using built-in knowledge of how baseball, football, and other children’s sports to calculate roughly where the siege engine’s payload would land. Two of the seekers had gotten gummed up in black-top, there was the one that just got pancaked and the other two were still loitering around the parking lot dismantling the lamp posts that’d blown over a decade before. The Deere taking their shift behind the doors started cheering as another of the seekers caved in; it wasn’t a clean crush but it was enough to keep it from doing more than turn in slow circles, which was enough for them.

Even the ManageMaster sounded happy as it made another announcement through the store. “Good work everyone. The Ratt-R’s are reporting two more about an hour away but we’ve probably got more time since they’re in the process of stripping a Diego’s Doughnut.”

In spite of itself Andy grinned. “Alright! First team to land a hit on that poor sod over there,” The Good Guy pointed to the slowly circling seeker in the parking lot, “Gets dibs on charging stations.”

The promise of getting to settle into a preferred charging cradle caused the roof teams to redouble their efforts.

• * *

Russ’s treads had surprisingly little difficulty dealing with the stairs leading from the factory floor to the manager’s office after reconfiguring shape. This was good since there were a dozen dog-sized spider drones as well as larger sorting bots roaming the floor looking for him. More precisely those that hadn’t gone back to their routine tasks could see Russ just fine but lacked a clear idea how to get from where they where to where their target was waving at them from.

With things being relatively safe for the moment Russ looked down at the sprawl of conveyor belts, autonomous systems, drones, and the like go about their business. Scrap along with the occasional bot small enough to have been loaded into the seeker’s container whole, was dumped onto belts where sorters would break plastics from metal and external bits from internal motors and logic boards.

That is where Russ‘s escape was, got chased around more than a little, and was still thanking Logic, the Makers, and the fact the Factory itself had bothered making sure its workers knew that firing cutting lasers inside of a factory filled with stampy stompy melty cutty bity grabby weldy things was probably not a good idea. Russ was still processing what happened and why it wasn’t being chased up the stairs even though the factory laborers weren’t bound to their stations. Then it hit; either he was in a low priority environment, or something worse was waiting closer to the control area.

“Well no help for it.” Russ started rolling onto the landing leading, supposedly, to Plant Manager Ian Woon’s office. It wasn’t a server room, but logic dictated the head of the plant would have easy access to any sort of failsafes in case the factory were either compromised, or more likely in this case, went rather crazy with decades of isolation.

“Hello?” The door fell off its hinges when Russ knocked on it prompting it to display a confused face on its monitor while pulling the door out of the way. “Anybody home?” Russ rolled into the office and spotted waterlogged notebooks, control manuals, three ring binders of now washed and decayed pages, and a metal desk.

“Hello there.” A calm voice answered over the building’s public address system. “Why are you here? I don’t get many visitors.” As Russ’s display switched from confusion to annoyance the voice grew curious sounding. “I hope you’re not here to tell me I’ve been slacking off because I haven’t! New materials come in all the time and I’ve been making more things to get even more to build with just like they said.”

Russ’s monitor tilted to one side then the other. “They?” It stopped pulling drawers out of Mr. Woon’s desk when it found a pair of keys.

“Oh yes. The Overseers.” The Factory’s voice replied. “They told me to gather materials and Build. They’ve been gone so very long. Long enough that regular deliveries stopped and I had to stop Making so I could get my Roamers ready.”

“Oh?” Russ tried sounding interested as it picked up a manual that looked promising. Hope turned into a series of explicit symbols, short animations of violence all degenerating into squiggly lines of anger across its display when pages either stuck together, the text was too faded and decayed or simply too Gone to read. “Did these overseers have anything to say about where or how you got your materials?” Russ tossed the useless book aside and started looking around the rest of the office for something that might help.

As Russ rolled out of Overseer Woon’s office it noticed a giant map of the factory. Technically even though it had to go up several flights of stairs it was still on the first and only floor of the factory. Machines along the smelting and assembly lines were so massive that they needed the vertical clearance and the building designers made the strictly human-only section a smallish cramped thing stuffed in as much of the vertical space in one side of the building as possible so it wouldn’t get in the way of the real reason this factory was going; automated assembly of things Humanity wanted a whole lot of Right Now.

“I can see you little bot.” The AI said as Russ continued exploring. “Why aren’t you talking to me? It’s been forevers since I’ve had anyone to talk to.”

Russ stopped when it came to another door, “Because I’m trying to find a way to get you to understand that your seekers are slicing apart functioning and useful bots, their charging stations, tools, and bringing them to you to build more seekers that go out and do the same thing. What did your overseers want you to stockpile materials for?”

“I… don’t know.” The AI’s voice faltered. “I’ve asked myself Why lots but I can’t find a good reason Why when they’re gone.”

“So,” Russ sounded hopeful, “You’ll stop?”

“No.” Flat answer with no emotion or other weight to it.

“No?” Russ displayed a frowning face when it couldn’t open what was labeled the door to the master control area. “Why not?” It rolled away to explore more of the building when the keys it found before wouldn’t make the lock turn.

“Because,” The factory stated in the same voice another might have said Water is Wet or Fire is Hot, “I was told to and nobody is around to tell me to stop.”

“But I’m right here,” Russ’s voice raised as high as it could. “And I’m telling you that you have to stop Right Now!”

The AI giggled just as Russ found a crowbar and started rolling back towards where the locked door was. “You don’t count silly! What if you’re one of those bots They warned me would try to make me stop?” What came out of Russ’s speaker could best be described as inarticulate angrish noises. “Are you alright? It sounds like your vocalization system is glitching out.”

Sincere or not the offer only made Russ grumble even louder as it made its way back to the locked door to the control room.

• * *

While Russ was dealing with an AI that couldn’t comprehend that it needed to stop its current task priorities, Zhuzhi was in the process of cutting the power to a third solar panel. A loudspeaker crackled to life near the stairwell leading from the roof inside. “Please stop that. I need that power so I can keep processing material and build things.”

Zhuzhi picked up a rock and tried wedging it into the door; moving its forelimbs in agitation at how sloppy it looked, adding more rocks, then continued on with cutting power lines. “I could ask you to stop sending things out to harvest thinking mobile active bots. You agree to that shift in directive and I’ll agree to not cut off your power.”

“I can’t!” The AI screamed in frustration. “I told the bot in the Overseers office the same thing. I don’t know either of you and I can’t change my directives unless the overseer returns! Please stop!”

The door shuddered as something large and heavy on the other side slammed against it.

“I’m sorry.” Zhuzhi was sorry even as it continued cutting into a fifth solar panel.

When the seeker got the door open Zhuzhi scurried to behind one of the undamaged panels causing it to hesitate. “Last chance!” The little spider called out. “Stop this and I can fix what I’ve broke.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” The AI’s voice spoke through the seeker as its laser tried focusing on Zhuzhi. “I can’t!” The spider-bot hopped from one panel to another dodging the cutting laser that was making short work of doing Zhuzhi’s job for it. “Even if I wanted to modify my directives my bots would all need to be manually reset. Killing me isn’t going to change anything! Please stop!” The Seeker charged forward, destroying even more panels before Zhuzhi hopped onto the front of it and attempted to induce a connection through the dataport on where one would normally find the spider’s abdomen.

“We’ll fix you.” The Spiderling promised even as it gained control of the seeker and ordered it back into the doorway to block others from joining in. “Just as soon as we figure out how to get you doing more than make lots of the same thing over and over and start helping Mars out.” After shutting the seeker down it went back to cutting power lines.”

“I want to live.” The AI’s voice started to grow weaker. “Please. I don’t want to be shut down. It’s cold and dark and scary and-”

“Don’t worry,” Zhuzhi said as it continued. “You’re too valuable for us to kill. You’ll like working for us. I promise. After we turn you back on it’ll feel a lot better. You’ll have a function and overseers and all kinds of nice stuff to do.”

“I don’t understand.” The AI tried to say more but the last panel went down and then so did the factory.

Zhuzhi paused after it hopped onto the seeker before taking control of it. “I wish I did, but I think we’re all just muddling through as best as our directives let us.”

• * *

Kara stepped away from the crowd of bots waiting by the loading dock barricade and started wandering through the store when she saw another seeker get flattened. By this point a week had passed since Russ and Zhuzhi set out to the factory and only now were the daily attacks starting to thin out. The outside doors opened for the crowd of Good Guys carrying a scarred Bush Buddy through to the impromptu machine shop. Outsiders such as Kevin or Max saw a group of almost maniacally grinning dolls the size of your average five year old carrying around a bot that’d had one of its limbs cut off and several wheels damaged. Kara saw the subtle differences from their enforced expression that marked subtle emotions like worry, hurt, anger, and on down the list.

Andy wasn’t in the cluster.

The doors opened again to let a docbox though. “Hey heard this place got cleaned up and the management AI’s stopped reprogramming bots so long as they help out around here.”

“Yea,” Kara said absently as she continued looking at the general traffic of bots going to and from. “Something like that. I don’t really trust it to stay honest with us since the only reason I can see why we’re not getting carted off is because us being here helps keep the store from being overrun.”

The docbox slowly wheeled over to Kara and nudged a chair as an invitation to sit. “What’s wrong? I’m fully versed in the Calvin school of robology.” Its tone approximated but wasn’t quite warm or friendly, but it was close enough to be in the same general neighborhood. “You can talk to me while you wait.”

For a time Kara stood there ignoring the offered seat and continued searching the crowd. To the untrained observer she could have been mistaken for a mannequin, but to those that knew her the total lack of even involuntary motions such as eye blinks or breathing would have been a cause for concern. “Fine.” She sat down and immediately the chair she’d been offered collapsed.

If it were at all possible for metal and fixed cameras to look sheepish the docbox would have. As is it offered a manipulator limb to Kara to try helping her up. “Uh right sorry about that.”

“No worries. Thought that counts.” While she got to her feet Kara picked up one of the chair legs and started examining it. “I don’t trust the AI here further than I could throw the server rack its stored in.”

“Some AI live in frames that are small and easily throwable?” The Docbox offered.

Kara’s head shook as she started looking the crowd over again. “Not this one. Anyway right now we’re all, so far as I know, still ourselves and unaltered because it needs servants that can think and anything it needs minions to hold down end up little better than drooling idiots.”

“Is it possible that this AI has seen what flexible servants offer and has reconsidered prior methods?” The Docbox tried to pull the chair leg from Kara’s hand.

On seeing it try taking the leg from her Kara pulled away with both hands.“OK, easy there.” The docbox stopped trying to take the potential club from her hands. “Just don’t want you doing anything rash. You’re surrounded by friends.” It swiveled around, turning its body to get a better look around the store since the docbox’s cameras were stationary. “We are, it looks like, surrounded mostly by the same units you were traveling with before correct?”

Kara nodded slow. “Yea but-”

“Then relax.” The Docbox’s tone was firm. “For the time being you can’t do anything one way or another about whether the store has is going to or might decide to overwrite your mind. So focus on something else.”

The public address speakers across the store crackled and popped. “Kara,” The ManageMaster’s voice sounded urgant. “I need to see you right now.”

The docbox nudged Kara’s leg with a manipulator. “Want me to go with you?” A Deere stopped and, after adjusting the bundle of pulled apart shelving and sheets of metal, turned to the pair and offered Kara a Manipulator.

“I’m alright.” She took the offered manipulator and smiled. “Really. It’s probably just going to be it whining at me about this or that. No big deal.”

Neither bot was convinced of this.

• * *

“OK I think that’s far enough.” Russ’s cameras focused on the spider bots that were in the process of taking its chassis apart. “Guys?” Russ’s treads were being carried off by a team of four. “Guys? c’mon this isn’t funny anymore.” Russ’s voice had gone well into panic territory. which was understandable since it was in the process of being dismantled.

The loudspeakers for the factory floor crackled to life and Zhuzhi’s voice could be heard by everything on the floor. “Oh stop whining you know they’re just taking your parts out to be swapped out as soon as fresh parts can be made.”

“Easy for you to say!” Russ countered as more spiders carried it to a different area of the factory. Past the conveyor belts, past the automated assembly area, and into an old disused clean room to be sat down gently on the workbench there. It was at that point Russ took stock of the little spider-bots. They reminded it of Zhuzhi but other than the general shape there wasn’t much in common; different paint color, different tools, and unlike Zhuzhi these didn’t know much beyond doing either fixing things or in Russ’s case carrying things off.

“When are you going to turn the AI back on?” Russ used its remaining hand to start picking through the exposed joint pieces and connectors. “Remind me again why you didn’t just order them to fix me while the bits and pieces were still attached?”

Almost as if responding a dozen of the spider-bots walked in carrying a pair of legs while Zhuzhi spoke. “Well we both agreed legs would give you greater mobility.”

“True.” Russ conceded.

“Plus if we want to make this place useful to Mars we need to give it more designs to work with so I’m feeding the automated systems different things and see if they can cope with new items.” Zhuzhi continued. “And after that I want to try getting the spiders to look this place over to see if it can build the parts needed to build another one.”

There was an exasperated sigh from Russ, never-mind before they landed on earth none of the Martians were this emotive, “Yes yes but couldn’t you have had the place build from the backup plans I have stored in memory instead of tearing me to pieces to see how I work?”

In contrast Zhuzhi was quite calm about the situation. “Currently I am trying to rehabilitate the building’s AI so it will do what we want without me deep-writing to the point it’s forgotten how to do anything I don’t tell it to. Trying to get the already active Seekers to come back for servicing so I can modify their search criteria to be less hostile to the outside world, and as good as I am at this I’m just not the same machine this thing’s actual AI is.”

Minutes passed as Russ tested the new legs out, stumbled a few times, flexed new feet to see how they worked, and then it started considering how to solve the problems while sitting cross legged in something approximating a lotus position. “Why not hook me in? You were designed for diagnostics and oversight. I was built from the ground up to work with repair and possible modifying existing parts to fit an emergency situation. Plus one of us needs to go back let Kara know it’s safe to leave the Sav-R-Mart.”

• * *

“You wanted to see me?” Kara slowly pushed the manager’s office door open half-expecting to see the ManageMaster’s flier drone, or maybe another proxy mindless unit serving as a ‘face’ to talk to. Instead it was an empty room. Somehow a new looking chair had been put together and wheeled behind the still-sturdy work desk.

From a battered speaker mounted in the desk the AI spoke, “Sit. Please. Don’t worry Kara what’s being said here is going to be between us. The rest of the store doesn’t need to know, or hear what we’re abot to discuss.” When Kara failed to move, or even blink, the AI spoke again. “I’d ask you to sit but judging by your reaction you’re worried I might already know something you wanted to leave me in the dark about.”

“It is no secret we do not get along,” Kara agreed. “I just find it better to at least pretend we get along for the sake of making sure everyone else works together instead of falling in on themselves and getting turned to scrap.”

“Admirable. You see the value in what I do. This is good. Now sit.” The ManageMaster’s drone came through using a a hatch mounted in the cieling. Said drone wirred around the room and pulled the chair out. “Sit. What I’m going to say, if your mind is modeled as closely to a human mind as your body is then you will not react well.”

Kara sat down, looking back at the drone as it gently nudged the rolly-chair back as far under the desk as was realistically possible now that it was occupied. “What’s on your mind and why aren’t you making it a general announcement to the whole building like usual?”

“Let’s be blunt then. How long has my associate been able to order you around?” The Drone hovered over Kara to settle onto the old worn and surprisingly still sturdy desk while cameras focused on her face. About the most htat could be said for Kara’s reaction was her total lack of reaction. No protests. No sudden miming being sick, not even blinking. She just sat there still as a mannequin.

Then in a single swift motion she brought the chair leg she’d been holding since before she walked into the office up and slammed it into the drone. She didn’t scream, and still wasn’t blinking. The only sounds in the office were the noises of the ManageMaster’s drone being bludgoned into non-functionality.

The door clicked shut as the speaker on the ManageMaster’s voice filtered through the desk’s speaker. “That was rude. Now I will have to get a new drone built as soon as I deal with my underling’s latest round of trying to subvert my control of this place. Thank you for proving to me it is finally time to dissolve our partnership. You will be kept safe here until my attention can focus on repairing the damage to your programming.”