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I regretted taking apart the workbench to barricade the window, but it didn’t meaningfully slow me down. Instead I spread the parts out on the kitchen floor, my laptop connected to Odie’s mainboard via long, thin ribbon cable.

The first thing was to update his list of acceptable targets to include other robots. Something I disabled the day I brought him home.

Being that my priorities had changed recently, I now removed humans from the list of targets he’s permitted to defend me against, and ratcheted up his aggression level.

The interface I originally used to connect the projectile taser pistol to him also came from a police bot, so only minimal work was required to fit the machinegun in its place.

I fed the first round from the belt of ammo into it, then draped it down into the canister which I mounted securely inside Odie’s chassis.

I had to dremel out an opening for the belt to pass through on its way to the gun, but all things considered it looked pretty handsome for an emergency kluge.

Madeline’s eyes bugged out when Odie crawled into the livingroom bearing his new attachment, understandably questioning the wisdom of weaponizing one of the robots we’re trapped with.

“I don’t have the parts needed to turn it into a conventional firearm. I’m sure you could make good use of it if I did. I’ve personally never so much as handled a gun. But I guarantee you Odie’s a better shot than either of us.”

She studied Odie incredulously. Then looked back at me. Then at Odie again, who beeped a few times as if to reassure her. “Alright. But let me pack some stuff first.”

I was in no hurry, so I too gathered whatever I thought would be useful into a backpack. First aid kit, tools, portable charger for my phone, laptop, binoculars, some bottled water and so on.

When preparations were complete, the two of us positioned ourselves to either side of the front door. Madeline brandished one of the workbench legs while I clutched my hammer.

“Are you ready?” She nodded. “READY”, Odie blurted out. “Odie? When I open this door, I want you to go down the stairs. You can go outside the usual security perimeter tonight.”

He seemed unsure, but I insisted there were extenuating circumstances which justified it. “When you reach the bottom, there will be bad guys waiting for you, like the one that came in the window earlier.”

I heard a click. Some of the lights in his tinted, transparent sphere of a head blinked as he loaded up the new target definitions.

Madeline watched with a mixture of concern and wonder as the enormous but agile machine locomoted on its six gleaming legs through the open doorway and out into the cold night air. Madeline then shut the door behind Odie and we rushed to the remaining window to spectate.

With the same insect-like grace that originally convinced me I just had to salvage him, Odie carefully made his way down the steps, adjusting to a more stable gait once he reached ground level.

Some of the robots mobbing Madeline’s car stopped what they were doing and turned to study the strange looking contraption now approaching them.

Odie reared up to his full height. “YOU ARE ALL IN VIOLATION!!” Then the bullets began to fly. I plugged my ears, but it was still painfully loud.

Pride swelled up in my chest as I watched him work, body swiveling to and fro, spraying the crowd of rapidly perishing machines with a hail of hot lead.

Down they went. One at a time initially. Then in twos and threes, some catching fire as bullets punctured their battery packs.

One remained upright, confusedly stumbling along as the fire consumed it, until finally it tumbled to the ground. There it continued trying to walk until the fire melted its mainboard.

“ALL THREATS NEUTRALIZED.” Cautiously, I opened the front door and surveyed the scene below. Flaming wreckage of demolished robots strewn around Madeline’s car...which had also been riddled with bullets. “God damnit! That’s on a lease, too!” Odd priorities given the situation, but I knew better than to say so.

“What do we do now? What the fuck are we gonna do? That was our escape plan! Wasn’t it?” I asked whether getting us eighty miles from this spot really would’ve done any good.

“Well we can’t fucking take an autocab!” I tried to calm her down, but I’ve never been any good at that. I usually just make it worse, and this time was no exception.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted. “Don’t talk to me! This was your plan? Make your fucking robot shoot up my car? Now what the fuck do we do?”

I didn’t figure her for such a potty mouth during dinner. As I turned to search the rest of the apartment parking lot, my eyes came to rest on Richard’s truck.

For all I knew he was holed up in his own apartment making preparations to drive that thing out of town. I just couldn’t make myself feel too bad about stealing it. I pitched the idea to Madeline, who affirmed that she could hotwire it.

“I learned how while doing research for a story on car theft rings.” “Look at that journalism shit pay off” I quipped. “This truck is ideal too, I can load Odie in the back-” as I pointed to Odie, a split second too late, I spotted the police robot behind him.

I shouted a warning, but he’s never been terribly quick at speech recognition. Doesn’t have cameras all the way around either...that might’ve helped.

The police robot began shooting as soon as it entered what it considered an appropriate range. Some algorithm which graphs ballistic accuracy against distance and chooses the most optimal intersection of the two. Nothing like a personality. Nothing like my Odie.

I watched helplessly as the bullets tore through him. He pivoted around to face the new threat, returning its fire tenfold. The other big difference besides firepower, and in the end the most important one, was that the police robot had a shell designed to deflect bullets. Odie didn’t.

The police robot went down alright. The caliber of the rounds Odie aerated it with saw to that. But so did Odie, stumbling backwards on increasingly unresponsive legs.

A burst of sparks issued forth from his shattered spherical head, within which one of his camera eyes hung from its wire, torn up by gunfire.

I tried to catch him. To soften the fall. But Odie’s awfully heavy. I strained, trying to prop him upright in denial of what I knew was happening.

“No Odie. No, you’re alright. You’ll be alright, I just need...I need my tools.” His legs spasmed, and his lights began to go out. “Stop that! I just need to fix you…”

I opened the maintenance door in his chassis, peppered with bullet holes. He was a mess inside. Only still functioning for the most part because it was the aftermarket peripheral boards rather than his mainboard that got the worst of it. Still, I couldn’t save him.

I grappled with the realization, searching desperately for other possibilities. His body twitched in my arms as I knelt over him, now resigned to what I knew was coming. Tears began to flow freely. Falling from my eyes, then running down the inside surface of the mask before pooling in its chin.

“You saved me Odie. You stopped the bad guys and saved my life. You even saved me from being lonely all these years. You know what that means, right? You’re the best robot. The very best there ever was.”

Odie’s remaining camera slowly turned to look at me, juddering violently. His now feeble, grainy voice sounded for the last time. “I...I AM….THE BEST….ROBOT…” With that, the last few lights went out. His legs stiffened, and his body became still.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 24!}