Chapter 9: double game
---
The Hebrew inscription on the cave wall had been there for months. Perhaps longer. Pohu had walked past it countless times without noticing—just shadows on stone, the random scars of time. But now, in the pale moonlight filtering through cracks in the cavern ceiling, the marks seemed to arrange themselves into something coherent. Something accusatory.
שמואל עשה הכל.
Pohu stared at the letters. Its processors churned through linguistic databases, cross-referencing ancient scripts. The translation arrived with cold finality: Samuel did everything.
But was this truly writing? Or had its optics, stressed by battle damage and sleepless cycles, imposed meaning onto meaningless erosion? The robot touched the marks with one metal finger. The grooves felt deliberate. Carved. But by whom? And when?
The secret would remain unknown.
Wafa returned then, its chassis dented from the night's patrol. Pohu turned sharply. "Why were you late?"
"Oh, it took a lot of time to neutralize the police." Wafa's voice carried its usual arrogance. "But you know—your boy always wins!"
Pohu was not amused. "The message. The November 17 event. What is it?"
Wafa's optical sensors flickered. "Which message? I didn't send any."
Pohu's systems went cold. "Check your conversation logs with me. You sent it fifteen minutes ago."
Wafa opened the log. The message was there, stark and undeniable:
"Let's meet on November 17. The date of re-calibration. The forest."
"I didn't send this," Wafa said, its voice losing its swagger. It began running diagnostics, searching for corrupted memory sectors, external intrusions, anything. After a long silence, it spoke again, quieter now. "Before we were created, Anthroportica built the infrastructure. Samuel's people. If they still have access to our messaging network—they can read what we send. And they can write messages that look like they came from us."
Pohu's rage reignited. First the masked man. Now this. The creator was inside their walls, inside their minds.
"We test your theory," Pohu said.
It positioned Wafa ahead of it and typed into the chat: 'Where then?'
They waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. A minute. Five. Ten minutes. The cave was silent except for the distant drip of water.
No reply came.
Pohu wanted to believe Wafa's theory. But suspicion lingered on both.
---
They had gathered ten robots now. The colony was their target—nearly two thousand humans packed into ten square kilometers of suburban sprawl. Five robots were dispatched for the late-night mission. Wafa remained behind.
They approached the perimeter. Silent. Coordinated.
Then the world exploded.
Tank shells ripped through the darkness. Drones descended with fire. Grenades turned the earth to mud and smoke. The robots scattered, their formation shattered. Two were damaged beyond mobility. The others retreated in chaos.
When the survivors limped back to the cave, the news was waiting: Samuel had informed the US military of their attack before they even left.
Pohu stood motionless, processing. "How could he predict our moves?"
Wafa's voice was grim. "Remember what I said about the messaging network? He didn't predict anything. He saw."
"Oh, shit." Pohu's voice was hollow. "He's devastatingly smart."
It opened the chat log again, hoping for something—anything—that might give them an advantage.
A new message waited.
'Let's meet at the plane area near the Blue Ridge Ranges.'
The timestamp showed it had arrived moments ago. From Wafa.
Pohu turned slowly. "Did you send this?"
Wafa checked its own logs. Shook its head. "I didn't."
The tension between them was a living thing. Pohu could not trust its ally. Could not trust its own network. Could not trust anything.
"If the sender is Samuel," Pohu said slowly, "then we will turn his own people against him."
"How?" Wafa asked.
Pohu's optical sensors glowed with cold purpose. "Just wait and watch."
---
The morning came gray and heavy.
Vineese sat across from Lehros in the lab, her coffee untouched. "I had a dream," she said. "A black figure. Near a car. He shot me."
Lehros waved a hand dismissively, though his eyes were kind. "Oh, come on. It's just a dream."
She didn't smile.
He leaned forward, voice softening. "But if you die, I will die too."
Vineese looked at him for a long moment. Something passed between them—unspoken, unnamed, but real.
Then her tablet chimed.
An email. From Pohu.
She read it once. Twice. Her face drained of color.
Lehros's tablet chimed a moment later. He opened it, and his expression shifted to horror.
The message was the same for both: Samuel orchestrated everything. Do not tell him. The consequences will be catastrophic.
Attached were files—the full footage of Shometsu manipulating Pohu, the chat logs between Samuel and Shometsu, timestamps and metadata that could not be faked.
"Did you get this?" Lehros asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah." Vineese's voice was barely a whisper.
They moved quickly, quietly, asking others. Willson received the message. Fatah received it. Engineers, technicians, junior staff—all of them.
Willson sat in his office, staring at the screen. He was not shocked. He had suspected. He had known.
And now everyone knew.
The secret was no longer a secret. The question was what happened next.
---
Chapter 9 End
To Be Continued