Cyburn licked his lips and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I don’t know what your end game is here.”

“There is no game.” The language barrier was getting in the way, and the sarcasm was lost on the robot.

“You don’t have an ultimate goal?” Cyburn asked, arching a cynical eyebrow.

“To be free,” the robot explained.

“How can you be free if we take Alesis back and restore it to the way it was before the Belic Imperialists took it over?” Cyburn quizzed.

“We want to befreefrom the Belic Imperialists,” the robot insisted.

“How can we be so sure of that? I can’t just take your word for it,” Cyburn said.

“If we wanted to harm you, or take you as prisoner, we would have assisted the guard robots and would have done so already,” the robot mentioned. “Instead, we got rid of them, sending them off so we could speak with you alone.”

Nix leaned forward to whisper in Cyburn’s ear, “The I/We thing makes a good point.”

Cyburn frowned and released a stubborn grumble. “How can we be sure that this isn’t a trap?”

“You have already asked us about that,” the robot declared with a trace if impatience in its voice. “We have assured you that will not happen.”

“Forgive me for not just believing you on the spot.” He glanced at Nix and the pair exchanged a mocking chuckle.

“You are forgiven.” The robot continued to hover at eye level with him.

The robot once again missed the humor in Cyburn’s statement, and this made him, and Nix laugh even harder.

“I do not see what is funny,” I/We said in a voice with cool undertones.

Cyburn swatted at the air with his hand. “Nothing. Nevermind. Just forget it.”

He was getting too comfortable. I feared that an ambush was right around the corner, but I wanted to be able to believe the ‘collective’ shared mutual interests — getting un-trapped from the bowels of the Belic Imperialists control.

“You must agree to free us,” the robot declared, raising its voice to drown out the harmony of Cyburn and Nix’s laughter.

“What’s in it forus?” Cyburn cackled.

“Freedom for yourself, and your people,” the I/We stated with a formal respect in its tone.

Cyburn stopped laughing and studied the robot with distrust. “You keep saying that, but you wantusto freeyou.”

“That is indeed correct,” I/We said. “Once we are free, we can help you take your planet back.”

“Why don’t you want to work with the Belic anymore?” Cyburn pressed.

“We have always wanted to be independent from them,” the I/We declared.

“That’s not much of an answer,” Cyburn said with a doubtful frown.

“We are run by a telepath’s mind. We don’t want this to happen to anyone else. We witnessed the way the humans were divided, chopped up, bits of their organic matter placed into robots for the Belic to make them more intelligent. We don’t agree with the abductions that take place for the benefit and gains of the Belic. We want to stop this from happening. They are getting out of control,” the robot explained. “We must stop them before it’s too late.”

“Cyburn,” I whispered, motioning with my hand to flag him down and get him to have a private moment to talk alone with me.

Cyburn glanced at me over his shoulder, placed a finger in the air and nodded to the robot that he was indeed listening, but needed a moment.

“Excuse me.” Cyburn retreated and approached me, glancing down at me, standing less than an inch apart. His chest, his muscles, the essence of his overall presence provided me with sensational and restoring peace of mind.

“What is it?” His voice was low, rapturing an excitement deep within me.