I arrived home after questioning Lily and was surprised to see Chas home waiting up for me.
After his angry outburst over my questioning about the compassion command, we had been working very hard at avoiding one another.
“There you are! I have been waiting for you! It looks like some problems just take care of themselves, right?”
“What do you mean Chas?” I asked with a slightly nervous response.
“I mean the prisoners…” he began.
“Now that they are gone, that is one less thing that you will have to worry about.”
“One less thing to worry about? Chas, I did not authorize a prisoner relocation!”
“Oh yes, I know. I called up the police chief myself.” Chas said as if he were doing me a favor.
“What?!?”
“I told him that you were still dealing with President Aron’s death and that you had given me the authority to move the prisoners.”
I could not hide the shock response on my face. “Move them where Chas? You know I did not give you-”
“What Ardis?” He interrupted. “Why are you so upset over a few morts? Criminal morts at that!”
He had me in a corner and I believe that he knew it. If I continued acting upset over the deaths, he would question where my loyalties were…more then he already was. I had the feeling that this was a test.
I had to smooth things over if I wanted to lower his suspicions and regain his trust or breaking into his lab would be next to impossible.
I moved my anger in another direction…a direction he would expect my anger to come from. “It is not that I am upset over the morts…,” I lied, “I just cannot have you acting on my behalf!”
“I am sorry. It is just that you seemed to be so undecided about the morts that I decided to help you along with your decision.”
Just then a sickening thought occurred to me. Did Chas have the prisoners murdered? “Chas…was the whole accident your doing too?”
“Well, that is the beauty of the whole thing…the accident was actually an accident.”
I was not entirely convinced that Chas was being totally truthful, but I still needed to respond the way he expected me to. “So…where were the prisoners being moved?”
Chas chuckled slightly. “The crystal mines of course. I figured that we should stop wasting resources allowing them to just sit around in jail. I processed that it would be better to use them to get the crystal mines ready for their upcoming labor sentence there.”
“But this situation is even better and sure to please all of the bots. Now no one will be upset about a labor sentence over an execution and even the morts themselves cannot be upset at you regarding the fate of the criminals.”
Chas’ reasoning was really disturbing, but I could not let it show on my face. I fought against my response system and even forced a slight smile onto my face before responding, “When you put it that way, I guess it is for the best.” If I were human, I think I would have vomited at that moment.
“It is! By the way…have you given any thought to who should be your vice president?”
I was definitely not prepared for that question.
“I will just let the voters decide that.”
“Bad idea. It is not an election year and as president, you can appoint one…I have a few people in mind when you are ready to hear my suggestions.”
“Maybe later,” I answered.
“Okay…just let me know. I am going to recharge…see you in the morning.” Chas said before walking away.
Chas left me standing there upset and disgusted.
Not only had he used his status as my bot mate to make an important decision for me, but he was trying to force his opinion on me regarding who I should appoint as VP. Chas was obviously looking to use my new power…and it was even more obvious to me that Frida’s accident was not just an accident, but awfully convenient for Chas and his agenda.
