There was plenty of fighting. I was fired a lot. I did my best to try to hold my fire, or miss, or whatever, but like I said, it only used my brain. The part of it that processed visuals, I guess. As long as I could see, he could shoot at what I was seeing. And I couldn’t close my eyes or even blink as we killed Aegis robots.

Then another robot got the drop on him, and I clattered to the floor. I didn’t have a very good view of the fight, but this other robot was faster, smarter, and a better fighter. It threw him against a wall, and reached down to pick me up.

As its—_her_—hand touched my handgrip, our minds linked and she could feel exactly what I was thinking. Her shock and horror caused her to freeze up for a moment, very nearly made her drop me. But she recovered her equilibrium before my captor could get back to his feet, and leveled me at him.

She sent me a thought to ask me if this was all right. With every fiber of my being, I replied YES! So she pulled my trigger.

And together, we ended him.