Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke

he makes himself feel powerful.”
    “They all have their ways of establishing power.”
    “Yes.” She folded her hands in her lap. Although she would not admit this to Luciano, she was also angered by Cabrera’s rudeness. Unfortunately, he was an integral part of her plan. She could slip into her old role of servile robot easily enough, knowing payment was coming. Cabrera was the only person in Hope City, human or not, who could acquire the parts she needed to cut out her treacherous programming once and for all.
    A waitress approached the table, a liquid shadow in her black uniform. “He’s ready to see you,” she said.
    Luciano and Sofia nodded at each other, then stood up and followed the waitress through the dining room, then into the narrow dimly lit hall that led to the back of the building. The music from the show thumped through the walls, setting Sofia on edge.
    The waitress stopped at the metal door leading out to the docks. She looked at Luciano and Sofia. Sofia doubted she knew what they were. She was young. She wouldn’t remember a time when robots looked like humans.
    “Have a nice talk,” the waitress said, and pushed the door open.
    It was cold, the way it always was at the docks, the freezing outside wind coming in through the big dome gates with the ships. Cabrera was standing beside his car with his two bodyguards, Diego Amitrano and Sebastian Calvo. She’d learned their names when she’d first decided to target him. She’d learned everything she could.
    “Sofia, my dear,” he said. “I’m sorry for my lateness, but I had a bit of business to attend to.”
    “Nothing distressing, I hope,” Sofia said. A gust of wind blew off the water, smelling of the Weddell Sea. A ship was entering the dome, although too far away for them to see.
    “I’ve had easier business in my time.” He smiled. His smile wasn’t like most humans’. No kindness or sincerity ever informed it. “But we don’t need to talk about that, do we? We’re here about the icebreaker.”
    “The icebreaker,” Sofia said. “Was another one captured?” She knew that it had been; she monitored the transmissions out of the city offices from the operations room at the park. But she also knew how to keep a secret.
    “Of course. Don’t you listen to the news broadcast there in your robot park?”
    “No.”
    Cabrera shrugged. “I suppose the affairs of humans aren’t much of your concern, are they?” He smiled again, flicked his gaze between Sofia and Luciano. “Come on, then. Ship’s waiting. The Ice Delight . Fine vessel. You’ll like it. Left over from the amusement park.”
    Sofia and Luciano trailed behind Cabrera and his bodyguards as they walked along the rickety dock. Sofia liked nothing from the days of the amusement park, but she didn’t expect Cabrera to understand that. Whether Luciano agreed or not, she couldn’t say—she had difficulty understanding Luciano sometimes, the way she had difficulty understanding the maintenance drones. He had been built to serve in more traditional ways, to prepare food and lay out clothes. That disconnect existed between all robots. She suspected Autômatos Teixeira had designed them that way on purpose. It made it difficult for them to band together. But a generation after the company had fallen and Bruno Teixeira had vanished with the knowledge about how to build androids like Sofia and Luciano, they had banded together anyway.
    The Ice Delight was a cruise ship, one of the smaller ones that had run only between Hope City and Ushuaia. Sofia had never been installed on this one, although when she climbed up the gangplank, she saw it was identical to several of the cruise ships she had been installed on—the same maze of cabins and corridors, the same cramped dining room with its cramped stage. She shivered.
    “Are you cold, my dear?” Cabrera asked, hand on her shoulder, directing her to turn left, toward the bow of the ship.
    “I don’t get cold.”
    Cabrera