ID

‘Can you track down the people from the vans, Xavier?’

‘Not easily. I think we shall have to draw them out somehow.’

‘But what happens if they catch you or the others?’

Xavier shuddered, in spite of his confident stance.

‘That would be a disaster, clearly. One to avoid at all costs.’

He took a moment to compose himself. Having to shepherd Jean-Claude and Joe was an irritating extra layer in his plans at this point, but he had no spare capacity to neutralise them. Perhaps they could be useful as distractions, so it was worth bringing them along.

‘Let’s go.’ He held the door open for the others. ‘Follow me.’

Neither Joe nor Jean-Claude liked the idea of venturing out, but being left behind held no attraction either. Reluctantly, they followed him out into the corridor, turning left to tiptoe cautiously down the narrow metal stairs to the warehouse floor beneath. Xavier’s transformation from obedient clone to confident leader in this perilous situation was complete. 

The hubbub had resumed. Now that the stentorian alarm signals had faded, it appeared to be business as usual. Wheeled robots were trundling along the aisles collecting and delivering as before.

‘Can zey sense us?’ whispered Jean-Claude, pointing to one at the end of the nearest length of shelving.

‘No, they are running on premapped algorithmic routes. Can you see it has a pink ID tag?’

Jean-Claude nodded.

‘It is programmed to operate within this pink area. They have enough peripheral programming not to bump into things, but are not scoping out anything outside their work run.

‘Bit like a robot vacuum cleaner I suppose,’ said Joe. ‘We have one of those.’