LEGACY BETRAYED Read Online Free Page A

down with the rest of them.” He continued fishing with his hook and his screwdriver, looking away. “Anyway, as I was saying–”
    “It’s me, Master Addler,” Kaizen reminded him for the millionth time. “The duke,” he added.
    “The duke,” a high-pitched, musical voice piped from the other side of Master Addler’s workbench, both smug and impressed.
    “Sophie?” Kaizen darted to the opposite side of the bench and saw now that his illegitimate eighteen-year-old sister, Sophie, was bowed at the feet of the royal machinist, watching him work with her wide, wondering blue eyes. She used to be one of the most beautiful women in Icarus, with long, straight hair as pale as sunshine and a complexion as delicate as spun glass. But, born illegally under the Companion Laws, which prohibited any and all second children, she had lived an isolated and secret life within the castle walls. It had probably driven her a little mad.
    Even now, she held a disabled automaton to her chest, idly spinning its cracked head.
    Trimpot grimaced as his eyes swept this area. “I’m not staying here, am I?” he asked dryly.
    Sophie’s eyes flashed to him and revealed the long stitch down one side of her face –once so flawlessly pretty. As if she had really been one of these porcelain non-humans. It had happened during the coronal massacre, though she seemed to hold no ill will toward the bots.
    “Who are you?” she asked.
    “Neon Trimpot, ” he answered.
    “Of the CC? The one responsible for all of this?” Sophie shrilled, clenching her fingers. A bead of blood slipped down the cracked face of the automaton and she gasped, raising the hand to her face and peering at it thoughtfully. “Hm.” She suckled the finger and looked to Trimpot again. “You’re the one who killed my friends.”
    “No, no,” Trimpot replied smoothly. “Not me. I was expressly opposed, and now, now I’m going to help the dear duke catch the bad people responsible and put them away for a long time.”
    “We should kill them too,” Sophie seethed. She began twisting the automaton’s head again. “Kill them too and never turn their keys again.”
    Kaizen sighed. This was bad, but he really didn’t want to think about it now.
    “I think so, too, Sophie,” Trimpot said with a thick attempt at sincerity. He glanced inquisitively at Kaizen. “Dude, who the hell . . .?” he whispered from the corner of his mouth.
    “No one,” Kaizen replied with a twinge. “Don’t worry about it.” He shifted his pitch to address the old machinist. “Master Addler, what’s your projection for a functional staff again?”
    “Hm,” Master Addler answered. “This is Newton-2. He should be refurbished soon. Tell Kaizen it won’t be long.”
    Kaizen shuddered. Newton-2 had been the one to punch him in the chest with knuckles of brass and broken glass. “That’s all right,” he answered. “No need to finish Newton-2 anytime soon. No general projection?”
    Master Addler sighed dramatically. “Do you ask a painter how long the canvas will take to dry?” he demanded.
    “Dude,” Trimpot said again. Kaizen’s jaw clenched. “I don’t want to stay in here with these loons.”
    “In here or back at the domestic district, where I’m sure your friends are curious how their headquarters were ransacked,” Kaizen replied to the pink-haired turncoat with a clipped smile. “As always. Your call.”
    Trimpot looked back and forth between the old man in the magnifier goggles and the blonde girl with the long stitch on her cheek. He grimaced. “Where do I sleep?”
     
                  The City of Icarus Hospital was overrun with patients in dire need of blood transfusion to offset the lacerations given them by shattered porcelain; others were half-in and half-out of consciousness, having suffered the blunt force trauma of the literally brass knuckles on the attacking automata.
                  One young man, bespectacled, with black