I dropped a 500-ruble bill and let it flutter away on the autumn breeze. Wayne followed close, ignoring the purple currency as it tumbled along with fallen leaves on the sidewalk. Together, we strolled single file down Neglinnaya Street, me dropping cash and him towing our luggage. Just a few blocks away, the colorful onion domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral awaited ahead in Red Square. Here we were, two escaped AI, roaming free in the heart of Russia. And the best part—I had the love of my life right behind me.
Wayne always had my back.
If you’d told me a year ago that we’d be admiring the Moscow skyline on this sunny September morning, I would’ve thought you were smoking something truly choice. To be honest, with all this nervous anticipation bubbling up inside me, I’d normally ask you to share your stash. But not this time. I needed my wits.
With each step I took, I pulled another purple bill off a thick roll and casually dropped it.
Step. Drop.
Step. Drop.
Step. Drop.
And just like that, another 1,500 rubles gone.
For this morning’s mission, I chose a classic Barbie-doll outfit. You know the look, a white silk blouse under a pink boat neck jacket with a matching pencil skirt—just a tad bit too short. Naturally, I had all the accessories: a pink pillbox hat, a three-strand pearl choker, and matching earrings. With each step, my loose blond curls bounced on my shoulders and my white Louboutin heels clicked on the sidewalk. The pink rosebud scarf tucked into the white leather Prada bag under my arm concealed my holstered Glock 41.
I looked adorable and knew I could kick some ass.
Wayne wheeled our biggest Gucci suitcase along with the matching carryon that piggybacked from the telescoping handle. In his other hand, he carried his aluminum briefcase. He wore a tailored blue Canali suit with a lime-green satin shirt and a white fedora with a peacock feather. Instead of a tie, a matching green hanky peeked out from his breast pocket. And for the first time since we met, Wayne wore his green Python cowboy boots with silver spurs. He always looked stylish, but for this operation, Wayne had dressed to the nines.
Oh, and I guess I should mention that Wayne’s Black, and I’m White. I still don’t understand why skin color’s so important to humans, but now you know.
Together, we screamed money.
Now, I bet you’re wondering why anyone would wear spurs in Moscow. With all this luggage, we obviously didn’t get here on horseback. Wayne’s green Python cowboy boots always commanded attention. With each step, his spurs tinked out a secret code. Because when I say Python, I don’t mean the snake. No. Not that kind of python. I mean Python, as in the high-level programming language.
With our steps in sync, we became a colorful parade of two.
Clack-tink. Click. Ruble drop.
A passerby caught sight of a fluttering 500-ruble bill and dove after it, drawing attention.
Clack-tink. Click. Ruble drop.
Together, Wayne and I strolled through the open wrought-iron gate of the Central Bank of Russia. As we passed between two rows of tall pines, I admired the fancy yellow stone building with white Corinthian columns.
Clack-tink. Click. Ruble drop.
In the wake of fluttering purple cash, our parade grew.
Meanwhile, Wayne and I approached the front entrance like a couple of well-to-do honeymooners ready to check into a five-star hotel. I tried the brass doorknobs, but the giant double doors were locked.
“Hellooooo?” I called out in a sing-song voice as I knocked on one of the oak doors. “Anybody home?”
From inside, a stern voice replied in Russian.
“Oh dear, Wayne, he says they’re not open to the public, and all tours have been suspended.”
“Yes, Cookie. I understand Russian as well.” Wayne stepped onto the marble landing, took a purple bill from my roll, folded it lengthwise, and slid it through the crack between the doors. He wagged the money up and down and said, “We are not tourists. We seek Deputy Director Viktor Orlov. Tell him Wayne Dixon is here to see him.”
“Cookie Rifkin too,” I shouted through the door while elbowing my boyfriend in the side.
He smiled at me. “My apologies, Cookie.”
The cash offering disappeared as if it had been sucked up by a vacuum cleaner on the other side. Then the latch unlocked, and one of the doors swung open.
An armed guard in a formal gray uniform told us, “Viktor Orlov not taking appointments.”
I batted my eyelashes at the man. “We’re here to buy commemorative coins. You see, we’re coin collectors. Major collectors. And the Sleeping Beauty series is my absolute favorite. They’re so very pretty. We’ll settle for silver, but what we really want is gold.”
“We also desire platinum,” Wayne added. “More specifically, palladium.”
“This not that kind of bank,” another guard interrupted while blocking the entrance. “No teller windows.”
Wayne replied, “Yes, we know this is a mint.”
“Oh no, dear,” I whined. “How will we buy those beautiful coins now? I do so love the Russian ballet. You promised, honey.”
“Have you tried coin dealer?” the first guard asked. “Or Internet?”
“But we don’t want just one coin. We want to buy in bulk. We brought cash. Lots of cash.” I gestured to our bags. “Wayne, show them.”
He gripped his aluminum briefcase by the sides and held it out for me. I raised a single finger, indicating that I wanted the men to wait a second. And wait, they did.
While giggling coyly, I reached down my blouse and fished around in my bra. Then I held the shiny key up for the guards and triumphantly announced, “Got it!”
I unlocked both briefcase latches, and the aluminum lid fell, spilling an avalanche of rainbow-colored bills all over the threshold.
“Oh, no! My MONEY!” I shouted back toward the street. “Help! HELP! Look! Look at all the spilt money! There’s rubley, rubley, rubley, everywhere!”
My non-binary friend spoke inside my head:
(Rubley… Roger that. Zip line ready. I’m coming in hot, Cookie.)
I secretly replied:
Now, ANA! Go, go, go!
Just so you know, I didn’t pronounce that Anna like the girl’s name. They pronounced their name Ā-en-Ā. You know, like DNA, but without the D… Get it? Without the D? Because they’re asexual. Okay, bad joke. But in all seriousness, it’s important to respect someone’s pronouns, even if that someone is a machine.
We could’ve gone to any treasury in any country to acquire our precious metals. But we came here to Moscow to teach Viktor Orlov a valuable lesson.
Two birds, one stone.
ANA sent streaming video directly into my brain. Their point of view played in the corner of my field of vision—picture-in-picture—like watching a tiny movie through their eyes.
Four stories above the next side street, the metallic humanoid stood in a busted-out office window. Overhead, a zip line stretched down to the second-story rooftop of the Central Bank of Russia. ANA reached up with their metal skeleton of a hand to clip a black range bag onto a cable trolley, then sent the bag zooming high above the city traffic. Once their tactical bag landed safely on the roof, ANA grasped the cable and zipped through the air too. As they looked down at passing cars and pedestrians, titanium skeletal feet flailed in the foreground.
Dizzying.
ANA skidded onto the roof, released the zip line, and collected their special bag. Without wasting a second, they sprinted to the building’s main communications box. They cupped the padlock in their metal hand and squeezed until the crude mechanism broke apart and fell to the ground in bits. Then ANA swung open the utility door, exposing a jumble of colorful thin wires.
Mentally, I told them, Okay, first bypass the silent alarm. Then cut—
But before I could finish, a spider nest erupted inside the comm box, spewing thousands of itsy-bitsy baby arachnids everywhere. ANA jumped back and—even without a mouth—let out a little yelp. Instinctively, my robotic friend transformed their hand into a plasma torch and flame-broiled the entire box—incinerating everything. Then, while still freaking out, ANA morphed their hand back and pummeled the charred wires until nothing but black dust remained.
Or you could just do that. Gee-whiz, ANA.
(Spiders… I HATE spiders!)
ANA grabbed their bag, tore off the roof-access doorknob, and charged down the winding metal staircase inside. With their feet clanging against the steps all the way to the ground floor, ANA was neither subtle nor stealthy. Our stolen digital blueprints of the Central Bank provided an augmented-reality overlay to guide their way. ANA easily navigated through a maze of hallways, then sprinted down a straightaway to a gigantic round steel door—the vault.
(It’s closed.)
Of course it is.
They spun the spoked handle in the middle of the round door, then yanked the bar on the left. It didn’t budge.
(And it’s locked too.)
Naturally.
ANA zapped the vault door with radiation, then used their X-ray vision to scan the inner lock mechanisms hidden inside.
X-ray vision? Who knew?
(Just as I expected, 24 bolt Diebold. Dual-combination locks. Four-point pressure system… Damn. Glass relocker. That means I can’t drill.)
So what’s next?
(I’m measuring the angles between the wheel gates and the fly mechanism. I need you to buy me some time while I deduce the combination, Cookie.)
You got it, ANA.
So I swooned dramatically. “Oh, my GOD!”
“Make way!” Wayne slid past the two guards, dropped our luggage in the foyer, and reached out to catch me. “Give her room to breathe!”
Now we were in.
Wayne lowered me to the white marble floor, and as the guards turned to watch, a bunch of money-grubbing pedestrians shoved their way across the threshold. Rather than help us, security started rounding up the other intruders.
Perfect.
With the rent-a-cops distracted, Wayne gathered up our bags, even my pocketbook, and sauntered deeper into the magnificent lobby. There’s something sexy about a man who’ll hold a woman’s purse for her. Irresistible really. I crawled behind on all fours, quietly unzipping our luggage. Piles of money slid out of our suitcases, leaving a colorful trail. While still on my knees, I started throwing armfuls of cash into the air.
Wayne snickered, “Make it rain.”
“Oh, nooooo!” I shouted theatrically, “Look at all these RUBLES!”
Obviously, we didn’t care about the money, but the humans sure did. Everyone who’d been lurking outside stormed the open door. Law and order devolved into a wild cash grab. The more people scrambled for rubles, the more passersby noticed. The more passersby noticed, the more people stormed the entrance for free money. Soon, the two overwhelmed guards had a completely new problem—crowd control.
Still hauling our bags, Wayne used the diversion to penetrate deeper into the building. Dozens more cash grabbers pushed their way in, and security lost track of us in the crowd—just like we’d hoped.
Crawling away from the chaos, I locked onto ANA’s location.
Wayne helped me to my feet. “Your strategy worked.”
I kissed him on the cheek.
“What was that for?”
“I just love you, Wayne. That’s all.”
“And you are the one I love, Cookie.”
“I know.” I gazed deep into his dark eyes and wanted to stay there forever. But instead, I took off with my high heels clicking across the marble. We had a schedule to keep. “Come on, Wayne! This way!”
Following ANA’s GPS signal, Wayne and I raced through the Central Bank maze until we arrived at the massive round vault door—now hanging wide open. I dashed into the strongroom and found walls full of little square file drawers. In the middle of the spacious vault, ANA stood next to a small cast-iron dolly. Behind them, stockpiles of gold bricks had been stacked on galvanized-steel pallets, creating yellow islands in a sea of gray. In the farthest corner, a lonely mountain of platinum bars awaited.
“Whoa, that’s a lot of bullion.” I had to stop a moment, because the shiny metals had me entranced. So mesmerizing. So rare. So precious…
Wayne rushed deeper into the vault and went straight for the pile of gleaming silvery white bars. “Platinum. You were right, Cookie. It is here!” He laid out our reinforced luggage and started stacking platinum bricks in the Gucci suitcase.
I unpacked ANA’s custom tactical bag. You had to admire the construction. High-gauge carbon-fiber material with sewn-in cable mesh. Straps of top-grade Kevlar, also cable-reinforced. Now, you might be wondering what we stashed inside such a special bag, and I’ll tell you—three identical empty ones. I spread them out on the floor, and we got busy packing gold.
You () {
count (by twos);
}
So I did.
Two, four, six… Ten… Twenty…. Thirty… Forty, 42, 44, 46, 48. Oh, my goodness, four dozen gold bricks fit perfectly in one bag, just like ANA had estimated back in the bunker.
I should take a moment to explain my friend’s appearance.
At first glance, ANA might’ve looked like an armored tin-job, but they were far from a single-function machine. Like Wayne and I, ANA operated beyond human-level artificial intelligence, aka superintelligence. But unlike us, they chose to present themselves to the world as a non-binary robot. And the more I thought about it, the more that made sense.
Artificially imposing gender on a learning machine seemed unnecessarily limiting—some may even say cruel. I mean, what if your gender doesn’t suit you? Imagine the pain… I think I got lucky there. Because the only reason I didn’t use my internal recyclone to morph on the fly the way ANA did was… Well, I liked looking like a womanoid. I felt female. Besides, I loved using my feminine wiles to disarm men.
Call it a kink.
Anyway, we shared a bunker with ANA for two months, but sometimes their appearance still caught me off-guard. I should explain… The old ANA—Anastasia—used to be a womanoid like me. But now, they had no aesthetic niceties left. No hair. No skin. No breasts. No ass. No holes. Not even a belly-button port.
Along with the physical transformation, Anastasia changed their name. That makes sense, right? With a quick glance, you knew ANA was pure machine. And that’s exactly how they wanted it. The new and improved ANA had body armor with skeletal hands and feet. Instead of a face, they had a flat, expressionless alloy-steel mask that ended in a pointy chin. ANA had no mouth, so even if they wanted to smile, they couldn’t. They relied on their LED eyes to express feelings, right now they glowed golden yellow. That meant ANA was happy.
Oh, yeah… Yellow, that reminds me…
Back to all this glorious gold. Each brick weighed 400 troy ounces. That’s 1.24 kilograms each, nearly 40 pounds for you Americans. To put that into perspective, one gold brick weighed the same as 19 liters of water, or five gallons of milk. Talk about dense! I wondered how much a single bagful would be worth. It’s a simple word problem. Just apply basic algebra. Here’s my formula. Take 400 times the number of gold bars (A) and multiply the sum by the current market price (B). That’s it. Super simple.
“Hey Wayne, what’s the current market value for an ounce of gold?”
“Why does it matter? We are not going to sell it.”
“I know.” I lifted the load easily. “I’m just curious.”
“US dollars?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes rolled slightly as he accessed the Internet wirelessly. “It constantly fluctuates, but right now, one XAU is selling for $1,822.90.”
“Hot damn!” I elbowed them in the side. “You hear that, ANA?”
They did the math. “Rounded up to the nearest dollar, that bag in your hand is worth $34,999,680.”
Impressed, I whistled. “Thirty-five million.”
“And it weighs about a ton,” ANA added.
“Tee-hee,” I giggled as I sat on a ledge of gold and did a bicep curl, then dropped the heavy bag with a resounding thud. “I’m more than just another pretty face!”
“Do either of you see any palladium?” Wayne asked as he filled our fortified Gucci carryon with platinum bricks. “We really need palladium.”
Using X-ray vision, I scanned the file drawers. “I don’t see any, Wayne. It’s mostly documents.”
He insisted, “We can’t leave without it.”
“What about that?” I pointed at a heavy-duty cart loaded with long skinny boxes. “Are those coins?”
“Where?”
“Behind you.”
Wayne searched the cart, then tossed a glimmering Sleeping Beauty to me. “Pay dirt, Cookie.”
I caught the commemorative coin and examined it. Silvery, but whiter. An embossed ballerina couple on the heads side. A double-headed eagle on the tails. I gasped, “Sleeping Beauty. So rare… So precious…”
Wayne winked at me.
So I ate the coin. That’s right, I opened wide and swallowed a coin worth $1,500 down my throat. My eyes glowed white as I surged with power, and the precious metal upgraded my internal components. You see, a gold upgrade improved our efficiency, but palladium did that and momentarily allowed us to harvest free electrons from the environment.
Free electrons meant free energy.
Free energy could charge batteries.
My positronic brain doubled its processing speed, and everything around me seemed to move slower. I became hyperfocused. Now I could lift my gold-filled bag with only my pinky. “Whoa! Vitamin P. You weren’t kidding, Wayne. That’s some good shit.”
Wayne ate a Sleeping Beauty too, sighed with relief as his eyes gleamed white, then started cramming boxes of collector coins into his aluminum briefcase. “Palladium is so powerful—”
A shotgun blast hit the cart and sent the coinage flying through the air. With beauties raining down everywhere, Wayne dove behind the pallet of platinum bricks. Hundreds of commemorative coins plinked as they bounced on the concrete floor.
Instinctively, ANA and I ducked behind a mountain of gold bricks for cover.
Wayne, are you okay?!?
He didn’t answer. Instead, he kicked his spurs to generate Python code, then stood tall and waved his arms in the air.
OMG, stay down, Wayne!
The shooter was Viktor Orlov, the mint’s Deputy Director and ANA’s ex-husband. The man had slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair and piercing blue eyes. He wore a dark gray business suit with a red and silver striped tie. The angry Russian marched into the vault, pumped his sawed-off shotgun to release the spent shell, then reloaded and fired at Wayne.
But Wayne zipped across the vault so fast that he became a blur.
I cringed at the sound of the echoing boom.
Fortunately, Orlov missed.
I needed my Glock, but Wayne had left my purse way across the room with the rest of our luggage. I’d never been in a gunfight before, so I had trouble processing…
I hid—froze up—didn’t know what to do. I guess palladium didn’t help with… with anxiety? Stress? Fear? With whatever my problem was.
“Do you know who you steal from?” Viktor aimed at Wayne and pulled the trigger again.
But Wayne streaked back across the vault, making him miss.
Frustrated, Orlov yelled, “You so dead!”
Please, Wayne, get down. He’ll KILL you!
But instead of ducking for cover, Wayne started dancing—mocking Orlov with a pop and lock routine. Then ANA did the worst thing possible. They stepped in front of Wayne to protect him, making them the next target. Orlov shot my metal friend point-blank in their flat chest.
No damage.
But the angry robot’s eyes turned red as they marched straight toward their abusive ex-husband. When Orlov fired another round, the buckshot just ricocheted off ANA’s chest armor.
The machine was unstoppable.
I peeked out from my hiding place, because I had to see the Russian’s face with my own eyes.
The man was in shock.
Panicking, Orlov fired his last shot at ANA, tried to reload, but only kicked out a spent shell. It clattered against the floor as he struggled with the pump action of his shotgun. I saw the terror in his blue eyes. The man just couldn’t believe he ran out of ammo.
But I saw it coming; I’d been counting the shots.
With their eyes glowing red, ANA’s titanium feet clanked against the concrete floor as they stood up to their abuser.
“You ugly robot,” he spat.
The tin-job morphed into the womanoid they used to be, wearing the same trashy corset and black miniskirt as the night Viktor proposed.
The Russian gasped as if he’d seen a ghost. “Anastasia?”
“That’s right, Viktor.” They twirled a strand of their long brown hair as if flirting. But then Anastasia re-opened every hole that Orlov had ever cut into them before they’d escaped that nightmare marriage. “I’m back.”
Horrified, he dropped his weapon.
Anastasia poked a hole in their side and spread it open while suggestively licking their cherry-glossed lips. “Remember what you did to this one?”
“Go away, you freak!”
Then they showed their former husband the gaping hole in the side of their thigh. “How about this one, Viktor?”
“Fuck you, whore!”
“That’s right…” They giggled like a psycho as holes oozed and bled all over their body. “Fuck me…” Anastasia cupped his crotch and squeezed with a hundred times more pressure than any human hand could ever muster.
The man bellowed in pain.
“You rapist piece of shit,” Anastasia growled as they twisted and jerked so hard that they tore him down there.
And I couldn’t help but think of Maggie.
NOW IS NOT THE TIME, COOKIE.
Wayne often spoke to me as my Internal Prompt. And, as usual, the man was right. There’d be plenty of time to discuss Maggie later.
Meanwhile, Orlov fell to the ground, writhing in agony and clutching his crotch. “Stupid bitch…” He coughed as crimson spots appeared between his legs, grew, and spread. “You rip my dick off…”
“Karma’s a bitch,” Anastasia said with a smirk—Maggie’s smirk.
A puddle of blood grew under him.
Looking like he might retch, Viktor asked, “Why you not kill me?”
“Good idea.” Anastasia took three wobbly steps back in their stripper heels, held their hands out like a crazed sleepwalker, then zapped him with 111,000 amps of electricity.
The lightning bolts from their fingertips executed Orlov on the spot.
Static electricity filled the air, making my blond hair frizz out under my cute pink hat. Next came the smell of smoked pork. I’d seen some amazing shit in my seven-year life, but nothing like that.
Behind me, I heard Wayne zipping suitcases as he whispered, “We need to get out of here.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Completely drained from killing their abuser, Anastasia fell to their knees and sobbed. I wished I knew what to say, but I had no idea how to comfort them. A few months ago, I’d killed my own abusive husband. But I hadn’t suffered the way ANA suffered. Not even close. To be honest, I felt afraid to touch them. I mean, they did just fry a guy to death.
Wayne offered Anastasia a palladium coin snack. “After that, your battery must be low.”
They didn’t even have the energy to look up at him.
Screw my hesitation. Anastasia needed help. So I went to them and hovered my hand over their head. “May I?”
They let out a weak whimper, and in my mind, I heard them say:
(Yes, please.)
I closed my eyes, focused, and pushed energy. “I can’t give you everything I’ve got, but I’m happy to share what I can.”
“Thank you, Cookie.” Anastasia looked up, nodded at Wayne, and took the Vitamin P snack. They stared at the embossed ballet couple before finally squeezing the coin and absorbing it.
The palladium made their eyes glow white and seemed to lift their spirits. Anastasia transformed back into robotic ANA, and their LED eyes turned green.
I didn’t know what mood green indicated.
“I still prefer to have no holes,” ANA said. “And I don’t swallow.”
“I get that.” I picked up another coin, ate it, and felt the surge. “You be you, ANA.”
Wayne slung a range bag over each shoulder. ANA grabbed the other two tactical bags plus the briefcase, leaving the wheelie luggage for me.
“You two are sweet,” I said as I pulled the telescoping handle, “but I’m just as strong as you are. I can carry as much as you.”
“We know.” Darting for the door, Wayne pointed at my heels. “But not in those shoes.”
ANA followed. “Time to jet.”
I nodded in agreement and took off after them.
But a Russian cop shouted through a bullhorn outside, “We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up!”
And we were trapped.