"Hey!" he called. "My chair's dead!" He had fetched up in a central pathway where the chairs tried to run cloverleafs around four displays. A couple chairs swerved around him. He thumped the panel dramatically, then stepped out and shook his head. He contrived to step on three robots on the way to another chair. "Is yours working?" he asked the kid riding in it, all of ten years old and of indefinite gender. "Yeah," the kid said. It scooted over. "There's room for both of us, get in." *Christ, don't they have stranger-danger in the north?* He climbed in beside the kid and contrived to slide one sly hand under the panel. Teasing out the wires the second time was easier, even one-handed. He sliced through five large bundles this time before the chair ground to a halt, its gyros whining and rocking it from side-to-side. The kid looked at him and frowned. "These things are shit," it said with real vehemence, climbing down and kicking one of its tires, and then kicking a couple of the floor-level robots for good measure. They'd landed another great breakdown spot: directly in front of a ranked display of raygun-shaped appliances and objects. He remembered seeing that one in its nascent stage, back in Florida -- just a couple of toy guns, which were presently joined by three more, then there were ten, then fifty, then a high wall of them, striking and charming. The chair's breakdown position neatly blocked the way. "Guess we'd better walk out," he said. He stepped on a couple more robots, making oops noises. The kid enthusiastically kicked robots out of its way. Chairs swerved around them as other riders tried to navigate. They were approaching the exit when Sammy spotted a charge-plate for the robots. They were standard issue for robotic vacuum cleaners and other semi-autonomous appliances, and he'd had one in his old apartment. They were supposed to be safe as anything, but a friend's toddler had crawled over to his and shoved a stack of dimes into its recessed jack and one of them had shorted it out in a smoking, fizzing fireworks display. "You go on ahead, I'm going to tie my shoes." Sammy bent down beside the charge plate, his back to the kid and the imagined cameras that were capturing his every move, and slipped the stack of coins he'd taken from his pocket into the little slot where the robots inserted their charging stamen. The ensuing shower of sparks was more dramatic than he'd remembered -- maybe it was the darkened room. The kid shrieked and ran for the EXIT sign, and he took off too, at a good clip. They'd get the ride up and running soon enough, but maybe not tonight, not if they couldn't get the two chairs he'd toasted out of the room. There was the beginnings of chaos at the exit. There was that Tjan character, giving him an intense look. He tried to head for the down escalator, but Tjan cut him off. "What's going on in there?"