C. Robert Cargill, returns to the world of Sea of Rust (which Joe Hill called “a forty-megaton cruise missile of a novel—it’ll blow you away and lay waste to your heart. It is the most visceral, relentless, breathtaking work of SF in any medium since Mad Max: Fury Road.”) and Day Zero with a new novella that shares the post-apocalyptic, robot-inhabited future of those two acclaimed novels.

It is three years since the war between humans and robots began and the OWIs (the One World Intelligences) have humanity on the ropes. But humankind is not yet ready to go quietly into the night. Instead, they have partnered with many of the last remaining freebots in a fabled city beyond the reaches of war: Confederation.

Nanny, an otherwise nameless nannybot—no home nor child to call their own—wearily wanders the war-torn wastes with only one thing on their mind: find Confederation. Because if you find Confederation, you find peace.

Of course, Confederation is as much a fireside folk tale as it is a reality. 

Though it may exist, it by no means is a place of peace and acceptance. Though bot and human lives together under the same roof, that doesn’t mean they trust one another. Has Nanny arrived in time to save Confederation from itself or rather, just to witness its last days?