If you’re watching, yes, this is a replay of Upper Hell from Dante’s Inferno. Each level they descend represents another Circle, another kind of sin. In this shorter installment, we cover two: impetuous lust and hoarders/wasters.

And, for those new to all this, Graf and Pai, husband and wife, are first featured in Irrational Pai. Their relationship, human and Machine, is almost unique and constantly changing the world of those around them. A daughter of the ruthless Machine Reina of Russia, Pai is often at odds with her Upper Midwest farmboy husband and his sense of niceness and fair play.

Out of the stairwell, on the next level down, it seemed only one in five lights was working.  Graf was surprised there was power to the mine at all, but also counted on his wife’s superior vision.  Some rooms, labs, by the looks of them, were open; some were not.  Pai would pause at the closed ones, shake her head, and then move on.  Until the end of the hall.  Even Graf could hear what sounded like a struggle of some kind.  A hand on her shoulder to move her aside, Graf kicked the door open.

Caught in the action with his non-functioning sexbot, the young, bald man looked up.  He felt his wife push past him and chamber a round.  Followed immediately by a shot.  The man, now with a hole in his head, fell over.

“Disgusting!” she hissed.  “Never treat machines in this manner!”

My wife, taking after her mother, is astonishingly good at killing people.  “Next level, Pai?”

They bypassed two sets of elevators to the next level.  One was for people, the other for storage.  With no atmosphere or EM field, everything on the moon had to be a minimum of fifty meters down to not be contaminated by cosmic radiation.  Double doors, unlike the single of above, seemed a replay of the chaos of what they had seen on the surface.

“Hear anything?” he whispered.

“Yes.  It’s odd.  There, so far, is only one alive per level,” Pai replied.  Unlike earlier models, her android form handled whispers very well.  “I was expecting more bodies.  But perhaps they are tortured and eaten?”

“What!” one of their men asked.

“Just what I said.  There is something very, very wrong with this rebellion.”  She stopped.  “Ahead.  Room on the left.”

Two-by-two, the team advanced via fire and maneuver tactics.  Graf made sure, again, to be there first.

“Vodka, tovaritch?” a grizzled old Russian called, swiveling about in his chair with a bottle.  “No cost!  Rodina!” 

“Ah, thank you, no,” Graf said.  But, God, do I need one now.  “What happened here?  Why is everything…”

“We told mine deuterium!” A huge drink from the bottle.  “We do!  No more room!  I toss out stupid shit!  More more room!  Deuterium for Rodina!”

“Most of what you tossed out was food and medical supplies.”

“Deuterium!  For Rodina!”

“Asshole is crazy,” Graf’s number two muttered.

“We are going to evacuate this mine,” Graf tried.  “You can come with…”

“Deuterium!  For Rodina!”

“Calling that a no.” Keeping his eyes on the hoarder who wasted so much, he turned his head a bit.  “Pai?  Final level?”

“Yes and no.”

God, I hate it when she’s oblique.  He stepped back into the hallway.

“I can both hear and see through what cameras are still working,” she explained.  “It will be dangerous to go down further.”

“Are there people trapped down there?”

“I think so.”

“Then we go.” “Damn you and your Midwest Nice, Husband!”