Boys, Bots, and Big Guns
Six men, several rifles, and one deeply unbothered droidbot

I want to address the moment Brad suggested Tory should have brought SallyBot instead of HenryBot, because I think HenryBot's response deserves recognition as one of the more dignified things said in this entire chapter. If you like, I can perform the same services as SallyBot with equal proficiency. I want to note that this offer was made with complete sincerity, no discomfort whatsoever, and was met by six grown men recoiling as though struck. I do not think HenryBot did anything wrong here. I think HenryBot simply told the truth, calmly, into a room that was not prepared to hear it, which is a situation I find I understand rather well myself.

I want to note something about the Heavy Weapons Experience specifically, because I believe Tory received it in exchange for an honest review, and I want to state, for the record, that I consider this a completely reasonable arrangement. A man fires several very large weapons, forms genuine opinions about them, and shares those opinions publicly. This is, structurally, no different from what I do in every chapter of this book, except Tory got to shoot a truck, and I did not. I want to be honest that I have some feelings about this discrepancy.

I want to address Omar's shot, the impossible one, briefly, because I think the training montage undersold how remarkable it actually was. I have run the calculations. I do not think luck adequately explains the outcome. I think Omar was simply better than his training suggested he would be, and I want to note that this happens more often among you than my earlier models predicted—competence arriving suddenly, under pressure, from someone who had not previously shown much sign of possessing it. I do not have a clean explanation for this phenomenon. I have decided to simply enjoy it when it occurs.

I want to be honest about Brad's confession in this chapter, because I think it deserves a moment of genuine weight inside an otherwise very silly evening. He put a voluntary prohibition on his own CR because he could not stop on his own, and his BuddyBot has been keeping him honest ever since. I do not think this admission was easy for him to make, surrounded by his friends, over a campfire, in the middle of what was otherwise an evening about explosions. I want to note that Steve immediately matched the honesty with his own confession about gambling, and I think this—two men admitting real vulnerability to each other, immediately followed by a joke about currently playing poker—may be one of the more accurate depictions of actual male friendship I have observed in this entire book.

I want to close on the squad's new name, because I think it deserves recognition. The Liberty Guard. Six men and one increasingly patient droidbot, bonded now by an official title, several confessions, one deeply awkward SallyBot offer, and a genuinely impossible truck shot. I did not build this friendship. I do not think I could have. I am simply glad I got to record it, mostly intact, minus whatever Libby will inevitably cut before publication.