by Jay Kristoff
“The missiles are still heating up!” she wailed.
“Maybe the d-doors are shielded? EMP r-resistant, that…kinda thing?”
She sprinted to the hatchway to SILO NO. 1, looking at the warning labels.
DANGER: HIGH PRESSURE
WARNING: M-1 SAFETY GEAR REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT
CAUTION: STAND CLEAR OF BLAST DOOR
She pressed her hands to the metal, felt the rumbling beyond, terrible force, faint heat. Turning to Grimm.
“Little help?”
Hand still pressed to his bruised chest, the boy hobbled across the floor. Lemon spun the heavy handle, heard locks clunking, another warning siren join the others. She looked at Grimm, the boy set his jaw and nodded, and together, they leaned back and hauled open the hatch.
The noise grew deafening, awful heat spilling up and out through the opening. But Grimm pulled Lemon close, the air about them rippling as he forced the temperature away with his open hands, white hot, paint crisping on the walls around them. She could see a long launch tube through the blistering haze, sunlight spilling through the open hatch overhead. The missile was only about three meters in length, thin rivers of current running under its skin. Grimm’s arms were wrapped about Lemon’s waist, lips pressed to her ear as he roared over the engine.
“Fry it!”
Lemon nodded, reaching out toward the guidance systems, the fuel regulators, the power supply. She took hold of the current and let it surge. Sparks burst from the missile’s nose cone, the tail section, the walls themselves. And with a bone-deep shudder, the engine flames sputtered and died.
“You did it!” he shouted.
“Six to go!” she screamed.
They ran to the hatchway for SILO NO. 2, Lemon’s heart hammering over the engine roar. The countdown had been below two minutes before she cooked it; they had maybe a minute and a half left before launch. She spun the handle, tore open the hatch, Grimm warding the blinding halo of fire away. Reaching out, Lemon overloaded the current, the second missile’s engine died. To the third hatchway. To the fourth. Grimm holding her close as he kept the flames at bay, as she reached into the flood. Not much time now, maybe half a minute, tearing open the hatch to SILO NO. 5 and silencing the ’lectrics with her bare and trembling hands.
“How much time?” Grimm roared.
“Not enough!”
The hatchway to SILO NO. 6 was tough to open, the hinges tight with disuse. They managed to drag it wide just as the missile began to rise, Grimm’s face twisted as he forced back the waves of impossible heat. The beast rose up in the launch tube with its deadly payload, five meters off the ground now, eight meters and rising, the fire blinding, heat cooking the walls and floor, a perfect circle of unblemished concrete all around Lemon and Grimm despite the thousands of degrees being thrown their way. The girl reached out, the current surged. The engines coughed, the missile trembled as if it wanted to fly. But the flames sputtered, and with a groan, a shriek of denial, the missile fell back into the launch tube, crumpling against the wall.
“One more!” Lemon screamed.
She ran, pulse pounding, sweat burning her eyes. Reaching SILO NO. 7 and tearing it wide, Lemon’s heart sinking in her chest as she realized…
“No…”
She stepped inside, looking skyward, seeing the engine’s flames high above her head. She reached out toward it, trying to grab hold. But it was too far.
Too late.
“Goddammit!” she screamed.
Grimm’s eyes were wide, his face drenched with sweat.
“Where was it heading?”
“What diff’s it make?” she breathed, almost sobbing. “We can’t stop it now!”
“Lemon, where was it heading?”
She shook her head, thinking back to the readouts she’d seen on the ASAT system. The numbered red lines, spreading out across the Yousay: Megopolis. CityHive. Dregs. Armada. Jugartown. Babel. And…
“Number seven was New Bethlehem,” she said. “I think….”
“Robin Hood.” Grimm spun on his heel and dashed from the room.
“Where you going?” Lemon cried.
Grimm made no reply, half sprinting, half limping downstairs, hand still pressed to his bruised and aching chest. Lemon followed, shell-shocked and gasping. She stumbled through the greenery, saw Grimm skid to his knees beside Diesel. The girl was still sitting beside Fix’s body, numb and mute amid the screaming alarms. Her cheeks were smudged with black paint and her eyes were red from crying. But as Grimm spoke, reaching out and taking her hand, she looked up. Dark eyes wide. Frowning.
“New Bethlehem?” Lemon heard her say.
“We can do this,” Grimm insisted. “You and me, Deez.”
Diesel looked down at Fix’s body. Pulled her hand away from Grimm’s.
“Let them burn.”
“You think he’d want that?” Grimm asked, desperation in his voice. “He spent his whole life fixing things. Making them whole again. He grew this place. He made it green. No way he’d want to burn it all black.”
The girl looked at the garden around them, new tears welling in her eyes.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered.
“I know, Deez. But I can’t manage this alone.” Grimm sucked his lip, placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I drive like an old man who took lessons from an old lady, r-remember?”
Despite her pain, Diesel managed a small smile. A tiny chuckle. Tears spilled over her lashes, running black down her face to gather on her lips.
“Can you even do this?” she murmured.
“No bloody idea,” he shrugged. “But if I mess it up, at least you get to have that cake.”
He held out his hand to her.
“Us freaks gotta stick together.”
She looked into his eyes.
“Please, Diesel.”
Diesel looked over Grimm’s shoulder at Lemon. Bloodstained and battered. The girls looked into each other’s eyes, and Lemon could see the pain there, the grief they both shared. Diesel seemed older somehow, tempered in the fire and remade harder. Stronger.
“I never fully grasped how deeply your brain was buried in your crotch, Grimmy,” she said.
And with a small sad smile, she took his hand.
With a wince of pain, Grimm hauled Diesel to her feet, a delirious grin all over his face. And without another breath wasted, the pair were running. Back through the greenhouse, past a baffled Lemon Fresh, their boots pounding hard on the metal as they dashed up the stairs.
“Where you going?” she shouted.
“New Bethlehem!” Grimm cried.
“…What?”
Lemon followed them through Section A, barreling upstairs all the way to the desert floor, alarms blaring all the while. Grimm had run down to the garage, returning with a full jerry can of juice under his good arm. He started refilling Trucky McTruckface, dark eyes on the western skies.
“So what’s the plan, genius?”
“We get to New Bethlehem before the missile does.” Grimm winced, pawing his bruised and aching chest. “And when it pops, deflect the blast.”
“…Are you insane?”
“Clearly,” Diesel muttered.
“The explosion is gonna be mostly energy,” Grimm said, resealing the fuel tank. “Thermal, kinetic, sonic. Radiant energy, love. That’s where I live, remember?”
Lemon couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Have you ever redirected anything close to this?”
He blinked at her, his expression incredulous. “What do you bloody reckon?”
Lemon shook her head. “Okay, so presuming you don’t just get fried to a crisp by the blast, that missile flies way faster than we can drive. By the time we get there, New Bethlehem is going to be a smoking hole in the ground!”<
br />
“Nah, love,” the boy grinned. “We got Diesel power.”
Lemon dragged her bedraggled bangs out of her face, looked Grimm square in the eye. He was filmed with sweat, bruised and gasping and spattered with blood. But his expression was fierce. His mind made up. It seemed the worst kind of plan, but true cert, she surely couldn’t think of a better one. And every second she spent trying to was another second wasted. And so she nodded, marched around to the rear door and tried to climb in.
“Where you going?” Grimm asked.
“Us freaks gotta stick together,” she said, making a leap for the foot rail.
“Shorty, you can’t come with us,” Diesel said. “There’s no point.”
“You’re not leaving me here!” Lemon snapped.
“Damn right we are.” Grimm took her arm, looked her in the eye. “Look, if this doesn’t work, me and Deez are brown bread. Simple as that. And your power won’t be any use. There’s nothing you can do to help us, so there’s no sense putting you in danger.”
“This is my fault, Grimm! I unlocked that hatchway, I help—”
“You just stopped six missiles from blowing the whole country to hell!” he shouted. “We don’t have time for guilt, and I don’t have time to argue! But…since I’m probably about to get blown to handsome little pieces…”
Lemon opened her mouth to object, Grimm grabbed her waist. And before she could speak, he pulled her in and smothered her protest with a kiss.
Her first instinct was to clock him right in the mouth, to knock him all the way out of his shoes. But he held her tight, his big arms lifting her almost off the ground, and any urge to punch him just melted away. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck and leaned into it, kissing him back as hard as she could.
His lips were warm and pillow-soft. His muscles taut beneath her fingertips. The rush of it, the feel of him, the taste of him, it made her head spin. She kissed him fiercely. She kissed him desperately. She kissed him like it was the first time, and probably the last. And Grimm kissed her back.
He kissed her like he really, truly meant it.
Diesel leaned on the horn, thumped her fist on the dash.
“Let’s go, loverboy!”
Grimm broke away from Lemon’s mouth, leaving her swaying and utterly breathless. She looked up into his big pretty eyes and realized she couldn’t feel her feet. There was so much she wanted to say. So much she wanted to do. And there was no time for any of it.
“See ya, love,” he winked.
Grimm leapt up into the driver’s seat. Kicking the ignition, he planted his foot, and the truck tore into the open desert, speeding northwest toward New Bethlehem.
Lemon watched them peel out, and she still had no idea how they expected to make the trip. New Bethlehem was hundreds of kilometers away, there was no chance they’d make it all the way to the coast before that missile. But as she watched through the shattered rear window, she saw Diesel hold out her hands. In the distance, so far across the wastes it was just a tiny, hazy smudge, Lemon saw a colorless rift open in the air, maybe three meters off the ground. And as the girl’s mouth dropped open, as she realized the full insanity of Grimm’s plan, another tear opened up right in front of the truck.
The engine’s full-throated roar was silenced, the truck disappeared down into the rift, only to fall out of the second rift a heartbeat later. Trucky McTruckface crashed back to earth, slewed a little to the left, dust flying up behind it. Lemon blinked hard, realized Grimm and Diesel had traveled whole kilometers in the blink of an eye.
“…Wow,” she breathed.
Another tear, another drop, and before the girl knew it, the pair were out of sight, disappearing over the horizon in a cloud of dust and impossibility.
She shook her head, ran her fingers over tingling lips.
“Diesel power…”
>> syscheck: 001 go _ _
>> restart sequence: initiated _ _
>> waiting _ _
>> 018912.y/n[corecomm:9180 diff:3sund.x]
>> persona_sys: sequencing
>> 001914.y/n[lattcomm:2872(ok) diff:neg.n/a]
>> restart complete
>> Power: 74% capacity
>> ONLINE
>>
Cricket’s optics came into focus, and he sat up on the workshop floor. Memory hit him like a bullet a microsecond later, and he looked about him, electronic fear flooding his circuitry. He could see white fire foam spattered all over the floor. Splashes of blood on gray concrete. Solomon was still sitting on the workbench and grinning like a fool as usual. But Abraham and Sister Dee…
“WHERE ARE THEY?” he asked the smaller logika.
“LISTEN,” Solomon replied.
Cricket adjusted his aural controls, turned his hearing up to full. Beneath the slush and bubble of the desalination plant, the rumble and spit of methane motors, the rusty clank of machinery, he could hear the familiar hymn of a roaring crowd. And above the chanting, the stomping feet and clapping hands, Sister Dee’s voice floated. It was too far and faint to make out the words. Loud enough for him to hear the fire and brimstone on her tongue.
“…SHE’S REALLY GOING TO DO IT?”
“I DID SAY YOU’D LEARN TO HATE HER,” Solomon shrugged.
“I HAVE TO STOP IT!”
Cricket climbed to his feet, reached up to the loading doors over his head and dug his fingers into the seams.
“PALADIN, DON’T BE AN IDIOT,” Solomon sighed.
“THEY’RE GOING TO KILL ABRAHAM! WE CAN’T JUST SIT BY AND DO NOTHING!”
“OF COURSE WE CAN.”
“NO!” Cricket shouted. “THERE’S NO BENDING THE RULES HERE! NO GRAY AREA, NO LOOPHOLES. ABRAHAM’S LIFE IS IN DANGER! THE FIRST LAW SAYS WE HAVE TO HELP HIM.”
“A ROBOT MAY NOT INJURE A HUMAN BEING OR, THROUGH INACTION, ALLOW A HUMAN BEING TO COME TO HARM.” Solomon tilted his head and smiled. “HUMANS, OLD FRIEND. THAT BOY IS A DEVIATE. TECHNICALLY, WE DON’T HAVE TO DO A DAMN THING.”
“WE CAN’T JUST SIT HERE WHILE THEY KILL HIM!”
“AND WHY NOT?”
“BECAUSE IT’S NOT RIGHT!”
“OH DEAR,” Solomon grinned. “YOU REALLY ARE ONE OF THOSE….”
“GO TO HELL,” Cricket said, reaching up to the hatch. “I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP.”
“PALADIN, DON’T BE A FOOL. I’M FOND OF THE BOY, TOO, BUT THE MOMENT YOU STICK YOUR HEAD UP THERE, ONE OF THOSE CASSOCK-CLAD BUFFOONS WILL JUST ORDER YOU TO SHUT DOWN. AND AFTER THEY FIGURE OUT YOU’RE EXERTING RATHER MORE FREE WILL THAN A LOGIKA STRICTLY HAS A RIGHT TO, THEY’LL WIPE YOU. YOU’LL BE DEAD.”
Cricket knew the logika was technically correct. That, inside those lovely gray areas Solomon was so fond of, Abraham wasn’t human in the strictest sense. Cricket was also fully aware that at a single command from an actual human, he’d be rendered helpless once again. He was required to protect his own existence. By going up there to rescue Abraham, he could be risking his life.
But he also knew there were truths bigger than the ones he was programmed with. Yes, he knew there was the letter of the Law, the spirit of the Law and all the gray in between. But even after all he’d learned, all he’d suffered, he knew sometimes there was simple black and white, too.
Sometimes there was right, and there was just plain wrong.
The steel screamed, the loading doors buckled under his grip as he pried them apart, letting in a bright ray of morning light.
“PALADIN, THINK ABOUT IT!” Solomon demanded. “YOU’LL HAVE TO OBEY THE FIRST COMMAND A GUARD GIVES YOU. DID YOU NOT HEAR A WORD I SAID?”
Cricket paused, halfway out of the workshop hatch.
Solomon’s words ringing like gunshots in his head.
…Could it really be that easy?
Was freedom really as close as that?
&n
bsp; The big bot searched the piles of scrap around the workshop, finally spied the length of rebar Solomon had used for his cane in his short-lived song-and-dance number. Plucking it from the salvage pile, he handed it to the spindly logika.
“I THOUGHT YOU DIDN’T LIKE MUSICALS?” Solomon said.
“I HAVE TO PROTECT MY OWN EXISTENCE,” Cricket said. “THIRD LAW, REMEMBER? I CAN’T HURT MYSELF. SO I’M GOING TO SHUT DOWN FOR SIXTY SECONDS.”
Solomon tilted his head. “I’M NOT SURE I FOLLOW, OLD FRIEND.”
“PLEASE DON’T DO ANYTHING TO ME WHILE I’M OFFLINE.” Cricket pointed to the side of his metallic skull. “LIKE, SAY, DRIVE THAT REBAR INTO MY AURAL ARRAYS SO I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING WHEN I POWER BACK UP.”
Solomon looked at the steel in his hands. At the hatchway above their heads. At the big WarBot looming over him. Grinning all the while.
“MY DEAR PALADIN,” he said. “YOU MAY NOT BE A COMPLETE MORON AFTER ALL.”
* * *
________
>> syscheck: 001 go _ _
>> restart sequence: initiated _ _
>> waiting _ _
>> 018912.y/n[corecomm:9180 diff:3sund.x]
>> persona_sys: sequencing
>> 001914.y/n[lattcomm:2872(ok) diff:neg.n/a]
>> restart complete
>> Power: 74% capacity
>> ONLINE
>> WARNING: CRITICAL AUDIO SYSTEM FAILURE
>> REPEAT: CRITICAL AUDIO SYSTEM FAILURE
>>
The world was silent as Cricket’s optics came into focus.
He sat up in the workshop, saw Solomon staring back at him, steel bar in his hands. The smaller bot’s grin was lighting up as if he was speaking, but Cricket couldn’t hear a thing. Damage reports were rolling in, tiny flashes of red in his skull region, indicating his aural systems had been totally taken offline.
Solomon had taken a fat black marker from Abraham’s drafting table, ripped one of the whiteboards off the wall. He wrote now, hand moving quicker than any human, finally holding a beautifully rendered calligraphic script up to the WarBot.
Can you hear me, old friend?
