It’s almost like I see her for the first time: six foot four, hair as black as a crow’s wing, eyes like sapphires. She stands stiffly, her gaze darting nervously around the room. I can almost hear what she’s thinking: Who remembers me from the Pits massacre?
“This,” J.J. says, “is MikkyBo.”
But the crowd has begun to jostle and shout. Some yell in fear, others in anger. “What’s the Hu-Bot doing here?” “Enemy in our midst!” A shoe goes flying toward Mikky’s head. Fast as lightning, her hand shoots out, and she catches it. She drops it to the floor like trash.
“Silence!” J.J. calls out. “Mikky is on our side.”
“Hu-Bots are evil!” a voice calls out.
“Death to all machines!” yells another.
Suddenly I’m up at the podium, standing right at J.J.’s side. “Just shut your stupid mouths!” I roar.
J.J. looks at me in surprise. He gives a quick nod of gratitude. Then he raises his arms, his fists clenched. The room settles down.
“Now listen to me,” he says, his voice low and fierce. “MikkyBo is not the enemy—your own prejudice is the enemy. So get rid of it. Do you hear me? MikkyBo is more powerful than any ten Hu-Bots in the Central Capital City. Inside her is a new and revolutionary operating system. Do you know what that means? That in her mind, she’s more human than you are! More intelligent, more empathic, more ethical! But in her physical attributes, she is humanity’s most powerful weapon…”
As J.J. goes on, Mikky’s getting more and more agitated. She’s been controlling herself, though, practicing deep breathing. Until J.J. calls her a weapon. And then she goes pale as death.
And then she turns and runs.
CHAPTER 65
MIKKY BURSTS OUT of the tunnel and into the night. Far in the distance, the City glitters like a beacon.
Tears stream down her cheeks. They were using you. You were no more than a weapon. Lower than a Bot. Dumber than a drone.
She runs down the rutted mountain road leading away from the Reserve. She runs to dull the pain of betrayal. To forget the word weapon. She runs, without stopping, all the way to a gleaming white high-rise in the heart of the City. The Elite Tower.
Home.
She pauses at her front door. She no longer has her Center-issued uniform. Instead she’s wearing a jumpsuit of thin, silky material that clings to her muscled limbs. Her hand flutters to her throat before she remembers that her collar is gone, too.
She feels suddenly and completely naked. What will NyBo say? She can’t bear to think about it. So she just opens the door.
“It’s Mikky!” KatBo shrieks, bolting across the room and leaping into her big sister’s arms.
Mikky buries her face in her sister’s hair, wiping her tears on the dark, shiny curls. No Hu-Bot must see her crying, not even one in her family. One glitchy Hu-Bot is enough.
But her heart feels like it might burst. Is this what being human is like? Mikky is overwhelmed by emotions. She’s never felt more relieved, and has never felt more unsettled. Never felt more love—or more fear.
No wonder we always called humans irrational, she thinks. They are! I am!
“Mikky?” NyBo rises from his chair, his face a mask of shock. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me,” she manages to squeak.
Just not the me you remember.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispers. He runs toward her, his strong arms outstretched to pull her in.
But her father isn’t who she remembers, either. In the few weeks she’s been gone, he seems to have aged a hundred years.
And there’s something else, too—
She reaches out and touches his cheek. It’s wet. “NyBo, are you… crying?”
NyBo smiles uneasily. “Perhaps I have a glitch, too.”
Mikky’s throat tightens, and her own tears start flowing again. Have they become a family of renegades? Each and every one of them as “defective” as KrisBo?
“I’m so sorry I worried you,” she says, wiping her eyes. She takes a deep breath. Then the words tumble out in a rush. “I was injured, Father. I was rehabilitated at a secret human encampment. I wanted to learn more about them. I thought that I could understand the enemy. But I—”
She stops. How can she begin to tell her father all that has happened? About OS Empathy, about Six, about her near expiration?
“Sit down,” NyBo says gently, ushering her over to the sleek leather couch, the one with the view of the city skyline. “Do you want something to drink?”
But she can’t sit or have a drink. She’s too agitated. Her family’s future depends on what happens next.
“You went rogue,” Kat whispers, awed.
NyBo puts his head in his hands, then looks up at her again. “The commander told us you were dead.”
I basically was, she thinks. Until Six helped me. Until J.J. brought me back.
“It was… a difficult time,” Mikky says. “But it doesn’t matter now.” She kneels on the carpet before her father and begins to speak, quickly and urgently. “I came to warn you. I think the humans are going to start another war. They were meeting in secret, planning to use me—”
NyBo puts a hand up to stop her. “Darling, it’s not the humans you should fear.”
For a second she doesn’t think she’s heard him right. Why is her father, ex–military man, human-phobe, number one champion of the Hu-Bot Colony, telling her that people aren’t dangerous?
“What?” she says in disbelief.
NyBo leans close, so close she can feel his breath on her cheek. “I was trying to find information about your brother. So I hacked into the premier’s private slipstream. And I learned that he is planning an attack of his own.”
The shock of her father doing something so dangerous and forbidden is lost in the dread of this new information. “Where?” she asks. Her heart rate rises; her skin grows hot. “At the Reserve?
“Everywhere, my love. He will annihilate every last man, woman, and child. Beginning with the ones in the Central Prison. What do you think your humans can do in the face of such power?”
Mikky gasps. “But does the premier know about the human revolt?”
NyBo looks grim. “He doesn’t need to know. Does the lion fret about the gathering of mice?”
Mikky blinks, once, twice, and lets the horror sink in. It makes her bones ache. How has everything gone so wrong?
This isn’t why she came home! She wants to feel safe! The fire is flickering in the hearth, and Mikky just wants to be a little girl again. She wishes she could sit at her father’s side and let him hold her the way he used to. She wants him to be able to make everything all right.
But he can’t. No one can.
“The humans have to be told,” she says.
KatBo watches her with wide, serious eyes. “Are you going to leave again?” she whispers.
Mikky tries to meet her sister’s gaze. She may not know where her loyalties are, but she can’t stand by while every last human is murdered.
“I love you both,” she says. She takes a step toward the door.
NyBo looks at her a long time. She is no longer the dutiful novice detective he was so proud of.
I hope you can be proud of me again, she thinks.
“Be safe,” her father says softly.
She nods. But she can’t promise this. She can’t promise anything. The world is on the brink of war. She can’t stop it.
So she has to pick a side.
CHAPTER 66
SLEEP IS IMPOSSIBLE, so I’m just lying here in the dark. All those times I wished for a room to myself? Well, now I’ve got it—and I couldn’t be more pissed. Turns out OS Empathy doesn’t mean anything: once a robot, always a robot.
I can’t wait to tell J.J. I told you so.
Who’s going to lead his army now?
I toss and turn, wishing I’d left Mikky in pieces back in that icy river. Then none of this would have happened.
I’m thinking about ta
king a little trip with the Q-comp—who knows, maybe I’ll get a nice memory this time—when I hear a scratching right outside the window. I sit up, thinking I’m going to see a raccoon, or maybe one of the big rats that hang out behind the compound kitchen.
But instead, it’s Mikky, looking all wild and distraught in the moonlight. There’s mud on her cheek. There’s even a leaf in her hair.
“Let me in,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “This room is for nontraitors only.”
Her face crumples. “Six—”
I don’t have an ounce of sympathy for this android. She betrayed J.J. She betrayed all the Rezzies. She betrayed me. “I thought you were with us.”
“I am,” she cries. “I’ll prove it. Just let me in.”
I shake my head. “Nope.” Then I add, “What, you can’t break down the door with your incredible superpowers?”
She’s too upset even to roll her eyes at me. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m back yet, and Macy’s at the front door. I just need to talk to you.”
I let her wait for a few more minutes, fretting. Do I care what she has to say? Will I believe it, whatever it is?
Mikky’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “You’re in danger.”
“So what else is new,” I say flatly. “I’m a wanted criminal, remember?”
“Please,” she whispers. “You need to hear this.”
She seems so sincere—so desperate—that reluctantly I unlatch the window and push it open. Mikky leaps over the sill and lands as softly as a cat. She sits down on the edge of my bed, her hands twisted in her lap.
“So talk, Hu-Bot,” I command.
She flinches. “When I left the meeting, I went to see my family.”
“Sure,” I seethe. “Because the Hu-Bots didn’t kill or imprison yours.”
She reaches out and touches my knee. I quickly slide it out of her reach. “I know you’re angry with me, but you must listen,” she insists. “You have to be on my side.”
I scoff. “On your side? That’s the side of total human destruction, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” My fists are clenched, and I’m practically screaming.
“Will you just shut up, Sarah!” she yells.
And I’m so surprised that I do. How does she know my old name?
Mikky leans forward and speaks in a whisper. “The premier is planning an attack on the human population, with the intent of…” She frowns, like it’s hard to even say the words.
“The intent of what?” I demand.
“Exterminating you all,” Mikky blurts.
What’s crazy is that I almost feel relief. Finally, we can put to rest all the rumors: they’re true. The end is near.
But that feeling lasts about two seconds, before my whole body is gripped with fear and rage. I don’t want to die. I don’t want my friends to die. I don’t want one single human to become another victim of the Bots.
“How do you know this?” I ask.
“My father hacked into an encrypted slipstream,” Mikky says.
I lean forward, my face just inches from hers now. “When’s it going to happen?”
I can see her swallow nervously. “It starts tomorrow. At the Central Prison.”
My heart nearly stops. “At the Central Prison? That’s where my brother and sister are!”
Mikky’s face falls. “Oh, Six,” she says. “I’m sorry—”
“Screw sorry!” I shout. “We’re going to rescue them!”
“But I know J.J. has a plan for our own attack, Six. And storming the prison isn’t part of it.”
I’m out of bed, and I’m putting on my clothes, even though it’s still dark out. “I don’t care what J.J. says,” I say, reaching for my ancient gun and slipping it into my coat. “That’s my family in there. Are you coming or what?”
CHAPTER 67
I’M IN A rusted, windowless van that’s probably as old as J.J., watching through the filthy windshield as Mikky creeps toward the perimeter of the jail yard. Zee Twelve and Trip are across the street, each behind the wheel of another van. We’re all awaiting Mikky’s signal.
We’ve timed the Bot-cop patrols: Mikky has three minutes to scale the slick, thirty-foot Plexiglas gate, find the control box, hack the security code, and open up the gate.
A piece of cake, right? She’s trained for this—Mikky can leap a wall that size carrying a boulder in a backpack. But for some reason she’s not moving. Instead she’s standing there like she thinks the gate’s going to magically open for her.
Go, you crazy Hu-Bot, I think. Jump!
Has she had another change of heart? I put my hand on the door handle, ready to dash out and try to throw her over the gate myself. But then the Bot-cop patrol rolls into view, and I decide to stay hidden.
Mikky wakes up when she sees the three of them coming. She beckons them over, and, since she’s a Hu-Bot, they obey. I watch as she persuades one of the cops to hand over his weapon—and then she proceeds to shoot him with it.
The other two lift their guns, but they’re blown to bits before I can blink.
Then Mikky turns, sprints toward the gate, cartwheels into it, pushes off the Plexiglas with the ball of her foot, and swings her body up and backward over the top. Then she disappears from sight. But she must have found the control box, because a moment later, the big gate slides open.
This might actually work, I think.
I slam the van into gear and race toward the gate, stopping for a moment to leap out and grab one of the Bot-cop’s guns. It’s so light, it almost feels like a toy—but I’ve seen firsthand the damage it can do.
Zee and Trip pull into the prison yard a second behind me. The lights have come on, and inside the prison an alarm is shrieking.
Clutching my Bot weapon, I jump out of the van.
“Where are you going?” Trip calls after me. “We’re supposed to stay here so we can load up the prisoners!”
“I’m not sitting around while Mikky rescues my family!” I cry, sprinting toward the prison door. When I fling it open, I see gray-faced prisoners, skinny as skeletons, stumbling down the hall toward me. “Head for the vans!” I yell, and push my way through them. I don’t recognize any of them. Where are Martha and Ricky?
A barrage of gunfire opens up before me, and the air’s filled with the bright pop of electrical explosions. I duck down a hallway, telling myself Mikky’s fine. She’s raced through this place, blasting holes through the Bot-guards, and they’re going up in flames.
I stumble over piles of exterminated drones as I creep down the hall. I know I don’t have much time—any minute now the Elite Force is going to storm the building. But I’ve got to find my family. I’m trying to push down the thought that keeps seizing me, the possibility that maybe I’m too late.
All the cells are open and empty. Where’s Martha? Where’s Ricky?
At the end of the hall is a metal door with a tiny window covered by a steel grate. It’s the only one that didn’t open automatically.
I don’t know if it’s a cell or a broom closet, but I have to find out. I crouch down and aim the gun up at the lock. That way, the bullet will lodge in the ceiling—and not in anyone who might be inside.
I shoot. The bullet tears through its target, and with a creak, the door swings slowly open. A rat dashes out, skittering right over my foot. I stifle a shriek.
It’s dark inside the room. The air smells like mildew and rotting food and unwashed bodies—like despair.
Steeling myself, I step inside the cell. When my eyes adjust, I see a small, trembling shape in the corner.
It’s my sister.
“Martha!” I gasp.
At first she shrinks away from me, but I run to her and scoop her up in my arms. Though she’s three years older than I am, she feels no bigger than a child. Her eyes are huge and frightened. Her cheeks are so hollow that her face looks like a skull.
“No,” she whispers. “This isn’t real.”
I squeeze her tightly, relief and love flo
oding my body. “It’s real, Martha. I’m here, I’m here. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Then a figure steps from the shadows, as pale and terrifying as a ghost. “You.” The voice sounds like the gasp of a dying man. But I recognize it as Ricky’s. “You’ve just committed suicide,” he hisses, “and you’ve murdered every prisoner here in the process. Just like you did to our mother and father.”
CHAPTER 68
“FEEL FREE TO stay here,” I answer, my teeth clenched. “But Martha and I are leaving.”
My sister buries her face against my chest, wrapping her arms around my neck. It’s a good thing she’s light, because I don’t think she can walk.
The sirens are louder now, but the hallway’s still deserted. I hurry down the hall, clutching Martha tightly against myself, and I think I hear my brother’s footsteps behind me. The door’s only fifty yards ahead, and I can see the last of the prisoners staggering out into the night.
We did it, I think—and the triumph propels me faster down the hall. I’m practically sprinting toward freedom.
But just as I’m getting to the door, two Elite Force Hu-Bots block it.
“Halt!” barks the taller one.
I set Martha down, whispering for her to stay calm. She whimpers in response. I raise up my hands in surrender, cursing myself for leaving the gun back in the cell. But I don’t halt: I start backing away, deeper into the prison, and the Hu-Bots follow me.
They walk right past my sister as if she’s invisible.
“Martha, run!” I yell, and I watch as she limps outside. I catch a glimpse of Trip as she stops Martha from falling, then hurries her to the transport van. And a moment later, my brother slinks outside, too. I hear the gunning of the engine. They’re going to escape.
“Halt!” the Hu-Bot says again.
Now that my family’s safe, it’s time to worry about myself. And my odds aren’t pretty. I’m alone inside a prison with two Hu-Bots. I’ve got no weapon, no backup. I don’t know where Mikky is. This does not look good.
Humans, Bow Down Page 16
