Graham stumbled when Charlie looked at him, clearly uncomfortable with having to tell his hero no. “I mean, that was the one instruction they gave me, it was to, like, not let you touch the computers.”
Charlie raised his finger in the air. He had signed the kid’s shirt! “The only problem with that, Graham,” he mused, trying to appear as effortless as Graham saw him, “is how else am I going to fix the hybrids if I can’t get into the computer?”
Graham looked at him with slight confusion on his face. “Are you sure Dustin sent you?” he asked. “He doesn’t really seem to like you.”
“Well, really, it was Blake,” Charlie shrugged, sidestepping the kid as much as possible and slowly inching closer to the computer. “But you know, I don’t like to name-drop Blake everywhere I go. People start to get the wrong idea about you, if you’re a name dropper.”
Charlie’s interpersonal skills were crap, and he knew it, but he had to pour it on for this kid. He had to get access to the CompuVerse. “Why don’t you show me what you were working on there,” he squinted at the boy. “Graham.”
“Oh, well, you know, I noticed there was a delay in the passing of information between-” Graham stopped, looking a little self-conscious. “Look, you’re going to think this is really dumb and I don’t think anybody else ever noticed, but you know, I just really thought the bots, that they should have a little more empathy with humans. You know how when you talk to a bot and it just stares at you and it doesn’t look away? Well it’s not very human, is it? It’s like, humans don’t do that. I’m looking at you, but our eyes kind of dart to the side and things and then- then it’s like, normal. So, I was thinking if a bot could do that maybe it would make them seem, you know, less…”
Charlie had his arms folded over his chest and one finger placed carefully on his lower lip his eyebrows drawn together. He was the very picture of a concerned and interested individual.
“Scary?” He suggested. He didn’t let it show, but he was completely chuffed to have found Graham’s weakness and it was a weakness he could help him with.
“Yeah,” Graham said, shrugging and staring down at his feet.
“No problem.” Charlie said. “They kind of scare me too,” he said. “So, did you work it out? Do you know how to change the code? And do you even have permission to?”
“Can you believe it?” Graham’s voice came out with a slight chuckle. “You know, I got this internship and it’s like, wow I thought they would have me like, cleaning the garbage bins, but well, you know, I scored like the highest gig of all at the programming school – like in all of Crowley. I mean like I’m number one.”
Charlie was actually starting to like this kid.
It was a pity the kid was going to get in trouble for what Charlie was going to do.
“I never got any programming award,” Charlie said. “You must be pretty good.” And to his surprise, Charlie found he meant it.
“Thanks!” Graham blushed.
Charlie rolled up his sleeves. “So, I think this is going to be a great problem to fix, and you might want to start with just a small timer on the visual tics so it doesn’t have to be directly in response to a conversation the bot is having with the human,” Charlie suggested. If he could just get this kid refocused on his own work, Charlie would be able to get into his.
“I might be able to, you know, do it at intervals,” Graham nodded. “But I’d need to experimentally time it out naturally. Not now, because we’re too aware of it, you know, like right now, if I started looking away every couple of seconds, it would be, you know, forced. But maybe tonight when I’m home with my parents, I should look at a conversation with my mom and dad and see how many times they look away from me and count that interval. If I could program twenty different random intervals and feed the code out across everybody and have it select the interval randomly for each bot and then they won’t all be doing exactly the same thing at the same time too.” Graham took a breath.
“Yeah, could you imagine Dustin or Warren out there talking to the bots and every five seconds all the bots start shifting their eyes to the upper right-hand corner and seven seconds later they’re all shifting their eyes to the lower left-hand corner?” Charlie chuckled at the idea. “Actually, that’d be kind of funny.”
Graham laughed, too. “So, what was the problem you came down here to fix?” That were just a couple of buds discussing some coding issues.
Charlie glanced around. The monitors weren’t on. Clearly Graham had been focused more on the changes he wanted to make in the bots rather than anything going on in the real world.
“Well-” Charlie started.
“There is no problem we need Charlie to fix,” Dustin’s voice echoed as the doors slid open and he walked in, his patent shoes making a soft, rhythmic tapping as he moved aside to let two massive ProtectoBots into the room.
“This area is off limits, Charlie,” Dustin said. “Everywhere is off-limits to you.” He turned to Graham. “You disappoint me, kid.”
The bot stepped forward and flanked Charlie, gripping his arms in a way he was sure he would never get free from. In fact, if they gripped any harder he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to program again.
“Get him out of here,” Dustin said.
Chapter 27
Charlie had no choice but to go with the bots. He might’ve been a genius programmer, but he was nowhere near anything impressive in terms of martial arts or physicality. The bots were so capable, Dustin hadn’t even chosen to join them. He just left them to do their work, which was apparently taking him and Graham down to the nether regions of headquarters into what can only be described as a warren of passages leading to a dark metal cell. Graham was tossed into a cell on a higher level than Charlie. A single red light blinked in the corner as the doors slid shut behind the exiting bots. A pale blue light flickered on in the cell.
Monfils didn’t want to do it, but he had to. He opened the case and pulled out the small black disc that fit snuggly in the palm of his hand. There was just no way he was going to lose her this easily. Not to an asshole like Warren.
“Jade, may I speak to you a moment?” He said into his comm. He’d already identified her location and placed himself within a few blocks of her.
“I’m busy,” Jade said.
Monfils didn’t even want to know what she was doing. “I’ll meet you at 36b and Theta,” he said. “If you’re not there in five minutes, I’ll come and find you.”
She was there. Monfils was so relieved, he could have kissed her. But last time he’d tried that, well, it hadn’t gone down so well, so he wasn’t about to try it again. Not yet anyway.
Jade looked like crap. He grimaced as he saw the blood on her uniform and the crazed look in her eye. She turned on him and he hit the button in the black disc before he could stop himself. Every Delta had an override button and they were all in his possession. Jade was one of the few Deltas who knew about them. He’d promised Jade he would never use hers. But he had always kept it. It didn’t work for long, but hopefully it would work for long enough.
Her eyes rolled back in her head and he grabbed her as she slumped forward.
Monfils slapped her awake as Angelo stepped forward, grabbing his wrist from a second slap. “My good sir, I do not think that is the best way to wake a lady,” he stated.
Monfils rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what she sees in you, lard can. Jade! Wake up!”
Jade’s eyes opened. “What is going on…?”
“Warren has done something to the code. Not just your code, but every Delta’s code.”
Jade pulled herself away from Monfils. “No,” she murmured with horror as she looked down at her blood-stained uniform. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Warren has all the Deltas under his control,” Monfils said. “We don’t have much time. You’ll be back under his control as soon as the spike wears off. We have about ninety seconds.”
“Charlie…” Jade murmured.
“Warren has him, too.” Monfils said.
Jade blinked as she tried to compute the problem and come up with a solution. “Angelo,” she finally said, “protect Charlie Richards. Take him to the rebel base in Holbrook.”
“Why, the rebels will try to destroy me on sight,” Angelo said politely. “That’s not a very sensible plan.”
“Surrender to them, you big red dufus,” Jade said. “And get out to Holbrook. Maverick and Charlie can help me. They can help all of us.”
Monfils nodded and Angelo bowed as darkness settled over Jade’s eyes and the disease of Dustin’s code returned.
Charlie wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the cell. The pale blue light never changed. The blinking red light never changed, nobody ever came, but when his stomach growled he realized he must’ve been in here for quite a while. Who knows what was going on up above. Were hybrids killing everyone? No one was going to have time to take care of Charlie or decide what to do with him. In fact, they might even just leave him here. Maybe this was his coffin and he just didn’t realize it yet. Surely, they couldn’t just let a time-travelling celebrity starve to death. Could they? This couldn’t be the end of his epic journey through time and his history of creating the hybrid species, the link between man and machine. But as the hours dragged on and Charlie’s stomach growled longer and harder he realized it might very well be the case.
A slight whirring sound woke him from the twilight slumber. He sat up and looked up at the camera in the corner. The little red light was gone. If anybody had been watching, they couldn’t do it now. He heard another noise. He had no idea where it was coming from, until finally a slight metal shaving floated down from above him and brushed against his forehead. He looked up as more metal shavings fell. Someone or something was drilling through the ceiling above him. And quickly. Charlie stepped aside as an avalanche of metal shavings came down. There was no place to hide, whoever was trying to get into his cell was coming in. Charlie didn’t have too many friends, not in this time. Well, in any time really, so he had no idea what was about to come through.
“I thought you might like a sandwich, Mr. Richards.”
It was probably the last thing Charlie expected to hear. When the metallic red arm descended through the hole and presented him with the most perfect pastrami sandwich Charlie had ever seen in his entire life.
“Angelo!” Charlie leapt forward and grabbed the pastrami sandwich. He took four big bites before even bothering to look up. By that time Angelo had managed to make the hole in the ceiling larger and was waving Charlie over.
“Come stand here.” Angelo pointed at the space directly beneath the hole.
Charlie did exactly as he was told; he felt the metal grip on the back of his shirt and he was instantly lifted into the tight metal crawl space in between split levels of headquarters.
“How the hell did you get a sandwich in here?” Charlie asked.
“I’m equipped with a lunch container,” Angelo said. “I am well aware humans get hungry. They eat so much, you would never believe it.”
Charlie could, in fact, believe it.
“Now we’re going to have to shimmy down this path until we get to the outlet,” Angelo said.
“Shimmy?” Charlie said. It was the last thing he ever expected to hear a 24th century robot say or do.
The lights on each one of Angelo’s shoulders created a pale pink glow in the cramped space and wiggled as he moved his shoulders.
“Where the hell did you learn to shimmy?” Charlie asked.
“Why, you are speaking to Crowley’s very own five-time Bot Salsa Champion,” he said with what Charlie was pretty sure was a hint of pride.
“Well I sure as hell wasn’t,” Charlie said as he reached forward and began dragging his ass after the perfect robot.
The Massacre in the Pavilion, as it would come to be known, was, not surprisingly, a massacre. Hybrids leaped, dodged and danced through the rebels, all while firing at the panic-filled rebel human alliance.
“Tal!” Zeke shrieked at Tallahassee. They were hiding around the corner of a brownstone home at the edge of Trenchtown. “What are we going to do, Tal?”
“We’ve been in tighter spots than this, Zeke. We will be fine.” Tallahassee did his best to reassure Zeke, but he wasn’t so sure himself. Things were bad. He peaked around the corner to look back the battlefield. Scores of rebels were being cornered and slaughtered. His brothers. He wanted to run out there and save them. But they were vastly outnumbered and weren’t prepared for a war.
One of his Allegiance brothers, kid named Milan, was cornered by tall hybrid. He shot backwards as he ran away, but the hybrid was too fast. Tallahassee took aim, fired a HEL. It was a long shot, at two hundred meters, but it found its intended target. “Oh, hell yeah!” Tallahassee yelled.
“You get one, Tal?” Zeke let out a nervous chuckle.
“Damn right I did.” Tallahassee turned back to Zeke and gave a thumbs-up. “See, I told you we’d be fine.”
Tallahassee turned back around the corner to view the scene. He scanned the crowd and then he saw her. Their eyes locked. Jadyn of Crowley’s gaze bore into his soul. The disease had washed back over her and she had returned to the battle. Slowly and methodically she walked through the battlefield, directly towards them. In her hand the electromagnetic whip blazed.
“Shit!” Tallahassee cried as he hid back behind the corner and slammed into the brownstone. His breaths were deep and labored.
“Tal?” Zeke, sensing Tallahassee’s panic, let it seep into his voice as well. “What is it, Tal?”
Tallahassee didn’t answer. He just needed to think. There was always a way out. He just had to think. And he had about fifteen seconds to do it.
“Come now!” came the thick, unmistakable accent of Gunk.
Zeke and Tallahassee turned to see a welcomed sight. Gunk sat behind the controls of his Sanitation Truck at the far end of Trenchtown.
“Gunk!” Zeke yelled exultantly.
They ran.
The sanitation incinerator hovered closer.
And around the corner came Jade, her eyes glazed over in a foggy sickness. She snapped her electromagnetic whip against the side of the building and brick and mortar crumbled to the crowd. She sprinted after Tallahassee and Zeke. But they had a good head start.
Tallahassee and Zeke reached the sanitation hovercraft and leaped into the side bay door. Zeke let out a long, relieved sigh. “Damn that was close!”
Before they could get the door closed, a flash of white lit up the inside of the craft. Zeke screamed in pain as a white electromagnetic tail of a whip latched around his ankle. It burned deeply into his skin, all the way down to the tendons in mere seconds.
Tallahassee ripped off his metal shin guard and crashed it down hard on the white beams. They melted the front plate, but contact was broken. The white beam slithered away as Tallahassee slammed the door shut. Zeke rolled around in pain as the sanitation incinerator flew away from the battlefield. A battlefield where they lost so many of their brothers and sisters today.
“God dammit, Angelo!” Charlie exclaimed as he pressed against the metal wall the killer red bot had just slipped through. “Help me get out of this thing!”
A moment earlier Angelo had lifted the metal and slipped outside. Charlie had expected him to lift the metal wall and help him out, but the bot hadn’t done anything. Charlie pushed all his weight against the wall. A small sliver of an opening cracked in the dark metal that scraped against his skin as he tumbled out of the crawl space and to the ground below.
And it was immediately apparent why Angelo had been no help whatsoever. Charlie realized why the minute he fell unceremoniously through the tiniest crack between the metal plate in the building.
Angelo was shockingly sitting on the ground with three rebels standing around him like he was the trophy of a prize hunt. Like they bagged a coon or something.
They didn’t even have their weapons pointed at the killer re
d robot, who was just sitting there staring up at Charlie is if this was his plan all along.
The rebels, on the other hand, were completely startled by Charlie slipping out of the building and immediately raised their weapons, the crisp clicking of metal and the high-pitched sound of the HEL charging filled the air.
“What the hell are you doing?” Charlie waved his arms with exasperation at Angelo.
“It appears,” Angelo said, “I’m resting.” He seemed not in the least bit bothered by this circumstance.
“Attack them!” Charlie exclaimed. “They’re holding guns on me.”
“Those are not guns,” Angelo explained. “They are in fact high-powered Gx548 laser centric HEL fusion adjusters. When they’re fully charged and the energy is expelled, it slips into your body through the space in your cells, not harming the outside shell in the slightest, but when it gets inside it solidifies and creates a huge chunk of sother crystal inside your body, which immediately starts to reach out and absorb all the other parts of your body until you become-”
“Dead,” Tallahassee finished. His eyes squinted over at Charlie. “Your robot always this chatty?”
“He’s not my robot,” Charlie said. “And yes, he is chatty. But when his owner finds him and whatever you’ve done to him… What have you done to him?”
Angelo held up his hands. They were bound together but each wrist had a partial metal ring on it that looked something like a horseshoe with large flat discs on either side. They seemed to be pumping some sort of an energy through his wrists. “They are hyperspatial defractor cuffs,” Angelo said. “Quite remarkable really, don’t you think?”
“I might think so if I knew what the hell they were,” Charlie said.
Zeke stepped forward. “It short circuits every attack command at the source.”
“Great,” Charlie said.
“And what it means for you,” Tallahassee added, “is that you should really raise your hands in the air.”
Charlie slowly did as he was told, turning to face his three captors. His eyes nearly fell out of his head as he finally noticed the lanky fluorescent being that stood casually with the other two rebels. “What the hell is that?” he exclaimed.
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