by Rob Vlock
“And when he takes down critical infrastructure, like electric grids and water pumping stations . . . ,” Alicia began.
“. . . we’re all doomed,” I finished.
CHAPTER 28.0:
< value= [I Get Some Air] >
NOW WOULD BE THE PERFECT time, Sven. While they’re sleeping. Finish them all. It’s what you want. You’re a Tick. The humans don’t care about you. They hate you. And you hate them, don’t you, Sven? So, what are you waiting for? Kill them now.
My eyes snapped open. I leapt up from the couch awhere I had been sleeping. The cold, distant voice was in my head again. Only now it seemed a lot less distant.
I looked around the RV. Alicia was sleeping with her head on the dining table. Will was curled into a ball on the bench across from her. Ivy muttered, lost in a dream, leaning against Dix, who snoozed next to her on the couch. Even Thor was asleep, his legs twitching as he dreamed about whatever it was Synthetic dogs dreamed about. Electric sheep, maybe? A snore as loud as a chain saw came from the driver’s seat, where Sam was slumped over the steering wheel.
I pressed my hot forehead against the cool glass of the window and looked outside. We had stopped in a campground parking lot alongside a few other RVs and trailers that shone in the cold pale blue light of the full moon overhead. A sign at the edge of the parking lot read, CRYSTAL GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, LITTLE FALLS, MONTANA.
As the last echoes of the voice died away, I realized my hands were balled into fists. I took a deep breath.
And for one brief moment, something deep inside me told me the voice was right. I mean, it made sense. I wasn’t actually human. So why would I expect any human to care about me? When it really came down to it, could I ever be accepted by them? Even my friends might not stand by me if they had to choose between me and a real kid. Maybe I should just do what the voice said. . . .
No! I’d never hurt my friends!
I burst through the RV’s door and out into the crisp, clear night. Countless stars glittered overhead in the Montana sky—more than I’d ever seen before in my life.
When I heard that voice, it felt like some other was inside my head. Like a finger poking through the shell of a hard-boiled egg. But it also felt just a tiny bit . . . natural. Like it was a part of me.
How could those feelings coexist? It was like there was a war in my head between the programming that made me “human” and the hardware that came standard with every Synthetic.
I didn’t think I would ever actually hurt my friends. Then again, a week ago I never would have imagined I was a Synthetic programmed to wipe out the human race. What if one day I listened to the voice and did something horrible to them? What if it got to the point where I was no longer me, but just an empty husk, controlled by the voice? It had been getting steadily louder and more insistent. Would it keep growing? And if it did, would I always be able to stop myself from doing what it wanted?
Maybe it would be best if I disappeared for a while. I could take off now and let the others save the world without me. It’s not like I was that useful to them anyway. I was just some weird kid who ate gross things.
Suddenly, I knew what I needed to do.
I looked toward the thick, towering bank of pine trees that marked the limit of the camping area. Despite the bright moon, those woods seemed to swallow up any light completely. They could swallow me up as well. I took a step toward the shadows, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.
“Where are you going?” Alicia asked.
“I . . . uh, erm, I . . .” I choked on my words.
Alicia sat on the bench and patted the space next to her.
“What’s going on with you, Sven? You’ve been acting . . . a little funny lately.”
I managed a weak smile. “A little funny? I’m the robot kid that eats stuff.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she replied, fixing me with a green stare. “You’ve been . . . just . . . not yourself.”
I wanted to tell her about the voice. But I hesitated. What would she think? What would she do?
“You can tell me if something’s going on, you know,” she said gently, when the silence got kind of awkward.
“I . . . hear this voice. In my head. It started when we were traveling to New York City, and it’s spoken to me a few times since. And it’s getting louder.”
“What does it say?”
“It . . . it tells me you and Will and the others aren’t really my friends.” I paused to rub my eyes with my fingertips. “And it says I should . . . well . . . kill you.”
“Do you think someone’s trying to hack into you?” she asked. “Like Dr. Shallix did before. Maybe that kid in Seattle is doing it.”
I shrugged. “I worry it’s . . . even worse than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I said, taking a deep breath to try to steady my voice. “What if it’s not coming from the outside?”
“I don’t get what you’re saying. If what’s not coming from outside?”
“The voice. I mean, what if it’s not someone trying to hack me? What if it’s my programming? What if I really do want to kill you?”
CHAPTER 29.0:
< value= [We Decide to Get Takeout] >
ALICIA GASPED. “SVEN, NO! THAT’S not you! You know that.”
“Really? Until last week, I thought I was just like any other human. But I’m really just some kind of machine that’s putting you and everyone else in danger.”
A laugh snorted out of her. “You’re putting us in danger? Sven, you saved us from Thor and those animals, like, twelve hours ago. And you saved Will and me from killing each other when Dix was singing. Not to mention Dr. Shallix. As I recall, you were the one who stopped him. We’d be dead three or four times over if it hadn’t been for you. So would the entire human race, probably.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
She cut me off. “Shut up about putting us in danger and get back in the motor home before I kick your butt all the way to Seattle.”
* * *
The first 257 miles of the drive to Seattle were uneventful. The 258th, however, was when things started to go wrong. The RV coughed and spluttered before going eerily silent. We coasted to a stop at the side of the road.
“Are we there yet?” Ivy asked, leaping out of her seat.
“The answer is still no,” Sam told her. “We’re out of gas.”
“Well, why didn’t you stop at a gas station?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed accusingly behind her glasses.
“The gas stations were out of commission, remember?” Dixon replied. “Whatever this hacker’s doing, he wants to make sure nobody has any gas.”
Alicia rapped her knuckles on the laminate tabletop. “Sam, where are we?”
Sam squinted at the map. “I think we’re only a few miles east of Waterton, Idaho. So, we’re not far from civilization. The bad news—being a few miles east of Waterton, Idaho, means we’re still . . .” He measured out the distance with his thumb. “. . . more than three hundred miles from Seattle.”
“Ugh!” Will moaned. “That’s a long way to walk.”
Alicia snatched up her backpack. “Forget that! I’m getting a lift!”
She strode out of the RV and positioned herself by the side of the road, ready to flag down the next car.
The problem was, the only cars in sight were out of gas, left abandoned by the side of the road. It was like something out of a zombie movie. Even here, on one of the biggest interstate highways in the country, there was nothing but dead cars everywhere. And Sam’s RV was now one of them.
I walked out after Alicia. “I think you’re going to be waiting awhile. Businesses are closed. Gas stations aren’t pumping. Nobody’s on the road.”
Alicia kicked at the ground, scattering gravel across the pavement. “Then we walk!”
“We can’t walk that—”
She shut me up with a glare that could have melted glass. “I’m not giving up! I didn’t lo
se everything just to roll over and play dead! Don’t you understand that? I’m stopping the Ticks. If it takes me a week to walk to Seattle, fine. If it takes me a month, it takes me a month. But I’m not giving up!”
I think she realized as well as I did that a week would be too late. Whatever the next Tick in line was programmed to do, he was already doing it.
She turned to me. “You know this is just the beginning, right? I mean, look what’s already happened in just half a day. They’re going to take out electricity, communications, water, and food. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go out fighting.”
I nodded grimly. “Me too. But how are we going to fight if we can’t even get to Seattle?”
“I have a thought about that.” Sam had walked up behind us with Ivy, Dix, Will, and Thor in tow. “The motor home has a diesel engine.”
Ivy sighed. “So? There are no gas stations pumping gas. Your stupid motor home might as well run on diamonds. We can’t get those, either.”
“Not diamonds,” Sam said. “Cooking oil.”
Dix gave him a sidelong glance. “Like . . . oil you cook with?”
Sam nodded. “Exactly. Oil you cook with. When Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine, he actually used vegetable oil to run it. Peanut oil, if I recall correctly. The engine’s design hasn’t changed that much over the years. Plenty of people have converted their diesel engines to run on cooking oil. We can too.”
“Great!” Ivy cried in mock excitement, following it up with a mock pout. “Oh wait, I left my hundred-gallon tub of peanut oil at home. Darn!”
Will cleared his throat and pointed to a blue-and-white sign a hundred yards ahead of us on the side of the road.
FOOD • GAS • LODGING
NEXT EXIT
“Look. Food,” he said. “Restaurants cook food. And to cook food they use—”
“Wait!” Ivy interrupted, holding her hand up to silence Will. “I have an idea. We just need to get some cooking oil from a restaurant!”
Will blinked at her. “Hey, that was my . . . oh, never mind.”
“One problem with Ivy’s idea,” Dixon pointed out. “We have to find a restaurant that’s open and will sell us some oil.”
“Um, two problems, actually,” Sam muttered. “Even if we do find an open restaurant, we’re broke. I have no cash, and without the Internet, credit cards aren’t working.”
Ivy grinned. “I’ll take care of it. Come on, Sven. Let’s get some oil.”
Without waiting for me to answer, she marched down the road in the direction of the exit.
“Go ahead, Sven,” Sam said. “The rest of us will make the modifications to the fuel system. And if you can, get walnut oil. It has the lowest viscosity.”
I nodded uncertainly and took off after Ivy. Thor trotted alongside me, his pink tongue dangling wetly from his mouth.
“Hot day, huh?” 808 remarked from my shoulder.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and nodded.
The scorpipede continued, “So, uh, I don’t suppose you’d mind if I look for a little, you know, shade. I’m frying here.”
“Yeah, fine,” I replied. “But where are you going to find . . .”
Before I could finish my question, he scuttled up my neck and nestled behind my ear.
“Ah, that’s better,” 808 sighed.
“Hey!” I objected loudly. “Haven’t you ever heard of personal space?”
He laughed. “I lived in a man-shaped flesh sac with eight hundred seven other dudes my whole life. So the answer to your question is no. I’m gonna grab some shut-eye. Let me know if I miss anything.”
The walk into town took about an hour. As soon as we arrived, I realized the sign announcing FOOD • GAS • LODGING had been using the terms very loosely. In fact, there was only one place to get food in the entire town. There was only one place to get gas. There was only one place to find lodging. And they all happened to be the same place.
VINNY’S CHINESE FOOD, GAS & LODGING proclaimed an old, weatherworn sign that hung in front of a dilapidated two-story building.
On the steps leading up to the front door sat a grizzled-looking man in a pair of overalls and a tattered red flannel shirt. A scowl adorned the man’s face; across his lap lay a large rifle. On either side of him were two pieces of cardboard bearing messages scrawled in thick black marker.
On one it said:
No Food
No GaS
No Lodging
On the other it said:
You Loot
I Shoot
Before Ivy, Thor, and I were within twenty feet of the man, who I assumed must have been Vinny himself, he called out, “That’s far enough, pal. You better be on your way before someone gets hurt. And by ‘someone,’ I mean you.”
I raised my hands and spoke as calmly as I could. “Uh, we’re not looking for any trouble. Are you Vinny?”
The man scowled. “Who’s askin’?”
“Just us,” I told him mildly.
“What do you mean ‘us’?” Vinny replied. “Looks to me like you’re all alone.”
I looked around. Ivy and Thor were gone. They must have seen the gun and taken off. And I wasn’t about to tell Vinny about the talking scorpipede sleeping behind my right ear.
I swallowed nervously and took a small step closer. “Oh, right. Well, it’s okay. You see, we’re . . . I mean I’m . . . just hoping to get some cooking oil. For our motor home. I mean my motor home. Do you have any?”
“Well, that depends,” the man rumbled. “You got money?”
I shook my head.
Vinny laughed humorlessly. “You got no money, but you want to take my oil? In my book, that’s stealing, pal. The folks I run with, we don’t take too kindly to thieves. In fact, I’d say the only good thief . . . is a dead thief.”
CHAPTER 30.0:
< value= [Oh, Rats!] >
I had a problem. If I didn’t return with oil, we’d never get to Seattle in time. But the only way to get oil was to get by an angry guy with a gun.
As the gears slowly turned in my head, I began to realize that not getting shot might be my best course of action.
I took a step back. “Sorry. You’re right. I’ll . . . I should just be going. . . .”
But then I froze. Directly behind the man, visible through the building’s glass door, Ivy appeared, holding up a plastic jug and pointing to her wrist like she was wearing a watch. She’d snuck inside and found oil! And she needed more time!
I had to keep this guy from going inside and finding Ivy. As much as I hated the idea, I had to keep him focused on me.
“So,” I said, tamping down my panic, “I’ve been meaning to ask. You must really like Chinese food, huh?” Ugh! What a stupid question!
“You know what I like? People who don’t ask questions!” Vinny replied.
“Uh . . . sorry. So, if you don’t have any oil you can give me, could you tell me where I might get some? Oops! That was a question, wasn’t it? So was that. Sorry.”
“What did I just say about questions, pal?” he snapped. “No. More. Questions!”
I wished I could take back my words. “Geez, why do you hate questions so much?” Ugh! Another question! What the heck is wrong with me?
He replied by standing up. “I’m gonna make this easy for you, kid. I’m gonna count to three. When I get to three, you’re going to be gone, understand? And if you’re not, you’re gonna wish you were. One.”
Uh-oh! I didn’t know if my emergency repair system could deal with being shot full of holes. But even if it could, the last thing I wanted was to find out.
“Two.”
The seconds seemed to drag on for centuries, when, suddenly . . .
WOOF!
I looked up just in time to see Thor tear around the corner of the building. A seething carpet of black fuzz flowed across the ground behind him like an immense, hairy cape.
WOOF! Thor barked again and the black carpet changed direction and surged di
rectly toward Vinny.
That’s when I realized it wasn’t a carpet at all, but rats! Thousands of rats! Thor must have summoned them from the row of battered garbage cans that lined the side of the building.
WOOF! A third bark, and the rats clambered all over the surly restaurant owner, wrenching the rifle out of his hands and dragging it out of reach. Vinny stumbled and fell flat on his back. The rats swarmed him, their tiny teeth biting into his clothing, holding him to the ground under the weight of thousands of little bodies.
“Ugh!” Vinny screamed. “I knew I should have hired an exterminator!”
Thor trotted over to me and licked my hand.
“Good boy!” I told him, scratching him behind the ear.
The restaurant’s front door swung open. “Uh, Sven?” Ivy called. “If you’re done playing with the dog, you could come in here and, you know, help me!”
I nodded and followed Ivy inside, carefully skirting Vinny and his blanket of rats.
Vinny’s Chinese Food, Gas & Lodging wouldn’t have been my first choice of restaurants. Actually, it wouldn’t have been my ten thousandth choice of restaurants. The entire place smelled like the boys’ bathroom at Chester A. Arthur Middle School—a combination of farts, sweat, and cleaning chemicals, mixed in with the delicate aroma of despair.
“Over here.” Ivy gestured toward one of those doors inset with a little porthole that you see in pretty much every restaurant on the planet.
We pushed it open and walked into the kitchen, which was the dirtiest place I had ever seen. And I’ve spent time in a Dumpster. Open buckets of used cooking oil littered the floor. Decades-old grease coated every surface, even hanging from the ceiling like stalactites.
Ivy dipped the jug she was carrying into a cold deep fryer filled with a gluggy, opaque liquid. “Come on, big bro,” she said, nodding toward a stack of plastic takeout containers. “Start scooping.”
I picked up a container and filled it. “How are we going to get all this oil back to the RV?”
“One step ahead of you, slowpoke.” She grinned. “I already found a shopping cart behind the restaurant.”
