Gen One

by Amy Bartelloni

“Where. Is. Zane?” she asked again.

  “He’s safe, for now.” Rank cast a weary glance at the governor and rubbed his hand over the red beard on his chin.

  The governor took off his cowboy hat and placed it on the table, tenting his metal fingers and leaning forward. “Whether he stays that way is up to you,” he added.

  Delilah leaned over the table, matching the governor’s stance, but she couldn’t keep her face as carefree. She bit her bottom lip to avoid saying anything to make the situation worse, and they fell into a standstill.

  Brute shifted, then pulled a chair out. “What do you mean by that?” he asked, throwing his weight into the chair.

  Rank sighed. The chair squeaked as he leaned back and looked out the window over the city. “It wasn’t Zane he wanted, it was me.”

  The governor nodded. “Access to the Banks. The Rez.” He leaned back and held his hands out wide. “Unite our cities, so to speak.”

  “Go to hell.” The words escaped Delilah’s lips before she could stop them, but the moment had passed, anyway. The governor wasn’t going to subject any more humans to his sick robot experiments. She’d die before she let that happen.

  The governor laughed, a low sound which turned into a cough and continued for a full minute. His face turned red, and Leo got him a glass of water. “Oh, darling,” the governor said. He swished the water around his mouth, then swallowed. “I already am, and faster than you think.”

  Delilah pushed back from the table and stood, balling her fists to keep them from trembling. “You control these robots and these sick experiments. Why do you need more?”

  The governor coughed and whacked on his chest. “Stage 4,” he explained. “Far as they can tell. Human tech is kind of wiggy here, and it’s not like we can do chemo.”

  She froze, and took in his pale face, the dark bags under his eyes. She thought it was from hiding inside, but he could be sick.

  “So what?” she spit out.

  The governor pushed out his chair and ambled to the window. She noticed he had a slight limp. He crossed his arms and looked out over the city.

  “Let’s agree that the bots have stayed, mostly, to themselves on this side of the city. They haven’t bothered you…much. Is that correct?” he asked. His tone was inflective. He wasn’t starting a fight, but Delilah’s defenses rose, anyway.

  “Sometimes—” she started.

  “—they go rogue,” he finished. He uncrossed his arms and put his hands in his pockets, shifted his weight to his good leg. “I’ve done everything I can to stop that from happening. Would you believe me if I told you it wasn’t easy managing the hive? That I’m trying to prevent them from attacking? And in order to do that, sometimes certain sacrifices have to be made.”

  Delilah tipped her head back and laughed, then looked back at him. “You’re serious?”

  He put a hand on the table and grimaced. “The hive was created to manage itself. I saw it going off the rails, and I tried to stop it.” Rank pulled out the governor’s chair, and the governor managed to get back to it. Rank’s face was still unreadable, but the act of compassion didn’t go unnoticed. “Unfortunately, that put me on the top of the food chain,” he finished with a wheezing breath.

  Brute broke in. “If you’re in control of the bots, why not destroy them?” he asked.

  Rank shook his head. “It’s too late for that,” he added. “The smallest of tech will let them rebuild. The hive is everywhere.”

  The governor cut him off. “And they will rebuild. If not with this hive, then another, uncontrollable one.”

  “This one doesn’t seem very controllable,” Delilah said, thinking of the experiments.

  The governor shook his head. “It hasn’t been, lately. I’ve been…incapacitated. They took over. Started the experiments to try to fix me.” He grimaced, but didn’t have the look of horror Delilah expected.

  “What does this have to do with Zane?” she asked.

  “Dee,” Rank said, in a voice softer than she expected. He waited until she met his deep brown eyes, and there was something there. Something personal he’d never exposed before. The lines around his mouth twisted as he fought to get the words out. “He’s my son.”

  “What?” she breathed. Even Brute’s eyes widened.

  “And I needed Rank,” the governor finished. Another coughing spell broke up their conversation, but this one was shorter. Rank jumped in before he could continue.

  “Jake and I, we had a peaceful agreement. I knew he was trying to control the bots here. He knew I was managing the Banks there. We don’t like each other; that much is plain. But we didn’t interfere, not until last year when people started disappearing.”

  The governor interrupted: “In the past we even met, once a month, to trade and exchange news.”

  Rank looked down. “Until the experiments started. It was a declaration of war. One of his bots came to the Banks and killed two of my men as a warning.”

  Delilah sucked a breath in. “The ones by the river?”

  Rank nodded. “We started sending more teams in to see what was going on, but by that time it was too far gone.”

  The governor cut in. “And I needed Rank’s help to rein everything back in, but he wouldn’t talk to me.”

  Brute shoved away from the table and paced. “So you kidnapped Rank’s son? Who else knows about this?”

  Rank shook his head. He wiped away a tear on the corner of his eye. “No one. Not even Zane.”

  “Where is he?” she asked again.

  The governor shook his head, and this time Rank pushed back from the table in frustration. “Not until I get your promise to work with me,” he said. He leaned over the table looking old and defeated, but he held all the cards. He held Zane’s fate. Hell, he held all their fates.

  “Work with you how?” Delilah asked cautiously. She grabbed the sides of a chair as the building shook from another explosion outside. A piece of plaster fell from the ceiling and the governor waited until the building steadied.

  “First of all, call off your men,” he told Rank. “I told you, they’re not going to do any good. They can’t destroy all the bots, and if they destroy this hive, the bots will build a new one. And I promise you won’t like that.”

  Rank looked across the table at Delilah. She pursed her lips. “And then will you bring us to him?” she asked.

  Brute put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “Dee—” he cautioned.

  The governor folded his hands again. “I have a few more demands,” he said. He didn’t even bother to look sheepish about them.

  Delilah had to turn so the governor wouldn’t see the tears burning her eyes. They weren’t from sadness, but anger and frustration, and she cursed herself for not being able to control them. She’d never been good at negotiating. She was the finder. Zane was the fighter and negotiator. She squeezed her eyes closed. That stopped now.

  “What demands, Jake?” Rank asked in a tired voice.

  Delilah turned to watch his face as he laid out his plans.

  “I’m dying,” he started.

  “Good,” Delilah spit out before she could stop herself.

  The governor eyed her. He took his hat and placed it back on his head. Delilah could see why he wore it. The shadow that fell over his face hid any evidence of sickness.

  “The hive has been malfunctioning. Glitching. I think some of the bots are trying to take it over. I don’t have to tell you that if they do…” He shifted in his chair before he finished. “It will be unfortunate. I know that I have my…idiosyncrasies. Vices. But if the bots are in control, they can be bloodthirsty.”

  “What’s that got to do with us?” Brute asked.

  “Someone’s gonna have to take it over,” he finished.

  The room was quiet for a beat before Rank answered. “That’s why you calle
d me back here? That’s why you took my son?” His voice hitched on the last word, and it became real to Delilah. All those times Rank had gotten them out of trouble, bailed them out of jail, hidden them. She knew Zane was Rank’s favorite, but this? Part of her was jealous Zane now had a family she’d never have. Her parents weren’t coming back. Her father had died fighting these damn bots that the governor tried, and failed, to control.

  “What about the soldier bots we saw at the harbor?” she asked.

  The governor shook his head. “I told you, they’ve been glitching. I think one of them managed to get itself free of the hive and is trying to take it over.” He rubbed his chin. “My network is calling him the Shade. Sneaky little bastard.”

  “Right,” Delilah answered, grasping the back of the chair so hard her knuckles turned white. “So you want one of us to take control of this hive mind, wrangle up all these murderous, rogue bots, end the experiments, and make peace with humans? Those are your demands?” She couldn’t control the skepticism in her voice.

  “Quite frankly, Miss…” The governor stood, a painful process that took him several seconds. “I don’t give a flying shit what you do. I’m dying. But this hive is falling apart. If I die, and leave them without a leader—or with a leader that’s gone rogue and declared war on humans, you’re going to have yourself a big problem.” He limped to the door, and Leo opened it for him.

  “I’ll get your boy. You wait here,” he told them. He waved Leo off, and the bot closed the door. Delilah collapsed in a chair and put her head in her arms. She only looked up when Brute tapped her. He handed her one of the cookies with a smile.

  “Keep up your strength,” he said. She took it begrudgingly.

  Rank got up and paced. “Maybe it doesn’t need to be one person,” he thought aloud. “Maybe we can get a council together? Take turns?” He wrung his hands.

  “I can’t believe you knew about this whack job,” Brute said without sympathy.

  “Jake is a genius,” Rank answered, never breaking stride. “He had things under control, or as under control as they could be. And the people who came to Authority City knew what they were getting into. It’s not like life is always peachy in the Rez. Until last year, things weren’t as bad here. I didn’t realize how much it had fallen apart.” He stopped pacing and looked straight at Delilah. For the first time she could see the smallest resemblance in his brown eyes. “You have to understand, the generation before ours—the great war and before that? They screwed things up pretty bad. The tech with the bots was—is—irreversible. Jake’s right. Any trace of them is left and they’ll rebuild. The only chance we have is to control them.”

  “No.” Delilah swallowed and pushed back from the table. “It isn’t. Remember the Gen One bots? They were able to think and learn on their own. Not attached to the hive mind.”

  “What are you thinking?” Brute asked.

  “A new hive isn’t their only chance.” She looked at Rank. He was the one she had to convince. “Unplugging them is.”

  Before they could discuss it, the door swung open.

  Zane was never one to back down from a dangerous situation, and he could handle himself. She’d seen his self-assured smile as he dealt with thieves in the Banks, or Authority bots. The Zane who walked in though, wasn’t the same. It was as if the light had gone out in his eyes.

  It didn’t help that his eye was even more swollen and the cut on his cheek had crusted over, but that wasn’t it. She’d seen him take worse beatings. It was when he looked at Rank with his one good eye that she knew he knew.

  He made a line straight across the conference room, and the governor had only hobbled into the room behind him by the time Zane reached Rank. Rank barely had time to put his hands up before Zane punched him square in the face.

  “Whoa!” Delilah ran around the conference table to Zane’s side. She grabbed his arm before he could throw another punch, but he wasn’t going to. His arms trembled, but he held them squarely at his side. She tightened her hold, just to have a hand on him. To feel he was real, and alive.

  Rank touched his jaw and looked his son squarely in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You were never supposed to know.”

  “So I could think I was an orphan?” Zane asked. Delilah studied Rank’s face. He pursed his lips together, but didn’t—or couldn’t—defend himself. It was beyond defendable. Zane had been on his own since he was thirteen when his mother died and Rank took him under his wing. It was starting to make sense.

  “Zane, what I do…it’s dangerous,” Rank answered. “It was safer for me to watch you, help you out. Did you want to grow up in my tent in the Banks?”

  Delilah couldn’t help scoffing. That word again. Safer. She was starting to think people threw it around when they were too cowardly to deal with their own truth and feelings. Zane looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and the side of his lip turned up. At least he appreciated the irony.

  His hands stopped trembling when he turned back to Rank. Delilah slipped her hand down to fit into his, curling their fingers together. The volume of Zane’s voice dropped, something almost as chilling as his anger. “As opposed to growing up on the streets? Yes.”

  Rank looked out over the city. Clouds had moved in, but a fog of smoke hung over the buildings. By looks, you’d almost think the humans were winning, but it was impossible to tell how many bots there were, or even if they set the fires themselves. It was almost as if they burned everything so they’d have to start over. Even the clouds contained an orange tint, but it was getting late in the day. She tried to remember the rhyme Zane told her about the red sky at night, but all she could imagine were flames.

  Rank softened his voice in response. “I know it’s hard to believe, son, but I was watching you. Helping you.”

  Zane cut him off. “Don’t call me that. You have no right.”

  This time Delilah did pull him away as Brute interrupted. “We don’t have time for this,” he said.

  The governor jumped in. “He’s right. The hive is only working sporadically. I need to get one of you hooked up. It’s the only way to rein the bots back in.”

  “Can’t you just call them off?” Delilah looked out the window as a building in the distance collapsed into the harbor, creating a cloud of smoke and angry seas.

  The governor shook his head. “I’m not strong enough now,” he said simply. It made Delilah wonder exactly what was involved in managing this hive. What kind of strength did it require?

  Leo pushed a wheelchair out of the corner. The governor looked at it and shook his head, but it was obvious he wasn’t going far without it. He limped into it and settled in. The chair itself was fancier than anything she’d seen in the Banks. She had to bite her lip to keep from making a comment. If they had such tech here why didn’t he share it? She suspected the truce between him and Rank was shaky at best, and the look on Rank’s face didn’t prove him wrong. He frowned as he watched Jake press a button and roll toward the door.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Brute raised an eyebrow. His face was still too pale, but he looked more put together than Zane, who glared at Rank even through his swollen face. The situation was a powder keg. She wasn’t sure how the governor expected any of them to take control of the hive. They were a mess.

  Leo’s head twitched just before he started to push the governor. Delilah looked around, but she thought she was the only one to see. He pushed the wheelchair slowly, and she kept an eye on the bot, but he looked like he was otherwise unaffected. A glitch, she supposed. She caught her breath when she stepped out into the hallway. It was lined with the newest bot soldiers, silver skeletons all holding guns and looking straight ahead.

  “They’re okay,” the governor said. “I have a hold of them for now, and they’ll protect us.” He paused and took a breath from a device hanging next to him carrying oxygen. “We should hurry, though.”r />
  Delilah tried to keep her eyes trained down, but she couldn’t help marveling at the bots they passed. They were polished and new metallic skeletons. Their skull-shaped heads held two red eyes capable of scanning anything. With their firepower, they looked much like the bots from the warehouse that had been destroyed, minus the added humanity. So the governor was right after all. It was too late. If you destroyed them, they’d just come back. They had to find a way to live together as she and Gen had.

  Zane came up behind her and took her hand, pulling her attention from the bots.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. She couldn’t read his reaction because she was facing his bad side. It made her want to hold a bag of ice to his face, though it was far too late for that. What he really needed was time to heal, from the inside out.

  Zane shook his head. When he turned she saw a shadow of amusement. The old Zane. “Who’d have thought, right? I guess I wasn’t smart enough to put the pieces together.”

  They turned a corner. Brute walked slowly in front of them, checking out the bots with each step.

  “No one could have put those pieces together,” she said. Brute poked one of the bots, and it snapped its head up and aimed a laser right at Brute’s middle. He hopped back.

  “Stand down!” the governor instructed, with a stronger voice than she thought him capable of. It cost him though. He slumped in his seat.

  Zane clapped Brute on the shoulder. “Maybe don’t touch them,” he teased.

  Brute pursed his lips. “A lot of firepower,” he commented. “It almost seems like a trap.”

  Delilah eyed the bots as they came to the end of the hallway. “Oh, no,” she said. An elevator. Zane squeezed her hand.

  “This is the least of our problems,” he told her. She hated the small, boxy contraptions. She’d only been on a few. There were hardly buildings in the Rez that had such tech. Leo wheeled the governor on, followed by Rank and Brute. Zane tugged her arm, and she took a reluctant step on. He was right. If a cable snapped, and they hurled down, at least it would be a quick death. No more worrying about the hive. No more worrying about anything.