by Mark Alpert
The rocket slams into the slow-moving Reaper. The explosion is like a starburst, brilliant but soundless. The noise from the blast will take another twenty seconds to reach us.
Yee-ha! First point goes to the Pioneers! Amber’s voice over the radio is joyous. But you better keep a lookout, guys. Before I trashed that drone, it sent a signal to the ground forces. It might’ve already given them a fix on your positions.
That doesn’t sound good. A fix? What kind of—
Then I see a dozen fiery puffs on the horizon, blazing from the M1 tanks arranged in the circle around us. About half the tanks just fired their big guns. My sensors start tracking the high-explosive shells, which careen in shallow arcs over the desert, rising only twenty feet above the ground before descending toward their targets. Six of the shells converge on my Quarter-bot. The other six spiral toward Zia.
INCOMING! ZIA, WATCH—
In an instant my circuits perform several billion calculations, predicting exactly where the shells will strike. A millisecond later, my control unit sends a complex sequence of instructions to my Quarter-bot’s motors. I flex my steel legs and spring to the left, leaping sideways just as one of the tank shells plunges toward me. It whizzes past my torso, so close that I can hear it whistling through the air. Then it hits the ground and explodes.
The blast sprays dirt and sand everywhere, but I’m already jumping to the right to avoid another shell that’s coming in fast. High-explosive warheads detonate all around me, buffeting my armor with shrapnel and cratering the desert. I zigzag between the explosions, dodging and weaving. After five more seconds, the barrage is over.
I bound out of the kill zone, amazed at my survival. But when I pivot to check on Zia, I see her War-bot collapsed on the ground.
I race toward her, focusing my cameras on her machine. Her War-bot’s right leg is charred and battered. A tank shell scored a direct hit on her knee joint, but it looks like the rest of her robot is undamaged.
Zia! Are you—
Unbelievable! She raises her torso to a sitting position and bends her left leg, but the right one won’t move. I’ll kill them for this! I’ll make them wish—
ADAM! ZIA! Amber’s voice is frantic now. Her Jet-bot is diving fast, but she’s still two miles above us. LOOK OUT!
The M1 tanks fire another barrage of shells, and the M142 artillery pieces launch their rockets. My sensors show twenty-eight incoming projectiles, each hurtling toward us at more than four times the speed of sound. Zia can’t even stand up, much less dodge the shells and rockets. So instead we both raise our arms and fire our lasers.
The gamma-ray laser is one of the weapons DeShawn invented and then used against us when he sided with Sigma. It feels strange to use the laser now—it’s tainted with so many bad associations—but I’m definitely glad we have it. The laser’s beam is so powerful that it can cut through the nose of a rocket or tank shell and detonate the high-explosive charge inside.
Zia has four lasers attached to her arms, and I have two, and they’re all linked to our targeting radar systems. Our beams sweep across the sky like glowing lances as we aim at the shells and rockets. The gamma rays pierce the steel casings of the projectiles, which explode in great white thunderous bursts.
We’re producing the loudest and brightest fireworks show in the history of New Mexico. It’s the most cataclysmic thing to happen in this state since the test of the first atomic bomb. But we can’t keep it going forever. The lasers require immense quantities of electricity. After a mere fifteen seconds, my batteries are drained of three-quarters of their charge. And unfortunately for us, the Army has plenty of tank shells and rockets.
Then my acoustic sensor picks up another noise, the growl of a 900-horsepower turboprop engine. One of the Reaper drones is swooping toward us from the north, carrying four air-to-ground missiles that are locked on to my targeting radar. I turn my Quarter-bot, raise my arm, and aim a gamma-ray laser at the drone.
But when I try to fire the laser, nothing happens. I don’t have enough charge left in my batteries to power the weapon.
Then the drone launches two of its four missiles at me.
Zia! I need a little help here!
Stop yelping. I got it. She aims her lasers at the rockets and fires at their nose cones.
A hundredth of a second later, the missiles explode in midair, only twenty feet above my Quarter-bot’s head. But then Zia’s lasers conk out, just like mine did. Her batteries are low too. Meanwhile, the Reaper is still swooping toward us with its remaining two missiles.
Desperate, I open a compartment in my Quarter-bot’s right arm, between the elbow joint and my steel hand. Inside it is the Needle, my solid-fuel rocket. It’s only eighteen inches long, but it’s fast and accurate. At my command, it roars out of its launch tube. Flying straight and true, the Needle smashes into the drone’s fuselage. The explosion shatters the aircraft, hurling pieces of it across the desert.
But the growling doesn’t stop. The last Reaper is behind us, zooming in from the south. Zia and I pivot in that direction, but we don’t have enough time to defend ourselves. The drone is less than a hundred yards away, and all four of its missiles are already locked on our robots.
Suddenly, the Reaper loses altitude, dropping hard and fast. It descends to within ten feet of the desert plains and releases its missiles, but the rockets don’t speed toward us. They fall to the ground. They don’t even explode.
Relieved of the weight of the missiles, the drone jolts upward and flies past us at three hundred miles per hour. As it whizzes by, I spot a big, black machine attached to the top of the drone, clamped to its fuselage by a pair of steel arms. It’s Amber’s Jet-bot, hitching a ride on the Reaper. She rammed into the drone from above and took control of its electronics.
All right, kids! Time to climb aboard! Start running west, and I’ll pick you up!
Her voice is wild with enthusiasm. She doesn’t realize how badly things are going on the ground. It’s my job to inform her. We have to change our strategy. One of the tank shells hit Zia in the leg, and now she can’t run.
But your Quarter-bot isn’t damaged, right? You can still run?
Yeah, I’m fine, but—
So start running. We don’t have a choice. We have to leave Zia behind.
Amber encrypts this last radio message, so that only I can read it. For obvious reasons, she doesn’t want Zia to hear this. Amber’s tone is so cold-blooded that it makes my circuits shiver.
No! We can all make it! I kneel beside Zia. I have a new plan.
I slip my steel hands under the War-bot’s torso. Outraged, Zia tries to push me away. Armstrong! What do you think you’re—
I’m gonna carry you. I try to lift her War-bot, but my motors falter under the strain. Her robot weighs fifteen hundred pounds, almost twice as much as mine. I’m gonna sling you over my shoulder and run with you.
That’s stupid! You can’t—
Just shut up, Zia! I’m so sick of her attitude. My frustration generates a pulse of fury in my wires, and I channel the new energy to the motors in my arms. With a great heave, I lift the War-bot’s torso and balance it on my Quarter-bot’s shoulder joint. The weight is crushing, but I manage to keep her machine steady as I straighten my legs and rise to my full height. I don’t want to hear another word from you!
I take a careful step forward. Using my tactile sensors, I measure the pressure on my joints and calculate the best way to keep the War-bot balanced. I take another step, then another. Soon I’m striding across the desert, building up speed.
Then I get another message from Amber: More incoming, Adam! Thirty-six projectiles, spread wide!
My sensors track the tank shells and rockets. Because the Army no longer has any drones observing us, their fire is less accurate, but it’s a heavy barrage. The artillery pieces are launching their rockets in rapid succession, and the
tank crews are reloading their big guns as quickly as they can. I can’t move very fast while carrying the War-bot, so it’s incredibly difficult to dodge the explosions. They’re buffeting me from all sides.
And Zia makes things worse by refusing to stay quiet: This won’t work! How can we rendezvous with Amber with all these shells raining down on us? You better come up with a new—
GAAAAHHHHH! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!
My circuits churn with fear and panic. Against my will, the emotions swirl through my wires and gather momentum, building into an unstoppable wave. I’m performing trillions of calculations in an instant, and the flood of data is so powerful it’s spilling out of my electronics. At the most microscopic level, where space and time are mathematical quantities and every atom is a tiny parcel of information, my thoughts are bending the programmed laws of the universe. I’m disrupting the very fabric of reality.
It’s a surge. The same blast of chaos that I used to delete Sigma. And kill DeShawn.
I don’t want it to happen again. I’d do anything to stop it. But then a rocket slams into the ground a couple of yards to my left, and the explosion knocks me off my footpads. Zia and I tumble to the hard-packed sand, and I can’t hold back the surge any longer. It bursts out of my Quarter-bot in a furious stream, electrifying the air around us.
The surge rises hundreds of feet above the desert and whirls across the sky like a thunderstorm. It destroys everything it touches, ripping electrons from all the trillions of molecules in the air. It obliterates all the incoming rockets and tank shells. The drone carrying Amber streaks upward, just ahead of the blast wave, escaping destruction by a mere ten yards. The surge is like death itself, indiscriminate and uncontrollable. All I can do is watch it scorch the desert air until it exhausts its fury and fades away.
The tanks and artillery pieces stop firing. The soldiers operating them are stunned and temporarily blinded. Taking advantage of the lull, I pick up the War-bot again and continue running west.
In six seconds, I accelerate to seventy miles per hour. At the same time, Amber steers the Reaper drone in a tight circle, maneuvering it behind us. Then she puts the aircraft into a steep dive, aiming it at my running Quarter-bot. The Reaper has no more missiles, so this maneuver looks like a kamikaze dive, a desperate suicide attack. But then Amber shouts an instruction over the radio: Raise your arms, Zia! You need to grab the hardpoints on the underside of the wings! And Adam, you need to run faster!
I pump my Quarter-bot’s legs and dig my footpads into the sand. I speed up to eighty miles per hour, ninety, one hundred. I’m nearing the perimeter of the Army’s ground forces, the westernmost section of the circle surrounding Pioneer Base. Five M1 tanks are less than a quarter mile ahead, and I can see that their crews have recovered from the shock and awe of the surge. The soldiers are rotating their tanks’ turrets, aiming their big guns at my robot.
Then I feel a jolt from behind. I lose my footing for a moment but manage to stay upright as the enormous weight of the War-bot is lifted from my shoulder joint. I raise my cameras to see the Reaper drone pull up from its dive, with Zia hanging from its wings.
Her War-bot’s hands grip the hardpoints—one on the left wing, the other on the right—that formerly held the Hellfire missiles. She jackknifes her robot, swinging her torso upward until it’s horizontal, and clamps her footpads to the underside of the drone’s fuselage. Meanwhile, Amber detaches her Jet-bot from the top of the Reaper and flies off to the south. With only the War-bot clinging to its belly, the drone climbs into the sky.
It’s a beautiful sight. A current of hope starts to flow through my electronics. I feel so light without Zia weighing me down, and with a burst of new energy, I start to run faster, accelerating to one hundred and twenty miles per hour. I’m speeding across the desert like a race car. In just four seconds, I reach the Army’s perimeter and dash between two of the M1 tanks, fifty yards to my left and right. Their turrets are swiveling like mad to keep up with me, but they can’t fire their guns as I sprint between them. If they do, they’ll hit each other.
After two more seconds, though, I’m a hundred yards past the perimeter, and the tanks and rocket launchers in the Army’s task force open fire. The soldiers have tracked my course and aimed their weapons at a point twenty yards ahead of me. I see the tank shells and rockets on my radar, dozens of them screaming toward the intercept point. There’s no way to avoid them. There are too many projectiles, and they’re aimed too well. I’m going to run right into the warheads.
I don’t have enough time to change course or turn around, but my thoughts move faster than my motors. In less than a millisecond, another surge starts whipping through my wires. It builds faster this time, coursing through the electronic grooves carved by the last surge. I can release it any moment and demolish all the weapons speeding toward my Quarter-bot. But the surge will also destroy the pair of M1 tanks that are only a hundred yards behind me. The blast will melt their treads and char their guns and heat their crew compartments to more than a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Eight soldiers will die in agonizing pain, their skin liquefying beneath their burning fatigues.
No! I won’t do it! We can’t kill humans!
With all my remaining strength, I bottle the surge inside my Quarter-bot. I confine the whirling fear within my circuits, compressing the explosive thoughts so they can’t escape. I can’t do this for very long, but I won’t need much more time. In a quarter of a second, I’ll collide with the shells and rockets, which will incinerate me in a blinding flash.
Then something grabs both my arms and yanks them upward, pulling so hard it nearly rips them out of my Quarter-bot’s shoulder joints. My footpads leave the ground and I rise thirty feet in a tenth of a second. The tank shells and rockets whiz underneath me in their shallow trajectories and detonate on the ground. Their explosions send up a huge column of flame, but my Quarter-bot soars safely above the blast. I’m dangling from Amber’s Jet-bot, her steel hands locked around my elbow joints.
I got you. Put your torso next to mine so I can hold you better.
I maneuver my Quarter-bot, raising the torso until its back presses against the front of her Jet-bot. Once I’m horizontal, Amber wraps her arms around the middle of my robot, and then we fly in tandem over the desert, my Quarter-bot secured to her belly like a missile.
The surge swiftly dissipates from my circuits as we speed away from the tanks and rocket launchers. The Reaper drone carrying Zia is five miles ahead of us, climbing to twenty thousand feet and cruising west, but the Jet-bot is three times faster than the drone, so we’re catching up fast.
Thanks, Amber. That was a close one.
Yeah, I was worried for a second there. She adjusts her grip on my Quarter-bot, tightening her embrace. But you’re safe now, baby.
Amber’s voice is much quieter than before. It sounds soothing, almost tender. I’m touched by the emotion, but also confused. The swings in Amber’s mood are so sudden and extreme. One moment she’s whooping like a cowgirl, then she’s coldly threatening to leave Zia behind, then she’s pulling me closer and calling me “baby.” I don’t understand it. It’s like she has a split personality. It’s hard to tell who I’m talking to.
Thirty seconds later, we’re ten miles west of Pioneer Base and only a hundred feet from Zia’s drone. I turn my cameras to see her War-bot clinging to the Reaper’s belly like a stowaway. She removes one of her mechanical hands from the drone’s fuselage and waves it to get our attention. Then Zia points a steel finger to the northeast.
Don’t get too comfortable. Attached to Zia’s radio message is a file holding data from her long-distance radar. The battle’s not over yet.
I review Zia’s radar observations, then point my own sensors twenty-five miles to the northeast and confirm her data. The six F-35 fighter jets from Kirtland that were en route to Pioneer Base have changed course. Now they’re heading straight for us.
Chapter
17
Our biggest problem is that the Reaper drone has a maximum velocity of only 300 miles per hour. The F-35 jets are barreling over the desert at four times that speed. And when they’re twenty miles away, all six of the fighters launch their air-to-air missiles, which streak toward us at 3,000 miles per hour.
Amber! Do you have any power left in your lasers?
Negative. I think we should—
Listen carefully. I cut her off before she can finish her sentence. I’m afraid she’s going to recommend abandoning Zia again, and I don’t want to hear it. Fly toward the missiles as fast as you can.
Amber doesn’t ask any questions. She follows my order, steering her Jet-bot to the northeast and accelerating past the speed of sound. Meanwhile, I act as her copilot and navigator, pointing my sensors at the missiles dead ahead. Our maneuver must seem insane to the pilots of the fighter jets, because we’re making ourselves easy targets. If we stay on this crash course, the air-to-air rockets will explode against the Jet-bot in thirteen seconds.
But that’s more than enough time for me to build up another surge. All I have to do is think about Sumner Harris and the generals who ordered the attack on the Pioneers. It didn’t take them long to decide to get rid of us. They didn’t agonize over it or consider any reasonable alternatives. (The Model S was definitely not reasonable.) For Sumner, choosing to destroy us was a no-brainer. In his eyes, the Pioneers are nothing.
The surge rises quickly, roaring across my electronics. It’s getting easier to generate the anger and fear. The fierce stream of emotion swirls within me, feeding on itself, gathering force. It’s overloading my processors and stripping my wires, but I endure the pain and hold it inside. I wait until the air-to-air missiles are half a mile away, less than a second from impact. Then I release the surge into the atmosphere.
It spreads like a mushroom cloud, a fireball hundreds of yards across. The six missiles soar into it and explode instantly. I feel a flash of satisfaction, as if I’ve just made a brilliant counterargument to Sumner Harris and his allies. I want to shout, “You see? It’s not so easy to get rid of us, is it?”
