Bot Wars, Line Zero

by J. V. Kade

  The woman opens the door wider and says, “Well, come in, and wait right here.”

  I step inside. The house is cold because of the air- conditioning, and gooseflesh pops on my arms. I try to make myself warmer by hugging myself and bouncing around on the balls of my feet.

  “Here, dry off,” the woman says, handing me her towel.

  “Thanks.”

  As I scrub the water out of my hair, she goes to a monitor on the wall and presses a button. “Tellie,” she says, “you’ve got a visitor.”

  “Who is it?” Tellie’s raspy voice answers back.

  The woman looks at me. I lick my lips. “Tell her it’s Trout,” I say.

  A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. “Like the fish?”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

  “Interesting.” Through the monitor she says, “Says he’s a fish.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  Tellie sighs. “I’ll be down in a sec.”

  “Where did you get a name like that?” the woman asks as she steps away from the monitor.

  I just shrug. Po was the one who started calling me Trout when I was like one minute old, and everyone has called me Trout since then, even my dad. Unless I’m in trouble. Then he uses my full name.

  “Well, I best get back to work, Trout like the fish,” she says with a smirk. She disappears through a doorway on the left.

  While I wait, I check out the house. To the right of the front door is the living room. A big couch curves around the room in a U shape. A massive vid panel hangs on the wall, surrounded by shelves that are mostly empty except for two family photos and a stack of books.

  Directly in front of me are the stairs and farther back is a door that leads out to a patio and a pool. The closest Po and I have come to a pool is a puddle in the backyard.

  Tellie stomps down the stairs a few minutes later and says, “What do you want?”

  Up until this point, I was fine coming here. Tellie and I aren’t best friends or anything, so her opinion of me doesn’t matter. Or at least it didn’t. But now that she’s staring at me, my heart acts like it wants to tuck its tail between its legs and take off running. My dad used to say that not one person was better than the next, that all human beings were created equal. But as I look up at Tellie standing there in expensive clothes in her expensive house, I can’t help but feel like that same slug I felt like out on the sidewalk.

  “Um . . .”

  Tellie leans into the railing and cocks her hip out as she waits for my brain to start working. “Yeah?”

  “Well . . .”

  Silence. Tellie swings her weight to the other foot. Water drips from my nose.

  “I need help making a vid and getting it on the Net.” The words tumble out of my mouth like marbles on a Net game.

  Tellie straightens and pushes her braided hair off her shoulder. “What kind of vid?”

  So I tell her. In one long string of words. And she listens without saying anything. When I stop to take a breath, she comes down the rest of the stairs and looks me right in the face.

  “You miss your dad?” she says.

  No one has ever asked me that. Po knows I miss Dad. And I’m sure Tanith at the Heart Office knows I miss Dad. But no one ever bothered to ask me how I felt. And I’m shocked right down to my toes that it’s Tellie Rix who is the first person to say the words.

  “Yeah,” I answer as a leftover drop of water rolls down my neck. “More than anything.”

  “Well, come on then. My vid cam is upstairs.”

  • • •

  If Lox knew I was in Tellie Rix’s bedroom, he’d go nuclear. Her room looks the way I thought it would look—big and pink and fluffy—but there are things in here I didn’t expect to see.

  A hoverboard is propped up against the wall across from the closet, along with a helmet and goggles. I’ve never seen Tellie on a hoverboard before. There’s a Rezzies poster hanging above her bed and a Junction Box poster right next to that. Both groups play reg-ray rock. I had no idea Tellie liked that kind of music. I figured she’d be in love with Tanner Waylon, that kid who sings dumb love songs about broken hearts and other lame stuff.

  Tellie sits at her desk and pulls a vid cam from its charge plate. “Have you thought about what you want to say?”

  I walk farther into the room feeling weird. Fact is, I never thought I’d get this far. “No. Not really.”

  She pulls out a SimPad and hands it to me. “Let’s make a script. If you’re going to do this, you should do it right.”

  I take it carefully (’cuz they’re expensive, and all I need is to accidentally drop it) and then stare at it like it’s an X-bomb. I’ve never even breathed the same air as a SimPad, let alone used one. Not that a SimPad needs to breathe.

  Tellie looks at me like I just grew a set of horns and then sighs again before prompting the pad with the touch of her finger. The screen brightens as it comes to life. “Compose,” Tellie says. A window opens and the pad projects a holo image of the document in midair. “Just press your finger to the orange light at the bottom when you want to speak. Press it again to stop recording.”

  I press my finger to the square of light and a cursor flashes on the screen.

  I freeze like a Popsicle.

  Tellie waves her hand, coaxing me to say something.

  “Hello.” The cursor writes out the word and the holo image shows a 3-D version of the text in thick white letters between us. “My name is Trout St. Kroix and I need help finding my dad.”

  EIGHT

  IT TAKES US almost an hour to get the script right, and another to shoot the vid. In that time, Tellie rolls her eyes at least sixteen gajillion times and sighs at the end of every sentence. But when we replay the vid, I realize it was all worth it.

  Now my face is on the vid panel, big as Mars. “Hello, my name is Trout . . .” vid-me says.

  “I don’t sound like that. Do I?”

  Tellie looks at me, eyebrows scrunched together. “Yes. You’re practically a chipmunk.”

  “Whatever,” I say, and we turn back to the vid as the rest plays out.

  “I haven’t spoken to my dad since right before Thanksgiving. He said he was doing one more mission before going on leave. He was stationed in Bot Territory near the Mississippi River. He has an ID chip, but his thread hasn’t come back online. The commander of his troop said Dad disappeared during the mission. I think he’s still alive somewhere out there. I can feel it. So if you have any information, please contact me: smarterkroix@zipspeed.5dtr.”

  My face disappears and a picture of Dad flashes on the screen just above my e-mail address. The picture is from the summer right before Po left for the war, before he lost his leg, before Dad volunteered and changed everything. That was our last vacation together. We went to Lake Tahoe for a week, and I caught a total of seventeen fish. Po only caught three. It was the best week of my life.

  In the pic, Dad’s smiling, his arms around Po and me. Dad’s hair is messy, like always, because he said brushing it was a waste of time.

  A man has better things to do than preen.

  When the vid ends, my eyes sting and I sniff back what I know are tears. I can’t start crying in the middle of Tellie Rix’s bedroom.

  “So what do you think?” she says.

  “I like it. It’s totally wrenched.” I duck my head, pretend I got something in my eye, and rub them both with the heels of my hands. When I think I’m good, I sit up straight, and meet Tellie’s gaze.

  The look on her face says she knows I’m a big baby. She turns back to the computer. “You think it’s ready?”

  I nod, even though her back is to me. “Yeah, I think so.”

  She clicks a few things on her computer. “I’m uploading it to my Luna page. And I’ll e-mail a
friend of mine about it too. He runs a site and if he links up, maybe the vid will get some extra views.”

  I go to the desk and watch her work over her shoulder. For a girl, she’s really good with computers. Her fingers glide over the keys, then she hits ENTER and a snapshot of the vid is up on her Luna page.

  “Done.” She smiles, beaming with pride, and I have to say, I’m really impressed.

  “Thanks, Tellie.”

  She shrugs. “It’s no big deal.”

  I fidget and then say, “I should probably go. I kinda bolted from the house before telling my brother where I was going. He’s probably pretty mad.”

  At the front door, Tellie leans against the frame, arms crossed in front of her. The house is quiet behind us. I guess her parents aren’t home yet.

  “So, I’ll see you later,” I say, and step down onto the walkway.

  “Hey, Trout?”

  I turn around. “Yeah?”

  “I hope it works. The vid. I hope you find your dad.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Me too.”

  NINE

  THE FIRST FEW days the vid is up, it doesn’t get that many hits. Still, I stalk my e-mail like a bird stalking a worm. On the third night, I get so tired of watching my in-box that I go to bed early and read until I can’t keep my eyes open.

  The next morning, I wake to a dinging noise. At first I think it’s my alarm clock, but then I remember it’s summer break, so why would I set my alarm?

  I sit up and blink back the sleep crusting in my eyes as I try to figure out where the noise is coming from. And then I realize it’s the chime I set up on the computer to alert me to a new e-mail.

  Ding. Ding-ding.

  I throw back the blankets, rush down the hallway, hoping to reach the computer before Po does. I must have forgotten to log off last night! I’m such a bolt-head!

  I tear into the living room. Po is already there frowning at the computer. I come up alongside him and freeze. The little e-mail icon at the bottom of the screen says 373 Unread E-mails.

  Holy space junk.

  Po turns to me. His hair is sticking up on one side, mashed to his head on the other. His eyes are still heavy with sleep. “Dude, what the chop? Did you kidnap the Pope or something?”

  My fingers itch to click through the icon and read the e-mails. Any one of them could lead to Dad! But I don’t. Because if Po finds out, there’s no telling what he’ll do. I log off with a tap of my finger.

  “It’s probably spam or something,” I say.

  Po snorts. “Yeah, sure.”

  Thankfully he lets it go and heads into the kitchen, banging pots and pans around. “You want some French toast?”

  I’m still staring at the computer screen when I answer. “Two pieces.”

  “You got any plans today?”

  “No. Do you have to work?”

  “Yeah. Late shift again. I’ll probably take a nap this afternoon. You got anything you need me to do before then?”

  I check the clock in the corner of the computer. It’s just after ten. The late shift usually starts at five, so Po will probably take a nap from two to four.

  “No,” I say.

  Why are so many e-mails pouring in? Tellie might be popular, but she’s not that popular. I set the table like usual, but have a hard time focusing. I accidentally give Po two spoons and grab the salad dressing instead of syrup.

  If Po thought I was acting weird before, he probably thinks I’ve completely geared out today. Somehow I make it through breakfast and clean the table as Po does laundry. And then I sit on the couch, my knee bobbing up and down.

  I watch the clock like it’s the last day of school.

  Finally, after I straighten up my bedroom, vacuum, and put away the dishes, Po shuffles into the living room and says, “I’m gonna lie down. If I’m not up by four, will you get me up?”

  “Yeah! Sure!”

  He narrows his eyes.

  “What?” I say.

  “What are you up to?”

  I let out a nervous laugh. “What do you mean?”

  He sighs. “Never mind. Just, make sure I’m up.”

  “I will.”

  His bedroom door shuts. I wait all of a second to leap over the back of the couch.

  When I log into my e-mail, it says I have 402 unread messages.

  People are responding to my vid! Maybe Dad is out there somewhere. I read through every message carefully.

  I don’t know where your dad is, one lady wrote, but I just wanted to tell you, you and your family are in my prayers.

  Yo, I hope you find your pops! a guy named T-Zone wrote.

  Dude, your face is funny-looking. And your nose is shaped like a tuna fish.

  I go cross-eyed trying to look at my nose. A tuna fish?

  Delete.

  An hour later, I’ve read and responded to and deleted over a hundred e-mails and I’m no closer to information on Dad’s location. No one seems to know Dad, or anything about Bot Territory. They only e-mail about the vid, or me, or to wish me luck.

  There are at least a dozen messages about my face. That it’s shaped funny. It’s too pale. Too small. Too wide. One lady offered to bake me a casserole because she thought I was too skinny.

  By message two hundred, I’m so tired of reading e-mails I start deleting them without responding. I can only write thank you so many times. And when I clear out the in-box, I check the vid one more time for messages left in the comment section.

  I’m reading another one about my voice when I hear a gasp behind me. I whirl around in the chair. Po is standing in the middle of the living room, his gaze fixed on the vid, on my vid face.

  Jam.

  “What is that?” he says, pointing a finger at the screen.

  “Nothing!” I start tapping at the board in a panic.

  “How did you get a vid on the Net? What’s it . . .” He reads the title of the page. “‘Help me find my dad’? Are you kidding me? Trout! This is the last thing we need right now. Drawing attention to ourselves!”

  I manage to close out the Net page. Po and I stare at the desktop picture of Lake Tahoe, the water glittering in the sunlight.

  “Take that vid down,” Po snaps.

  “No way!” I stand up. “It might help us find him. If someone has seen him . . .”

  Po lumbers toward me and gets right in my face. He clenches his teeth. “Take it down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .”

  “Because why?”

  His eyes are big now, fully alert. “Because we’re not going to find him! Not like this.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Do you think he’s alive?”

  Po pushes away from me toward the hallway.

  “Do you think he’s out there somewhere? Po? Tell me!”

  In the doorway to the bathroom, he stops and takes a deep breath. His expression softens as the anger runs out of him. “Of course I do.” He sighs. “We’ll find him. Just . . . not like that. People on the Net are cruel, ya know? They’ll make a joke out of it.”

  I already know that’s true, because half of the e-mails and comments I’ve gotten are people making fun of me.

  “Take it down,” he says, and then adds, “Please.”

  This was supposed to be my big chance. I wanted to show Po that I could find Dad on my own, but maybe it was a dumb idea. And anyway, now I guess I have Po on my side. And a promise from him that he’ll help me look. However he plans to do that.

  “Yeah, all right.” I hang my head. “I just have to go to Tellie’s to do it. She’s the one who posted it.”

  “Sure. Just be home before dark.”

  Po shuts the door to the bathroom, and the shower turns on a second later. I
grab my raincoat, remembering my Link warned of a storm later today, and start walking toward Tellie’s.

  TEN

  RAIN POUNDS AGAINST the window above the sink in Tellie’s kitchen. Thankfully, I made it over here just before it started pouring. Tellie peels open an instant pizza and slides it into the infrared oven. I climb onto one of the stools as music plays from the Net station embedded in the counter. It’s a new Junction Box song with bongos and quick, snappy guitar riffs. It’s my favorite song, and judging by the way Tellie shakes her shoulders to the beat, it’s a song she likes too.

  “I guess I get why Po wants me to delete the vid,” I say. “But I kinda want to keep it up just in case.”

  Tellie sits across from me. “Maybe he hates being in the spotlight. Like, having people pay attention to him.”

  I shrug as I wipe the sweat from my glass of water. “Maybe.” But Po’s not afraid of attention. The only time I ever see him acting like a silent weirdo is when Marsi is around. “Anyway, I guess we have to delete it.”

  “If you say so.” Tellie comes around the counter to my side and taps in a command on the Net station. A browser window pops open.

  “How did the vid get so many responses today?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. This is the first I’m hearing about it, but maybe it’s . . . oh.”

  I scoot in closer. “What?” My vid is up on the browser and I look at the number of hits on the lower right-hand corner. “Holy jet smoke,” I breathe. There are 543,773 views!

  “How did—I don’t get—how—”

  Tellie types in a Net address and pulls up the Dekker Site and there I am. My vid. The headline says: FishKid Looks for Dad in Enemy Waters.

  “Aaron Dekker?” I say. “How did you get Aaron Dekker to link to my vid?”

  The oven dings. Tellie goes around to pull out the pizza. “Well, when I first asked him to link to it, he said no. I didn’t know he changed his mind.”

  I remember her telling me she’d ask a friend to link up when we first posted the vid. “Are you friends with him?”