Bot Wars, Line Zero

by J. V. Kade

  “I don’t know.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do!”

  The bot whirs. “If you are to leave, now would be the best time.”

  Tellie wrings her hands in front of her. Her eyebrows pinch together with worry. If you would have told me ten days ago that tonight would find me in Tellie Rix’s bedroom with a bot behind me and the police searching for me, I would have laughed in your face.

  And I still want to laugh.

  I feel like I’ve gone completely nuclear.

  The footsteps stop outside Tellie’s room.

  “Tellie?” Mr. Rix says.

  The bot charges toward us. We ram back into the door. Someone tries opening it from the other side, but we’re pressed so hard into it, we don’t budge.

  “There is no more time,” the bot says. He reaches for me. Tellie tries shoving him away, but she’s no match for a bot. He grabs my arm. I have no breath in my lungs to holler.

  The bot flings me onto his back as the bedroom door finally bursts open. Tellie stumbles to the floor. Patrolmen flood the room, their guns up.

  “Hold on,” the bot says to me as he takes two quick strides to the open window and jumps through it.

  SIXTEEN

  THE WIND PUSHES the hair from my face. The ground rushes toward me. A sling pops out of a narrow compartment in the bot’s shoulder and wraps around me, hooking itself into the opposite shoulder. Now I’m hanging there like a baby in a backpack.

  Voices shout from Tellie’s window.

  “Here,” the bot says, shoving a pair of goggles in my hands.

  I fumble them on as he takes off at jet speeds. The world blurs around me.

  I am so notched.

  By the time the bot stops running, I’ve eaten three bugs by accident when they flew in my mouth. The sling unhooks itself and folds away into its compartment, and I thud to the ground.

  “I can’t feel my legs,” I mutter.

  “That usually happens the first time a human is transported at such high speeds. It is best if you move around.”

  I somehow make it up onto all fours, but sway there for a second before using a nearby tree to climb to my feet. I look around. We’re in the middle of the woods. Maybe we’ve even left 5th District. It smells like pine trees here, and wet earth. There isn’t much light except for the moon, which means there isn’t anyone around to save me.

  I look over at the bot. He stands a few feet away, still as a statue. I freeze.

  A robot just kidnapped me.

  A ROBOT.

  My mind races. How am I supposed to get away from him? Dismantle him? What, with a tree branch? But I don’t see anything big enough. Run. I should run.

  I push away from the tree and dash into the dark, but my knees are still stiff, and I face-plant on the ground. Dirt grits in my teeth. A fern shivers in the wind, tickling my ear, and I bat it away.

  “Are you all right?” the bot asks.

  I roll over. “Stay away from me!”

  He steps back. “I will not hurt you, Trout.”

  “Why did you kidnap me?”

  “It was not a kidnapping,” he says lightly. “It was a rescue.”

  I lurch to my feet. “That’s not how you rescue someone!”

  “I suppose you wrote the handbook on rescue missions?”

  “What? No.”

  A twig snaps behind me. Something mewls in the dark. I skitter in the opposite direction and ram into the bot. He steadies me with his machine hands and I shrink up like a piece of burnt plastic. I wrestle out of his grip, kicking up a cloud of dust as I stumble away.

  The bot raises his hands. “I am sorry. I truly meant what I said before. I mean you no harm.”

  “If you don’t want to hurt me, why are we in the middle of the woods?”

  “I wanted to find a safe place to allow you to get your bearings. We are in a blind spot.” He points at the sky. “There is no satellite coverage here.”

  My breathing slows. “Tell me why I should trust you. You’re a robot, you know. The UD says you’re evil machines who want to kill humans.”

  The bot snorts. “That is the very farthest thing from the truth. And I would hope you would trust I mean you no harm after I risked my life to save you.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Especially if you really did kidnap me.”

  “I will do whatever it takes to show my loyalty.”

  “You said something about my dad. Do you know him?”

  He nods. “I do. I consider him a close friend of mine.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Tell me something about him, something not everyone would know.”

  The bot thinks for a second. “Your father’s favorite hy-breed is a wolf monkey.”

  “That’s easy. Give me something else.”

  “All right.” He goes silent, then: “That picture you included in your video, of you, your father, and your brother.”

  The one from our vacation. “Yeah?”

  “Your father told me about the trip to Lake Tahoe, about how you caught seventeen fish, about how proud he was of you. He told me about how your brother lost his Link in the lake, but dove in to try to find it. He told me how happy you all were and how much he wishes he could go back.”

  My chest gets fuzzy with warmth. Only Dad and Po would know how many fish I caught on that trip. And while I think anyone could figure out we had a good time, only Dad could say for sure how great the trip really was. Because it was our last before everything changed.

  “Okay,” I say, “so let’s say I do trust you. Where are we going?”

  “We are going to your father.”

  My eyes get big. “I’m going to see him?” I’ve waited so long for this, it doesn’t even feel real. I want to dance. Or sing. Or throw my arms in the air. But I don’t. Because that would be lame.

  “Yes, but before we do,” the bot adds, “we must address . . .” He looks at my chest.

  Somehow I know what he means without him saying it. My ID chip. I lost the scrambler and now the UD can track me wherever I go. Even if the bot rescued me, my time is running out.

  “How long before they track me?”

  A gear clicks in the bot’s neck. “Not long. And the patrolmen who were at your friend’s house are the least of your worries. The government officials who originally came to collect you will have better technology than the police. You have less than an hour before they triangulate your location. That is, if we remain here.”

  Pretty much the only thing I heard him say was: “‘Government officials’?”

  “Yes. I am afraid this is much bigger than the police.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  The bot says nothing and I drop Tellie’s bag to the ground with a thump. Frustration and shock make me boil, make me forget the fear. “I wish someone would just tell me what’s going on!”

  Something in the bot’s chest whirs to life and I wonder if it’s a coolant fan like we have on the computer to cool the hard drive.

  “What is it you would like to know?”

  I lean against a skinny tree and the leaves above me shudder. “Why were government officials after me?”

  A frog starts croaking in the distance. There must be a pond nearby. It’s been a long time since I was out in the woods, or anywhere outside of Brack, for that matter.

  “The UD government wants to use you and your brother as bait to lure your father out of hiding.”

  “Why?”

  “Unfortunately, that is an answer best left for your father.”

  I grumble. “Figures.”

  “Is there anything else you would like to ask?”

  Like I’ll get any answers. “No.”

  The bot points his finger at my heart. �
�Then we should disengage that, and I am afraid it will not be a pleasant experience.”

  I cover my chest with a hand. “How unpleasant?”

  “That is not something one can measure.”

  “Do you have to operate on me?”

  “No, I will use my scrambler, but it will be a permanent scramble.”

  “What if it goes wrong?”

  “Nothing will go wrong. It will be over before you know it.” He takes a few slow, careful steps toward me, as if he thinks I’m a puppy about to dart off. I don’t move. Whether he wants to kill me or help me doesn’t matter at this point. I’ve got nowhere to go anyway, and no way to fight back.

  I breathe in a deep breath as the bot puts one hand over my heart and the other at the back of my neck. “Close your eyes,” he says in that quiet, measured voice of his.

  I do as he says. His fingers are warm for being made entirely of metal. My skin starts to crawl. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m gearing out over the bot or the scrambler, or both.

  “I will now begin,” he says, and suddenly his hands are burning hot. I try to pull away, but he holds tighter. I feel like I’m being cooked from the inside out, like a hardboiled egg.

  The pain grows in my chest where the tracker must be. It grows and wraps around my ribs and then rushes outward, like a flow of hot lava. The pain pools in my feet and I curl my toes, clench my jaw. My knees buckle, but the bot holds me up as I wish for my brother over and over again. I wish he were here to tell me I’m safe, that he’s got my back.

  But then the pain is gone with a pop and crackle. My chest still feels warm, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I take a few deep breaths trying to stop the achiness in my lungs.

  “How do you feel?” the bot asks.

  Sweat drips from my forehead. “I’m okay.”

  He inclines his head. “We should move. If you have a Link, leave it here. The UD can track you through it as well.”

  I gulp down another rush of air and pull my Link out of my pocket. I’ve never gone a day without it. The thought of leaving it in the middle of the woods makes me cringe, but I guess I gotta do it. I set it on the ground and pick up the backpack Tellie gave me.

  I’m just about to slip it over my shoulder when I stop myself. Tellie’s dad works for the UD government. Government officials came to my house to arrest me. Can I trust Tellie?

  I see the bag in a whole new light. What if there’s a tracker inside?

  Doubt wedges into my stomach. I hate this feeling. Like I don’t know who is a friend and who isn’t.

  I dump out the bag’s contents and rifle through everything. I pick out the Net-tag and a handful of snacks. Just enough to fit into my pockets. I decide to leave the rest.

  “I guess I’m ready,” I say.

  The bot tells me to climb on his back again and then we’re off.

  • • •

  We stop sometime later at a car pool parking lot just off the freeway. The hover rails glow in the distance. Just like before, it takes me a second to straighten myself out when I finally slide off the bot’s back. I lean against an old Veemer truck and stretch. I wonder if this is what it feels like riding a horse for the first time, and then make a mental note never to ride a horse.

  When I can finally stand upright, I push my hair off my forehead and look out past the parking lot. Only a few scrubby bushes dot the landscape. To my left, lightning flashes through the sky and a rumble of thunder follows. It isn’t raining where we are, but the air feels wet.

  “We’ve already missed the storm,” the bot says behind me.

  “Oh.” I turn around. “So will I see my dad tonight?”

  The bot stands there and doesn’t blink. Thunder rumbles again and it vibrates through the cement. “Hello? Earth to the robo—er . . .”

  His head swivels toward me and my skin crawls. One minute I feel okay with the bot and then the next minute he does something creepy like that.

  My shoulders tense. “What the chop? Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Not answer me and then . . .” I wave my hand around because I’m not really sure what was so creepy about the head swivel except that it wasn’t NORMAL. “Never mind.”

  “I was listening to the news broadcast from Edge Flats.”

  Edge Flats is a border town about a hundred miles from Bot Territory. I know that because it’s where the Superhero Museum is. Lox and I had plans to go there someday if I could ever get my overprotective brother to let me go.

  “You can listen in like that?”

  “I can. It seems the UD has been granted clearance from the Texan Council to patrol the border.”

  “The border?” I say, raising my eyebrows. “As in, the border of Bot Territory?”

  “Correct.”

  “Are we . . . is that where . . .”

  “Where we are headed? Yes.”

  “Whoa. Holy space junk.” I thread my hands together and set them on top of my head. “I’m going to Bot Territory? Lox won’t believe it when I tell him.” I let my hands drop to my sides. “Is that where my dad is?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, if the UD is patrolling the border, then how are we going to get into Bot Territory?”

  “It will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  My shoulders sink. I’ve waited forever to see Dad. I’m so close and now I can’t go because of the UD, for reasons I don’t even know. More secrets. More time to sit around and wait.

  Lightning strikes again, turning the dark sky purple for a split second. I feel like I might go nuclear, I’m so impatient, but if Dad taught me anything it was that good things come to those who wait.

  “So now what?” I ask.

  The bot strides over to a four-door sedan and unlocks it with the press of his index finger.

  I hurry to his side. “Are we car-jacking?”

  He gives me a look. “Hardly. This is my car. Or, rather, one I planted for our journey.” The bot opens the passenger side for me and I slide in as the car’s controls flicker on. I notice right away that it’s an auto-car, like Lox’s mom’s car.

  When the car doors are shut, the interior temperature adjusts to a cool seventy degrees, which would normally be fine with me, but since I’ve been riding on the back of a robot for the last two hours, I’m shivering like a wet dog. I jam at the controls until the screen reads eighty.

  “What should I call you anyway?” I ask. “Do you have a name?”

  The bot punches in a destination and the car pulls out of the lot. “You may call me LT.”

  “LT. Okay. So, where are we going, LT?”

  “We will stay in Texas tonight and travel to my territory tomorrow. But first we must get past Texan border control.”

  I once heard my dad say it’s easier to get into Texas than it is to get into the UD, but bots aren’t allowed in Texas either, because of the treaty agreement. So even if it’s easier to go south, there’s still a bot in the car with me.

  “Are you going to hide in the trunk or something?” I ask.

  LT lets out a sound that I’m guessing is supposed to be a laugh, but actually sounds more like sizzling live wires. “Do you know the story of the Underground Railroad?”

  “Kind of.” I frown. “Well, no.”

  The car takes an on-ramp and soon we’re cruising down the freeway. “It was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by slaves to escape the South back in the nineteenth century. What we have now is similar. We have allies to help us on our way.”

  “So we’re taking a train into Texas?”

  LT tilts his head. “Negative.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Just wait and you will see.”

  It only takes about fiftee
n minutes to reach the border. A hovering digital sign flashes bright yellow. Warning: You are now leaving the safety of the United Districts.

  There are huge steel arches over the five lanes that cross into Texas. The arches blaze neon blue in the night, like the rails. Scrolling signs at the top say: Have your identification ready. Toll to cross border: Seventy-five credits.

  “Lane C3,” LT says, and the car chooses the corresponding lane, the one in the middle. There are only two cars ahead of us and three cars in the next lane. The other lanes are closed for the night. Across a field, on my left, is a separate border patrol for people trying to get inside the UD. The checkpoint is the same as ours, with five steel arches and lots of digital signage. There are only two cars in line over there.

  I start to fidget. What if we’re caught? What if they don’t let us cross?

  I take a deep breath and try to tell myself LT has his railroad, so we’ll be fine, but when it’s our turn and the car rolls to a stop at the inspector’s booth, I feel like I’m going to barf chunks.

  LT presses a finger to the window’s controls and the glass slides down. The inspector steps up to the car. He’s huge, like a bull, with tiny eyes and ferocious eyebrows. When he hunches and peers inside, his stomach spills over his leather belt.

  “Howdy,” he says. “What’s the nature of your travel?”

  “Visiting friends in Edge Flats,” LT says.

  “Ahh.” The inspector chomps on a wad of gum. It smells like grapes and mint. It makes me want to barf even more. “Edge Flats is a fine place to be this time of year. My great-grandmother was born and raised there. I make it back every now and then.”

  “Fine place indeed,” LT says, and hands over a Net-tag. I notice he’s careful to keep his hand inside the car and not hang it out the open window where cameras and satellites might see him.

  The inspector takes the Net-tag and taps it to a pad attached to his belt. A second later, the pad blinks green and LT gets the Net-tag back. “All right. You’re all set. Have a safe trip.” The inspector winks at me as LT closes the window.