by J. V. Kade
“Cravley Street is our best bet. Less camera points. We enter City Hall here.” He points to a side entrance. “But we’ll need a Net-tag to get in. A regular citizen tag would work.” He paces to the left. “We run into trouble in the stairwell, where a series of security checkpoints stall our progress.”
“I’m working on that,” Cole says. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”
Parker strips off the glove. “In the meantime, I’ll work out an exit strategy.”
Dad nods. “Thanks.” He starts for the elevator. “I think I need a few minutes alone. You okay for a bit?”
“Sure.” Parker tosses his glove aside. “Hey, Rob?”
Dad turns around. “Yeah?”
“Don’t mention this around Vee, ya? I don’t want her to know.”
Next to me, Vee’s hands tighten into fists. Her teeth grit.
“You have my word,” Dad answers. “Same goes for Trout. Everyone.” His team goes still as they listen. “Don’t tell the kids what we’re up against.”
Cole and Jules give one quick nod of their heads. Ratch and LT agree to stay quiet.
As Dad passes beneath Vee and me, I hear him whisper, almost beneath his breath, “God help us,” right before he enters the elevator.
Vee and I meet eyes. Hers are tight and watery, like she’s not sure if she should burst into tears or growl in rage. I feel the same way. The UD is forcing my dad to choose between his freedom or Po’s, and I’m pretty sure I know what he’ll choose.
“I can’t let my dad turn himself in,” Vee says.
“I know. You think we can do anything about it?”
“You got all the way here, didn’t you?”
“With LT’s help.”
“And now you have my help.”
I look past her across the city. I like this place. I like Bot Territory and Line Zero, but it’s nothing to me if Dad’s not here.
“I don’t want to lose my dad or my brother.”
“And I can’t lose my dad.” Vee gets this scrunched-up look on her face, like she’s trying real hard not to cry. “I don’t have anyone left besides him. At least not in Bot Territory.”
“There’s no way they’ll make it into Brack and into City Hall undetected,” I say. “Everyone will be looking for them.”
“So now what?” Vee says.
“I don’t know. But we need to figure something out. And quick.”
TWENTY-SIX
THAT NIGHT I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, doing everything but sleeping. So when Vee calls me the next morning to go for a tour of the city, I almost say no. But then she adds, “Come on, Trout. Seeing the sun might help clear our heads.”
She’s probably right.
She meets me at the park twenty minutes later. Her hair looks bright pink in the early-morning sun, and the longer section in back is twisted up in a bird’s nest at the top of her head.
“Here,” she says, and hands me a backpack.
I take it from her and whatever’s inside clanks together. “What is it?”
“Scavenger hunt pods. We have a scavenger hunt once a week and since I’m a Dade”—she flashes a half grin—“I’m the one who plots the route and plants the pods. I usually love doing this, but jam, I sure don’t feel like it today.”
“Yeah.” I shuffle my feet. “I don’t feel like doing anything but melting into a pile of space junk.”
She starts forward. “Anyway, we have a lot of ground to cover, so we should get moving.”
We reach an intersection and stop for traffic. Vee brings out her Link. It looks like nothing more than a sheet of glass with rubber corners.
I gape and drool over her shoulder. “That thing is wrenched.”
“Thanks. My dad got it for me for my last birthday. It’s the new LinkQ.”
The light changes and we cross to Water Street. The hoverboard lane is packed with kids and adults flying down the street with thin goggles covering their eyes, their clothes flapping behind them. The billboards on top of the surrounding buildings play ads for cupcake shops and clothing stores and repair shops, but not one of them flashes a warning about robots.
Over a week ago, when Po took me to the Heart Office, I saw a bot warning on a Brack billboard and I was instantly zeeved out. Probably because the UD made bots look like evil killing machines. I don’t feel that way now.
Vee stops at a metal door stuck between a bakery and a Link provider. She flips up the door’s handle and it pops open. Behind it, there’s a scrolling track installed in the ceiling that moves a series of lockers round and round in a circle.
“What is this?” I ask.
“A hoverboard garage.” Vee pushes a button to the left of the doorway and the track cranks to life. The lockers zoom forward. Several of them are full and the hoverboards inside are locked in place by something that looks like a mini-length of hover rail. They even glow neon blue.
Vee releases the button when a free locker appears. She presses her finger to a black screen on the side and the interior light flickers on.
“Pod, please.” She waggles her fingers at me and I fetch a pod from the backpack. She places it in the bottom of the locker, turns it on, and a holo emblem appears. It’s a triangular design with a bolt and gear in the center.
“What’s the emblem stand for?”
“That’s the symbol on our new flag. Some designer came up with it back when the war began and the UD started calling us Bot Territory. My dad said we might as well embrace it.”
“Our flag was changed too. It now has thirteen blue and white stripes and a line of six red stars for each district.”
“It’s totally jammed, isn’t it? How much has changed?” Vee shuts the door on the garage.
At the next corner, two bots are reenacting one of Tanner Waylon’s dance routines, and his latest song, “Wrenched and Sideways,” blasts from the tall, lean bot on the left.
We stop for a second to watch. They move in perfect unison, arms flailing, feet tapping, hips shaking. When the routine ends, the shorter bot takes a bow.
“Bravo!” Vee and I clap.
The bots start a different routine, this one to the bass beats of Junction Box.
I want to stay and watch, but Vee drags me off. “We have eleven more pods to place and lots more to see. Come on.”
• • •
Our next stop is at a place called Willow Café, and the bot behind the counter gives us six free cookies. They are the best cookies I’ve ever tasted in my whole entire life.
Next, we go to the aquarium, where, on one side of the place you can see the real animals and on the other you can see robotic animals that were created to resemble prehistoric marine animals. There’s this massive tylosaurus that swims back and forth past the glass. And this weird scorpion lobster thing. Dad and I should come back here. It’s like our hy-breed animal game come to life.
We leave the aquarium somewhere around noon and make our way back toward the Fort, stopping at a small pond surrounded by big oak trees that are covered in thick green moss.
Vee takes me to her school next. “Where are we leaving the pod?” I ask, digging one out.
“On the football field.” We walk around the brick building and slowly, the field and bleachers come into view. It isn’t until we’re closer that I realize the field is ringed in hover rails.
Vee tells me football around here is played wearing hoversuits. And I’ve never been big on sports, but that sounds like the coolest thing yet.
We make a few more stops, then finally our last one. It’s a three-story shop with a big hovering holo sign out front that says: Get your robot upgrade today! Leave here with a bionic limb! Or an optical chip! Get the St. Kroix special!
“The St. Kroix special?” I ask.
Vee smirks. “Your dad has a fan club. People want to be like him.”
I frown. “Wait. People?”
Vee crosses the street. I hurry after her. Cyber rock plays through the shop’s speaker system. We go down a wide hall where posters hang on the wall showing the latest and greatest upgrades.
The hall opens to a circular atrium that rises up the full three stories, so no matter which floor you’re on, you can look down on the ground floor.
“Whoa.” I make a full turn before stopping at the base of a huge holo display in the center of the atrium. The display is my dad. “What the . . .”
“Pretty rad, right?” Vee says.
The holo image changes rapidly. There’s one of my dad, hands on his hips, his robotic arm shining in the light. It flicks to an image of my dad’s face with his metal plate and the bolt sticking out of his neck.
Do you want to be more like our esteemed leader, Robert St. Kroix? the display reads at the base. Get the St. Kroix special today. In one week you will have a robotic arm and an indestructible face plate for just 25,000 creds. Schedule an appointment with one of our upgrade technicians today.
I look around at the customers and realize there isn’t a single robot inside.
“People really want to be part bot?” I ask.
“Sure do. Your dad is a hero down here. People respect him.” Vee’s voice gets real quiet, so I have to lean closer to hear her. “It’s probably why the UD wants him so bad. They know people will listen to him. Maybe one day he’ll change the minds of the UD citizens, and then he’ll have the entire nation on his side.”
I look over at her. Out of the sun, her hair looks dark purple, almost brown. “I’m sorry that your dad is mixed up in this mess. It’s all my family’s fault.”
Vee shakes her head. “My dad has a choice, ya know? No one is forcing him to be part of the Meta-Rise, and if I had a choice, I’d be a part of it too. I just . . .” She gets this far-off look in her eyes. “I wish things were different. I got no one left after my dad.”
I want to tell her everything will be all right, but we both know it won’t. Instead, I say, “When we get back to the Fort, we should start brainstorming heavy. Figure out a plan.”
She nods and smiles. “You got it.”
We plant our last scavenger hunt pod in the office of a tall woman named Mrs. Kipper. She seems excited to be the last stop on the hunt and gives us each a package of voice changers, which are these little stickers no bigger than a pebble. You put it on your tongue and swallow it, and it changes your voice for a few hours.
Vee and I take one each right away.
“How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?” she says in a smokier version of her own voice. It sounds like she’s been shouting for weeks.
“How can he cram in a can?” I answer, and bust out laughing. My voice is so deep, it’s like my chest is the Grand Canyon and my voice is thunder booming through it. “I love these things!”
Vee grins. “Pretty jammed, right?”
“Totally jammed.” I pocket the rest of the stickers as we head home.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I SIT ON THE bench in my room with an old tabpad in my lap, a mess of notes written on the screen. Vee disappeared fifteen minutes ago in search of food. I don’t want to eat. All I want to do is brainstorm. Tellie made me write down my plan for our vid on a SimPad, so I tackle Operation: Rescue Po Without Losing My Dad or Parker or Anyone Else the same way.
I’m staring at the tabpad, thinking, when LT glides into the room. I power down the pad so he can’t see what I’ve written.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Nothing.” My voice cracks and I clear my throat. The voice sticker wore off an hour ago and left my throat all scratchy.
LT comes closer. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I lift a shoulder. “I’m fine.”
“I would not call myself a lie detector, by any means, but I would suspect you are not, in fact, fine, considering the low, uneven pitch of your voice.”
I sigh and lean against the wall. I don’t know how LT does it, but he can figure out what I’m thinking without me actually saying anything. “It’s nothing important,” I lie.
If LT had eyebrows, I think he would be arching one right now. He just stares at me. Finally, I cave.
“I hate what the UD is doing to my dad and brother.”
“I hate it as well,” he says.
I sit forward again. “I mean, did you see Dad at the rally? The people here like him. How come the UD thinks he’s a bad guy?”
“He is different now that he is no longer fully human and under their control.” LT comes closer. “The UD is simply afraid of the unknown.”
“I just . . . I don’t want my dad to give up so easily.”
“Giving up would imply he has done, and plans to do, nothing. I think I know your father well enough to know inaction is not in his nature.”
I slide off the bench. “What about me? Dad’s the only parent I have left. If he’s dead, I’m an orphan. And Vee faces the same jam.”
One of LT’s operating lights in his neck blinks twice. “The other option is to lose your brother. Your father would never allow that to happen.”
“It’s not fair. No one should have to decide between their family members.”
“I agree, but without clearance into the city building, we stand no chance of rescuing your brother without others endangering their lives. The UD government buildings have some of the best security features anywhere and—”
I’m only half listening to what he says, because something has lit a bulb in my brain.
Without clearance.
I cut him off. “But what if we did have clearance?”
“Well, we do not.”
“Hippothetically.”
“You mean hypothetically.”
“Whatever. Yeah.”
LT tilts his head to the side and brings up a hand, like he’s thinking. “Well . . . if we had clearance, if the route was well thought out, and we could enter the UD and the building undetected, then yes, I would assume we would be able to rescue your brother. You would also have to consider escape, however. The issue is not simply entering the building and finding Po, it will also involve escaping the building undetected with a prisoner.”
Yes. Yes! Excitement does a backflip in my chest.
“Say you had a temp Net-tag that once belonged to the daughter of a big important congressman, would that Net-tag have a higher level of clearance into the building?”
LT gives me the robot version of a look that says don’t even go there. “You are speaking of Tellie Rix?”
I don’t answer. I’d be an idiot to answer.
LT paces the room without making a single sound. “Most government officials give their family members greater clearance capacity in case of an emergency. So yes, I would have to say Tellie Rix has a higher clearance in City Hall than you would, for example. But I highly doubt that clearance would get you all the way to where Po is being kept.”
I start for the door. I’ve already heard what I need to hear and it’s enough to convince me.
LT follows me out. “Where are you going?”
“I’m just gonna go find Vee. I’m . . . uh . . . hungry!”
“Why do I have a feeling you are, how does it go? You are about to do something stupid.”
It’s not stupid if it’s saving my family.
I hurry out of the room before LT can use his robot voodoo on me. ’Cuz if he did, he might realize he helped me figure out my plan to break into City Hall and steal my brother back.
• • •
I find Vee in the kitchen digging through the cupboards. Merril is at the stove whistling over a pot of boiling something. It smells salty, wh
atever it is.
Vee comes up with a handful of granola and pops a chunk in her mouth. “Can I talk to you?” I ask.
We find a quiet corner far in the depths of the Fort’s second floor and I fill her in on what I think might be the ultimate, mega plan of all plans.
“That might actually work,” she says. “Now I just gotta figure out how we’ll get out of Bot Territory. I can either a) steal my dad’s plots, or b) create my own.”
I start backing up. “Whatever you do, can you do it like, now?”
She wipes granola crumbs from her hands. “Already on it.”
I make my way back to my room to take care of one last thing.
I call Lox.
He answers on the third ring, and when he sees it’s me on the other end, he sputters and bolts for his bedroom.
“Dude, what the chop?” he says, bouncing back on his bed. “No warning? You got the whole UD looking for you. You’re a regular line jumper.” He gives me a sly grin. “How did you get so wrenched? I’ve been gone a few weeks and I come back to your face plastered all over every Link within a hundred miles. You’ve gone from a lame oil licker to a level-ten lens-cracker.”
Lens-cracker is Lox’s way of saying someone is hot, or totally wrenched. And I’m hoping he means I’m wrenched and not hot, because that would be level-ten weird.
“I have more important things to talk about. So focus for a milosecond.”
Lox sets his Link in its port, propping it up. Hands free now, he crosses one leg over the other and curls his fingers around the side of his face, elbow on his knee. He screws up his mouth in a serious frown. “I am as focused as a monkey on a banana.”
I shake my head. “Do you remember that one time we talked about going to your aunt’s for a visit and then we’d go to that one place near there?”
He curls his upper lip. “Ehhh. That one time we talked about that one place. Oh right, that one place!” He narrows his eyes. “What place was that again?”
I sigh. “You know! The place with the costumes.”
