by J. V. Kade
“It’s a risk I have to take.”
Lox whistles. “What’s my job in this cracked plan of yours?”
“Drive us into Brack and then back to Texas.”
“Boring.”
“I don’t want you getting caught in this,” I argue.
Dekker wags his finger at Lox. “A good point. This is serious stuff, man. If you get caught, there’s no talking your way out of it.”
“Fine.” Lox huffs and plops into one of the chairs. “But next time you go on a grand mission of Jupiter proportions, I get to be more than the wheelman, you get me?”
I agree, but there won’t be another grand mission. At least I hope not.
THIRTY-TWO
I CAN’T SLEEP. Neither can anyone else. Which is why we’re in Dekker’s workshop in the basement at four a.m. discussing strategy.
“All right, so . . .” Dekker claps his hands. “You’ll need some good disguises, considering there’s a wanted post on every major billboard, Net site, and Link across the entire country. I’ve got you covered there. And I’ll see if I can hook you up with some useful James Bond toys.”
Lox, Vee, and I share a look. “Who’s James Bond?” Vee asks.
“Wahaha? You don’t know who James Bond is? He’s only the greatest spy of all time! Double-O Seven ring a bell? Smoking Gears? The Meta Gun?”
“That would be a negative,” Lox says. “But . . . The Meta Gun, now that sounds like my kind of toy.”
“It’s not a toy.” Dekker grumbles. “It’s a movie title.”
“Oh. Then it sounds like my kind of movie.”
Once Dekker has recovered enough not to pass out from shock, he takes us to a separate room farther back. Here, there are jackets and shoes and bookcases lined with wigs and sunglasses and other things. Dekker opens a metal cabinet stuck behind the door. He pulls out three poly masks.
Vee gasps. “Where did you get those?”
“I have my sources, little missy dude.” He hands each of us a mask. It’s made of flimsy poly, so it jiggles when I take it. I know what these things are, but I’ve never seen one in person. They’re mostly used on movie sets to age a character or to save money by having one actor play multiple characters.
Vee puts the mask to her face and instantly the thing suctions to her skin. The angles and humps and ridges form to her face so that she kinda looks like Vee, but only because I know it’s her. She looks three years older.
“Dude, that is wrenched,” Lox breathes. “It’s like it knows you.”
I turn a circle in the room. “Why do you have all this stuff?”
Dekker shoves his hands in his jeans pockets and hunches his shoulders. “I get recognized a lot. I mean, I don’t want to brag or anything, but if I go into town, I’m stopped eighty billion times for an autograph or a photo. Sometimes a famous dude just needs a little peace and privacy. You get me?”
Lox snaps his fingers and points at Dek. “I get you, bro. I get you.”
Vee rolls her eyes.
We spend the next hour picking out masks and wigs to go with our new faces. We grab three extra sets too, after Dekker warns we may need them to escape the UD, or if one of our masks detaches and we can’t get it back on.
“Careful not to get too hot,” he adds. “They tend to lose suction if you’re sweating.”
Great. Because that’s exactly what I’ll be doing when I break into City Hall. Sweating like a hog.
When we’re in full gear, Dekker stands back to survey his work. “Perfect.”
But Lox can’t stop laughing at my face.
“It’s just . . . haaa . . . you look like . . . haahauuu . . . a gorilla with blond hair.”
I check my reflection in the mirror screwed into the wall. My nose got fatter at the base. My lips are thinner, like two slices of pepperoni. The blond wig covers up the rest of my hair, but pokes at my ears. It’s a good disguise, so I can’t complain.
Vee’s wig is black as a burnt-out hover rail and reaches past her shoulder blades. She looks like a princess from some cold, mountainous foreign country. She even holds her neck real high and straight like she thinks she’s royalty.
Lox looks like a cross between a monkey and a potato. His cheeks are big and puffy, his nose wide and knobby. His new eyebrows curl at the end. “It’s like I’m an evil scientist,” he decides. “Call me Dr. Fluton from now on.”
“You are such a nutter,” Vee says.
Lox turns to her and squints one eye. “Oh, and what do we have here? What a fine saucy lass! Do you wish to be my diabolical assistant in my secret laboratory?”
He says laboratory like la-BORA-tory.
“Is your brain jammed?” Vee asks. “Because something about you isn’t right.”
Dekker snaps his fingers. “Oh, a few more things.” He hurries out to the workroom. We find him rummaging through a toolbox, shoving aside metal things that cling-clank together.
“Ah-ha.” He grabs a handful of something and then replaces everything he took out in a slow, deliberate way, like there was a certain order to the chaos.
When he’s finished, he holds out his hand to reveal a cluster of tiny worm-like devices. They’re all identical with a button on top, a red eye at one end, and a clear lens on the other. “They’re recording devices. I figure if you’re going into enemy territory, you might as well plant one of these buggers and see what we can get.”
Vee says, “How does it work?”
Dekker puts one worm up to his eye, like a binocular. “You look through the clear lens side, press the button once to zero in on a person or object, press it again to lock on them.” He locks it on to Lox and twelve spindly legs sprout from the worm’s lower half. “That’s how it moves,” Dekker explains when we all shrink back. He sets the device on the counter. Immediately, its body changes color and texture to mimic the worn wood of the countertop and disappears. “Virtually undetectable.”
“Whoa.” I take a step closer. I know the spot where the worm was a second ago, but I can’t see anything. Even the red eye and clear lens are gone.
“Lox could walk into the other room,” Dekker explains, “and the worm would follow him. It’ll follow anywhere and record video and audio.”
“So how do you retrieve it if you can’t see it?” Vee asks, flicking a lock of her new black hair away from her face.
“You don’t. They’re programmed to record for six hours. Everything is uploaded to one of my online shellboxes, where I can either watch it live or retrieve it later. The device itself will self-destruct immediately after its time is up.” He spreads out his hands. “Like I said, little dudes, virtually undetectable.”
“I’ll take a dozen,” Lox says.
“Well, you already have one,” Vee points out.
We look around, trying to spot the worm, even though it’s pointless.
“That thing is going to follow me around for six hours?” Lox says.
Dekker pats Lox on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You won’t even know it’s there. Anyway, it’ll give me a way to keep an eye on you while you’re gone.”
I carefully tuck a device into the front pocket of my pack. “Oh, wait,” I say. “Do you have a scrambler? I figure Po will need it to block out the signal of his ID chip once we escape City Hall.”
“Good thinking.” Dekker pulls open a drawer filled with scramblers strung up on ball chains. “There you go.”
“Thanks.” I slide it in next to the worm device. “I guess we’re ready, then?” Vee and Lox nod. Dekker leads us out to the street, where the sun has yet to peek over the treetops. The air is already warm, but not sweltering like a sauna.
Lox slides in the car and invites Vee to take shotgun, even though I always get shotgun. I try not to whine. Both he and Vee are doing me big favors today.
I frown. “What about that other three percent?”
He shrugs. “You have to account for earthquakes and accidents and zombie apocalypses.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And getting caught by the UD government?”
“Well, there’s that too.” He slicks back his hair again and the bright yellow strip flops over the blue. “Oh wait, one more thing. Your way into the UD.”
In the excitement of trying on new disguises and seeing the worm device, I’d forgotten the whole reason we’d come here in the first place.
“When you get to the border, go to the second toll booth from the right, but only between six a.m. and six thirty-seven a.m. The guard will say, ‘A beautiful day today, isn’t it?’ and you will reply, ‘Beautiful as a field of daisies.’ Pay the toll with this.” He hands me a temporary Net-tag with the name Peter Gunter stamped on the front. “You’ll be good to go.”
I slip the Net-tag into my pocket. “Thanks, Dekker. Really. I can’t thank you enough.”
He hooks an arm around my neck and gives me a bolt burn, just like Po always does. My insides dance when I realize I’m only hours away from seeing my brother.
“Good luck, little dude. Now get out of here.” He shoves me toward the car. “And don’t gear out! Secret agents keep their cool under pressure.”
“Got it.” I slip into the backseat as Lox programs the car to take us to the Texas/UD border. The computer system says in a cool male voice that we have approximately two hours and thirty-six minutes of travel time.
After waving good-bye to Dekker out the back window, I slouch in my seat and the easy lull of the car finally puts me to sleep. I burst awake sometime later when the car rams on its brakes and I go slamming into the seat in front of me.
I sit up, eyes all squinty, and look through the windshield. “What the chop?”
“Um . . .” Lox nods at the two figures standing in our headlights in the middle of the road. All around us is flat, prairie land. There isn’t another car or house for miles.
“Clanking robots!” Lox says, his voice squeaky. “We’re dead!”
THIRTY-THREE
INSTANTLY, I KNOW who the bots are. I know it by the way the lights flicker in the bot’s neck, the one on the right. I know it by the way the eyes glow orange on the other one.
“It’s LT and Ratch,” I say. “I guess he didn’t cover for us after all.”
“Jam it,” Vee mutters.
I climb out. A warm wind blows across the flat land, making the dry grass rattle. The sky has changed to a shade of lavender since I fell asleep. The sun will be up soon. It’s probably almost 6:00. We’re running out of time if we want to make it to the border before six thirty-seven a.m.
I start to say something, a jumble of pleas, mostly, but LT cuts me off with the raise of his hand.
“I wish not to hear excuses, Trout. I am merely here to take you home.”
“My dad knows I’m gone, then?”
LT shakes his head. “He has a lot on his mind now. I had hoped to locate you and bring you back without anyone noticing. It would spare you punishment.”
“How did you even know I was gone?” I look at Ratch. “Did you tell him?”
Ratch cocks his head to the side. “I gave you my word that I would cover for you.”
“He is not to blame.” LT raises a finger. “What was it . . . ahh yes, I am your babysitter. Correct? You said so yourself. I am in charge of you. It is my duty to check on you every four hours, as scheduled. I discovered you were gone an hour and fifty-seven minutes ago.”
“So how did you find me?”
“I traced your Link. Also, Dekker called me.”
I sigh. Of course he did. I guess he agreed to the whole thing a little too easily.
And it was stupid of us not to leave our Links behind. Mine’s just a temporary one Dad gave me, but all Links have tracking devices in them, even if they’re not the fancier models that are connected to your Net-tag or your heart chips, if you have one.
LT takes a step closer. “Are you . . . Why do you look different?”
I touch my face and remember I’m wearing one of Dekker’s masks. “It’s a disguise. To get into Brack.”
“I see. Well, there will be no need for it now. We will return home immediately. If we hurry, your father will never know you were gone. I will keep this to myself as long as you agree never to do something as senseless as this ever again.”
I straighten. “No.”
LT goes still. “Pardon me?”
I grit my teeth as I look up at him. “I can’t, LT. I have to do this. I know I can do this! Either my brother will die or my dad will be taken by the UD! I can’t let that happen.”
“And what is your plan, exactly?” he asks. “Do you even know how you will get your brother out of the building? A government building, might I add? A building that has numerous cameras and security guards? I suppose you plan to climb out an air-conditioning vent?”
I snort. “No. Hoversuits.” And I explain how I mean to use them. It’s like I can see the gears twisting backward as he changes his mind.
“It could work,” Ratch says, and gets in close to LT’s side. “Think about it. Is this not what we’ve wanted to do from the very beginning? Show the UD that their security and their brick buildings are no match for us?”
A light in LT’s neck blinks to green. “But this way? Putting Trout and the others at risk?”
Ratch makes a fist with his spindly machine hand. “We can do this, brother.”
LT looks away. The light in his neck flickers, then glows steadily. “I will admit, this could work. Nevertheless”—he turns to me—“you are risking your life—”
“I’m willing to do that.” A gust of wind crosses the field. My wig shudders and a lock of hair falls over my forehead. I kinda feel squirrelly in this disguise, but I’m doing my best not to let it bother me. I bat the hair away. “Please, LT. I can’t sit around doing nothing.”
“Your father would have me dismantled for this, and every human instinct and emotion programmed and learned is telling me I should not allow it.”
My arms hang at my sides. I have nothing left to argue with except for the obvious. “He’s my brother. And I can’t lose my dad. I just got him back.”
If a robot can sigh dramatically, that’s the sound LT makes right before he says, “Yes, fine. All right.”
“Yes!” I shake my hands in the air.
A crow caws overhead. LT glides away on his silent joints and slides in the car. Ratch follows behind.
I guess they’re both coming with us.
• • •
We arrive at the Texas/UD border at six twenty-two a.m. and make it through using Dekker’s instructions. The security guard smiles a big smile when I say “Beautiful as a field of daisies.”
“Yes indeed,” he adds with a wink. “You all have a good day. Be safe, now.”
It seems like it’s been forever since I was inside the city of Brack. And even though it’s only been a week or so, an aster-ton of stuff has changed for me, so Brack doesn’t even feel the same anymore.
Lox programs the car to head toward City Hall. Billboards on every corner flash pictures of Dad, Po, and me, along with a warning that says: Known terrorists! Robot supporters! If you see these terrorists, please call 5511.
I shiver and shrink away from the windows. Even though I’m in disguise, and the car’s glass is tinted dark, I feel like there’s a spotlight trained on me.
The billboard changes and an ad for an improved Verto hoverboard comes on followed by another routine UD warning that says: Robots are
our ENEMIES! If you see a robot, call the hotline!
“This is totally cracked,” Vee breathes as she practically sticks her nose to the window. “Does everyone hate bots?”
“Yes,” Ratch says.
LT gives his friend a look and Ratch ignores it. “Hate is a strong word,” LT answers. “I like to believe they have merely been misled about our kind.”
Ratch snorts.
They’re both wearing clothes, hats, boots, and gloves after we stopped at a twenty-four-hour department store outside of Brack. LT made it clear he was following us into City Hall. I pointed out that there was no way we’d be able to disguise his robot face, but Lox admitted we had extra poly masks, and that ended that argument.
Ratch didn’t say what he planned to do, but he asked for a set of clothing and a mask anyway.
LT elbows me in the side. “Are you all right?”
I tense up. “Yes. Fine. Why?”
“Your heart is racing.”
“LT!” I squeak.
“What?”
Thanks for telling everyone, I think. My heart feels like it wants to leap right outta my chest and take off for the Fort, where everything is safe and fine. And as we turn the corner toward City Hall, my stomach drops out like I’m riding the rails.
I collapse against the plush seat and take a deep breath. Sweat gathers beneath my mask. Don’t sweat, I think, remembering Dek’s warning. Don’t sweat. Don’t sweat.
Lox commands the car to pull over to the side of the street. A guy zooms past us on a hoverboard. On the sidewalk, a woman in a business suit sips from a canister of coffee while chatting with someone on her Link.
The sun has barely made it past the tops of the buildings, but the light reflects off the metal and glass, making it hard to look up without sunglasses.
Lox turns around in his seat. “So now what?”
I lick my lips and start digging in my bag. I come up with one of the extra masks and wigs and hand them to LT.
He looks at the two objects like they’re alien dog turds. “How does one use these items?”
