Bot Wars, Line Zero

by J. V. Kade

  At the end of the hallway, two guards stand outside a door, their arms clasped behind their back, guns holstered at their sides.

  I have no idea how to get through them. I have no plan at all. I’m just running because I’m easily twenty feet away from my brother and I just want to see him.

  It’s Vee who saves us.

  “Robots!” she screams. “There are robots on the second floor! Run! Run!”

  The guards turn to each other, their hands poised over their weapons. “How did you kids get up here?” the woman on the left asks.

  “The bots took out all the checkpoints, so we ran,” Vee says.

  “My dad works up here,” I add. “We’re looking for him.”

  The PA system crackles to life. “Code twelve-forty. I repeat, Code twelve-forty. All guards on alert. Seal all exits.”

  The woman’s mouth drops open. Her partner, a short, thin man pulls out his gun. They take off at a jog, the gear on their belts clanking and clattering together.

  We’re finally alone.

  I stand on the tips of my feet and peek in the square window set in the door the guards had flanked. Po is inside, pacing. When he comes back around and notices me, he freezes and gives me a weird look.

  The disguise. I forgot about the disguise. I rip off the wig and mask. “It’s me!” I say. “Trout. Your brother!”

  “Trout?” he mutters with a frown.

  I fumble with Mrs. Dawson’s Net-tag, jamming it in the slot. The door unlocks and I whip it back. My stomach goes squirrelly as I rush inside, wrap my arms around Po, and squeeze him tight. He smells like fried beans and sweat, but I don’t care.

  When I pull away and get a better look at him, I try not to dwell on the bruises that pepper his arms and the new cut that runs across his forehead.

  “What the chop are you doing here?” he asks.

  “I’m rescuing you, duh.”

  Lox and Vee group behind me.

  “We gotta go,” Vee says. “Like now.”

  LT shoots into the room. “They are holding off on the third floor.”

  “Holy jet smoke,” Po says. You brought a robot into City Hall?”

  “There is no time,” LT starts, and turns toward the door as Ratch appears. “Are they moving in?”

  Ratch says nothing. He reaches for the door handle and swings it shut with a clang.

  “What’s he doing?” Lox says.

  “Why did he shut us in?” Vee asks, panicking.

  LT goes rigid. I rush to the door and bang on it with my fists. “Let us out, Ratch! Beard is coming!”

  His band of orange eyes stare at me through the window before turning to LT. “I’m sorry,” he says. “But this is not what I envisioned for us when we saved Robert St. Kroix. I can’t allow a human to run my territory.”

  “Ratch.” LT’s voice is low and throaty. I’ve never heard him sound like that. “Let us out. We can discuss this when all are safe.”

  Ratch shakes his head. “I can’t do that. The bots need to take back what is rightfully theirs. And you’ve done nothing but become their slave. Again. Isn’t this what we’ve been fighting for? Freedom? From man?”

  “Ratch, please,” I say. “Please let us out.”

  He doesn’t even look at me. “Farewell, brother,” he says. “You will be greatly missed.” And then he jets away.

  I bang on the door. I beat at it till my hands hurt, but it’s no use. He’s long gone, and there’s no one there to let us out.

  I slump against the wall and put my face in my hands. My skin is still sweaty and sticky from the mask. We’re not getting out. That fact sinks in till I feel it burned into my bones.

  “I should have seen this coming,” LT says, his voice quiet now.

  Maybe this is why Ratch helped Vee and me escape from Scissor’s shop. He was setting us up the whole time, letting us sneak into City Hall, hoping we’d be caught. Well, he didn’t have to hope too hard. All he had to do was shut the door on Po’s cell.

  “I take it that wasn’t part of the plan?” Po says.

  “No.” Vee snorts. “We’re cracked.”

  Lox drops onto the bed shoved up against the wall and sets his elbows on his knees. “It’s been nice knowing all of you.”

  How long before Beard brings more guards? Does she know we’re locked in here yet? Are there cameras? Sensors?

  “We have to get out of this room,” I say, and everyone looks at me.

  “Well, duh,” Vee says. “Except, how are we going to do that?”

  Something Ratch said to LT about getting inside City Hall comes back to me. Show the UD that their security and their brick buildings are no match for us.

  “LT, can you break through a brick wall?” I ask.

  A light in his neck blinks. “Yes. Why?”

  I nod at the exterior wall where a thick window looks down on the street four stories below. “Can you break through that?”

  “What, and jump?” Po says.

  “That was the plan anyway,” I reply. “We were going to jump off the roof.”

  Po’s face scrunches into disbelief. “To our deaths?”

  I ignore him and take my backpack from Vee. “So, can you break through it?”

  LT goes to the wall and plants the palms of his hands against it. “Twelve inches thick. Reinforced with re-bar. Weakening around the window casing. Water damage.” He turns to us. “Yes,” he finally says. “I can break through. It will take approximately six minutes, however, and I am uncertain of how long we will have before Beard arrives with her guards.”

  “Hopefully enough time. Start smashing through?”

  “Cover yourself.” He pushes us toward the door, then lifts the bed off the floor and props it on its side so we have a makeshift wall to hide behind. “There will be debris,” he explains.

  We crouch, and as I empty out my bag, LT takes the first hit. The floor vibrates. Something cracks. He hits again and pebbles of brick fly through the air.

  I give Po the scrambler I got for him and he slips it over his head. Then I pull out the hoversuits and hand one to Vee, Po, and save one for myself . . .

  I look up at Lox, and stop dead. “We don’t have a hoversuit for you.” I suck in a breath and rise to my feet. “We don’t have a hoversuit for you because you were supposed to wait in the car!”

  Po wrenches me back down and I narrowly miss getting pelted with a chunk of brick.

  Lox makes a face. “Ehhhh. Sorry?”

  “Sorry!” I grab him by the arms and shake. “How are we going to get you down without a hoversuit?”

  “I don’t know! How was LT going to get down? He doesn’t have a suit.”

  “Robots don’t need hoversuits. They can jump that far. Darn it, Lox. You should have stayed in the stupid car!”

  Po breaks us apart. “Calm down.”

  “Plan B,” Vee says. “It’s no big deal. He can ride down with me.”

  “What?” Lox and I say at the same time.

  “Just don’t let go,” Vee adds with a smirk.

  “Will that even work?” I ask.

  “No. No.” Lox shakes his head and scuttles away. “Even I think that sounds like a bad idea. And I’m not afraid of anything! Well, except for seagulls. They’re always cawing and pecking and staring at you with those beady—”

  “Lox!” I shout. “How else are you going to get down?”

  Vee slides on a foot plate. “I promise I’ll get us to the street safely. It’s not even that far.”

  Something slams into the door behind us and we all jump. LT punches his arm through the wall and bricks explode in all directions. People shout from the hallway. I think I hear Beard, but I can’t be sure.

  “We don’t have any other options,�
� I say.

  Lox sighs. “Okay, fine! But if I end up splattered like a bug on a windshield . . .”

  Vee tightens a strap around her elbow. “You won’t. I’ve been riding these things forever.”

  “Speaking of those ‘things,’” Po says, “what are they?”

  I give him the short version and he watches me suit up. LT takes two final punches and the wall opens into a gaping hole. Morning sunlight pours in, blinding me.

  “Someone open this door!” Beard yells from the hall.

  LT tosses the bed aside. “Move,” he orders, so I do. He puts his back against the door just as the reader on the other side beeps and the lock pops. LT digs in with his feet as the door is shoved open and the floor tile spiderwebs beneath him.

  “Go!” he shouts.

  “Mr. St. Kroix . . .” Beard calls through the door. “If you want your family to stay alive, I suggest you turn yourself in.”

  We hurry to the broken wall and look down. It seems so far away. The glowing rails give us a lit landing pad, but this hasn’t been tested, so who knows if it works.

  “So we just jump?” Po asks, raising his eyebrows, and I give him a nod.

  “Should probably get a running start,” Vee says. “We can’t jump straight down or we’ll hit the sidewalk. We have to make it within the force field.” To Lox she says, “Hold on tight. It’s a good thing you’re skinny.”

  “I’m lean. Lean!”

  Lox looks ill as he climbs on Vee’s back. I feel sick too. I got Lox into this. I got us all into this.

  “Here goes.” Vee takes off running. She doesn’t get a lot of speed, what with carrying Lox, but I cringe and pray it’s enough.

  When she leaps through the hole, I rush to the ledge to watch. She spreads out her arms and legs like she’s a flying squirrel leaping from tree to tree. Lox screams all the way down. The rails catch them, and Vee finishes like she’s a ballerina.

  I huff with relief. “Thank the universe.”

  Behind us, the door starts to give way. LT holds on tight. “Are you coming?” I say to him.

  “I will come down soon.”

  “LT,” I start, but he shakes his head.

  “You must go. Now. I will be safe.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The door cracks. LT’s eyes narrow. “I am sure.”

  Po and I back up. Wind rushes into the room, ruffling my hair. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Po says.

  “Are you gearing out? This isn’t a time to gear out!”

  “I’m not!” He wipes his hands on his pants. “All right. Go!”

  We sprint toward the edge and jump.

  “Ohhhh chooooop,” Po howls.

  I scream too as the wind blasts me in the face, making it hard to breathe. The building across the street whips past, floor after floor. I spread my arms out, put my head down, like a hunting falcon instead of a trout floundering in the water.

  When the hover rails catch us, I crash against the force field, skitter down the street, twisting and flailing. Po lands in a crouch, like he’s done this a million times. Vee skates over and helps me to my feet.

  “Come on!”

  I look up. “We have to wait for LT!”

  Where is he? When is he coming down? He couldn’t have held on much longer.

  And then Beard and her guards appear at the opening in the wall, guns pointed at us. The coiled barrels turn fire orange as we’re sighted in.

  Vee yanks me away. The first gunshot blasts right over me, incinerating a mailbox to nothing but dust. It’s the first time I realize Beard doesn’t care whether we live or die. Seeing that pile of ash, feeling the leftover heat of the trail of the shot slams me into action.

  We turn left toward where the car is parked and see a patrol car zooming our way, red and blue lights bouncing off the glass and metal surrounding us. We backtrack, head straight down another street, then another. Sirens wail in all directions.

  “Get off the rails!” Po shouts over a shoulder. “We need cover.”

  At the next intersection, we hop over the rails and start running. Po arms his way through a door and we burst inside the darkened interior.

  “Where are we?” Vee’s voice wobbles in the darkness once Po slams the door shut.

  “I think it’s an old parking garage,” Po says.

  I can just make out the shape of a thick support column in front of me. Our voices echo around us.

  “How did you guys plan to get out of the city?” Po asks. I tell him about Lox’s car and where we left it. “Okay, so, we’re two blocks away.” Po’s foot plates scuffle along the concrete as he paces. “If we can find another exit on the other side of this garage, maybe . . . maybe we have a shot of making it.”

  He jogs away and we stumble after him. He finds another door and cracks it open. “We’re in an alley,” he whispers. “When I say go, you go. Got it?”

  We nod.

  Sirens blare in the distance.

  “Go,” Po says. We file out. Run down the alley. Po holds out a hand when we reach the end. He peeks around the edge, then waves us on. We cross a service street behind a bunch of shops, slip into another alley. We’re midway when a patrol car pulls up at the mouth of the alley behind us.

  Vee grabs me by the wrist and yanks me down beside a Dumpster. Po and Lox use a tower of empty wooden crates as cover.

  “You check down there,” a patrolman says when he gets out of the car. “I’ll take the alley.”

  “You got it,” his partner calls.

  Footsteps crunch closer. I squeeze my eyes shut. Vee trembles beside me. We’re only one block away from the car. Can we make it if we start running now? Will they chase us out of the city and all the way to Texas?

  I hold my breath.

  I’m a sliver away from running when a radio expels a burst of static. “Reported sighting on east Fifty-fifth Street near Kritcher Law Offices,” an operator says.

  “Copy that. Unit seventy-eight headed there now,” the man says, and jogs away.

  I blow out the breath I’d been holding. Vee slumps against the Dumpster. “That was close,” she whispers.

  When we’re sure it’s clear, we scurry from our hiding spots to the opposite end of the alley. I can just make out the front end of Lox’s car up the street. There are no patrolmen in sight.

  “On three,” Po says. “One. Two. Three.”

  We burst from the alley at a sprint. A man jumps out of our way, a shopping bag banging against his hip. “Watch it!” he calls.

  Lox is the first one to the car. He presses his finger to the print reader on the driver’s-side door. The lock clicks and Lox whips the door open. “Let me drive,” Po says. Lox climbs through to the passenger side. Vee and I slide into the backseat.

  Po hits the car’s tinted glass button and the windows darken. The engine whirs to life and Po pulls out of the parking spot slow and easy. We stop at the next intersection for a red light. People zoom past on hoverboards. A couple walks through the crosswalk, two kids running ahead of them. We don’t say a word as we wait.

  When the light changes, Po steps on the gas and takes us toward the Geissa Section. We pass one patrol car, but the lights aren’t on, and the two officers inside don’t give us a second glance.

  We make it outside Brack. Po taps on the radio and tunes in the news feed.

  A journalist appears on the screen in the dash. “Breaking news. We have word two robots just attempted to break into City Hall and rescue the recently apprehended robot supporter Mason St. Kroix, son of suspected terrorist Robert St. Kroix. Officials have yet to comment on the situation, but from what we’ve been able to gather, Mason St. Kroix has, in fact, escaped. It’s safe to assume he is armed and dangerous, possibly aided by additional robots . . .�
�

  Po flicks the news off. No one says anything.

  We make it to the freeway and Po points us toward Texas. I want to celebrate—we’re safe and intact and I got my brother back—but a heaviness hits me square in the chest when I remember what Ratch did, when I remember that LT is gone, for good. He sacrificed himself for us. Now he’s in Beard’s hands and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  WE MAKE IT to Dekker’s a few hours later and he looks like he’s been through a hurricane. His rainbow hair is sticking straight up. There are empty energy drink cans in a row beneath his desk that weren’t there when we left and there’s a smear of something on his chin, like jelly or ink.

  Lox collapses into a chair. “I thought we were notched.”

  “That was awfully close,” Dekker says.

  I lean over the back of the couch. “If the patrolman hadn’t gotten that call at the last second—”

  Dekker smirks. “You’re welcome for that.”

  We all look at him. “You did that?” I ask. “How did you—”

  “The worm device, remember? The one I put on Lox? I was watching the live feed. When I realized there was a cop on you, I hacked into the communication system at a local grocery store, so when I called in with a fake report it looked like I was calling locally. Makes it more believable, you see.”

  Vee folds herself into the corner of the couch and I sit down next to her. “That’s so split,” she says.

  Po introduces himself to Dekker and they shake hands. “Thank you, dude. You have no idea.”

  Dekker tries to look cool. “It was no big deal.” But secretly I think he’s soaking it up.

  “What’s the news feed saying about the rescue now?” Po asks.

  Dekker’s expression immediately switches from proud and happy to sad.

  He turns back to his computer. “See for yourself.”

  He cues up the news feed. A woman’s voice plays over a vid of City Hall, where patrol cars surround the scene. “Known robot supporters broke into City Hall this morning to collect one of their own. Five parties escaped, but what they left behind tells a greater story.”

  The vid cuts to Beard. “We have reason to believe a robot extremist group known as the Meta-Rise plotted a terrorist bombing on City Hall. They left behind a robot with an internal detonate program coded into his operating system.” The vid flicks to an image of LT strapped to a vertical table, his insides totally gutted.