by Tarah Benner
I watch as the car three vehicles ahead turns and pulls a tight U-turn. The car behind it follows suit, and I turn the car to the right. We’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.
I park Skinner’s car in a lot reserved for customers of a tiny Asian bistro. With everything going on, I figure they won’t tow it. The metered parking is all blocked by fire trucks, news vans, and first responders anyway.
Looking around, it hits me how strange it is to be back on Earth — thrust into the eye of the storm after weeks aboard Elderon.
We’re in the middle of a typical corporate complex: green, green grass, big shade trees, and neat concrete and granite signs with corporate logos on every corner.
The buildings on either side of the street look more or less the same: white facades, lots of glass, and small parking lots out front. The street is divided by a grassy median filled with sad little trees.
A block down, I see a jumble of fire trucks and ambulances jockeying for position. The pale-blue sky is obstructed by a rising plume of thick black smoke.
People are still pouring out of one building, some of them sobbing as they run toward the street. Others are standing on the other side of the road, comforting co-workers and trying to reach their families.
I check my signal. The Optix network is still down. Either it’s jammed from so many people trying to communicate, or something is very, very wrong.
Maggie and I jog across the street and head into the chaos surrounding Maverick. Smoke is billowing from the top floor of the building, and everything around it is covered in ash. Maggie turns to look at the news trucks, where several anchors are talking into cameras.
Suddenly a scream erupts from down the road, and the reporters turn to capture footage of the people running across the street. The pop of bullets cracks the air, and I instinctually grab Maggie and force her down behind a fire truck.
The shooter pops off four more shots, and I hear people screaming and running in the distance. More sirens join the din.
I raise my head a few inches higher and look around the firetruck. I direct my Optix lens to a break in the trees, zooming in on the grassy knoll outside the Maverick complex.
I see a beautiful woman with long dark hair fluttering in the breeze like a flag. She’s wearing a skintight white bodysuit that makes her look as though she belongs in a spy movie. She’s holding an assault rifle and shooting into the crowd.
“It’s the bots.”
“Here?”
I nod, and dread spills into my bloodstream like poison, traveling through my entire body.
We’re too late. Mordecai found Ziva’s other humanoids.
I spot another one in white — blond this time — driving people away from the building.
To our right, a news anchor and her cameraman are creeping closer to the building. The news anchor is a woman — Taiwanese, by the look of her — wearing a smart navy blazer, olive pants, and heeled boots.
Her cameraman is white — stocky, balding, and overweight. I can imagine his footage of the humanoid — the light reflecting in her empty glass eyes.
“Don’t —” Maggie cries.
But the news anchor and cameraman are already out of earshot. I watch as they continue to move toward the building, capturing footage of the carnage that will be broadcast all over the world.
But then the humanoid turns, and I see it lock on its target.
“No!” Maggie cries.
The humanoid points the rifle at the news anchor, and the seconds stretch into minutes, hours, days.
I watch the humanoid process the sight of the reporters. I see the brutal calculation take place.
The reporter and her cameraman are standing motionless at the edge of the knoll, but I can feel their terror as they make eye contact with the bot.
I know what’s going to happen a second before it does. I grab Maggie around the shoulders and force her down to the ground. She struggles mightily, but I’m much stronger. I pin her between my body and the concrete as the shots ring out.
I don’t see the reporter go down, but the scene plays in my head as though I’d watched it on TV.
I see the reporter’s body quake as the bullets rip through her torso. Her hair billows like a dark silk curtain. The cameraman’s pudgy body quivers as bullets bounce off his bones and tear through organs. Everything happens so fast.
By the time I look up, the two of them have collapsed. Maggie is screaming into the asphalt.
I feel myself being pulled into the dark — reentering a place I tried hard to forget. I hold tight to Maggie, trying to resist, but the pull of the memory is strong.
In that moment, I’m back in that tunnel. I hear the screams of my men and the smack of their bodies. I smell dirt and sweat and spent gunpowder. The light scampers quickly from the boy’s dark eyes. I feel his blood on my hands.
A second later, the earth rumbles above me — the quake of death sweeping across the desert. I’m not supposed to be here, but death has come for me again — here on this sunny California street.
19
Maggie
Burning hot tears scorch down my cheeks as Jonah slides away. He gets up slowly in a daze, looking out toward the knoll where the shots rang out.
Silent tears are streaming down my cheeks. That could have been me or one of my friends. I saw what was happening, and I should have stopped it.
The reporter got too close, moved by the sickness that infects us all — that drive to get closer, to get the scoop — the footage that no one else could get. Sometimes it gets one of us killed.
After several long minutes, I can feel the asphalt grinding into my knees. My joints ache from kneeling on the ground, but the pain comes as a surprise.
I look helplessly to Jonah. His face is deathly pale, his features frozen in horror. I stare at him for several seconds, and it feels as though I’m calling him back from another place.
That’s when I realize that this isn’t new to him. He’s witnessed this same horror before. He’s been here in this place halfway around the world.
I meet his eyes and hold his gaze, and the frozen part of him begins to thaw. He looks back to where the humanoids are standing. I can see cops in riot gear gathered on the opposite side of the street and hear the thuck-thuck-thuck of helicopters in the sky.
Suddenly, the voice of another news anchor down the street reaches my ears.
— Strom Van de Graaf, CEO of Maverick Enterprises, has been kidnapped. Law-enforcement officials have confirmed that the CEO was inside the building when the explosion detonated, but he has not been reachable since the attack.
Mr. Van de Graaf is not among the deceased, and police say that bystanders witnessed him being taken from the building by two Caucasian women in white. According to the galactic press corps aboard Elderon, these women are bots designed to look like humans.
At those words, my chest constricts. Strom Van de Graaf is Tripp’s dad. He’s been kidnapped by bots.
“Come on,” says Jonah, tugging my arm. “We have to get to BlumBot.”
I nod and follow him around the fire truck and down the street toward the headquarters of BlumBot International. We came here thinking that we might be able to find Mordecai, but after seeing the law-enforcement presence and the scale of destruction, our task seems much more daunting.
BlumBot headquarters is located just three blocks from the Maverick Enterprises building. It’s not as flashy but still impressive — three stories tall and surrounded by trees.
A police barricade has been erected all around the building, and armed-service men and women are positioned around the perimeter. Several reporters are standing in the street, but there are no fire trucks parked outside and no employees running for their lives.
BlumBot International was evacuated earlier today after an attack on the company’s Elderon headquarters left nearly a hundred employees dead. Just minutes ago, we received word that Maverick Enterprises CEO Strom Van de Graaf was taken hostage by two hum
anoid bots — products of BlumBot International, a subsidiary of Maverick. Mr. Van de Graaf is the fourth CEO to have been reported missing today. Teegan Henley, Zephyr Morgan, and Zuni Monroe are also unaccounted for.
My blood turns cold as the reporter ticks off the names of the other CEOs. If no one in their company knows where they are, there’s a good chance they’ve been kidnapped, too.
Mr. Van de Graaf’s disappearance is the only confirmed kidnapping so far. Eyewitnesses say he was marched from the building by two women in white, both of whom could be non-human.
No word yet on why these sophisticated bots were kept secret from the public. Head of Robotics Ziva Blum has not responded to requests for comment, but our sources say that she is alive and cooperating with authorities.
“Shit,” says Jonah.
I massage my temples with my hands, trying to get my head on straight. If Mordecai ordered the bots to take the CEOs of the companies he targeted, there’s no telling what he might be planning.
“How are we going to get inside?” I ask. “The entire building is surrounded.”
“Not sure.”
“If it’s already been evacuated . . .”
“Mordecai could be anywhere,” he says, finishing my thought.
I let out a sigh. After everything we’ve been through and how far we’ve come, we seem to have reached a dead end.
We wander back into the ring of chaos surrounding Maverick headquarters. Blue and red lights are pulsing through the thick fog of smoke, and my chest tightens as more sirens echo in the distance. First responders are loading victims onto stretchers, but the number of injured just keeps on growing.
Dust and ash have begun to settle over cars and buildings, blanketing everything in soot. I can no longer see the bots lurking in front of Maverick, but I know they’re still there.
Wherever Mordecai is, he planned this well. Neither the police nor the national guard seem to be able to control the bots. I can see people in riot gear retreating to the other side of the street while another team dons helmets and Kevlar vests.
Then something else catches my eye: a lone figure inching along the perimeter. I focus my Optix lens on the person’s silhouette and zoom to get a closer look.
It isn’t a bot or someone from law enforcement. It’s a young man dressed in jeans and a hoodie. He’s wearing a black backpack and has his hood pulled up. He looks like someone who’s up to no good.
As I watch, he jets across the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk, moving at a diagonal to the parking lot next door. He stops in the shadow of a tree and bends over a handheld device. He glances up at the Maverick building and then back down at the thing in his hands.
“You think he’s a reporter?” I murmur.
“No idea.” Jonah’s face tightens as he watches the young man in the hoodie. “But I think we need to talk to him.”
My pulse quickens as Jonah turns and starts toward the parking lot where the young man is standing. I follow several yards behind, ducking around parked cars to stay out of sight.
Jonah moves with complete stealth, taking care to stay hidden in case the man looks up.
He doesn’t.
Hoodie guy seems oblivious to what’s going on around him. He’s completely fixated on his device.
Halfway across the parking lot, I stop. Jonah is moving toward the man with the hunched posture of a defensive tackle. He’s not going in for a heart-to-heart. He’s going in for an attack.
I groan and rush after Jonah, knowing I’m not going to reach him in time.
About ten yards away, Jonah yells something at hoodie guy. The young man looks up, and I see that he’s just a kid. He’s got light-brown hair and the sort of face that makes it impossible to guess his age. He could be eighteen or twenty-two.
The kid sees Jonah coming toward him across the parking lot, and I know immediately that he’s about to run.
Don’t do it. Don’t do it.
But he does.
The kid takes off at a wild sprint, and Jonah quickens his stride. I run after the two of them like a crazy person — not sure if I’m trying to catch the kid myself or keep Jonah from tackling him.
The kid runs like the biggest loser in gym class. His arms flair out like two limp socks, and his stride is too long to build any speed.
Halfway down the sidewalk, he turns over his shoulder, and Jonah closes the distance between them.
He lunges. Jonah flies toward the ground in a slow arch of limbs, and they both go down with a grunt.
The device flies out of the kid’s hand, and he yells. But whether he’s yelling in anticipation of the pain or yelling because his device is airborne, I have no idea.
The two of them hit the pavement with a painful-sounding smack, and the kid wails as though he’s being pummeled.
“Who are you?” Jonah growls, rearing up on his knees but managing to keep the kid well-pinned.
Hoodie guy has his arms folded in front of his face as though he thinks Jonah might hit him.
“Hey!” Jonah yells, peeling the kid’s arms away to get a better look. “Who are you?”
“Who the hell are you?” cries the kid. He’s got a thick British accent and sounds absolutely terrified.
“Who do you work for?” Jonah growls.
“Vault!” the kid yells, eyes squeezed shut. “I work for Vault!”
“Who?”
“The data-management company!”
Jonah turns to look at me, and I nod to confirm that Vault is a thing. Does he live under a rock? How has he not heard of Vault?
“What’s your name?” Jonah yells, shaking the kid harder.
“Jared!” he coughs, sounding as though he might burst into tears. “Jared Coleman! Get off of me!”
“Not until you tell me what you were doing out here.”
A look of panic darts across Jared’s face, which seems to confirm to Jonah that he was up to no good. He grabs two fistfuls of Jared’s hoodie and throttles him so hard that his head hits the ground.
“Ow! Holy Christ!”
“Answer me!”
“I can’t!” Jared cries, looking up at Jonah with tears in his eyes. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
Jonah lets out a low rumble of fury, and I look over at the police gathering on the other side of the intersection. The second team of officers is gearing up for a full bot assault.
They haven’t spotted us yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Bots or no bots, I can’t imagine they’d look the other way while Jonah beats this kid to a pulp.
“We can’t stay here,” I say in a low voice, catching Jonah’s eye with urgency.
“Well, we can’t leave him here,” Jonah grumbles. “What if he’s working with Mordecai?”
“Who?” Jared yells.
Jonah ignores him. He thinks the kid is playing dumb, but I’m starting to think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Jonah shifts his weight to one leg and plants his other knee in Jared’s chest. Jared lets out a panicked yell of pain, but Jonah doesn’t release the pressure.
“What’s that?” he asks, nodding at the device Jared had in his hands.
It looks like some sort of handheld screen — old school but still highly functional.
I walk around them and pick it up. The screen is dark apart from the white outline of a box. Half a dozen green dots are moving inside the lines, each with a tiny number off to the side.
“What is this?” I ask accusingly, thrusting the screen in Jared’s face. The white outline looks like a building blueprint, and I’m starting to wonder if Jonah was right.
“What are those green dots?” I demand.
Jared doesn’t answer.
Jonah meets my gaze. He’s still breathing hard, and I can see he’s getting sick of keeping Jared pinned.
“Help me with him,” he says.
I hesitate. He’s not really thinking of taking him with us? Our car is parked half a mile away. We’d never get th
is kid past the cops and the press without attracting attention.
But Jonah is already climbing off the kid’s chest and hauling him to his feet.
“Who are you people?” Jared asks.
“I’ll be asking the questions here,” says Jonah.
Jared eyes Jonah’s uniform, and his gaze locks on the insignia on the sleeve. The familiar Celtic knot is embroidered in black thread. It’s Maverick’s new logo that’s ubiquitous on Elderon.
“You work for Maverick,” says Jared excitedly. “Are you . . .” His eyes grow wide. “You’re part of the Space Force?”
Jonah just glowers at him.
“I knew it! You are!” Jared lets out a burst of laughter. “Man, that’s so cool! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be up there?” He points to the sky. “In space?”
“None of your business,” Jonah grumbles.
“We came down to find the man responsible for the attacks,” I say. I don’t think it matters if Jared knows why we’re here — even if he is working for Mordecai.
There’s a beat of silence wherein Jonah shoots me a “shut up” sort of look, and Jared’s eyes grow wider.
“No shit?” He looks as though we just blew his mind.
“And you’re wasting our time,” says Jonah in a menacing voice. “A lot of people have already died, and more could die soon if we don’t find Mordecai.”
“All right, all right!” says Jared, his demeanor changing completely. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t say anything because I thought you might be working for them.”
He nods at the device in my hands.
“Who?”
Jared lowers his voice. “The bots . . . or whoever is controlling them.”
“Wait,” I say. “This thing . . . It can detect bots?”
“Sort of,” says Jared, throwing a cautious glance at Jonah. “BlumBot contracted with Vault to manage the bots’ real-time location data. We also store all their backups. Everyone knows that.”
