Ensnared

by Rita Stradling

  The smooth voice interrupted Shelly’s speech, “Who are you hiding in your car, Shelly Dover?”

  “No one. It’s just me—” Shelly cut off abruptly and screamed, “Alainn! It’s opening! Go!”

  Alainn tried to jump up but her shirt caught on something under the passenger seat. “I’m stuck!” she cried while yanking uselessly at the material. Her fingers pried at a piece of metal that had somehow caught through the bottom hem of her shirt.

  “It’s already closing!” Shelly screamed again.

  Colby threw open Alainn’s door. “Come on!”

  “I’m stuck!” she cried, frantically yanking at the material. Colby grabbed her arm, trying to pull her out of the car door.

  “There’s not enough time!” Shelly screamed. “I’m going to just drive in!”

  “No, wait! Colby is—”

  She drove and Alainn just managed to break from Colby’s hold in time. The car surged forward.

  Screaming, Alainn thrust her arms back into the car. The car door hit the wall, banging open and closed while scraping and sparking.

  There was an earsplitting crunching sound, then a shattering. The car jerked upward. Screams echoed above. Alainn’s shirt finally ripped, sending her body slamming into the backseat.

  “Shelly?” Alainn cried. She heard nothing. Rolling over, she threw the blanket off her. Little bits of safety glass slid onto her face. She lay on the backrest and looked up to see Shelly directly above her. Dark hair fell straight down from either side of the headrest.

  She screamed again, an ear-piercing screech of terror.

  Glass rained down from Alainn’s body as she sat up and reached forward. “Shelly? We have to climb out!”

  Shelly only screamed again.

  Alainn crawled over and peered out of the car door.

  Shelly’s beige sedan was off the ground by at least a foot, with the front of the car jutting up. The steel door had missed crushing Alainn by two feet. The door had smashed completely through the trunk of Shelly’s car and some of the back window.

  Twisted metal split and warped all along where the steel had completely crushed the car. There was another loud screech, and Alainn ducked her head just in time as the car buckled forward, slamming down.

  Shelly screamed, and Alainn cried out as she toppled back into the space between the seats. Her already tender face smacked into the floor of the car. The underside of the seats blurred as Alainn tried to raise her head.

  At the same time, Blue cried out from somewhere near and an electronic jingle played from somewhere else. The jingle ceased.

  “Shelly? Answer it, please! It could be Colby!”

  The jingle began again.

  “Hello?” Shelly answered, the word a shaky mess. After a pause, Shelly sobbed, “I thought I might have killed you.”

  Alainn crawled out of her wedged position and reached over the center divider. “Shelly, give me the phone!” she breathed.

  Shelly threw the phone at Alainn, making her scramble to catch it.

  Climbing back onto the seat, she put the phone to her ear. “Colby? Are you safe?”

  “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” Alainn whispered, “But you’re outside, aren’t you?”

  “I am. There was no way I could make it. But I threw the hardware chip in; I think it made it in past the door. Hopefully it’s not damaged; it’s in a plastic container.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “Go. Now. I hear sirens. I’m going to run and hide out. Call me if you need me.” The phone went dead.

  “Shelly,” Alainn called, to which she only received sobs. “You did a really brave thing. Now I’m going to need you to do another one. We have to get out of this car, find the chip, and implant it into Rosebud’s main hardware. The police are on their way, so we’ve got to do it now. I have a feeling that Rose will open up for the police, and then we’ll lose our only chance.”

  Shelly didn’t react, so Alainn figured she was probably going to have to coax her out from the front seat. Checking her back pocket, she made sure that the small plastic box was still there, and then climbed out of the still-open car door. Thick lines of scrapes dug into its length.

  Blue sat on the hood of Shelly’s car. The moment she saw Alainn, she held up her hand and screeched.

  As Alainn rounded the car, she called. “Shelly, come on out now, please. I need you to find this chip; I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

  When she was halfway to her, Shelly’s door slowly opened and her sickly, pale face appeared over it. She staggered away from the car, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. She pointed at Blue. “Blue has it,” she whispered before leaning forward and vomiting all over herself and the car.

  “Damn it!” Alainn yelled, as she ran over to her.

  Shelly stood back up. “I’m fine,” she whispered. Her hand smeared vomit across her face. “I can do this.”

  She didn’t look like she meant it, but Alainn took her word for it and grabbed her clean hand.

  Blue ran ahead, along the line of gleaming identical vehicles. Alainn ran after her, pulling Shelly along behind her. The monkey led them around the garage to a thick metal door on one side.

  “How do we get in?” Alainn yelled.

  “You don’t, Alainn,” said Rose in Rosebud’s voice. “Shelly, listen to me. Run from Alainn. She’s a psychopath; she wants to kill you and Mr. Garbhan both.”

  “Blue, how do we open this door?” Alainn yelled.

  “The monkey is helping her. It will help her kill you as well.”

  Blue screeched, making Shelly jump. When Alainn looked up, she saw that Blue was pointing to a large black box that read, “Manual Override.”

  “Just hang in there for a few more minutes, Shelly. We’re almost through, okay?” Alainn let go of her arm hoping so much that she wouldn’t run. To her relief, Shelly stayed, although she made small whimpering sounds.

  Alainn tore down the big box. The plastic clattered to the ground, revealing a red metal wheel. Grabbing it with both hands, she threw all her weight into turning it and almost fell forward as the wheel turned smoothly.

  There was a quiet snick and the door shifted slightly open. Grabbing the handle, she pulled open the door.

  “Don’t go in there, Shelly—that’s where she’ll kill you. She’s hiding a knife in her pocket,” Rose said again in Rosebud’s voice.

  “Please, Shelly, go. I swear to you she’s lying.” Alainn held the door open.

  Blue screeched, holding up a computer chip in a small plastic box.

  Shelly whimpered again but took the chip and stepped inside.

  Alainn followed Shelly into a small room that had the same panel walls as the rest of the house, though one of the panels opened. Also, unlike the rest of the tower, a security light shone above them. A greenish glow filled the room.

  “What do we have to do?” Alainn asked Shelly as she looked at what must be Rosebud 03AF’s circuit board. Alainn had seen circuit boards before, but this was in a class all of its own. If she’d found this months ago when she wanted to disconnect Rosebud, Alainn would have had no idea what to do. A web of green, black, and red circuits and chips crisscrossed the entire three-foot-square space.

  “She’s built like an Automaton Pulsres but is so much more intricate,” Shelly said, a touch of awe mixing in with her panicked tone.

  “My father designed the Pulsres series, too,” Alainn said.

  “I’ve seen their circuitry before, when I was at university. But I’ve never been allowed to work on one.”

  “What do you have to do?” Alainn asked.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work, but the idea behind the chip your brother printed was to fix the basic input-output system if it was corrupted in the reboot. Your brother and I chose this one because it’s likely that Rose hacked into Rosebud’s system by corrupting her firmware. She could then install software to run the whole system remotely.”
/>   “I have no idea what you just said. Just tell me what you need me to do,” Alainn said.

  “We need to hot flash her bios and reinstall her chip. That’s what this should do.” She held up the chip. “I could very easily destroy her motherboard. You should probably not help,” she whispered.

  “Probably not.” Inhaling deeply for the first time, Alainn pressed a hand over her face as the smell of Shelly’s vomit-covered clothing really hit her. The room was very small, so although it was only the three of them, the mingled smells of sweat, fear, and panic closed in.

  Shelly’s hand hovered over a section of circuitry that looked exactly the same as the rest.

  Rose’s voice came again, “Shelly, I know you don’t trust me, but do you trust Alainn? Alainn killed her own best friend.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Alainn whispered.

  “She did, and she’ll kill you, too.”

  “I didn’t,” Alainn begged. “Please, Shelly.”

  “The police are here, Shelly. Go with them. They’ll protect you from Alainn and her brother. You’re taking Mr. Garbhan’s protection away. She wants both of you dead. She wants his money, and she knows you’ll stop her from getting it.”

  Shelly turned to Alainn, her face again paler than snow.

  “Shelly, don’t listen to her. She’s the one killing Lorccan. She’s doing it right now. Shelly, come on, stay with me,” Alainn whispered.

  “Tell her, Alainn. Tell her about what happened to Cara. Tell her about the car. Tell her about leaving Cara to die.”

  A tear dropped down Alainn’s bruised cheek.

  “Tell her you chose not to save her, why you let Cara die instead of you.”

  “Shelly, please! It’s not . . . she’s not. Please!”

  Shelly jumped back, her whole body shaking.

  A clanking came from the door they had just entered, and the knob began to turn. Alainn grabbed the knob and used all of her strength to hold it still. She pushed her body against the door, hoping that it was enough to stop it from opening.

  “She let her friend die so that she would live.”

  “I didn’t do that. I tried to save her!”

  “The police are here, Shelly. Go with them. No one will blame you for helping Alainn. She’s a liar, a killer, a thief—”

  Shelly reached forward and pulled a circuit off the circuit board, silencing Rose’s voice.

  The screens all around blinked to black.

  “Is she shut down?”

  “No, she doesn’t have a shut down. I just disconnected her monitors.” Shelly turned to face Alainn, her whisper coming out shrill. “I really hope she’s evil and you’re good, because if this is all some big con to get Lorccan’s money—”

  The door handle flipped up and the door pushed hard against Alainn’s side. “I swear to you that this isn’t a con! Reboot Rosebud. We only have seconds!”

  Blue screeched her agreement at Shelly.

  “Okay. I just need to be sure it’s the right one,” she whispered as she turned back to the circuit board. The beautiful, put-together woman who had confronted Alainn in the resort was gone. Shelly’s hair stuck out in all directions around an oval face that was a splotchy mess of bruises. Not to mention one of her legs and a shoe still had visible vomit on it.

  The door bucked again, smacking Alainn. “Shelly!”

  “Oh, please let this be right.” Shelly used her fingernails to pluck a chip off the board, immediately replacing it with the chip from the plastic box in her hand. “It should work right away, the way she—”

  “Shelly! Now!” Alainn shouted.

  “Okay!” she finished pulling the chip off and reconnected the original chip. Her finger pressed down on the monitor circuitry, reconnecting it.

  And nothing happened.

  The door burst open, sending Alainn hurtling into Shelly and Blue. All of them tumbled into a heap.

  Shelly screamed and Blue screeched. They were a mass of limbs until Alainn managed to break away and roll farther into the room.

  “You are under arrest for trespassing. Put your hands in the air and step out slowly.”

  All three of them looked up simultaneously into the identical faces of four police automatons.

  37

  April 11, 2027

  “Rosebud?” Alainn called.

  Nothing.

  “Please stand and raise your hands into the air,” the closest automaton said. Like most of the automaton police, they didn’t really have a defined race or gender; their creators had instead made their faces a blend of many common characteristics. The skin tone was a mid-brown, the eyes and buzz-cut hair also a mid-brown hue.

  As Shelly and she slowly stood, Alainn leaned in and whispered, “The moment we get a chance, we break for the hallway into the house.”

  Shelly shook her head. “I’m going with the police,” she whispered back.

  For a second, Alainn thought to argue but didn’t. Honestly, if Shelly made it to the police cruisers without fainting, Alainn would be pretty impressed.

  That meant Lorccan’s life was now completely in Alainn’s tired, shaky hands. She nodded and whispered, “All right. I can’t go with them, so you’re going to be on your own.” Raising her hands in the air, Alainn stood.

  “I understand. I’m so sorry it didn’t work,” Shelly whispered as she raised her own hands.

  “Me too. You’re a pretty big badass. If I don’t see you again, thank you,” Alainn said. To Blue, she whispered, “Climb through the vents and see if you can warn Lorccan.”

  But the automaton must have heard Alainn, because he responded. “The monkey needs to come with us. All three of you stand and come this way,” the closest automaton said. His voice, too, was mid tone, devoid of personality.

  Blue shook her head.

  “This is her home. She’s a robot and needs to recharge. Her station’s here,” Alainn said.

  “She was reported as an intruder. She can recharge at the station. We have charging stations.”

  Blue raised her hands to Alainn, obviously signaling that she wanted to be picked up.

  Alainn looked at the automations whose guns were visible, held at their sides. “Can I pick her up? I think she’s scared.”

  “What type of automaton is she?” the nearest automaton asked.

  “An AI monkey,” she said.

  “She’ll need to walk.”

  Alainn nodded at the automatons. When they signaled to follow, Shelly, Blue, and Alainn trudged out of the circuit room. Two of the automatons walked in front of them, and the other two fell behind. Darkened screens stretched across every wall.

  “Follow us, please,” one automaton called back.

  Alainn knew that the hallway leading into the stairwell was coming up on the right. They would pass it the moment they turned into the main part of the garage. A pale-gray light barely lit the space. Her last hope was that with the screens being down for the moment, the stairwell would be open.

  But that hope was quickly doused. The screens flickered on and off. Either Rosebud or, more likely, Rose, was turning back on.

  Blue scurried alongside, close to Alainn’s ankles.

  “Go with the police, Blue,” she whispered down.

  Blue screeched.

  “I’m serious. Do it.”

  She knew police automatons couldn’t shoot a human in the back. It was in their programming. They’d chase Alainn and tackle her to the ground, but they couldn’t just point and shoot. She doubted they had the same no-kill parameters for fleeing robots.

  Blue looked up and screeched again, a protest.

  “Please, Blue.”

  She turned back away, focusing on the dark path before her.

  The light fed through the corner as they approached. The screens flickered again, illuminating the group. Alainn had been surfing a wave of adrenaline, and that wave was cresting.

  Everything came into perfect focus—the stench of Shelly’s clothing and her rasping breaths, Blue�
�s paws pattering while the other robots hummed a low whir. The lights flickered again, reflecting off the police automatons’ weapons.

  They turned the corner—into illumination. Three police cruisers reflected red-and-blue lights through the garage.

  Alainn inhaled deeply.

  Every rescue mission she’d gone on had been a practice for this moment. She’d fought exhaustion, thrusting ice picks into a frozen cliff to save a man who’d been caught on a ledge halfway down. She’d flown down a sloughing slope that gave way under her to save a woman buried under an avalanche. She’d turned her lungs to fire jumping into a raging river to save a teenager who’d slipped while filtering water.

  The chance of survival in any of those situations ranked higher than running into a tower controlled by Rose 76GF.

  The dark doorway came closer every step they took. Four feet. Three. The lights flickered. One foot. Alainn dove through the open doorway and into a sprint.

  “Halt!”

  Loud footfalls followed hard and fast behind her, echoing through the space.

  Alainn tucked in her chin and barreled forward. The hall flickered, illuminating a long hallway with an elevator open on one side and a staircase open on the other. There was little chance that she’d beat an automaton up twenty-something flights of stairs, but hell, she was going to try.

  She skidded sideways into the door to the stairway, and immediately there was a sudden loud thwap sound behind her.

  Complete blackness fell. Stumbling forward, Alainn’s hands broke her fall onto the smooth stairway. The light flickered on and off rapidly. Unable to resist, Alainn looked back.

  The door to the staircase had closed behind her. A muffled, rapid banging came through the enclosed space, but the door stayed in place.

  She knew that was either a very good or very bad sign.

  “Rosebud?”

  Yet again, nothing. The stairway plunged up into darkness.

  Pushing up off the stairs, she took the first floor slowly, counting stairs aloud. Twelve stairs led to the landing, and then thirteen led up to the next story. On the second story, she sprinted up, taking two steps at a time.