Willful Machines

by Tim Floreen

  “I guess that’s true.” I eased forward in my chair again. “I guess Charlotte’s another example. You didn’t program her to do any of the things she’s done.”

  Dr. Singh stopped, the cigarette halfway to her mouth. “Obviously not. I thought you said we weren’t going to talk about her.”

  “I’m just saying that’s the catch, isn’t it? As long as you build machines whose behavior you can’t predict a hundred percent of the time, there’s always going to be an element of danger.”

  “I suppose there is.” Her free hand drifted to her dancing-god pendant.

  “And now, who knows what Charlotte’s going to do next?”

  “What are you getting at, Lee?”

  “She might build another 2B. She might send him to this school. She might make him win the trust of the president’s son.”

  Dr. Singh’s eyes went glassy. She sagged into her wheelchair, looking more than ever like a body with a shattered skeleton—like the opposite of my grandfather, with his ramrod-straight spine. The other night Stroud had said adversity destroyed some people and made others stronger. One look at Dr. Singh and you could tell what it had done to her.

  “I know the truth, Dr. Singh,” I told her. “Not all of it. But enough. And you do too, don’t you?”

  A tear raced down her cheek. She gave a tiny nod.

  “Please. Tell me what she has planned.”

  She stared, her thumb moving back and forth over her little gold god.

  Then she shook her head. “I can’t do this.” She dropped her cigarette in the ashtray and backed her wheelchair away from the desk.

  I stood, my face and ears burning. “Dr. Singh, we need to stop her.” An edge of desperation had crept into my voice. In my mind, I winced at myself. I’d started sounding like Bex.

  “Leave me alone, Lee,” she said as she rolled out the door. “Why can’t everyone just leave me the hell alone?”

  22

  After Dr. Singh left, Trumbull threw me a glance, probably adding another red flag to his mental list. I looked away, my cheeks still blazing. Not knowing what else to do, I sank onto a stool at my worktable and picked up my screwdriver. Bex and Dad both hassled me for spending so many hours tinkering with my Creatures, but sometimes it seemed like the only thing that got me through my worst days. I’d just stay for a little while. Then I’d figure out what to do next. While my fingers performed their simple tasks, fitting parts together, tightening screws, the heat faded from my face little by little. The work didn’t banish thoughts of Nico, but at least it pushed them into the background.

  “Sir?” Trumbull said after a while. “Sorry to bother you, but I couldn’t help noticing you’re ten minutes late for history.”

  “I’m not going.” At this point, I didn’t even care if it meant making him more suspicious than ever. I couldn’t face the thought of going back out there, dragging myself through the rest of my classes, pretending I had a reason to put one foot in front of the other. Running into Nico maybe. At least here I knew I was safe.

  “With all due respect,” Trumbull said, stepping toward me, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Your job is to follow me around, not to tell me what to do.”

  “I understand that, sir, but this is a safety issue. The conservatory is isolated and exposed, and today—”

  I slammed down my screwdriver. “Do you have any idea how sick I am of you, Trumbull? I’m sick of you watching my every move through those stupid sunglasses. I’m sick of you thinking your thoughts about me and never saying a word, just raising that one smug eyebrow. I’m sick of having no privacy and no freedom and no choice about anything, even if those are all just imaginary concepts. So would you do me a favor? Just leave me alone and let the terrorists come get me, because it couldn’t possibly be any worse than this.”

  His one smug eyebrow edged into view above his sunglasses. He folded his arms. “Finished?”

  My face turned hot again. I dropped back onto my stool and nodded.

  “Good,” he said, his voice low and steady. “Because as it happens, I do have something to say: I think I know what’s going on between you and Nico.”

  My heart came to a full stop. My blood froze in my veins. I tried to make my face like his—a blank, giving away nothing—while I searched for the most neutral response possible. “What do you mean? Nothing’s going on.”

  Trumbull circled the worktable to stand next to my stool. He towered over me, not saying a word, just rubbing one giant fist with the opposite hand while my stomach tried to turn itself inside out.

  Then he did something I never would’ve expected: he took off his sunglasses. For a second his eyes—not as dark and deep set as I’d imagined—blinked and darted around as if embarrassed by their own nakedness. He eased his massive bulk onto the stool next to mine. “I’m telling you it’s okay. At least it’s okay by me. I know it can’t be easy getting to know . . .” He waved his huge hand as he searched for the word. “. . . someone special when you’ve got me and my boys hanging around all the time. You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to say anything. And not only that.” He set his hand on my shoulder. “I want you to know he seems like a good kid to me. I can tell you two are having some kind of disagreement, and I realize I don’t have all the details, but I say you should give him a chance.”

  If only you knew, I wanted to tell him. But I nodded. “Thanks.”

  I studied his face. Of all the “Trumbull finds out I’m gay” scenarios I’d imagined over the years—and there were a lot—none resembled this one. Most involved him chasing me down a hallway with a gun in his hand. Still, my heart hadn’t quite started beating again yet. Could I really trust him not to say anything?

  “Sorry for flipping out on you. Again.”

  He slid his sunglasses on. “Apology accepted, sir.”

  A scuttling sound came from the hall just outside the conservatory. One of the Spiders had drawn up to the doorway on its slender silver legs. It peered into the room with its blue lamplike eye. At first I figured it must’ve come to clean. The Spiders did most of their cleaning at night, but sometimes they worked in unused rooms during the day. Then I remembered Dr. Singh had programmed the Spiders to stay out of the conservatory. Had she changed their programming? “Come back later,” I told it. “I’m using this room right now.”

  The Spider tapped into the room. Maybe it hadn’t heard me.

  “I said come back later,” I repeated in a louder voice. “I’m busy here.”

  It paid no attention to me. Now a second robot had appeared in the corridor behind the first. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Spiders never traveled or worked in pairs.

  Trumbull’s hand landed on my shoulder again, more firmly this time. “Get down, sir.” He pressed me off the stool and under the table before positioning himself between me and the robots. “I’m commanding you,” he bellowed. “Leave, now.”

  The first Spider’s eye ranged around the conservatory like a searchlight. It stopped on Trumbull. The robot raised its two front legs, mantislike.

  He pulled his gun from his jacket. “Leave! Now!”

  One of the Spider’s forelegs snapped forward, bashing Trumbull in the chest. The blow lifted him up and sent him crashing down on one of the tables, crunching metal robot parts and scattering screws and bits of wire. His gun flew out of his hand and banged against the floor somewhere on the far side of the room.

  I scrambled back, farther under the table, my heart galloping out of control. My fingers found the two buttons on my wristwatch and pressed. One. Two—

  With a flick of its silver foreleg, the Spider turned over the table above me. I threw my arms over my head. The robot knocked me to the side. My body skated across the slick concrete floor and bashed into the glass wall—which cracked but didn’t break. I turned. Trumbull, still on his back on one of the worktables, struggled onto one elbow. “Lawrence, can you hear me?” he called into his puck. The device must not have
been working, because he muttered, “Damn it!” and pushed himself upright.

  Behind him, the second Spider brought the tip of its foreleg to its underbelly, where it stored its various attachments. Click. The Spider folded the leg forward again—with a sledgehammer attached.

  “Trumbull!”

  He turned just as the robot landed a blow to his left shoulder. Something crunched that sounded like bone. While my heart thudded, my hand darted back to my watch. Again, not fast enough. The first Spider’s two sharp forelegs shot down at me, one spearing through each of my blazer sleeves—missing my actual wrists by millimeters—and pinning me to the floor. I tried to wriggle out of my blazer, but the robot used two more of its slender limbs to pinion my legs. Now I couldn’t move at all.

  Trumbull hauled himself to his feet again, his left arm hanging heavy at his side, his sunglasses crooked, one of the lenses cracked. He charged at the second robot, his right hand balled into a fist. The Spider swung its hammer into his belly. Trumbull stumbled back a few paces, stopped, and stood doubled forward, his right hand on his knee. His sunglasses sagged from his face in slow motion and then clattered to the floor. His eyes looked unfocused, almost sleepy. The Spider let its sledgehammer fly one last time. The weapon smashed into Trumbull’s head. Another nauseating crunch. Blood spattered, dotting the floor next to me. Trumbull spun around one full turn, dropped to his knees, and paused there, his eyes half open but utterly vacant. Then he tipped to the side and smacked against the concrete.

  Everything went still. Everything except the pool of blood under Trumbull’s cheek, which edged outward in all directions. I couldn’t tell if he was still breathing. The Spiders had stopped moving too. They seemed to be waiting for something. I twisted my arms and legs but couldn’t budge.

  Both robots swiveled their eyes toward the door to the hallway, like they’d heard something. The second one scuttled toward the far end of the conservatory, where a glass door led outside. It opened the door with its foreleg and slipped out. The other Spider pulled up its spearlike arms one by one and scurried off in the same direction. I hurried to my feet and brought my fingers back to the watch. I didn’t press the buttons, though. The machines had already disappeared, leaving the glass door swaying on its hinges.

  “Lee?”

  I whirled around, electricity crackling through my body.

  Nico stood in the opposite doorway, eyes huge. “My God, what happened? Lee, are you all right?”

  “A couple of Spiders just attacked us,” I panted. “Trumbull. I can’t tell if he’s—”

  Nico raced over to him. Horror registered on his face as he touched the blood oozing from Trumbull’s skull. Did he look horrified because he felt horrified? Or because someone had programmed him to look and act that way in this situation? I’d seen him act before. Was he acting now? My trembling fingers stayed poised over the watch’s two small buttons. But they didn’t push down.

  “He’s alive.”

  The tension in my chest eased a little. “We need an ambulance,” I told my puck.

  “No network connection,” it replied.

  “It’s okay,” Nico said. “We’ll get help ourselves. You said Spiders attacked you?”

  I nodded. “They left just before you walked in.” Anger thickened my voice. “Are you going to tell me Charlotte didn’t send those, either?”

  “She didn’t. I just got a message from her. She said someone—she doesn’t know who—is trying to sabotage her plan.” He stood and held out his hand. “We should get out of here, Lee, in case the Spiders come back. We’ll go to your grandfather’s office, tell him what happened, get help for Trumbull.”

  I stared at his hand, wrapped in a neat white bandage.

  “I know this is confusing, but you have to trust me right now.” He stepped forward. The pale light pouring down through the glass roof caught in the bronze coils of his hair. “We need to hurry. Please.”

  My fingers relaxed away from the watch. I started toward him.

  Then I stopped. “Why did you come here, Nico?”

  “Why do you think? I came looking for you.”

  “I said I didn’t want to see you.”

  “I know, but I thought I should tell you about Charlotte’s message.”

  “So you came here.”

  “Of course I did. I figured you’d be here. Come on, Lee, let’s go.” He took a few more steps, his shoes tracking Trumbull’s blood.

  I backed away. “I’m supposed to be in history. You know that. Why did you figure I’d be here now?”

  He licked his lips. His eyes dropped to the concrete floor.

  “Nico?” Just say something. Please, just make me believe you.

  When he looked up again, his face had hardened. His eyes had narrowed. His mouth had pressed into a frown. He sprang forward, grabbed my puck out of the air, and smashed it on the table. The thing burst into a spray of tiny chips and sensors. Then, faster than my eyes could register, he was on top of me, jamming his knees into my chest, pressing one hand over my mouth.

  23

  In those first few seconds I didn’t fight back. I didn’t try to escape. I didn’t yell, Nico, how could you betray me like this? I just went dead. From the shock, I suppose. Or maybe it was more like the opposite of shock. The confirmation of what I’d suspected all along. After gagging me with a rag and lashing my wrists together with some wire, he picked me up, crushing me to his chest.

  Now I struggled. It didn’t make any difference, though. His hard synthetic muscles and metal bones just closed even tighter around my human flesh. I tried yelling, too, but the gag muffled the sound.

  Nico started toward the corridor that led to the rest of the school, but something stopped him. He was staring at Trumbull, his brow furrowed, his head tilted to the side, like the sight of my Head Armed Babysitter lying there was a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. His eyes met mine for a brief moment, then flicked away again. He turned and ran in the other direction, through the conservatory and out the open glass door the Spiders had used just a minute ago.

  The cold outdoor air washed over my face. The sky had darkened, even though it was still early afternoon. Nico bounded along the front of the school and down the staircase to the walkway along the river, following the same route we’d taken two nights ago. I strained against his grip some more but didn’t accomplish anything. The angry noise of the river, magnified as it bounced between the stone canal walls, filled my head. When we reached the iron gate, Nico didn’t even slow down. He just leaped diagonally across the river and landed beyond the gate on the opposite walkway. The dark tunnel swallowed us up and then spat us out again. Nico jumped back over the river, pelted up the steep, muddy riverbank, and plunged into the forest.

  The smell of pine needles and soil enfolded us. Above, black, twisty branches covered the sky like gnarled hands. Below, the trees’ roots bulged from the packed dirt like half-buried bones. Nico seemed to know the trail along the river better than I did now. Little by little, he sped up, jagging from side to side to follow the twists of the path, until the forest became a blur. When I glanced at him, though, no sign of exertion showed on his face. His expression remained eerily neutral, with his lips still pressed into a frown of concentration and his eyes still unreadable.

  The tree cover thinned. The sky opened up above us, cement gray. We’d almost reached the base of the mountain. Nico slowed down a little. The chain-link fence loomed up ahead, with its dented yellow NO TRESPASSING sign and the dug-out hollow at its base where we’d shimmied under. He didn’t head for the hollow, though. Instead, he sped up again. He bounded once, twice, three times, and leaped into the air. My stomach hitched. My brain swam.

  Nico landed with barely a thud and kept right on running. He sprinted around the side of the mountain to the boarded-up tunnel entrance, where he skidded to a stop and set me on my feet. My knees buckled. I grabbed the rock wall with my tied-up hands for balance. He pointed at the gap in the boards. “Climb through.” />
  When I didn’t move right away, he grabbed me by the back of my blazer and stuffed me through the opening. He slid through himself, never loosening his grip. Then he scooped me up and plunged into the blackness. His puck didn’t turn on its light, though. He must’ve instructed it not to. Probably he had infrared vision. Unlike me. The sensation of careening through the forest in Nico’s arms had already sent my pulse racing, but doing the same thing in total darkness brought me to a whole new level of panic. I panted and gasped—as well as I could through the rag covering my mouth—like all the oxygen had disappeared along with the light. My muscles clenched, bracing for whatever came next. The tunnel would open into the central cavern any second. What would he do then?

  Nico’s pace slackened again. The sound of his echoing footsteps deepened and expanded to fill the larger space. He stopped. I blinked against the darkness, still struggling to breathe, suspended between the heat of his body on one side and the cold black emptiness of the cavern on the other. I imagined the vast space around us. I imagined the chasm in front of us. I imagined Nico throwing my body down there. Maybe no one would find me, just like no one had found that other kid. Did I even care? I’d almost tried to end it all myself two years ago. I didn’t have any more reason to live now than I’d had then. Maybe it was time someone else finished what I’d started. But why did it have to be Nico?

  His mouth drew close to my ear. “Trust me. Don’t be afraid.”

  Don’t be afraid? His words almost made me laugh out loud.

  But I didn’t have a chance. Half a second later he was running again. Then he was jumping. Then he was falling. We were falling.

  I curled into his torso, the only thing I had to hold on to. My fingers clawed at his blazer. My face pressed against his hot chest. Something sharp dug into my cheek: his Inverness Prep tiepin. The falling seemed to go on forever, but that feeling of freedom I’d imagined before I’d jumped off the Arlington Memorial Bridge never arrived.