Boy Robot
Page 21
The girl looks back over to us, her eyes resting on me. “I’m V.”
• • •
We sit in the living room and talk. I’m next to Kamea and JB on a long, broken-in burgundy couch, Tace and V sit on a floral-patterned love seat across from us, and Azure sits beside me in a chair she pulled in from the kitchen. Griselle gently sways in a rocking chair on the other side of the small living room. I take a moment to observe the room and notice that it is free of electronics.
“How long have you been working with the Underground?” Kamea looks to Griselle and takes a sip of the tea she poured for each of us.
“A little over a year.” Her fingers trace the outline of a white crystal pendant hanging from her neck as she speaks. “These two came for my nephew right after he manifested.” She nods to V and Tace across from her. “They saved his life. I offered my service to them, to you all, after that. Once I learned about what’s happening out there, right under our noses, I knew I had to devote my life to the cause. In any way I could.”
“Where is your nephew now?” Azure asks.
Griselle looks at her but doesn’t respond immediately. Tace shifts in his seat.
“He went missing eight months ago,” she replies, and takes a sip of her tea.
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“Thank you.”
A wooden clock ticking on the wall echoes in the silence.
“Well,” Griselle says as she lifts herself from the couch. “I’m going to get dinner started. Does everyone like spaghetti?”
She leaves the room before anyone can answer.
“She’s a good person,” V says once pots and pans begin clanging. Her eyes rest on Azure.
“I don’t doubt it,” Azure replies. “I just don’t trust humans. Never have. Never will.”
JB rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
“You can trust her,” V continues. “We’ve been here for more than a week now. She’s proven herself.”
“Not to me she hasn’t.” Azure holds V’s gaze. I’m afraid a stare-off is about to begin.
“We’re headed to Grand Central,” Kamea says, breaking the showdown before it can begin. “Are you guys going that way as well?”
Tace wrinkles his nose and looks at V with concern.
“You can’t get to LA from the roads anymore,” V says.
Azure, Kamea, and JB all sit up a little higher at this.
“What do you mean?” Kamea asks.
“You haven’t heard.” V spares Tace a weary glance and turns back to Kamea. “The SHRF have developed something . . . new.”
The ticking of the clock is louder than ever.
“Scanning stations. They look like cell towers.”
JB closes his eyes and leans back into the couch.
“They’ve completely sealed off any way in or out of the city.”
Everyone is silent.
“Well, what do we do?” I ask as I turn to Azure. “You said I need to get to LA to be analyzed and trained. There has to be another way.”
She clenches her jaw as her eyes work, deep in thought.
“Does Flagstaff have an airport?” I ask.
“Robots can’t fly, Isaak,” Kamea says. “You can’t go anywhere near an airport.”
“What if we flew private?” JB asks.
“We don’t have a pilot,” Kamea says.
“And it’s not exactly easy finding one who will take cash and forgo filing a flight plan,” Azure says, her eyes still working out the pieces of an invisible puzzle.
“We won’t need one,” V says. Tace shoots her an unreadable look, but she gives her head a subtle nod and continues. “We’re going to LA as well. We were going to leave tonight, until I came across you guys.”
“How?” Kamea asks.
“We’re going through Vegas.”
JB rubs his temples, and Kamea can’t help but look confused. Azure gives a snort and shakes her head.
“What’s wrong with Vegas?” I ask.
“It’s the only place in the country where Robots will not—cannot—go,” JB says, looking at me, exasperated.
I’m confused now as well, and I’m sure I look it.
“During the first years of manifestations,” Kamea says, “Vegas became an unofficial Robot gathering place. The electrical output of the Strip proved to be the perfect camouflage.”
“That is until the SHRF was mobilized and discovered what was going on,” JB says.
I look to Kamea, waiting for more.
“It’s where they’re based, the SHRF.” Azure doesn’t look at me as she speaks.
“So why would we even consider going there?” I ask Azure.
She looks at V. “I was about to ask the very same question.”
V looks at each of us in turn. “We now have a very powerful ally who has assured us safe passage directly to Grand Central, if we can get to Vegas first.”
“And how do we know we can trust you?” Azure asks.
V holds out her wrist for Azure to see. “Do I look human to you?”
Azure lifts her mug from the coffee table and takes a sip.
• • •
We sit around Griselle’s kitchen table and eat our first real meal in days. It tastes like heaven. After we finish, while Griselle washes the dishes in the sink, I grab a hand towel and begin drying them.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says, nodding for me to join the others in the living room.
“No, it’s okay. It’s the least I can do.” I locate the cabinet for the glasses and put the first one away. “This was one of my chores growing up, so I’m a pro.”
A smile spreads across her face as she rinses a plate.
“You remind me of him, you know.” She points to a photo hanging in a small frame. The boy in the picture has brown hair, dark brown eyes, tanned skin, and a big, gleaming white smile.
“He was way better-looking than I am.” The words come out of my mouth before I realize I’m saying it.
Griselle laughs as she dunks another plate into the soapy water. “He always spoke his mind. Called everything just like he saw it. Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Her eyes get lost in the water. “He had a good soul.”
I pick up the rinsed plate and wipe the towel around the edge. “How did you know? Earlier, when we walked in, you knew there were two of us before we said anything.”
A grin comes back to her face. “You’re a very perceptive young man.” She dunks the large pot into the water and begins scrubbing. “I don’t know how. I just did. I can see it glowing around you guys.”
She slides the pot around to scrub another side. “Some people call it an aura, but with you guys, it’s different. It’s radiance. It’s light.”
“And you can see it?”
She nods her head as she rinses the pot. “It’s beautiful.” She unplugs the drain stopper and lets the soapy water out.
“Where do I put this one?” I ask as I start to lift the rinsed pot out of the sink.
“No, no, you go out there with the others,” she says as she takes the damp towel from my hands. “I’ll finish in here.” She gives me a deep smile and nods toward the living room.
I can’t help but smile back.
• • •
“The entire house is coated in EMF-shielding paint.” Griselle flips on the overhead light in the basement as we all head down the stairs. Thin, tan carpeting covers the floor, and a leather couch sits in front of a vintage television set. The walls are paneled in wood, and everything smells pleasantly of dust and incense. “But this”—she approaches a wall-length bookshelf and runs her hand along the wood—“is the safest room for you in the entire state.”
She pulls one of the books from the shelf and a loud click reverberates throughout the room as the entire bookcase jolts forward slightly. Griselle grabs the wood and pulls it away from the wall, revealing the entrance to a secret room. She flips a light switch just inside the doorframe, steps aside, and I step in.
“It’s an anechoic chamber,” Griselle says as the others follow me in. “Nothing will be able to detect your presence, even from right outside the door.”
A large, rectangular Adobe-print rug, colored like the desert sunset, covers almost the entire floor, which appears to be polished concrete. Two cots with white pillows and folded blankets lie up against the wall.
“I’ll bring two more cots.”
Azure steps onto the carpet beside me, examining the walls. She looks to Griselle and gives her a single nod.
Griselle nods back and looks to Kamea and JB. “I have two spare bedrooms upstairs or you can have the couch down here. Wherever you’d like.”
“Thank you,” Kamea says.
“There are cameras and motion-detection systems set up around the perimeter of the house and at the entrance to the neighborhood,” Griselle says as she kneels down before the rug, “but if anyone manages to catch us off guard somehow, you won’t be trapped in here.”
She lifts one side of the rug and tosses it back, revealing a steel panel cut into the concrete. A small handle lies flush with the metal near the edge.
“This leads out into the woods behind the house. If anything happens”—she points to a small lightbulb above the door—“this will flash. If it goes off, don’t open this door, and don’t come back into the house. Just get through the hatch and into the tunnel.”
I let my fingers trace the tip of one of the foam pyramids jutting from the wall.
“I’ll go get those cots.” Griselle turns and leaves the room. I follow to help.
“Oh, Isaak, I can get all of this myself; don’t worry about it,” she says when she notices me behind her.
“It’s no problem. I want to help.”
She holds the basement door open for me at the top of the stairs and smiles. “Wait here. One second.”
She turns and heads down the dark hallway. A few moments later, she returns with her hand outstretched. “I want you to take this.”
She grabs my hand and places a smooth black stone in the center of my palm. It’s shaped like a cylinder, with flat, naturally faceted sides and terminations at the top and bottom.
“It’s a piece of black tourmaline, said to protect those who wear it and meditate with it. Keep it in your pocket.” The smile fades from her face and she averts her eyes.
My fingers close around the stone. “Thank you.”
She looks back to me now, eyes welled with tears. She places her hand upon my cheek and gently holds my face for a brief moment. The sadness in her eyes is like a kick to my stomach.
“Let’s get those cots,” she says. She turns from me and opens the hall closet.
• • •
“Good night,” JB says from the couch before I step into the safe room.
I look back over my shoulder at him and pause. “Good night, JB. Sorry if I was an asshole earlier. I’m just . . . tired. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
His lip curls into a small, genuine smile. “It’s okay. You’re a good guy, Isaak.”
I nod as Kamea walks past me and the open bookcase door, coming from the bathroom. “Get some rest, Isaak.”
“Thanks, Kamea. Good night.”
I step into the room and close the door behind me. It seals with a heavy thud.
A single candle flickers on a small wooden table in the corner and casts wild, roving shadows over the spiked walls. The others have all settled into their cots—V and Tace in adjacent ones on the wall to my right and Azure to my left. I carefully step over the large black weapons duffel and sit on the edge of my cot along the far wall.
I take a moment to examine the black stone in my hand in the wavering candlelight and then slide it into my pocket. I lean over and blow out the candle, and everything goes black. The sound of breathing fills my ears as I lie back and try to relax.
So much running.
So much hiding.
Now I can finally take a moment and really breathe.
Something lingers at the edge of my mind however and stirs restless inside me.
I close my eyes and realize that I didn’t take off my shoes.
I decide to leave them on.
• • •
Endless punching. A Hydra with nine heads, snarling in front of me. Each of the heads drips putrid, burning acid from its mouth over gnarled, razor teeth. Each head charges into me, punching into my chest and face. I can’t breathe.
A legless old woman who is more machine than human sits on top of a pair of wheels, revving an engine, breathing heavily into a mask. She snarls at me through her rasping breaths.
Another punch.
A haggard witch with brown, rotten teeth presses a crooked finger into my cheek and burns away the flesh. I scramble back from her and walk to a shelf along a white wall, where I find an assortment of dolls. I pick up one that looks like a middle-aged woman with brown hair. It crumbles to dust in my hands. I reach for a tall man with gray hair next, but he too crumbles. I try once again and grab hold of a beautiful young girl with blond hair and a wide, bright smile painted onto her ceramic face. I stare into the eyes and begin to smile myself. She makes me so happy.
Her painted face begins to melt inward. Within seconds all that’s left is a pool of blood, trickling from my hands onto the pristine white floor.
A man comes into my room. His teeth are yellow and his eyes glow red. He places a hungry hand upon my thigh and slides his monstrous talons up between my legs.
I scream.
I scream so loud the walls around me begin to crack. Everything begins to crumble. I know I’ll be buried under the weight of it all, but I don’t care. I need to scream. I need to let out my terror and sadness and every horrible demon that clings to me so tight.
• • •
I wake up in a cold sweat.
I’m still lying on the cot, in the muffled silence of the pitch-black safe room. I move my fingers a bit just to prove to myself that I’m awake and that the nightmares weren’t real.
I take a deep breath.
You’re fine. Relax.
I let it out slowly and stare into the darkness.
You’re safe.
I roll onto my side and feel my heartbeat slow back to normal.
The little red bulb above the door begins to flash.
• • •
I shoot up from my cot as the tiny room pulses in urgent red light.
Azure rouses from her sleep and throws back her blanket once she sees it, on her feet in seconds. The others stir at the commotion. Tace springs to life once he sees it and begins to shake V awake as Azure moves the duffel bag from the rug and tosses it back, exposing the trapdoor.
My stomach drops. JB and Kamea.
Without thinking, I go to the door and start to push it open. It unseals from the wall with a heavy pop, and just as I step out into the black hallway, I hear Azure curse under her breath behind me.
I run in the dark to the couch and shake the first body I touch. I can’t even tell who I’m shaking. My fingers grip the skin, and I hear Kamea’s voice murmur through a daze.
“What?” She begins to wake up, but it’s not fast enough.
“We have to go, now!” I whisper as harshly as I can. I know I’m being a fool, but I can’t leave them behind. I can’t let them die. Not when we’ve come this far.
Kamea springs to life almost instantly and JB sits up behind her. They hop off the couch and I run back over to the open bookcase door.
Footsteps move upstairs.
I step into the room of blinking red light. The others have already gone down. The duffel is gone as well.
Kamea darts into the room followed by JB, who strains to close the door shut behind him. It seals in place with its signature pop, and I lower myself down through the trapdoor.
I wait for Kamea and then JB, who slides the cover back in place above him.
The low hallway is pitch-black. I raise Kamea’s hands to help her find her way along the wall when a light blinks in the distance.
I hunch myself over and run as fast as I can in the low tunnel, making sure Kamea and JB are right behind me as I approach Azure with the flashlight.
I catch a glimpse of her face in the light. She just shakes her head.
She motions for me to continue on and remains in place as Kamea and JB follow. She takes up the rear as I pursue another blinking light ahead of us. We all run as fast as we can, but the ceiling is only about four feet from the ground. The air around us is damp and cool, and I can’t help but think about the night running through caves when Azure first found me. It feels like a lifetime ago. I wonder if this is going to be my life from now on—running in the dark.
I make it to the other light and find Tace standing at the bottom of a metal ladder. V has already climbed up and out of the top. I swiftly climb the rungs and push myself out onto the ground. Pine needles prick my palms as I lift myself up. V stands over the hole and gives me an unreadable look.
One by one they all come out of the hole in the ground. Before Tace can even fully climb out, V is already sliding the steel cover back into place. Once it locks into the grooves in the ground, she kicks dirt and pine needles over the top.
Azure is already scanning the surroundings.
“This way.” V waves us on to follow her through the trees.
We run for what feels like an hour. The trees lash out at us with pine whips, and large, white boulders sprout up out of nowhere in the moonlit ground. I have to slow myself periodically to make sure Kamea and JB are able to keep up. The others just keep running.
Suddenly V stops. I know I should be more exhausted than I am, but I’m not. JB leans over and grabs his knees, gasping for air. Kamea’s skin glistens with sweat in the frosty night air.
I approach V and see she’s standing at the edge of a steep hill, almost steep enough to be called a cliff. Below us, rows of trailers sit among the tall pines, still and quiet in the dark. She slowly begins her descent. I follow, carefully placing each foot before me so I don’t tumble face-first into a tree. My body seems to do it automatically though. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.