The Extraordinary Colors of Auden Dare

by Zillah Bethell

  “There’s nothing there.” Vivi held her hand up to shield her eyes from the light.

  “Look.” I spelled it out for her. “A.D.D.O.B.U.S.”

  She looked at me like I was mad. “Auden, there’s nothing there.”

  “You can’t see that?”

  “No. Honestly, I think you’re seeing things.”

  My mind suddenly jumped back to something that happened a couple of years before. A kid at school brought in a spy kit. Just lots of stupid plastic junk designed to occupy an eight-year-old for about half an hour. See-behind-you shades; an earpiece that helped you listen in on conversations the other side of the yard; sheets of codes to decipher. That sort of thing.

  And a pen of invisible ink. Ink that could only be seen after being exposed to a blast of hot air.

  I remember everyone gathering around as he scribbled something down on a sheet of paper and then held it up for everyone to see. Of course, nobody could see what he’d written. Except me. I could see it. Yet another of the peculiar benefits of my condition. Stupidly, I told them all what it said. If I’d had any sense at all I’d’ve kept my mouth shut and pretended to be normal like everyone else. But I didn’t. The kid who’d written it looked at me like I was some sort of cheat and then, when everyone else had found out that I was right, they all looked at me like I was some sort of freak. Which is a bit odd because if you saw that happen in a comic or in a film, it would be obvious that the person was a superhero. But in real life, nobody believes in superheroes. Only weirdos. Weirdos like me are easy to believe in.

  “It’s invisible ink,” I said.

  “You mean there is something written there?”

  I smiled, remembering telling Uncle Jonah about the incident at school, and him finding it incredibly funny. “Uncle Jonah put it there because he knew I’d be able to read it.”

  “What does it say again?” I could see the spark in Vivi’s eyes flaring up.

  “ADDOBUS.”

  “What does that mean? It’s a pity our QWERTYs aren’t—oh. It’s working again.”

  I looked at mine. The screen was glowing away. “Mine’s working, too. Strange.”

  Vivi tapped on her QWERTY. “ADDOBUS doesn’t mean anything. Not according to this.”

  We stood there in silence for a minute.

  “There must be a way of figuring out what it means,” Vivi said. “Do you think it might be an anagram?” She used her QWERTY to run the letters through an etherweb anagram checker. “No. Nothing. Gah! This is annoying!”

  We both stood at the door to the shed and stared up at the strip of wood with the invisible letters on it. “Hold on.” It was Vivi again. “You said it was written in capitals, yes?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Well … that might mean the letters stand for something.”

  “Yes, but what?”

  “I don’t know.… Wait … DOB. You see that all the time, don’t you?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. D.O.B. Date of birth. You always see it on forms.”

  She was right. “So what do the other let—”

  A lightbulb moment.

  “What?”

  “A.D. Auden Dare,” I said. “Auden Dare’s date of birth. My date of birth!” I rushed into the shed and practically jumped down the ladder.

  “Wait, Auden…”

  I punched my date of birth into the keypad. The pad gave another long, critical beep and ONE ATTEMPT LEFT … scrolled across the screen.

  “No!”

  Vivi came down the ladder beside me. “Wait! We need to think it all through.” At the bottom of the ladder she dusted some rust off her hands. “ADDOBUS. Auden Dare. Date of birth. What about the U and the S? You rushed in too quickly and forgot about the U and the S?”

  I thought. “The only thing I can think of is the US. The United States.”

  “That’s it!” Vivi cried.

  “What is?”

  “In the USA they write their dates all awkwardly. In this country we always write the day, then the month, and then the year. Over there they swap the day and the month over.”

  “Why’d they do that?” I asked.

  “No idea. But surely that’s what it means. Auden Dare’s date of birth in the US format. Go on, try it.”

  “It’s our last attempt. Are you sure?”

  Vivi looked doubtful for a second.

  Before she had time to answer I tapped it in, swapping the month and the date around.

  A beep. A much nicer beep, almost like it was congratulating me.

  OPEN … filled the screen and—

  The doors separated, withdrawing into the walls on either side.

  “You did it!” Vivi squealed.

  “We did it,” I corrected her.

  However, our joy didn’t last very long. Beyond the doors was a squarish metal tunnel and we stepped into it, the clanging sound of our feet echoing around the room. The tunnel was only about eight feet long and ended … at another door! Another closed door. With another pad positioned on the wall next to it.

  “Oh no.”

  “Not again!”

  The pad was slightly different from the one just outside the tunnel. There were no numbers or letters to press. It was just a screen. And on the screen were sixteen glowing dots. The dots were not in any sort of order, they seemed to just be randomly thrown all over the place, and some of the dots were slightly bigger than the others.

  “What’s all this about now?” I asked, barely managing to hide the fed-up tone in my voice.

  But Vivi didn’t answer. She was staring hard at the arrangement of dots on the screen.

  “Don’t tell me you can see a pattern in them!” I laughed. “They’re just random, aren’t they?”

  Still she didn’t answer. After about a minute she grinned.

  “In the letters that Doctor Bloom wrote to us…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, he gave us the clue for finding this tunnel, didn’t he?”

  “So?”

  “Well, he also told you that if you needed to find out anything about stars and space to ask Six Six, yes?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded.

  “When did you say your birthday was?” Vivi asked me.

  “March second.”

  “March second … That makes you a Pisces.” She squinted at the screen again. “Pisces. Yes!”

  She moved closer to the screen and put a finger on one of the dots, then dragged it across to another. A line appeared on the screen, tracing her movements. “This is the constellation of Pisces.” She dragged her finger across the screen to another of the dots then another like some sort of connect-the-dots puzzle. “You know what a constellation is, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. It’s all about the stars, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a collection of stars. This one—the one connected to your birthday—is Pisces. It’s supposed to look like two fish jumping out of water.”

  The shape she was drawing on the screen looked nothing whatsoever like two fish jumping out of water to me. If anything, it looked like a bent stick. With a leaf still attached to one end.

  Vivi did a sort of loop on the bottom right-hand side of the screen, linking up the last of the dots and then stood back. The image remained fixed on the screen before …

  Beep.

  OPEN …

  The doors pulled apart.

  “You, Vivi Rookmini,” I laughed, “are a genius!”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. It was obvious, really.”

  Beyond this door was another small room. There were still no lights and Vivi tried to access the torch function on her QWERTY but it wasn’t working again. I looked at mine—nothing.

  We stepped into the room and I suddenly froze.

  “What? What is it?” Vivi couldn’t see a thing.

  But I could.

  Something was sitting on the floor at the far end of the room.

  “Tell me,” Vivi said again. “What is it?”


  I turned to look at her and found myself whispering a reply.

  “It’s a man.”

  PART THREE

  RED

  CHAPTER 11

  PARAGON

  Vivi shone the torch that she’d found in the utility room over the figure slumped against the metal wall.

  “What is it? Is it alive?”

  I knelt down beside whatever it was and looked it up and down.

  “Is it a drone?” Vivi asked.

  “Funny-looking drone,” I said. “I’ve never seen a drone shaped like a human before, have you?”

  “No. Perhaps he’s a new sort of drone. One they haven’t released yet.”

  “Perhaps.”

  After the shock of seeing a man lying in the small chamber, I had edged myself forward carefully and seen that it was, in fact, not a man at all. It was man-shaped—that was true—but it was made of metal and wires and lights. Its “back” was resting against the wall, and its “head” was nodding forward onto its “chest” like it was asleep. Vivi had run off to get a torch and returned waving it around like a sword fighter.

  “What’s it doing here?” The day seemed to be filled to the top with questions.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, poking my finger toward the thing.

  “Why hide it away down here? Why keep it under the ground in a secret tunnel with two sets of security doors to protect it? Come to think of it, there’s obviously something creating an electromagnetic disturbance down here that’s making our QWERTYs stop working. That can’t be a coincidence. Why? Why go to all this trouble to hide a drone?”

  “I don’t think it’s a drone. I think it’s more than that. I think it’s a robot.”

  “A bot? But bots build cars and boats and planes. They stitch clothes together—very badly. They’re machines bolted to the floors of factories. They don’t move. They’re unthinking things with a single job that they’re designed to do. And they certainly don’t look like humans.”

  I poked its arm again. Nothing happened. The metal was bright and cold and I could see my face in it.

  “Is it…” Vivi struggled to find the right word. “Dead?”

  It was then I noticed the button. Big and round and positioned somewhere you might describe as being just under the collarbone. I imagined it to be green—whatever green is. Green for go.

  “Should you be doing that?” Vivi watched as my finger headed toward the button. “Shouldn’t we tell someone about this? An adult?”

  I was excited. This whole situation was set up for me. Not anyone else. Uncle Jonah knew that when he died Mum would inherit the house and that I would be with her. He used my birthday as the code on the first door and my star sign on the second. It was all set up for me to find. Me. Not some random adult.

  I looked up at Vivi. “Er … no!”

  I hit the button.

  The robot started to whir—a high-pitched whir a bit like when etherweb boxes at school are turned on. It whirred and then it hissed slightly. Lights flickered on the front of its chest and along its arms.

  “I think I found the on switch.” I grinned at Vivi, who had taken a step backward.

  Suddenly, lights where its eyes would be flashed into existence and its “head” turned to look at me. It felt weird to have this thing with its bright, inhuman eyes staring at me and, for a brief moment, I was scared.

  What had I done?

  The head swiveled slowly and took in Vivi, who gave a tiny whimper, her trembling hands making the torch vibrate—the light twitching in the tiny room.

  Then the robot’s body shifted, easing its weight forward until the legs bent back before straightening again, pushing it upright. All accompanied by hisses and whirs and tiny internal bleeps that bounced loudly around the walls.

  Soon, it was standing up. And—whoa—was it tall. The top of its head was only a couple of inches below the ceiling, making it six foot five at the very least.

  I got up from the floor and stood next to Vivi.

  “Perhaps you’d better … turn it off now … don’t you think?” Vivi’s anxious eyes seemed to be begging me. “Perhaps we’d better stop … now. Yes?”

  “Not yet,” I whispered.

  The robot’s head twisted and tilted as it took in its surroundings.

  “Hello!” I said, and its head jerked back to look at me. “Er … hello.” I don’t know why—I’d never even done it with a real human being before—but I extended my hand toward the bot to shake its hand. “Hello.”

  Its glowing eyes stared at me for a few seconds before …

  The pneumatic or hydraulic pistons or whatever they were in its arm lifted the hand up toward mine, and the fingers curled around me. For a moment I was worried that they were going to crush my hand, but the fingers stopped moving and the hand felt gentle wrapped around my own.

  “Hello,” I repeated, and tried shifting my arm up and down—shaking hands. To my surprise the robot’s forearm moved along with mine. Easily. Softly.

  “Hi,” the robot said.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. I suppose I was expecting it to be a bit like Migishoo—copying, repeating back whatever I said and not properly understanding. The fact that it didn’t—it said hi, not hello—surprised me. Unnerved me.

  Vivi came forward a little.

  “My name is Auden Dare. And this is Vivi Rookmini.”

  The robot lifted its hand and stared at it, twisting it around in front of its face like it was trying to understand what it was.

  “Hi, Audendare,” it said, still inspecting its hand. “Hi, Vivirookmini.” The robot said our names like there was no gap in between them.

  “What is your name?” Vivi asked, trying to be brave but allowing the shiver in her voice to come through.

  The robot dropped its hand to its side and looked straight at us.

  “My name?” it asked. It seemed to be thinking, like it wasn’t sure. Perhaps it didn’t have a name. I mean, why would you give a bot a name? I could see Vivi was thinking exactly the same thing and clearly felt a bit foolish for asking, her eyes dancing between the robot and the floor.

  “My name,” said the robot, “is Paragon.”

  “Paragon?”

  “Yes. My name is Paragon.”

  It spoke (if that is the right word to use for a mechanical, automated lump of metal) with an American accent, like it had just walked out of a movie. It took a small step forward and twisted its torso around to take in the room in which it had been sitting.

  “Good to meet you, Audendare and Vivirookmini.”

  Vivi gave a small laugh. It wasn’t the sort of voice you would imagine coming out of a robot. You would think that a machine would talk with a stuttering monotone. Some-thing-a-Lit-tle-Like-This. But it didn’t. Its voice was smooth and clear and kind of … normal.

  “Paragon,” Vivi said. “What a lovely name.”

  “Is it?” I looked at her.

  “Yes. A paragon is a perfect thing. A shining example. A model for others to follow.”

  “Thanks, Miss Dictionary.” I turned to the machine. “Who made you? Was it Jonah Bloom? Did he put you here?”

  A couple of lights flickered on the face.

  “I,” Paragon started, “do not know. I do not have that information. Sorry, Audendare.”

  “That’s all right.” For some reason—even though I knew that this thing in front of me was nothing more than wires and circuit boards—I found myself not wanting him—sorry, it—to feel as if it had anything to apologize for. Doesn’t make much sense, I know, but if something looks and acts like a human being, you find yourself feeling as if you should treat it like a human being. I tried to shake the silly idea out of me. This was, after all, something man-made. A machine. That’s all. A machine with pretend arms and pretend legs.

  “What job were you built to do?” I asked. “What is your purpose?”

  It paused like it was thinking again. “I do not have that information, Audendare. I do n
ot know my purpose.”

  “But you must. You must know why my uncle built you. There must be something in your computer brain that tells you what it is you are meant to do. Every bot has some kind of role.”

  The machine in front of me seemed to straighten up slightly. “A bot is a device created by humans to undertake simple construction tasks. I don’t believe I am that.” It sounded as if it was offended. “I do not know for what reason I was created … but I am certainly not a bot.”

  Vivi smiled at me.

  “What about a drone, then?” I said. “Are you a drone?”

  It tilted its head like it was thinking the idea over.

  “Nope.”

  Nope? What sort of a word was nope for a robot? Negative or something would be more appropriate, wouldn’t it?

  “Well, what are you, then?”

  “I don’t know.” It looked around again. “Tell me, Audendare and Vivirookmini … where am I?”

  *   *   *

  The thing climbed the ladder with ease and had to duck as it made its way out of the shed into the bright light of late morning. It scanned around, taking everything in—the house, the garden, the sky.

  “‘There is another sky,’” Paragon started.

  “Ever serene and fair,

  “And there is another sunshine,

  “Though it be darkness there.’”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s poetry,” Vivi said, her eyes staring up at the strange creature revealed in all its metallic wonder before us. I didn’t know the first thing about engineering, but you could see that it was lovingly and precisely crafted. “He’s reciting poetry. Aren’t you?”

  “Emily Dickinson,” Paragon answered.

  Poetry? Why bother programming a machine with poetry? What’s the point of poetry? Poetry doesn’t take out the garbage. Poetry doesn’t fix your TV. Poetry doesn’t pump up the tires on your car. A machine that recites poetry is a waste of vital electronic equipment, surely? A waste of valuable resources.

  I didn’t say anything. There were things I wanted that I thought Paragon might be able to give me.

  “Do you recognize this place?” I asked it.

  “Er…” It seemed to doubt itself. “Er … nope.”