“I know where we can go,” Paragon said.
“Where?”
He ignored the question. “The thing is we need to move quite quickly. Any minute now suppertime will be over and people are going to realize we’re gone. Then they’ll be after us.”
“We need to start running, then.”
“Ah yes. The problem is neither you nor Vivi can run very fast. If we go at your speed, we’re going to get caught within minutes.”
“But…” Vivi was thinking. “If we go at your speed…”
Suddenly, Paragon scooped us both up, one in each arm, so that we were sitting on his forearms.
“Exactly. Now,” he said, standing up, “bear in mind that this is something I’ve never done before. Well, to be honest, you’ve never done it, either. It’s a new experience for all of us. Hold on as tight as you possibly can. And don’t panic.”
“Wait!” I shouted. “You’re going to run with us in your arms?”
“Yep. That’s the idea.”
Vivi’s eyes were wide with fear. Like me, she’d seen how fast Paragon could run.
“Oh my…”
“Don’t worry, Vivi,” Paragon reassured her. “I’m not going to let you fall.”
“Yes. Don’t worry, Vivi.” I smiled, hardly able to hold my excitement. “This’ll be fun.”
* * *
It was fun. After we got over the initial lurch of the stomach as Paragon set off, that is. He didn’t seem to slowly build to his top speed like most runners—he just started incredibly fast and stayed incredibly fast. The air whipped over our faces and flicked our hair backward.
Vivi had her eyes shut tight and her arm clung around Paragon’s neck. I gripped on to his shoulder, but watched as the landscape flashed by.
We got across the field in a matter of seconds, and, as we neared the hedge, Paragon showed no sign of slowing. If anything, he sped up slightly.
“What are you—” I started to ask but didn’t have time to finish, because just nine or ten feet away from the hedge, Paragon jumped.
Vivi squeaked. So did I.
We sailed through the air and over the hedge.
Thump.
He landed with a jolt the other side and carried on running like nothing had happened. Within seconds, the hedge on the other side of the field approached.
“Oh no!” Vivi cried, and buried her face into Paragon’s neck.
“Oh yes!” I screamed as Paragon soared over that one, too, landing as surefootedly.
A couple of hedges later and even Vivi was half giggling as Paragon jumped them with ease.
Paragon turned onto a long lane that we had all used several times, then took a quick left onto a rougher dirt track. One more skip over a hedge and Paragon came to a standstill.
“Here we are.”
I looked about and recognized the less salubrious edge of the Sunny Vale Caravan Park. We had only been running for about three minutes, but I estimated that Paragon had covered about six or seven miles in that time. If my math was any good, that meant he’d been racing along close to 130 miles an hour. That was the fastest I’d ever moved in my whole life!
Paragon lowered us both to the ground.
“I do not want to do that again!” Vivi said, eventually prying her arms from Paragon’s neck. “That was scary.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I said, staring madly into Paragon’s eyes. “It was great!”
Paragon gave us both a friendly pat on the head and we walked toward the deserted caravan.
CHAPTER 21
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TRUTH
It was the same caravan in which I’d left Paragon the night before the Boyle disaster. The mess was still there and Paragon had to help Vivi climb over the dislodged oven. Clearly, no one had bothered to come out and clean the place since our last visit.
Paragon gave the door to the main bedroom a shove and we went in.
Thankfully, the bedroom was in a much better state than the rest of the caravan. There was no bed, admittedly, but the mattress on the floor looked clean and comforting. Stacked to one side of it were a couple of pillows and some woolly-looking blankets. They were covered in dust but a quick shake outside soon fixed that.
“I wonder if they know we’re gone yet,” Vivi said, pulling the flowery curtains closed.
“Probably.” Paragon tried slapping some life into one of the flat pillows.
“What will they do?” I asked.
“Well, first they’ll check the camp. They won’t believe that two children and a robot could get very far, I’m sure. They will underestimate us. Foolishly. The first fifteen or twenty minutes after discovering our disappearance will consist of checking out all the buildings and vehicles around the camp. After that, they will widen the search to the surrounding areas and the routes toward your homes. By the time they’ve exhausted that, it’ll be dark.”
“They’ll search for us through the night, though, won’t they?” I said. “They won’t stop until they find us.”
Paragon nodded. “Yes. They’ll keep searching. Nighttime makes things difficult, though.”
“But if they’ve got heat-sensing equipment, they may well be able to detect us in here.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Paragon said as he squatted down on the floor next to the mattress and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Dr. Bloom provided me with a piece of software to take care of such things. I can disguise the heat from your bodies. They’ll never pick up on it.”
“Good.”
I took one of the blankets and pulled it around myself, sitting down on the mattress with a pillow between my back and the flimsy wall of the caravan. Vivi did the same.
“What are we going to do?” Vivi mumbled. “We can’t go home. We can’t go anywhere.”
I didn’t say anything.
Vivi looked distressed. “They’re going to catch us in the end, aren’t they? They’re going to catch us and take us away from our mothers.”
Paragon reached over and gave her shoulder a soft pat.
“Shhh, Vivirookmini.”
“I don’t care what we do,” I said. “We can’t let them get their hands on Paragon. They can’t rip him apart and turn him into a killer. That’s not what he is. We have to keep him away from them. Even if it means we have to keep running for the rest of our lives. I’m not letting them take him away from me.”
We sat in silence for a while, the light through the curtains dimming by the minute.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Auden.” Paragon’s lights flickered and glowed in the small dusty room. “Something I found out.”
“What’s that?”
Paragon shifted his position slightly. “When the Water Allocation Board scientists had me strapped to their computers and were busy assessing me, I managed to access the army’s military records database.” He picked a thread of cotton off his metal kneecap and dropped it onto the floor.
“Yes?”
“Once I’d breached the protective software I…” He paused. “I accessed your father’s military records.”
I caught my breath. Did I want to hear the rest of this?
“As you know, Leo Dare is currently in a military prison for having deserted his post.”
Why was Paragon telling me this? I knew all this. Telling me again wasn’t going to help the situation. Wasn’t going to pull my father back from the shame and embarrassment of his predicament. Reminding me of what happened wasn’t going to turn back the clock.
Nothing was going to be able to make this better.
Paragon continued. “But do you know why he deserted his post?”
I shook my head. Of course I didn’t. Why would I? Why would I want to think about it any more than I had to?
“The reason he deserted his post was because, if he hadn’t, three children would have died.”
“What?”
Paragon’s eyes glowed brighter than I had ever seen them glow before.
“
I don’t understand. What three children?”
“Sit back,” Paragon ordered, “and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
* * *
“Your father’s battalion was making its way through a small town just outside of Liberec in the Czech Republic when they came under enemy fire. The trucks they were traveling in were hit hard by antitank missiles fired from sniper zones. They tried to escape, but as the trucks zoomed out onto a side street, one of them clipped a car that was passing. The car flipped over onto its roof and burst into flames.
“The captain of the battalion ordered his men to continue their retreat. So truck after truck passed the burning car without stopping.
“But the driver of the last vehicle didn’t pass by. Against orders he pulled over, took one of the army-issue fire extinguishers, and quickly got the fire under control.
“Inside the car were a thirty-two-year-old mother and her three young children—aged four, seven, and ten. The mother was dead. But the children were still alive. Despite still being shot at, the driver managed to drag each of the children away from the car and to a place of safety nearby. They were then taken to a military hospital.
“However, despite having saved three lives, the army immediately court-martialed the soldier for deserting his post. It was claimed that some of the army deaths could have been avoided had he continued driving past the burning car.
“The thing is,” Paragon suddenly began whispering, “while I was strapped to the computers back there, I examined all of the footage that was captured on that day. And what the army court said is nonsense. All the evidence suggests that the deaths of the soldiers—four of them—happened before the trucks had even hit the car.
“You see, the only conclusion I can come to is that the army wants soldiers who do as they are told. Not soldiers who can think for themselves. As far as they’re concerned a soldier who can step out of role even for a second is a dangerous thing. It’s something they find difficult to handle. They can’t control them. And so, for that, they have to be punished.”
I found my fingers clutching the blanket far too tightly. “That driver,” I said, eventually loosening my grip. “That was my dad, wasn’t it?”
Paragon nodded.
“So you see, Auden, your father is hardly a criminal. In fact, he is even more of a hero than you thought.”
I felt tears beginning to build in my eyes. “But I … I thought he was a coward. They said he was … a … coward.” The tears began to roll. I felt like a traitor. “And I believed them.”
Paragon shuffled in between Vivi and me and put his arms around us. “I don’t think you did believe them, really. I think that deep down—somewhere inside your spirit or soul or whatever you might want to call it—deep down, you knew the truth. You knew that the person you called ‘Dad’ was certainly not a coward.”
He stroked my cheek and wiped the tears away.
“There are things we just know. Instinct, I suppose some people call it. Now, instinct may or may not be a real thing. Perhaps it is just the accumulation of data and a refinement of our judgment. But there are just some things that you seem to automatically know.”
Paragon gave a sort of awkward cough. “I realize I am a robot and that my experience of these things is pretty small, but I’ll try to use an analogy that even I feel comfortable with.
“Consider the order of things. We always say ‘Left. Right.’ The ‘Left’ comes before the ‘Right.’ Does anyone ever say ‘Right. Left.’? I doubt it. Or on a form, you will see the options ‘Yes/No.’ It is never ‘No/Yes.’ Similarly, ‘Up/Down’ and ‘On/Off.’ We have come to understand the order of things and it almost feels like instinct. So if you were to see ‘No/Yes’ written somewhere, you would think it strange.
“That’s what happened when that terrible Boyle child told you your father was in prison. It struck you as wrong. Everything you had come to know about your father suggested he wouldn’t leave his post. He wouldn’t run away. It was against all you knew. And that’s why you struggled with it so much. Because you knew it couldn’t be right.
“So, yes. Deep down I think you realized it couldn’t be true. You knew your father wasn’t a coward.
“After all, who could know a father better than his own son?”
We fell silent.
Dig deep, Auden. Dig deep.
Outside we could hear the distant woompf, woompf, woompf of a helicopter’s blades. It got louder and louder until it sounded almost overhead, and a strong beam of light flashed left, then right, over the top of the caravan. Paragon pulled us both closer and within a few seconds the sound slowly faded away and the light disappeared.
We didn’t move or say anything for a while.
“Was that them?” Vivi whispered.
Paragon nodded. “Don’t worry. They won’t find us. I guarantee it.”
A little later, after Vivi had managed to drift off to sleep, I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at Paragon, who was still sitting, watching over us.
“The problem is that I know my father’s not a coward, and you know it. But the army doesn’t care. He’s going to be in prison forever. They’re never going to let him out.”
“Ah…” Paragon began and I could sense that he was about to say something designed to make me feel better. “Well. After I checked out your father’s military record and the footage of the incident, I made a copy of it all.”
“You stole it?”
“That’s … one way of putting it. I made a copy and sent it to the International Court of Human Rights.”
“What?” I sat up.
“I also posted it to a number of charitable bodies. And, to be on the safe side, I sent it to a few news organizations—some of the bigger ones.” If he could have smiled at me, then I’m sure that at that point, he would have done so. “So, all the information is out there, and one of those things at least will make an issue or a story out of your father. I am sure.”
I reached over, took his hand, and squeezed it.
“Thank you.”
Paragon squeezed back, and we sat that way until my eyelids began to droop and the comforting fog of sleep eased over me.
CHAPTER 22
EVERYTHING
When I woke up the next morning, Paragon was gone. I shook Vivi, who was still fast asleep, and she opened her bleary eyes and rubbed her hand across her face and looked around the room.
“Where is he?” She barely formed the words on her tired lips.
“I don’t know,” I replied anxiously. “What if he’s gone back on his own? To save us! He might think that by—”
Suddenly the door to the bedroom sprang open and Paragon came in carrying something.
“Here!” He tossed a couple of cereal bars and two slightly bruised apples at each of us. “Breakfast.”
I sighed, relieved. “Where did you get these from?” I asked, ripping open the packaging with my teeth.
“Don’t ask,” he said, and set two bottles of mineral water on the floor in front of us. “Let’s just say that some of the holidaymakers staying here might find themselves having to eat out this morning.”
We tucked in, Paragon watching us and scooping up any mess we left and putting it into a neat pile in the corner of the room.
After we had eaten, I pulled the curtain back a little and looked up at the sky. The clouds were the thin and wispy type. High up and barely there, like a thin streak across the sky. I thought hard, back to the time Vivi had told me the names of the clouds. It seemed like a hundred years ago now. So much had happened since. What was it? I thought.
Then I remembered.
“Cirrus,” I said.
“What?” Paragon asked, quickly standing up. “What did you say?”
“Cirrus,” I repeated.
Suddenly Paragon started his stiffening and straightening, his arms locked at his side. His eyes fixed directly ahead.
“It’s happening again!” Vivi shouted.
Within a second or two, Paragon’s body began to relax. It was then that the idea struck me.
“Cumulus!” I called, and Paragon’s body jerked back into position again.
“Stratus!” Vivi joined in, and Paragon seemed to shudder where he stood.
A moment or so later, Paragon collapsed in a heap on the floor.
“Paragon. Paragon.” I came alongside him and pulled at his arms. “Get up, Paragon.”
Vivi went to the other side and we started to lift him up. He was so heavy that neither of us could move him at all.
Suddenly the lights on his eyes flickered and his head twisted one way and then the other.
“I…” he began to speak. “I know everything now.”
* * *
We were all too aware that we might be spotted. Crossing the fields that led away from Sunny Vale, all it would have taken would have been a passing WAB unit or a high-flying Scoot drone and we’d have been done for. Seized and locked away.
But there was nothing.
Perhaps they were too busy still searching the areas just outside of the camp to come this far out. Perhaps they were waiting for some backup before starting the search in earnest. Perhaps we’d just got lucky.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“There.” Paragon pointed to a telegraph pole slap-bang in the middle of the next field.
“Why?”
“I need to make a phone call.”
Vivi and I looked at each other again. It was barely eight o’clock in the morning and already it was turning into a strange day.
When we finally arrived at the base of the pole, Paragon told us to wait there and then began climbing to the top of it.
“What is he up to?” I asked as I watched Paragon reach out and grab hold of one of the wires.
“There’s no point asking me,” said Vivi. “I know about as little as you do.”
At the top of the telegraph pole, Paragon sounded as if he was talking to himself. A couple of minutes later he jumped down from the pole, landing with a thump just a few feet from us.
“Who was that you were talking to?”
“Dr. Treble.”
“Why were you talking to him?” I was confused.
The Extraordinary Colors of Auden Dare Page 20
