“Auden?” Mum continued. “If you can hear me … please … DO WHATEVER YOU NEED TO DO. DON’T COME BACK UNTIL YOU’VE DONE IT. I LOVE YOU. DO WHATEVER—”
Her voice disappeared as Woolf snatched the megaphone from her.
“Auden Dare! Give yourself up now. Return the robot to us. It is the property of the Water Allocation Board. Return it to us now and we will dismiss any charges. I repeat, return the robot to us NOW!”
I looked at Paragon, my heart pumping louder and stronger and more determined than ever. My mother wasn’t broken by these people, so why should I be?
“Come on, Paragon. I don’t know what it is we’re doing … but let’s do it.”
Paragon probably smiled.
* * *
The top of the Wandlebury Ring was hidden away from the breeze. We came out from the thick edging of trees and onto the deserted clearing.
“This will do,” Paragon announced, dumping the rainbow machine down about twenty feet in from the path. He spun around and looked at the whole area. “You know, I’d almost forgotten what a beautiful place this is.” He stared up at the birds that were swooping across the wide-open sky.
“Paragon,” I said, aware of our lack of time, “what do we do?”
“First let’s take the cover off.”
“Okay.”
We both knelt down either side and unclipped the tarpaulin. Paragon took it up and threw it roughly onto the ground nearby.
“Now what?”
Paragon walked around the machine until he was standing directly in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders.
“Audendare,” he said, sort of sighing. “Auden Dare.”
“What?”
“‘I have no life but this,
“To lead it here;
“Nor any death, but lest
“Dispelled from there;
“Nor tie to earths to come,
“Nor action new,
“Except through this extent,
“The realm of you.’”
“Don’t tell me,” I said, and grinned. “Emily Dickinson.”
“Yep.” Paragon laughed.
We both said nothing for a few seconds.
“What’s happening?” I eventually asked.
Paragon seemed to pull himself together again.
“What’s happening is that we both have an incredibly important job to do.” He jumped around to the side of the machine and flipped up the compartment where the battery should have been. “In fact, you have the most important job of all.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, you do. You see, you have to turn the machine on.”
“Me? Why me?”
Paragon looked at me with his eyes in a dim glow. “Because it takes thirty seconds for the battery to be fully engaged. By that time I will have run down.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
Suddenly something happened to Paragon that I’d never seen before. The whole of his chest whirred and whizzed and opened up, peeling away from the center to his sides. Inside I could see a boxlike shape, lights flickering and dancing across it.
“The power source,” I whispered.
“Yes,” Paragon said softly. “We have to remove it from me and transfer it to the machine. When that happens I have residue power for approximately twenty-three seconds—not enough time to switch the machine on.”
“But…” I was confused. “But we can put it back in you again, can’t we? Someone can make another battery that we can give to you?”
Paragon said nothing.
“Please, Paragon.” I strode back toward him. “We can put the battery back in your chest afterward, can’t we?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no.”
“I don’t understand.”
Paragon reached up and rested his right hand on the side of my cheek.
“Auden. When Dr. Bloom designed me, he deliberately created a glitch.”
“What glitch?”
“He built me so that, should my battery ever be removed, my entire system would shut down and all initialization programs would be obliterated.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I stop working.” He lowered his hand. “Forever.”
“No,” I protested. “That’s impossible. Someone can get you started again. Milo Treble, he can—”
“No. It won’t work. You see, Dr. Bloom knew just how potentially dangerous I was. He knew that in the wrong hands—or even the right ones—I would be far too much of a risk.”
I threw my arms around Paragon’s metal body and rested my head against the blinking power source. “That’s just stupid. You’re not dangerous.”
He held me tight and we both just stood there, swaying slightly in the warming air of late summer.
Below us, hundreds of men with guns were trying to find us. But for those few moments, neither of us cared. We were oblivious to all the danger around us.
Just a boy and a robot.
The clearing was silent and we held on to each other like we were both falling to Earth.
“Anyway,” Paragon whispered into my hair, “all these weeks we’ve been wondering about my role. And now, this is it.” I looked up into his eyes. “This is what I was designed for. To be here—right now—with you on top of this hill.”
“But … rainbows? Why rainbows?”
“Oh, this machine doesn’t make rainbows,” he replied. “It’s much more important than that.”
“But I don’t want you to go!”
“Aud—”
“I won’t do it! I won’t let you go. I’m not going to turn the machine on. And if I won’t turn the machine on there’s no point in you taking the battery out. You’ll have to just be you forever.”
“But when the Water Allocation Board gets hold of me—which it will—it won’t let me be me forever. It’ll have me stripped apart and reprogrammed within hours. I won’t be Paragon then. I’ll be something else. Something that won’t even recognize you.”
“Can’t you just hide away? We could hide you—”
“It’s no good. They’ll still find me.” He glanced around. “Please, Audendare. We don’t have time for this.”
“But—”
“You just have to trust me. You do trust me, don’t you?”
“Of course. I trust you with my life. I’ve always trusted you.”
“Then you must trust me on this. More than anything else. Believe me, this is the right thing to do.”
“But—”
“Audendare.” He pulled me away and looked me directly in the face. I suddenly realized that it was wet and sore with tears. “You have a hero for a father, and a mother who breaks the world in two to keep you healthy and happy. You have Sandwich to leap on your head and wake you up in the mornings. And you have the greatest friend in the universe in Vivi Rookmini.” He tilted his head. “You don’t really need me.”
“Yes, I do! You’ve been there for me. You took care of me when I was at my lowest. You cared for me. You made me feel better about everything. I love you, Paragon.”
“You’re right, Audendare.” He leaned in closer and hugged me again. “I have cared for you. I do care for you. In fact, I will always care for you. Just because I am not there doesn’t mean that I stop caring for you.”
“Then why do you have to go?”
“Because…” he started. “Because there are greater things than a silly old robot who can do magic tricks. There is hunger and war and disease and pain. There are people and their lives.” He patted my back. “I may be full of useless bits of old information, but there is one thing that I really, honestly, truly know. And that is that if you get a chance to do something good, then you should do it. Regardless of yourself.” His hand rested on the back of my head again.
“I still don’t want you to go,” I mumbled.
“Well … I’m afraid it’s tough!” he joked. “You’re going to have to manage wit
hout me.”
“Yeah. Like I can manage without you!”
Paragon nodded. “Sarcasm, Audendare?”
“No,” I replied truthfully. “No, it’s not.”
Far off in the distance I could hear the shouting of soldiers.
“You know…” Paragon’s voice became gentle again. “You’ve had a lot to cope with in your life. Your achromatopsia. Your father going off to war. But you’re still here. None of those things have actually stopped you. They might have tripped you up sometimes—like those sticky little moments of sarcasm—but, in fact, they haven’t really stood in your way. The trick to life”—he did another of his cheeky winks—“is to struggle on and knock all the terrible stuff aside. Recognize the difficulties for what they are, and press on regardless. It’s actually something you do rather well.”
I said nothing. I just held on to this tall, wonderful, brilliant, and beautiful creature that had made me view everything from a different angle. It felt wrong to think that soon he would no longer be here. He felt so alive.
But I finally understood.
Paragon was doing precisely what he had been created to do. I still didn’t know what it was, exactly, but getting the machine here and turning it on was what he had been—secretly—designed to do.
I had to stop being so selfish.
Paragon twitched a little. His head cocked at a strange angle like he was listening to something.
“They’re getting nearer. We need to get on with it. Now.”
We pulled apart and stood next to the machine.
“Okay, now,” Paragon started. “It takes thirty seconds for the power source to fully engage. Once that’s done you need to hit the on button. Don’t hit the off button, whatever you do, because like me, Dr. Bloom designed it with a glitch. Hit the off button with the battery in place and you’ll ruin the machine.”
I looked at the front of the machine where the two large square buttons were located. It said nothing on either of them.
“Which one’s on?”
“The green one.”
I smiled and thought of Mum.
“The green one? Haven’t you forgotten something, Paragon?”
“What? That you have achromatopsia and can’t see color? No. Not at all.”
“So how am I meant to know which one’s green?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” Paragon said. “You see, there are some things that you just automatically know.”
What did he mean?
Before I had time to argue with him, Paragon jumped onto another subject.
“One more thing, Audendare. When I do finally … come to a complete standstill, I want to be left here. Don’t let them take me away—it won’t do them any good anyway. Please. Tell them that I want to be left in this incredible place. It’s the only thing I ask.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was hard to take it all in. Within minutes Paragon was going to be out of my life—out of everybody’s life—forever. How was I meant to deal with this? How was I meant to function knowing that pretty soon the most incredible person—yes, person—I had ever met was going to be … well … dead?
The truth was that I didn’t know how to deal with it. It had never happened to me before. So I pushed on and tried to remain me.
Auden Dare, aged eleven.
“I promise I’ll make them keep you here,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “I’ll make sure, Paragon.”
“Good.” He nodded. “Thank you.”
The sound of the soldiers got nearer.
“Quick,” I said, taking control.
Paragon stood next to the machine.
“Remember,” he whispered. “Thirty seconds, then hit the on button. The entire process takes about two minutes after that. Whatever you do, do not let any of them turn the machine off for at least those two minutes. Once they see what’s happening, I doubt you’ll have any more problems from them. They’ll be too amazed.”
“Right.”
“Okay, Audendare.” Paragon kind of braced himself. “Let’s do it.”
The power source in Paragon’s chest cavity slid out automatically a few inches. Paragon grasped either side of it and pulled it out and away from his body. He bent over the machine and gently slotted it into place. A soft push down and—
Click.
—it was in position.
“Okay. Thirty seconds. Then hit the button.”
Paragon backed away from the machine.
“Well, this is it. Thank you, Audendare,” he said as he moved slowly back. “Thank you for everything.”
“Paragon!” I cried. “Paragon!” I couldn’t move. I stood there and watched him ease away from me. “I’ll never forget you, Paragon! I’ll…” My voice was breaking up. “I’ll always … dream about you.”
“Good,” he said. “Then it’ll be my job to make sure you sleep peacefully.”
With that, he turned slightly and raised his arms up into the air.
And then he started whistling.
High-pitched.
Like a bird.
Within seconds the first sparrow came and landed on his arm.
Through the fog of my tears I found myself laughing.
“Hello, little one,” Paragon said, and then laughed himself.
He whistled again and two more sparrows came and landed on his arms.
“‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’” Paragon began.
“‘That perches in the soul.’”
“I love you, Paragon,” I whispered under my breath.
His head turned slightly toward me. “I love you, too, Aud—”
And suddenly the light in his eyes died and he was gone.
* * *
Far over on the other side of the clearing something moved. I wiped the tears from my own eyes and tried to focus.
It was a soldier. Then another. Then a whole load more.
I had to do it quickly. Soon they would see that Paragon had stopped moving and they would rush me.
I squatted down by the buttons and stared at them.
There are some things that you just automatically know. That’s what he said. What did he mean?
The adrenaline pumped through my body. I had no time to grieve for Paragon. I had to finish what he’d started. I owed it to him.
There are some things that you just automatically know.
I thought hard. The line sounded familiar. Paragon had said that before. But when? When?
Then it came to me.
It was when he was explaining my sense of disappointment with my father.
Consider the order of things, Paragon had said. We always say “Left. Right.” The “Left” comes before the “Right.” Or on a form, you will see the options “Yes/No.” It is never “No/Yes.” Similarly, “Up/Down” and “On/Off.”
That was it!
ON/OFF. LEFT/RIGHT.
The green button was the one on the left. It wouldn’t make any sense for it to be the one on the right.
I punched the button solidly and the machine began to make a sort of fizzing noise. The noise got louder and louder until I couldn’t hide behind the machine anymore. I took a couple of steps back from it and watched as something started to swirl out of the funnel toward the front of the machine. It swirled up and up, getting bigger all the time. It reminded me of something.
A tornado.
I had seen old films of tornadoes racing across the flatlands of the USA. Huge, destructive, and dangerous. Ripping up houses and tossing cars aside like they were nothing but paper.
But this tornadolike thing was more controlled. Less scary. It kept itself centered around the funnel and tiny flecks of sparkles glinted in the sunlight as it spun around.
Up and up it went, widening at the top as it rose.
It grew beyond the tips of the trees and stretched out into the sky.
The birds that perched on Paragon got scared and flew off. All except one that dived into Paragon’s chest and too
k shelter.
Suddenly there was the hurried stamp of boots and I turned to see three soldiers racing toward me.
There was no way I was going to let them turn this machine off. Two minutes, Paragon had said, and for that entire two minutes I was prepared to fight. I put myself between the men and the machine and clenched my fists, ready to defend Paragon’s legacy.
It would have looked pretty strange to onlookers. Three massive, heavily muscled, fully grown men armed with guns hurtling toward an eleven-year-old boy with a tear in his trouser leg, but I didn’t care. I was prepared to do all I could to make this thing happen.
“No!” a voice from the main cluster of soldiers screamed. “Stand down! Everyone … stand down.”
I looked beyond the three soldiers and could make out the outline of General Woolf. His eyes were fixed on the swirling shape that was reaching up into the sky above.
“I repeat! All men stand down!”
The soldiers stopped about fifteen feet away from me, noticing the tornado for the very first time.
Everyone was watching it.
It whirled upward until it virtually filled the sky about the Wandlebury Ring.
And then it started to pull the clouds in.
All the passing scraps of cloud were pulled toward the vast top of the tornado, dragged like a piece of soap toward a plughole. They came together and stuck to each other, forming an even bigger cloud.
Within seconds the cloud that was being created covered the sky above us, and as more and more small clouds were sucked in, it started to turn dark. Thick, powerful, and black. I had never seen a cloud like it before.
Tap.
I looked over to Paragon’s arm. A droplet of water ran down the side of his forearm and dripped onto the dry ground.
Tap. Tap.
Two more blobs of water appeared on the top of the machine.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Rain!
It was starting to rain!
I ran around to the front of the machine and looked at the chalk marks that Vivi and I had spotted all those weeks ago. A bead of water streaked through the middle of the letters, but I could still clearly see them.
Ra
Machi
It wasn’t a rainbow machine at all. It was a rain machine. Uncle Jonah had created a rain machine!
Suddenly the cloud struggled to hold on to its weight and the rain came down in a torrential downpour. I had never known rain like it. It flattened the pathetic tufts of grass and soaked through my clothes in what felt like nanoseconds. The whole clearing was a hazy blur of rain.
The Extraordinary Colors of Auden Dare Page 22
