by Brandon Mull
Focusing on distance, Cole leaped outward from the edge of the roof. He launched forward, rising only slightly, the greenbelt blurring by below. He began to lose altitude, gradually at first, then quickly as his forward momentum failed. The grass came up to greet him. Off to both sides, Cole saw Enforcers and patrolmen. They were all looking north, trapguns raised. Apparently Jace had come into view first.
Cole landed in a stumble and then jumped for the building on the far side of the greenbelt, a three-story structure. He soared upward with plenty of power to make it. Nobody even fired at him until he had almost landed on the flat roof. But then a brusque, blunt force hit his legs, whipping them out from under him and causing him to collapse in a wild roll, the guardcloth in his battle suit stiffening against the impacts.
Rattled by the jarring impact, Cole tried to scramble to his feet but found his legs immobile below the waist. A hasty glance revealed that they were bound together by quicktar, down to the tips of his boots.
“My legs got hit with quicktar,” Cole said into the communicator. “Do I have more pink mist?”
“Be glad the goo missed your arm,” Forge said. “The misters don’t work so well after a direct hit. Point the mister at your legs.”
Cole obeyed. “Okay.”
The pink spray showered his legs, and he could move again. Cole hopped to his feet and started running southwest, ignoring where he felt sore from the tumble. He had to keep going. His one hope now was to outpace the patrolmen and Enforcers and get underground. The longer he stayed out of sight on rooftops, and the faster he moved, the more chance he had of slipping through their net.
As the corner of the roof drew near, he saw that the walkway to the west was too wide to jump across, but the walkway to the south was narrower, and the next building was only one story taller. Whether he could make the jump was questionable, but there wasn’t time for second thoughts.
Racing to the edge, Cole put everything he had into the leap. His stomach dropped as he reached the apex of his flight. Given that he had started three floors up, he had probably sprung too high—if he missed the next roof, it would be a serious drop to the walkway below, even with the battle suit.
As the next roof came closer, Cole realized he would fall just short, so he leaned forward and stretched out his arms. His hands barely caught hold of the rooftop’s edge. Without the battle suit he wouldn’t have had a prayer of holding on, but with the added strength the suit provided, he got a good enough grip to resist his momentum. For a moment he dangled, legs swinging, and then Cole heaved himself up.
He wanted to roll over onto his back and recuperate. That had been close. He wouldn’t try another leap quite that far. He couldn’t afford a fall.
And he couldn’t afford to pause.
Back on his feet, Cole dashed across the flat rooftop. His heart was beating hard, even with the help his muscles were getting from the battle suit.
“Looking good, Jace,” Forge said over the communicator. “Keep going north. They came south too eagerly. Cole, head west as soon as you can. You’re slipping through their net as well.”
Cole swerved west. The little bit of encouragement lifted his spirits. It sounded like now was the time to chance crossing the wider walkway to the west.
He wondered how Trickster and Roulette had gotten away so smoothly. Was it just a matter of experience paying off? Or did they have better exit routes planned because they had been more exposed? He was glad they were safe, but a little jealous at the same time. He didn’t want to give the Enforcers or the patrolmen any more target practice.
Since he was up pretty high, Cole jumped straight out when he sprang to the west. The entire area below was paved, and when he landed, he fell to his knees and slid several feet, the shock of impact making his teeth clack. Without the padding on the braces, his knees would have been mangled, but instead he lunged to his feet and kept running.
For the moment, no patrolmen or Enforcers were visible. The nearest buildings to the west were too high to reach—at least ten stories. Cole didn’t think the buildings at either hand were near enough to each other for him to scale them by jumping back and forth off the walls. He took the nearest westward walkway.
“Well done, Cole,” Forge said. “That way looks open. You’ll cross one wide plaza and keep going west, then if you turn south at the next walkway, you’ll reach a place to go underground.”
“What about me?” Jace asked, breathing hard.
“Keep running north,” Forge said. “I’ll tell you when to cut west.”
Cole took long, bounding strides, flinging himself forward with all his might. His lungs ached, sweat greased his body, and a steady pain began to bore into his side. Enhanced or not, there was only so long a person could maintain a full sprint.
But Cole refused to slow down. He raced across the plaza Forge had described, earning stares from the people walking there but not seeing any patrolmen or Enforcers. Cole entered the walkway at the far side of the plaza and could see up ahead where the next walkway crossed it. He was almost there.
“South on the next walkway?” Cole asked into the communicator. He had studied a map of the area, but his desperate run had completely disoriented him. He didn’t want to get this wrong.
“Yep, Cole, south, meaning your next left turn,” Forge confirmed. “And Jace, you want to turn west at the next walkway.”
“Finally,” Jace replied.
Cole reached the walkway and turned south, then skidded to a halt. Blocking his path was a lean, tall robot that looked like a high-tech cross between a human and a praying mantis. Made entirely of shiny black metal, the robot sank into a crouch, long limbs bent and ready.
The building on one side was low enough to reach. Cole sprang, but the robot uncoiled with the sudden speed of a mousetrap, and a weighted net slammed against him, interrupting his trajectory. Pulled by the net, Cole tucked his head and crashed into the side of the building and then fell to the walkway.
Even though his guardcloth had hardened against the impact, Cole lay on his side, shaken and dazed. The lanky robot sprang forward, landing beside him, and held up an extra-long trapgun.
“Don’t move,” the robot said. “This chase is over.” The voice sounded younger than Cole expected, and so human that he would have sworn there had to be a person inside.
Cole held down the button on his communicator to help the others catch on to what had happened. “Who are you?” Cole asked.
“I’m your best chance,” the robot said. “If City Patrol takes you in, you’re finished.”
“You’re not with them?” Cole asked.
“I’ve helped them,” the robot said. “And they think I’m with them. But I’m really working for myself here. You really can’t guess who I am? I’ve been chasing you for some time. Who else did you think would catch you?”
“Wait,” Cole said, chills tingling through him. “You’re the Hunter?”
“People call me that,” the robot replied.
“You’re a robot?”
The robot laughed. “I’m no bot. This is a drone I’m controlling.”
“You’re not here?” Cole asked.
“I can see you,” the Hunter said. “I’m free to act. That’s good enough. I’m actually in a lab.”
“I’m going back for him,” Jace said over the communicator. “Where is he?”
“Negative,” Forge answered. “Stop talking.”
“I’m not letting him—”
Cole felt a hot flash on his forearm and smelled smoke.
“And there you have the loyalty of the Unseen,” the Hunter said.
“What?” Cole asked.
“They torched your communicator,” he said. “Fried the crystal. They didn’t want me getting it. I can probably still figure out the harmonics from what’s left, but don’t tell them.”
“Why are you after us?” Cole asked.
“I bring in criminals,” the Hunter said. “It’s a talent.”
“You sound young.”
The Hunter gave a snort. “I’m older than you, buddy. We need to get you out of here. My Enforcers are running interference, but City Patrol is getting closer. It wasn’t easy to stage a clear path that would lead you to me. It won’t stay clear for long.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Cole said.
“Cole, you don’t know it yet, but this could be the luckiest day of your life,” the Hunter said. “You got conned into joining the wrong side in all of this, and I’m going to give you something most criminals can only dream about. A second chance.”
“I won’t sell out my friends,” Cole said firmly.
“You’ve been selling them out since you came here,” the Hunter said. “How do you think we found zerobase? My agents followed you from Hanover Station to Axis, and from there to the base. City Patrol almost messed it up, but my people were on you the whole time. Nice job slipping away from us at zerobase, by the way. We lost you for a while. Never again.”
Cole felt terrible to think he was responsible for trashing Googol’s best hideout in Zeropolis. But how could he have known? “I’ll never betray them on purpose.”
“Let’s save that conversation for later,” the Hunter replied. “For now, come with me, or City Patrol is going to turn your life into a nightmare. After losing Joe, they’re on a witch hunt, and you’re the only person who hasn’t escaped.”
“I’m sort of tangled up,” Cole said, reaching for his other tube of freeze-foam.
“Are you going for a weapon?” the Hunter asked. “Seriously? Is your brain broken? You see my trapgun, right? Do you think you can get a molecule of that foam out of that tube before I bury you?”
“I thought I’d be sneaky about it,” Cole said candidly.
“No chance,” the Hunter said. “Looks like I’m going to have to tear off that battle suit and carry you. It would be easier if you’d come willingly.”
“Sorry for any inconvenience,” Cole said.
“Toss that little tube aside or I’ll trap you good and leave you for the patrolmen,” the Hunter threatened.
Cole tried to toss it aside, but it got stuck in the net and didn’t go very far. “Sorry,” he said. “Want me to try again?”
“Just don’t touch it,” the Hunter replied. “Let me get the net off of you. Keep still. If you try something, I swear I’ll fire.”
Extending an arm, the Hunter sprayed the net and it dissolved. He reached for Cole, but there came a click as if a little piece of metal had hit the robotic drone. Glancing, Cole saw a silver disk attached to the drone’s hip. A slender wire led from the little disk to a shabby maintenance robot perhaps fifty yards away.
And then the drone lit up. White electricity crackled along the wire, and suddenly the drone was jerking and sizzling. Seconds later freeze-foam covered the severely damaged drone, and Sidekick shoved it over.
“Hi, Cole,” the little robot said. “Time to run.”
CHAPTER
17
OLD ZEROPOLIS
Cole raced after Sidekick, who it turned out could extend wheels and zoom along at a rapid pace. It took a moment to leave behind the sharp smell of the drone’s scorched metal. Cole was relieved to find his battle suit still functioned normally. He glanced back at where the drone lay swaddled in freeze-foam.
“What did you do to him?” Cole asked.
“I converted a lot of energy into something like electricity,” Sidekick said. “Too much for a bot like pretty boy to handle. I could have blown him apart, but you were too close. It was safer to disable him and lock him up with the foam.”
“Do you know where we’re going?” Cole asked.
“You had better hope so,” Sidekick said.
Cole hit the button on his communicator just in case. “Anybody hear me?” he asked.
“It’s dead,” Sidekick said. “Don’t worry. We’ll be okay. Whoever was running that fancy drone wanted you to himself. He diverted the patrolmen and the Enforcers away from here. And we’re almost to a tunnel entrance.”
“Thanks for saving me,” Cole said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Sidekick replied anxiously.
The walkway widened into a little park. Sidekick led the way to a rectangular grate in the ground between a bench and a low rock wall, then reached down and lifted the grate. “Just drop.”
No rungs or steps gave access to the gloomy shaft. Cole glanced around. There was nobody in view. Not wanting to ruin a clean getaway, he stepped into the shaft and plunged into the darkness, trying to hold his body ready to land.
He hit after falling perhaps twenty feet, making a splash in shin-deep water. Looking up at the rectangle of daylight, Cole saw Sidekick enter the shaft, all six legs braced against the sides as he slid the grate back into place. Then the little robot shimmied down to the bottom of the shaft.
“Catch me?” Sidekick asked. “You should be strong enough with the battle suit.”
“Sure,” Cole said.
Sidekick dropped. The robot was heavier than Cole expected, but he held on to him.
“You can set me down,” Sidekick said. “I’m waterproof.”
Cole put him down gently, trying not to dip his hands into the chilly water. It reeked like sewage.
“According to my specs, I can survive a thirty-story drop onto bonded crystal, but who wants needless risk? What if I dislocate a processor?”
“I owe you big time,” Cole said.
Switching on a light, Sidekick skittered forward, his legs extended to their maximum length. He left a gentle wake in the dark water. “Save the gratitude until you’re safely delivered to the Unseen in Old Zero. Think how guilty I’d feel if you thanked me and then we got captured in the tunnels!”
“Think they’ll catch us?”
“Probably not. I have more than my fair share of tricks to use down here. Nobody has mapped the Zeropolitan underground like the Unseen, and I have all of their information. In fact, I helped compile a lot of it.”
“I didn’t know you were with us,” Cole said.
“You weren’t supposed to know,” Sidekick said. “I work best in the background. I’m not a main attraction like that fancy drone, Mr. Tall and Sleek and Ready to Rumble.”
“You were the most important robot for me today,” Cole said. “You saved my bacon.”
“I can be useful,” Sidekick admitted. “I’m not the big, cool bot who charges into trouble with trapguns blazing. I’m a wingman. I lay low and pay attention. When an ally like you gets in trouble, I sneak up and zap the troublemaker in the back. Effective, if not heroic.”
“It felt heroic to me,” Cole said wholeheartedly. “How’d you have enough energy to fry him?”
“The energy is easy,” Sidekick said. “I can tap into some really juiced crystals. The trick is converting the energy into something like electricity without overheating. I’m built to do that. It’s my primary way of dealing with other bots.”
“It wasn’t electricity?” Cole asked.
“Almost,” Sidekick said. “Tinkers here can play with physics. Googol tuned my converter to deliver a jolt that would be extremely harmful to bots, but not horribly destructive to living beings. I deliver it with a wire because that kind of energy can’t be linked with harmonic crystals.”
“You’re amazing,” Cole said.
“Don’t embarrass me,” Sidekick said. “You’re just saying that because I rescued you. But I guess that’s an acceptable reason. Say it again.”
“I’m the new president of your fan club,” Cole said.
“Don’t toy with me,” Sidekick replied. “I’ve always liked the idea of a fan club. Of course, I usually picture myself as a member. I thought about making
one for Outlaw.”
“He was good today,” Cole said. “But I’m making one for you.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Sidekick said. “Any clue who was operating the drone? It was high-end technology.”
“The Hunter,” Cole said.
Sidekick stopped moving forward. “Really? The famous Enforcer? Are you sure?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“No wonder you were impressed with me,” Sidekick said. “I’m more impressed too.” The robot started advancing again. “What else did he say?”
“Didn’t you catch any of it?” Cole asked.
“I have good listening devices, but in this case I was coming fast,” Sidekick said. “I shot the drone as soon as I was within range.”
“The Hunter wanted me to come in quietly,” Cole said. “He told me I was on the wrong side.”
“Playing nice to convince you to give up everybody else.”
“Seemed that way.”
“The Hunter definitely wanted you to himself,” Sidekick said. “When they started ordering patrolmen away from the route you were taking, I suspected you were heading into a trap. The High Shaper must have a very serious interest in Secret.”
“Understatement alert,” Cole said. “He’ll do anything to get her. And he wouldn’t want too many people knowing much about her.”
“All the more reason for us to get away from here,” Sidekick said.
“Will the whole path smell this bad?” Cole asked.
“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” Sidekick said. “But it beats torture!”
“Can you smell?” Cole asked.
“Not like you,” Sidekick said. “I have sensors.”
“It’s pretty close to torture,” Cole said.
Sidekick stopped at an open pipe projecting from the wall. The round mouth looked barely tall enough for the robot to fit inside. “You’ll have to crawl, but this will get us onto less obvious pathways.”
“Are you joking?” Cole asked, crouching to study the greasy water draining from the pipe.
