Authors: Gregg Rosenblum
Just then the door to 2315 opened. Nick braced himself to run. But run where? Back out into the street for the bots to find him? Lexi poked her head out gingerly from the doorway, then flashed a huge, beautiful smile when she saw Nick, and waved him forward. He grinned back at her, feeling his cheeks flush, but then reminded himself, as he broke into a jog toward the door, that Lexi and Amanda had abandoned them back at the re-education center.
Cass, Kevin, Lexi, and Lexi’s parents were all in the hallway. Nick felt a surge of relief when he saw Cass and Kevin, and he gave Cass a quick hug. He suddenly felt very tired, and his wrist began to throb even more painfully. He wobbled for a moment, dizzy, and next thing he knew he was sitting on the floor, and Lexi and Cass were both kneeling down, their hands on his shoulders.
“Nick, are you okay?” Cass asked.
“I’m fine,” he said quietly.
“Lexi, get some water,” said Mrs. Tanner.
Lexi hurried into the kitchen and came back quickly. Nick sipped carefully, queasy. He felt his head clear a bit.
“Did anyone see you come?” asked Mr. Tanner. “How did you get back? Were you followed? Did you see anyone looking at you and then using their comm? God, did the Cutlers next door see you? If those damned true believers saw you …”
“Dad, give him a second,” said Lexi. “He almost passed out.”
“Lexi, if they led the bots to our house, then we’re dead or re-educated! Do you understand that this is not a game?” He took a moment to calm himself, then asked quietly, “Did anyone see you come here?”
“No,” said Nick. “No, I don’t think so.”
Mr. Tanner said nothing for a few moments, staring at Nick, and then he shook his head. “Come with me,” he said.
Nick stood up awkwardly, pushing himself off the floor and then away from the wall with his good hand. He still felt lightheaded. Everyone followed Mr. Tanner into the living room. The wall vid was on, the screen split into two displays. On the left was the image of Nick’s face captured from the woods. On the right was flashing red text against a white background, reading: “Three unchipped youth are in the City, one wanted for violent rebellion. If you see this individual, or other youths acting suspiciously, send a report immediately. All three are considered extremely dangerous.”
“Turn it off, please,” said Cass.
“I can’t turn it off,” said Mr. Tanner. “The alert stays on as long as the bots keep it running.” He put his hands on his hips. “So just what in the hell is going on?”
“Jonathan,” said Mrs. Tanner.
“Let me finish, Olivia,” Mr. Tanner said. He turned back to Nick. “I supposedly left you quietly hiding in my house, with my daughter, eating breakfast, and then I get a City-wide alert on my comm, and Mrs. Tanner and I rush home, and Lexi proceeds to tell me a story that I know is filled with half-truths about how when she came out of the shower, you three had taken the scoots and were gone.” Mr. Tanner paused, took a deep breath, then continued. “I need to know two things: One, what happened. And two, why in the world I should let you stay here if you’re going to be reckless with the lives of my family.”
“We wanted to see the re-education center,” Nick said quickly, before anyone else could jump in. “Lexi told us where it was, but not because she thought we were going. She took a shower, and we snuck out and took the scoots.” He looked at Lexi. She was staring at him, her expression difficult to read. He quickly turned back to Mr. Tanner. “We got spotted, and we wrecked the scoots, and an old man hid us in his store and then drove us to your neighborhood in his trailer. I’m sorry that we put you in danger. We’ll leave if you want us to.”
“Maybe that would be best,” said Mr. Tanner.
“You’re not leaving,” said Mrs. Tanner, stepping between her husband and Nick. “Not hurt. Let me see that wrist.” She held out her hands. Nick hesitated, then gingerly placed his injured wrist in her palms. She gently felt the wrist with her fingertips. Even her careful touch made Nick suck in his breath with pain. “It’s too swollen to tell, but if it’s broken, it’s not a bad break. We’ll ice it and splint it and hope for the best.” She smiled. “Sorry, but I don’t think even you could pull off a trip to the hospital for a rejuve session.”
“Nick,” said Mr. Tanner. “Kids. One more stupid thing and you three are gone. We’re risking our lives for you. Do you understand that?”
“We understand,” said Nick. Cass and Kevin nodded.
“Come with me,” said Lexi, taking Nick by the arm. “I’ll get the ice.”
In the kitchen Lexi filled a large bowl with ice and water. She set it on the table. “Thank you,” she said, sitting down and pulling another chair out for Nick. “My father would kill me if he knew the whole story.”
Nick sat, took a deep breath, then put his wrist in the ice water. It stung like hell for a few moments, then it began to go numb, and he let the breath out. “Yeah, and thank you, too,” he said.
“For what?” said Lexi, sliding her seat closer to Nick. Her knee brushed against his, and he pulled it away.
“For abandoning us back there,” he said sarcastically. He saw the surprise in her eyes.
Lexi leaned in close to him, her face just a foot from his. Nick could feel himself flushing. He turned his head a bit to the left, moving his bad eye away from her. “Amanda and I are chipped, remember?” she said, quietly but with anger. “If a bot connects us to you, it’s all over for us and for our families. It’s not my fault you acted like a complete idiot on the street.”
Nick felt his anger flush away, replaced by shame. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Lexi leaned back, and her face softened into a smile. “Pretty impressive, making it back across the City without getting caught. I mean, it was stupid in the first place, getting so close to the center, but then, after the stupid, impressive.” She reached for his face and slid her hand around to the back of his neck. For a moment Nick thought she was going to pull him to her for a kiss, but instead she rubbed the spot on the back of his neck where a chip would be, then let her hand drop. “My Revolution 19 rock star.”
BY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, KEVIN WAS ALREADY LOSING HIS MIND, TRYING not to think about their parents suffering through who-knew-what at the re-education center. He tried to stay distracted, with little success. He had played with the various tech in the house—the screen readers, the wall vids, even the rehydrator in the kitchen—and he had peppered Lexi and her parents with questions they couldn’t answer: How did the sphere bots hover? What was the power source for the scoots? How did the City handle the wireless network relays for the comms? It was quickly apparent that they weren’t programmers or engineers. They took their tech for granted without really understanding it, just like back in the Freepost with the power grid, and Kevin gave up on them.
With two hours left before Lexi returned from school, Kevin snuck into the garage and began dismantling the Tanners’ only remaining scoot.
He had intended to just take a quick look at the engine, but it took him a while to figure out how to pop off the chassis without breaking it, and once he figured that out and started digging into the scoot’s guts, he lost track of time. That’s how it always was, when he really dug into a tech project. At the Freepost, he used to spend all day in Tom’s shelter, hunched over his work, oblivious to the passing of hours. He wouldn’t just be touching the tech with his tools and looking at it with his eyes; it was as if he were shrunk down and actually inside the tech himself. He loved the feeling.
Kevin was so focused on the scoot that he didn’t even hear Lexi until she tapped him on the shoulder. He let out a startled yell and jumped up, dropping the wrench he had been holding with a clang.
“Lexi! Damn, you snuck up on me.”
Lexi said nothing for a moment, surveying the damage. The scoot’s white chassis was entirely removed, in three sections off to the side. Its insides were mostly removed as well, lying in scattered pieces, big and small, on the garage floor at Kevin’s feet.
“Kevin,” she finally said. “You guys wrecked our other scoots, and now you’ve broken this one into tiny pieces.”
“It’s not a problem,” Kevin said. “Ten minutes and I’ll have it all back together.”
“What in the world are you doing?”
“Checking out the power supply,” he explained. He reached down and picked up one of the larger pieces, a black sphere the size of a large grapefruit. “I knew it had to be a battery, of course, since the scoots are plugged into your grid overnight, but it’s amazing how efficient the design is.... The power cells are stacked in this layered pattern that Tom never showed me … and here’s the really fletch part … there’s a magnetic field casing that’s not only boosting the power, but that’s how the energy is being transferred into the drive train.... It’s kind of like …”
“Enough!” said Lexi, cutting him off. “I didn’t understand a single thing you just said. Just please have it back in one piece before my parents get back, okay?”
“Not a problem,” said Kevin.
“Which is at five thirty.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he nodded. “I just need two more minutes looking at the battery.”
“It’s five o’clock. You’ve got a half hour.”
“Like I said, not a problem,” said Kevin. He offered Lexi an awkward smile.
Lexi raised an eyebrow and frowned, then left the garage. Kevin looked at all the parts at his feet, ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath, then got to work.
Nick came in to visit him a few minutes later. “Lexi told me you had attacked a scoot. Kid, what the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that the scoot’s power supply might be similar tech to what powers the bots,” Kevin said, annoyed, not looking up from his rushed efforts to piece the scoot back together. He hated when Nick called him “Kid.” Like Nick was so grown up and Kevin was just a useless little child. Kevin had been helping Tom keep the Freepost grid together for years, but Nick could never give him credit.
Kevin waited for his brother to continue giving him a hard time, but instead Nick hesitated, then said, “Well, just get it back together.”
“That’s what I’m doing.” Kevin paused in his work, picked up a small black rod the size of a pencil, and turned and showed it to Nick. “What the heck is this?” he said. “I have no idea where this goes.”
“Just fix it, Kevin,” said Nick. “Fast, please.”
“Will do,” said Kevin. He studied the small rod a few more moments, then shrugged, put it in his pocket, and got back to work.
Kevin managed to finish the scoot by 5:30, but it wouldn’t power up. He didn’t have time to figure out how to fix it, so he left the scoot, broken but at least looking intact, and went into the house. Lexi’s parents weren’t home yet, and he was tempted to go back out to the garage and keep working. “I thought you said they’d be home at 5:30, Lexi.”
Just then the door opened, and Lexi’s mother walked in.
“Sorry, I meant 5:31,” said Lexi.
Mrs. Tanner kicked off her shoes and sat down on the couch. “Long day,” she said. “How is everyone?”
“Fine, thank you,” said Kevin after an awkward silent moment—he realized that both he and Cass had assumed Nick would speak, but he remained quiet, soaking his wrist in ice.
“Did you find things to do?” Mrs. Tanner asked.
Nick abruptly pulled his wrist out of the ice and plastic bag and stood. “Mrs. Tanner, I appreciate what you’re doing, but we can’t just sit here. How much longer do you expect our parents to be held?”
“I don’t know, Nick,” she said. “It shouldn’t be much longer, but you have to be patient. They weren’t released today; I was able to check on that quietly. That’s all we know for sure.” She stood and reached her hand out. “How’s the wrist?”
“It’s fine,” said Nick, keeping his arm tucked tight against his chest.
Mrs. Tanner sighed. “Okay, I’m going to change out of my work clothes. Lexi, can you please get the chicken and potatoes ready? Your father should be home any minute.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Lexi. “Come on, Nick, I’ll put you to work. There must be something I can find for a one-armed man to do in the kitchen.”
Lexi rinsed lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and red peppers and handed them to Nick, who began awkwardly chopping them into a salad. They said nothing for a few minutes while Nick fought to cut the vegetables one-handed and Lexi placed a large chicken and six potatoes in the flash oven. She tapped a few commands on the control screen, and the oven began to quietly hum and count down from five minutes.
Nick slammed the knife down onto the cutting board, and the carrot he was working on flew across the kitchen. He cursed. Lexi picked up the carrot, rinsed it again, then pushed Nick aside with her shoulder and began chopping it herself. “You know you don’t have a choice, Nick,” she said. “Every bot and half the people in the City know your face. You need to stay here and fly low.”
“I know that!” yelled Nick. “I can’t help my parents because I can’t leave this damned house, and I sure can’t help them from the woods. So I know, thank you very much, that all I can do is sit here and be useless.”
Lexi pointed the knife at Nick’s chest. “You, my friend, need to not yell at me. I’m on your side.”
“I’m sorry,” said Nick after a few moments. “It’s not your fault. I’ll figure something out.” He took the knife back from Lexi and began cutting the vegetables again.
He noticed Lexi studying his face, and Nick shifted his blind eye away from her.
“Your eye,” said Lexi. “How did it happen?”
Nick set the knife down. He felt angry, but he realized it wasn’t directed at Lexi. It was the old anger he had felt his whole life. “The bots,” he said, turning to her. “It happened when I was a little boy, escaping from a city. A chunk of stone from a lase blast, that’s what my parents told me. I don’t remember it.”
Lexi smiled and said, “You’re getting more and more interesting.” She picked up the knife and began cutting one last carrot. “Farryn,” she said finally, chopping. “Farryn might help.”
“What is Farryn?”
“Not what, who,” said Lexi. “A tech head, kinda like your brother. Someone I know from school. He might be able to help. He knows people. Don’t mention him to my parents, though—they’re not big fans.”