Authors: Gregg Rosenblum
“Gapper, please, let’s stop,” said Jessica. It was the first she had spoken all night. She held her hand out. Gapper took her hand but stepped away from the bushes and pulled on Jessica to follow.
“If they find us, they’ll kill us,” he said. “Or worse, they’ll bring us to the City.” They’d been hearing tales about the Cities all their lives, mostly campfire talk passed from kid to kid. The nearest one, to the east, on the Atlantic Ocean, was just “the City.” It was a living hell, they had heard, run by the robots. Captured humans were brought there, enslaved, treated like animals, surviving in outdoor pens with only scraps of rotten food and rags for clothes. Forced to work—some said building new robots, others insisted just pointless labor, like breaking rocks or carrying bricks back and forth—until they dropped dead from exhaustion.
Gapper pulled on Jessica’s hand again. “Please, I can’t go there,” he said urgently.
Jessica pulled her hand away from him. “We need to rest,” she said. “I need to rest.” Gapper stood a moment, fists clenched, then nodded.
All five crawled into the hedge, hoping to find a position hidden from the trail that wouldn’t scratch them too much. Inside, they discovered a perfect hollow large enough for everyone to lie in without touching the brush above and around them. They huddled together for warmth. Cass fell asleep immediately. Jessica began to cry silently, her shoulders shaking, and Gapper hugged her tightly until she stopped.
Nick stayed awake to keep watch. Every few hours, to make sure she was just sleeping, he nudged Cass on the shoulder until she woke up enough to open her eyes and mumble a groggy “What?” before she fell back into darkness.
Cass awoke at dawn with the others. She felt better, more clear-headed, although the lump that had formed on the back of her head hurt when she touched it. Nick was muttering to himself, angry that he had let himself fall asleep.
“It’s fine,” said Cass. “You needed the rest.”
“Not fine,” said Nick. “We could have been captured while we were sleeping. Your concussion could have gotten worse.”
“No bots and no coma,” said Cass. “So forget about it.”
They moved on, making good time now that they could actually see where they were going. Only once did anyone speak; Jessica said, “Did they kill everyone? Do you think they’re all dead?”
“No, dammit,” said Nick quietly. Nobody else said anything. They kept walking.
Around noon Kevin, taking the rear—Cass knew it was to keep an eye on her despite her protestations that she was fine—stopped to tie his shoe and then suddenly froze. “I hear something coming!” he said.
Nick ducked behind a tree and motioned for the others to do the same. Cass and Kevin found two nearby trees. Gapper crouched behind a boulder, pulling Jessica down with him.
All was silent. “I know I heard something,” whispered Kevin.
They waited, and Cass was beginning to think Kevin had imagined it, but then they heard a hum, almost like a wind turbine beginning to crank. Nick held up his hand and whispered, “Don’t move.”
“To hell with this,” said Gapper, standing up.
“Gapper, no,” hissed Kevin, but Gapper took off running. After a moment Jessica followed. They disappeared east, off the trail into the trees. The hum grew suddenly louder and then a small silver sphere, about the size of a person’s head, shot past their hiding spot, following Gapper and Jessica. It floated in the air, bobbing slightly, sliding gracefully around tree trunks and under limbs as it quickly disappeared.
Kevin and Nick and Cass looked at each other from behind their separate trees, wordlessly deciding what to do. Nick pointed in the direction the robot had headed and Kevin nodded, while Cass shook her head
no
—her brothers were going to get themselves killed, chasing after bots—but then a second silver sphere appeared, humming like the first, floating gently toward their hiding spots.
Nick very slowly reached down and picked up a thick tree branch that lay at his feet. Kevin picked up a rock the size of his palm. Cass looked around her for something to use as a weapon, but there was nothing nearby, so she flattened herself against her tree and balled her fists. Nick held up a hand, signaling
Wait, wait
. Kevin turned the brim of his baseball hat back to his neck and took a deep breath. Nick whispered, “Kevin, no,” but Kevin stepped out from behind his tree, screaming something incoherent, and flung his rock at the sphere floating ten yards away. The rock bounced off it and the robot bounced backward, like a balloon being punched. It paused a moment as if surprised, then streaked forward toward Kevin.
Kevin held his hands up over his face as the sphere hurtled toward him, and Nick jumped out and smashed the sphere with his tree limb, driving it into the ground at Kevin’s feet. White sparks flared across the metal surface of the robot. As the boys looked down at it, a small red circle opened like an eye. Before they could move, a beam of red light flickered quickly across Nick’s face, from his chin to his forehead and back down. Nick flinched, threw his hand up over his good eye, and then began hammering the robot again with his branch. The red light went out and the sphere lay in the dirt, dented and silent and still.
“Did you kill it?” Cass asked quietly.
Nick nudged the robot with his foot. “It was never alive. But yeah, I guess I killed it.”
“A scout,” said Kevin, kneeling down and poking the robot with a twig. “Small, fast. I don’t know how in the world it floated like that. Magnetic field, maybe?”
“Kevin, what the hell were you thinking?” said Nick. “I told you to stay put!”
“Stay put for what?” said Kevin, throwing down the twig and standing up. “This thing was gonna find us. I got its attention so you could take it out.”
“Yeah, you’re pretty good at getting their attention, aren’t you?” asked Nick.
Kevin’s eyes widened in shock, and Nick looked ashamed. “I’m sorry, Kevin,” he said. “That wasn’t fair …” But Kevin turned from his brother and began walking away.
Cass grabbed Kevin’s shoulder, stopping him. He tried to shrug out of her grip, but she held on tight. She was still dizzy and lightheaded, like her legs were a hundred feet beneath her, but she forced herself to focus. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but we have to get out of here, before—”
A painfully loud whirring drowned out the rest of Cass’s sentence. The siblings pressed themselves against trees as a black object passed overhead. It was similar in shape to the warship Cass had seen at the kidbon, but smaller, about the size of a bosh field. It moved slowly, just above the tree line. The air felt hot as its metal belly slid over their heads.
Kevin whispered, “I didn’t know what it was, Cass.” He had tears in his eyes, and Cass could see that he was fighting back more. “I shouldn’t have picked it up.”
“Come on,” said Cass, taking Kevin’s hand as the three crept away northward, away from the flying robot, away from Gapper and Jessica. “You can tell me about it at the shelter. Mom and Dad are waiting for us.”
NICK PICKED UP THE PACE AND MOVED FORWARD AT A JOG, NERVES jangling, expecting the second scout to come humming up behind them, or the warbird to swoop down from above. But the path behind them remained quiet. After fifteen minutes he could see that Cass was having trouble keeping up, and he slowed down.
They spent the afternoon walking without talking, abandoning the trail to continue north when it cut to the west. Nick kept straining to hear any pursuit, but the only sounds were the snapping of twigs under their feet, the call of birds, an occasional crackle in the undergrowth from a mouse or squirrel or some other small creature, the leaves rustling in the breeze. It was a clear day; the sunlight filtered down through the canopy. The forest here was very green, with soft grass, low-growing seedlings, and fern lining the narrow dirt game trail they followed.
They stopped only to drink from a stream and to gather a handful of wild berries. Nick bit into a tart berry and suddenly found tears welling up. It was thanks to his mother’s endless lectures that he had known the berry was safe to eat. He wiped them away angrily with the back of his hand.
“They’ll be at the tent waiting for us,” Cass said, putting her hand on his shoulder.
Nick stepped out from under her hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”
Kevin and Cass hadn’t been back to the emergency shelter for almost two years, not since they had helped their parents set it up. Nick had been back twice since then, bringing supplies with their father, most recently six months ago, so he should have known the way. Still, by late afternoon he was worried that they wouldn’t find it, but then the terrain began to look familiar, and finally, there past the clearing, up against the base of a steep tree-lined hill, he saw the split boulder that served as the shelter landmark. Tucked behind the boulder, hidden by the deep shadows of the trees and the slope of the hill, was a small green and brown tent flap. The tent itself, ten feet by fifteen, was wedged into an indentation of the hill, in a natural clearing concealed by the trees, the boulder, the hill, and carefully hung camouflage netting. Even knowing where to look, it was almost impossible to see.
They all broke into a run. Kevin got to the flap first, unzipped it, and stepped in, Nick following close behind.
The tent was empty.
Everyone was silent. Nick knew at that moment, beyond a doubt, that nobody else would be coming to the shelter, but he said with forced cheerfulness, “They’re old and slow. We’re young and fast. Give them a few hours.”
Cass sat down, right there on the ground by the tent flap. “They’re not coming.”
Kevin sat down, too. “Yes, they are, Cass. And Gapper and Jess, too.”
Cass shook her head but said nothing.
“They have to make it, Cass.” Kevin’s voice began to break. “This is all my fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I found something in the woods,” said Kevin. “A piece of tech. I took it home, and I hid it, and it turned on and signaled the bots.”
Nick went over to his brother. “They would have found us sooner or later anyway, with or without the chaff,” he said.
Kevin glanced up, his face showing remorse, but then he shook his head and looked away. “Well, later would have been better than sooner.”
They waited. Nick wasn’t expecting his parents to show up, but he had to give them the chance, and he knew that Cass needed the rest. Their father had stocked the shelter with military MREs, which tasted lousy but would keep them alive. They left the tent only for quick forays down to a nearby stream for water and into the trees for bathroom breaks. At night they took turns keeping watch, Cass insisting on joining in the rotation. Nick barely slept at all. Their parents were gone. They were either dead or captured by the bots. And he didn’t know what to do.
During the day they spoke little. Nick read a copy of
Huckleberry Finn
that he found in a small stash of books under one of the cots. Kevin tinkered with a set of lightstrips and a coil of gridline. If he had more line and a handful of panels, he could set up a grid for the tent, he explained. The sunlight would be spotty, since the panels would have to stay hidden in the trees, but if he set up the array to maximize efficiency, he’d have plenty of power for the shelter. Nick and Cass let him ramble, barely listening. Cass had found a notepad and pencil and spent her time sketching. She drew the four robots she had seen: the large warbird; the smaller bird that went after Gapper and Jess; the boxlike rolling soldier, half-hidden in smoke; the darting, floating scouts in the woods. She drew a picture of her mother and father smiling, and another of a bosh game, all the kids from the kidbon standing around and watching her play. And she sketched Samantha, lying facedown on the ground, Cass’s notebook near her outstretched hand. Nick watched her tear that page out and rip it into small pieces as soon as she had finished it.
By the afternoon of the second day, Nick knew it was time. “Okay, plan B,” he announced, startling his siblings.
Kevin stood up from where he had been fiddling with the lightsticks on the floor. “Yes. I’m going crazy in here.”
“So where next?” Cass said.
“Back to the Freepost, obviously,” said Kevin. “To find Mom and Dad and other survivors.”
“No,” said Nick. “We’re not going back to Freepost.”
“So we’re just giving up on them?” Cass said angrily. “How many parents am I going to lose?” She sat down on her sleeping bag, hugged herself tightly, and closed her eyes.
Nick was too surprised to speak. Nobody in the family spoke of Cass’s birth parents, killed during the Revolution when she was an infant. Kevin and Nick’s parents had adopted her, and, simply, they were her parents; Kevin and Nick were her brothers.
Nick walked over to Cass and kneeled down. “No,” he said. “We’re not giving up on Mom and Dad. If they had escaped the attack, they would have made it here by now.”
Cass opened her eyes. “So you’re saying they’re dead?” she said quietly.
“No! I’m saying they must have been captured.”
“Or they’re hurt,” said Kevin, “and hiding, and that’s why they can’t make it to us, and they’re waiting for us to come back to them!”
Nick stood and spun to face him. “So we just wander back and forth in the bot-infested woods? Don’t be an idiot, Kevin.”
Cass placed herself between them. “So what’s your plan?”
“Yeah,” said Kevin. “What’s your brilliant plan, then?”
“We go to the City. If Mom and Dad are alive, they were probably captured and taken there. So we go to the City and find them. And get them out.”
Nobody spoke. The City. Where humans were taken to be slowly broken, bled, tortured, killed.
Cass moved first, grabbing three backpacks and tossing them onto Nick’s cot. She slid her new notebook into one of the packs, then began stacking MREs. Kevin gathered up the lightstrips.
“So you agree …” began Nick.
“Shut up and pack,” said Kevin. “And figure out how to get us to the City.”