by Tarah Benner
“Jared!” I yell.
The bots are advancing. They’re taking their time. They move like creatures who know their prey is cornered.
Jared stumbles toward us and punches in his code. He blurts out his password in a jumble of vowels, and the light above the door turns green.
We spill onto the landing and down the stairs, and Jonah seems to find his legs. The bots are still following close behind. The lock on the door must have a delay.
Jared takes us down two flights and leads us through a set of double doors. We emerge in a small employee cafeteria with long tables, big windows, and retro orange paint.
To our right is a sliding metal door covering the window where people leave their trays. Jared yanks the door up to reveal the room beyond, and Jonah and I slide on through.
We’re standing in the room where food is prepared, and Jared climbs in and slams the door shut.
We need weapons. My eye lands on a cast-iron skillet. I grab it off its hook and hand another to Jonah. He’s still recovering from having his head bashed against the wall, but he’s coherent enough to give me a raised-eyebrow look.
I ignore his expression and run down to the other end of the room, where the serving line leads out into the dining area. The bots have just reached the cafeteria, and they’re scanning the room for their human targets.
Jared nods to tell me that his device is recharged, but there are four of them and only three of us.
The first humanoid approaches the serving line, and I stay hidden behind the wall. I hold my breath as the bot approaches, waiting for the high-heel boots to round the corner.
I swing out the skillet as hard as I can. It hits the bot squarely in the face, and I see it reel back from the force of the impact.
The pan flattened the bot’s silicone features, spreading its nose like cupcake frosting. As I watch, the fleshy silicone mask rebounds, and its perfect features are back.
The bot dives at me again, ready for more. I swing out the pan with the full force of my body, but the bot ducks the skillet and goes for my legs.
I don’t have time to react. All the bot’s weight flies into my knees, and I feel my legs shoot out from under me. I hit the metal tray ledge — hard — and a searing pain shoots up my spine.
The skillet hits the ground with a deafening crash, and a silverware tray tips onto the floor.
I grit my teeth and bite back tears. The ledge struck me right in the middle of my spine, and the pain is enough to render me motionless.
The bot is climbing up my legs like a spider, pinning me to the ground and reaching for my throat.
I thrust out an arm, feeling for the skillet, but my fingers close on a utensil instead. The bot shifts its weight to the center of my chest, holding me to the ground with its forearms and torso.
I glare up into the humanoid’s face, trying to read whatever commands are working behind those steely blue eyes. I grip the utensil hard in my hands. I don’t even look to see what it is.
I thrust my fist forward into the bot’s face, driving a fork deep into its eye socket. I stare in slight horror at what I’ve done, but then the bot blinks, and its eyelid catches.
The bot doesn’t loosen its grip, but I take advantage of its momentary distraction and tug my body out of its grip. I pull myself up on the metal ledge, and then, out of nowhere, Jared slides in. He shoves the device into the bot’s neck, and I see a spark fly from the curled wire just before the bot goes limp.
I meet Jared’s gaze, still breathing hard, when the wall behind him explodes. Pieces of drywall shower down as the air fills with dust, and I see two ghostly hands reaching through the wall.
The hands grab Jared from behind, and a scream tears my throat as he’s yanked into the wall.
The device clatters to the ground. I dive for it on instinct, but then a foot flies out of nowhere and cracks me under the chin.
I hit the ground hard, and a white high heel slams down on the device. The heel crushes it to pieces, and I look up to Jared.
I can see the shape of the bot’s arm holding him in place from behind, slowly suffocating Jared as it attempts to pull him through the wall.
The room seems to lurch as I try to stand up. But then the boot swings out again, and I feel a surge of pain in my ribs. Agony fans out around my whole torso, and I let out a pitiful moan.
The bot that kicked me is standing over me in the line. It’s brunette and evil with a wicked half smile.
I know intellectually that the bots don’t feel. They aren’t programmed with emotions. But something about the brunette’s sadistic smile makes me think it’s enjoying this.
I’m in too much pain to stand up and fight. Just drawing breath causes unimaginable agony.
But just as I’m about to resign myself to the worst, the bot’s head snaps around, and a chair swings out of nowhere.
The humanoid’s body pitches like a falling tree, and Jonah flies in to finish his assault.
He pummels the bot with a vicious force and then drops the chair and picks up a skillet. He whacks the bot across the face, knocking it into the sneeze guard. I duck my head as glass rains down and feel tiny shards rebound off my body.
Jonah grabs a large shard of glass and slices the bot across the face. The silicone mask rips in two, revealing a mess of metal and plastic. Jonah stabs mindlessly with the piece of glass, and I see blood dripping from his hand.
I manage to pull myself to my feet, but then the fourth bot rounds the corner. It’s got deep ebony skin and almond-shaped eyes. It lunges for Jonah, who’s still fighting the brunette, and I hear a cry of pain.
I look over in time to see chunks of drywall crumbling around Jared’s body. The bot is still trying to pull him through the wall, and the pressure it’s exerting is killing him slowly.
Leaving Jonah to contend with the others, I fly out into the dining room and grab a chair with metal legs. I swing it around like an axe, striking Jared’s bot along the back of the head.
“Come on!” I yell, swinging it again. “Come fight!”
The bot twists its head to look at me — almost a full one-eighty. This one has dark mocha features and long black hair. I can see Mordecai’s deadly mission etched in its eyes, but the bot just pivots back around and continues its assault on Jared.
Panicking, I dash into the kitchen, where Jonah is waging war against the other two. As I watch, he thrusts out a kick that knocks the brunette in the chest and swings around with an elbow to drive the other one back.
I cast around for a better weapon and see a meat tenderizer hanging from a hook. It’s gleaming as though it’s been waiting for me all along, and I lunge across the room to grab it.
One of Jonah’s bots turns, but I swing the tenderizer around so fast that she doesn’t have time to duck.
There’s a brief spark and a smash, and the bot staggers to the side. She crashes into the serving line but quickly rebounds for more.
My eyes lock on Jared, whose face is turning blue. I dash back out into the dining area, and the fourth bot follows.
I don’t hesitate. I just bring the meat tenderizer straight down on Jared’s bot, bashing its head with all the force I can muster.
An animalistic groan escapes my throat, but I raise my arms again and bring the mallet crashing down. A burst of sparks greets my strike, and I feel a surge of vindication.
I whip around just in time to stop the last bot from getting her hands around my throat and bash her face in with the meat tenderizer.
I hear a dull thud as Jared slides free from the wall and hits the ground on the other side. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, but there’s no time to run and check.
The last bot flies toward me as if propelled by a supernatural force. It slams me back against the wall, and I’m so stunned that I drop my weapon.
Terror rips through me as the bot pins me against the wall. It traps my arms behind my back and raises a knee to waist level and plants it in my abdomen.
At first I think the bot is
just trying to keep me here, but then it starts to push, and I feel as though my organs are being crushed.
I jerk my body from side to side, but the bot doesn’t move an inch. It just pushes me harder into the wall, driving its knee into my organs.
Tears of agony spring to my eyes, and I feel my flesh begin to yield.
The bot isn’t going to stop. It’s going to push until it ruptures my spleen — or crushes me against the wall.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing it to be over, and then, miraculously, it is. The pressure on my stomach disappears, and I open my eyes to see my savior.
One of the bot’s glass eyes has been shattered, its head pulverized by the business end of the meat tenderizer. The end is still stuck in its head, but the bot is no longer operational.
Jonah shoves the bot’s lifeless corpse aside, and I let out a cry and a waterfall of tears. I can’t stop them. They just pour out of me as Jonah delivers another kick for good measure. The bot is definitely finished already, but he unsticks his weapon and continues to pound until the bot’s head is in pieces.
Sweat is pouring from Jonah’s face as he crouches over the bot. As he chips away at the fleshy exterior, I begin to see more ugly bits of metal and plastic.
There is no blood. There is no flesh. There’s nothing human about it.
“Jonah.”
At the sound of my voice, Jonah stops and looks me in the eye. He blinks several times very fast, and I watch him slowly return to the present.
The fear is still coiled within him — fear born from battle madness. I say his name again, and I see him return. He drops the mallet with a loud clatter, and silence fills the room.
23
Jonah
Maggie’s voice calls me back from the darkness. I’m sweating and heaving and completely spent. The bot is lying in pieces beneath me — a useless pile of metal and plastic that is no longer deadly or beautiful.
Maggie’s face is as white as a sheet, and I can tell that her body is hurting. All of the bots are out of commission. The cafeteria is silent.
I drop the meat tenderizer and let it all go. Maggie’s shoulders sag, her head dips forward, and tears start to pour down her cheeks.
I watch her dumbly, struggling to get back to the present. I’d been deep in the heady blaze of battle, and nothing seems real except her.
The curls around her face are slick with sweat, and her blue-green eyes are shining with fear. Her chest is rising and falling rapidly as she lets go of her toughness and softens back into Maggie.
I move my body toward her and fold her head against my chest. Her thin arms wrap around my waist, and that small sweet gesture almost does me in.
I feel myself unraveling in the aftermath of battle. I pull back from Maggie, bend down, and crush my lips against hers.
It all happens so fast that I don’t have time to overthink it. I just breathe her in, and Maggie rises to meet me.
Thrusting my hands into her curls, I taste the salt from her sweat and tears. She reaches up to grip my neck, and I push her back against the wall.
I can feel her heart thumping — feel her soft breasts beneath my chest and the inviting give of her body as I press my hips into hers. I lose myself in the heady rush of sensations — the taste, the feel, the inviting response from her strong little body.
But then I hear a burst of static, and we break apart with a smack of lips. A screen at the front of the room just flipped on, bathing the cafeteria in a bluish glow. I turn my body to block Maggie from view, as if I can protect her from anything if I just keep her hidden.
Mordecai’s face appears on screen — pale, washed out, and larger than life. I watch his eyes dart from camera to camera, his expression darkening as he takes in the destruction.
I feel my muscles clench as I stare into the screen. I’d almost forgotten about all the surveillance. There’s not an inch of this room where we can hide, and because Mordecai is holding Si Damm captive, there’s no camera in the world that he can’t access.
“Well, well,” he sneers, surveying the wreckage with a look of disdain. “I can see I’ll have to send more bots next time.”
There’s a pause as his eyes rake back and forth, probably searching the cafeteria for Jared’s dead body. I take the chance to study Mordecai’s surroundings.
The room where he’s sitting is completely dark, with the only light coming from the screens. The walls behind him look almost orange, but there aren’t any windows to offer a clue.
“Well done,” he says in a bitter voice. “I must admit that I’m impressed.”
“What do you want?” I growl. I’m fed up with Mordecai’s cowardly messages. I want to meet the bastard face to face.
“What I want is the data being stored inside that building.”
“So come and get it,” I say, tilting my chin up in defiance. A man like Mordecai doesn’t walk into battle. He’s too smart and spineless to show his face.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I force a smug grin so he knows I’m not scared. “It seems like your bots aren’t getting the job done.”
Mordecai draws in a sharp breath through his nose, and his whole expression seems to sour. It doesn’t matter that he knows I’m baiting him. My insults still do the trick.
“I had hoped that Zephyr’s drudge might be of some use . . . Unfortunately, it appears that my bots were a tad overzealous.”
“That’s what happens when you send your toys to do your dirty work,” I growl. “You want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.”
Mordecai’s scowl deepens, and I sense that he’s losing his patience. “Since the drudge is dead, I’ll need you to finish what he started,” he says crisply. “I require access to Vault’s servers located in the room they call ‘The Brain.’ There’s a separate passcode to access the data — a passcode only an admin would have.”
“That’s too bad,” I say casually, feeling the hatred rise up in my throat. “Only Jared and Zephyr were administrators.”
“Is that what he told you?” asks Mordecai with a chuckle. “It appears the drudge didn’t trust you after all . . . I have it on good authority that there is another — a drudge close to Zephyr whom he trusted with access.”
I try to keep my expression neutral, but I can’t hide my surprise. It’s possible that Zephyr was bluffing. The suggestion that there could be a third administrator is news to me.
“You’re resourceful,” says Mordecai with a condescending sneer. “Find me another Vault employee who has administrative access. Or the next time you meet my bots, I’ll make sure that Ms. Barnes suffers.”
A surge of rage flares through my body, and I can tell by Mordecai’s satisfied expression that he knows he’s struck a nerve.
“You have twelve hours,” he says. “Do not disappoint me.”
Mordecai reaches for a button outside the frame, and a second later the screen goes dark.
I scowl at the little gold dots all around the ceiling, hating that Mordecai is still watching us from somewhere.
I walk up to the closest one and aim my pistol at the gold circle. I fire, and the shot reverberates throughout the cafeteria. I pivot my body to shoot out each camera, and when I turn around, Maggie is gone.
I find her in the serving line among a sea of glass, crouched over Jared’s motionless body.
“He’s alive,” she whispers.
He doesn’t look alive. Jared’s face is as pale as a corpse, and his body is bent at an awkward angle.
“We have to get out of here,” I say, keeping my voice to a whisper. “Someone will have heard the shots.”
The police and national guardsmen are swarming the valley. It won’t be long before they’re beating down the doors to see what all the commotion was about.
Maggie gives a shaky nod. I hang one of Jared’s arms around my neck and pull the kid up off the floor. Maggie gets under him to support his weight, and together we carry him to the edge of the cafeteria.<
br />
Jared is beginning to stir, and I lay him on a table and move down the hall. I shoot out all the cameras all the way to the entrance. We don’t want Mordecai to learn that Jared survived.
By the time I return to the cafeteria, he’s sitting up and rubbing his throat where the bot tried to choke him. He’s in bad shape.
The kid was unconscious for several minutes, which means the bot did more than starve his brain of oxygen. He might have a concussion from when he hit the ground, but we can’t worry about that now.
“What . . . What happened?” he gasps.
“Mordecai,” I say, filled with a new level of respect for Jared.
“He lured us here,” says Maggie. “He needed you to unlock that data.”
Jared rolls his eyes. “Fat chance.”
Maggie grins. She seems to have taken a liking to the kid.
“I guess this thing’s useless,” he says, taking the bot tracker out of his pocket and shaking his head in disappointment. “The bots’ signals are too unreliable.”
“Listen,” I say, keeping my voice low in case the hallway is bugged. “Mordecai doesn’t know you’re alive. We need to keep it that way so he doesn’t come after you.”
“He wants someone to get him Vault’s data,” Maggie explains.
Jared nods. “Zephyr knew this could happen.”
“Is there anyone else who has administrative access?” I ask. “Anyone else Zephyr trusted?”
Jared frowns and shakes his head. “You saw the coffee tunnel. Zephyr was paranoid. He didn’t trust anyone. He barely trusted me.”
“Then why hasn’t Mordecai tortured Zephyr into giving up his code?” asks Maggie.
Jared shrugs. “Mordecai must need him for something else. Otherwise he’d just cut off his hands and gouge out his eyes. It’s tricky to fake biometric authentication, but not impossible. That’s all he’d need to access the cloud.”
I sigh. “That’s what I thought.”
If Zephyr did invent a fictional third administrator, we’re running out of time to save him and his data.
Jared looks suddenly concerned. “You think Mordecai would kill him?”