As they drew close, the dragon blasted them with a jet of flame, but Ms. Alba’s watchdogs were shielded from the worst of it.
Vick spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Daisy was charging across the mound of debris, closing in to attack the group from behind.
She reached the rear of the group and drove the pole through a velociraptor’s chest. In one fluid motion she withdrew the pole and rammed the other end into a six-legged thing’s head. She towered over the other watchdogs, like an adult fighting a bunch of children.
Daisy tore through Ms. Alba’s troops, while above, one of Daisy’s wolves jumped from its perch, slamming into the steel plate and knocking the gorilla down the hill into the watchdogs below it.
“Thirty-one. Thirty. Twenty-nine,” Tara chanted under her breath. “Look out, look out!”
The grizzly had loped up the hill from the opposite side of the slope. It leaped onto the cement plateau and slashed at the dragon with its powerful front paw, knocking the dragon off.
The remaining wolf closed with the grizzly, but the grizzly was twice its size. It buffeted the wolf’s head like a boxer, denting it on both sides with clanging blows. The wolf managed to clamp its teeth on one of the grizzly’s paws. It held on stubbornly, tugging the grizzly toward the edge of the platform as the grizzly went on pounding it with the other paw. Wolf and grizzly tumbled over the edge together. The wolf fell backward, landing right on a jutting steel beam. It rolled off and tried to stand, but its back was bent into a V, its hind legs frozen.
The battle was a chaos of moving steel, flashing teeth, sweeping claws, and Daisy’s stop-sign post.
Tara clapped her palms over her face. “Here come more.”
Vick had stopped counting how many of Ms. Alba’s eight groups of five watchdogs had come through the breach. Now he saw that it had only been six—she’d kept two in reserve. They swarmed around the wall and charged the hill.
Daisy broke away and angled down the hill. Half of Ms. Alba’s fresh troops split off to go after Daisy as Tara’s spider dropped from its hiding place onto the back of a charging wolf. It bit a hunk out of its neck.
“Eighteen,” Tara said.
Daisy was moving more slowly. One of her hind legs looked mangled, and she’d lost one of her eyes. There must have been ten watchdogs chasing her, the grizzly in the lead. It was banged up but still moving well.
Daisy reached the base of the building where Vick and the rest were hiding and turned, her back to the wall so nothing could sneak up on her.
Ms. Alba’s watchdogs charged, all at once. Daisy skewered the first three that reached her, then shielded herself from snapping teeth and flashing blades by keeping the body of the biggest, a piggish-looking thing, between her and her attackers.
“Thirteen,” Tara whispered when Daisy’s jaws snapped down on the face of the turtle-watchdog with the clubbed tail. There were five watchdogs battling Daisy, which meant there were eight more out in the rubble, fighting the other survivors from their little army.
One of the smaller watchdogs had clawed its way behind Daisy. It wrapped itself around one of her hind legs and bit repeatedly, searching for a weak spot. The weight of the watchdog made Daisy stumble. The grizzly took advantage, bounding over the top of the watchdog wreckage Daisy was using as a shield and sinking its teeth into her shoulder.
Daisy surged backward and slammed the raccoon-sized watchdog clinging to her leg into the wall. It fell to the ground, badly damaged.
The grizzly slashed wildly at Daisy’s face with its long claws, catching Daisy’s good eye and raking it.
Beside Vick, Tara froze. “Oh no. Oh no, Daisy.”
Daisy flailed at the grizzly with the pole. The grizzly broke away and backed off a few steps.
Daisy turned in one direction, then another, swinging the pole, trying to keep the watchdogs away, but she had no idea where they were. She was blind.
The grizzly waited for Daisy to swing the pole, then lunged and hit her, denting the side of her head. It backed away just as Daisy swung the pole. One of the other surviving watchdogs, a velociraptor, scraped a foot along the concrete to Daisy’s left; when she turned and swung in the direction of the sound, the grizzly struck again, deepening the dent in her head.
Tara tried to stand, but Vick pulled her back down.
“We have to help her.”
“How are we going to do that?” His voice was thick with emotion. It was killing him to see Daisy smashed up by those things down there. And before long those things would be searching for them.
The grizzly hit Daisy again. Daisy fell. She tried to get her legs under her but fell over again. The grizzly landed one more savage blow to her head, then reached down and began peeling back the armor at her hind end.
“It’s looking for the chip,” East said.
Little Daisy ejected and tried to run, but the grizzly’s paw came down on her, pinning her to the ground. Still holding her down, it picked her up in its teeth.
“Daisy!” Tara shouted.
Everyone shushed her.
“There’s nothing we can—” Vick froze. He looked around at the debris scattered all around. A chunk of concrete the size of a backpack was perched near the edge.
Vick slapped Rando on the arm. “Help me.” They had to be quick, before the grizzly moved away.
Vick grabbed one end of the chunk of concrete, and Rando the other. Gasping with the effort, they carried it to the edge.
“On three,” Vick said. They rocked it twice, gauging the distance, and let it go.
The concrete landed dead center on the grizzly’s back, driving it to the ground like a car T-boning an eighteen-wheeler.
Little Daisy wriggled out of the grizzly’s mouth and ran right for Tara’s spider, which broke off from its fight with a giant beetle and raced to meet her. Daisy jumped onto the spider’s back, and they headed for higher ground with five of Ms. Alba’s watchdogs close behind. Vick spotted a lone wolf running to meet them, with a big panther and a snaggle-toothed wolverine on her heels. Seven against two and a half.
“Oh no,” Rando said. Vick followed his gaze.
The gorilla watchdog was looking up at them.
Not seven. Eight.
It headed for the stairs.
East picked up a chunk of concrete. “Find something to fight with. Anything.”
His heart hammering in his ears, Vick scanned the littered floor. All the chunks looked too big or too small. Not that it mattered. Police with guns backed down from fights with watchdogs; how could he and his friends win against them with just…rocks? Was there anywhere they could run? Vick looked around. There was no way up, no way down but the stairs.
“Vick!” Torch tossed him a piece of two-by-four.
Vick caught it with two hands. “What are you going to use?”
Torch held up his portable laser cutter and smiled. Vick couldn’t imagine how Torch could get close enough to the gorilla to cut it without being killed, but it was something. It was a chance.
The gorilla stopped at the top of the stairs, like it was soaking in the moment. It looked right at Tara.
Vick couldn’t believe she wasn’t curled up in the corner shrieking for someone to make it go away. She was standing there, a chunk of concrete in her hand, looking right at the thing. Vick was terrified, but he also felt so proud of her. He wouldn’t let that thing hurt her.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said. “You’re not just smart, you’re brave.”
“Shut up and concentrate,” Tara said.
The gorilla charged Tara.
He wouldn’t let it get to her. He wouldn’t. Vick raised the two-by-four and ran right at the charging gorilla.
As they came together, the gorilla swung its huge fist.
Vick opened his eyes. He was on the ground, his head aching like he’d never felt it ache before. The gorilla loomed over him, iron fist raised.
Rando leaped and wrapped his arms and legs around the gorilla’s raised
arm. East and Tara swung chunks of concrete, slamming them down on the gorilla’s head like they were hammering nails. North was pounding its back with a rock the size of his own head. Then Torch was on the gorilla’s back, the laser cutter in his hand. He got to work on the gorilla’s neck.
The gorilla shook itself and swung its free arm, buffeting Torch, but Torch hung on. It turned its attention back to Vick and opened its mouth, exposing a row of sharp, triangular fangs. Tara shrieked and wrapped her arms around that huge head as it came down. Its fangs snapped closed an inch from Vick’s face.
Another set of hands—Rando’s—appeared around the gorilla’s face as it strained to reach Vick, its jaws snapping with a metallic clank.
The head began to bend up, away from Vick’s face.
Suddenly it snapped free from the gorilla’s neck and dropped onto Vick’s chest, knocking the wind out of him.
East rolled it off and the others helped him out from under the gorilla’s headless body.
“You all right?” Rando asked.
Gasping, staggering to his feet, Vick nodded. After having the gorilla’s fangs so close to his face, the ache in his chest felt good in comparison. He followed the others as they ran to the edge to see what was happening.
The wolf was gone. The spider was in bad shape. Daisy was still on top of it, their backs to the wall directly below Vick and his friends, surrounded by Ms. Alba’s last four watchdogs. Daisy had led the enemy back to the only troops she had left: them.
“Go. Go. Go. Go.” Tara grabbed a brick lying beside her.
Vick squatted in front of a big chunk of concrete and then deadlifted it, the rough stone scraping his palms as the others ran to find something to drop.
His toes poking over the edge, Vick swung the concrete chunk between his legs and let it go. Losing his balance, he windmilled his arms as he tipped forward, his stomach lurching.
A hand locked on the back of his shirt.
“Whoa,” Torch said, yanking him back.
The concrete chunk slammed into the beetle’s head, taking it right off. The thing collapsed in a heap.
The panther went down a moment later. They took aim on the two remaining watchdogs, raining bricks and fist-sized chunks of concrete down on them.
When the last was down, Daisy took off on the spider.
“Where is she going?” Rando asked.
“To get Ms. Alba,” Tara said.
Vick could see Ms. Alba running for her Maserati. He could also see that she wasn’t going to make it.
They stood amid the mangled wreckage of what had been Ms. Alba’s sweatshop as the spider finished turning everything inside the inner office to scrap metal, firewood, and confetti. All her captive workers were gone, free to return to their families. Ms. Alba was trying to act as if the destruction of her empire was no big deal, but her forehead was shining with sweat, and as she swiped a wisp of hair from her eyes, her hand was shaking badly.
Dixie and Stripe looked flat-out scared. They probably weren’t sure if Vick was going to have the spider do to them what it was doing to the sweatshop. He would never hurt someone, no matter how much they deserved it, but he was in no hurry to let them know that.
“Are we through here?” Ms. Alba asked when the spider clicked out of the office. Her voice was higher than usual.
“Not quite,” Vick said. Daisy appeared from inside the office, carrying a plastic bag in her mouth. Inside were three tubes containing tracker syringes.
Ms. Alba took a step back. “Wait a minute. We both know those can be deactivated.”
“Sure, once you locate the proper equipment.” East accepted the bag from Daisy and handed out the syringes. Ms. Alba hesitated for a long moment but finally plucked it from East’s hand as if it were a dead rat.
“Go on,” Vick said. “You’ve all had plenty of practice giving those shots. Now you’ll see how it feels.”
Ms. Alba, Dixie, and Stripe all studied the syringes they were holding, looking like they’d just eaten something rotten.
“Or Torch can do it for you,” Vick said.
“You definitely don’t want me to do it for you,” Torch said, looking on with his arms folded across his chest.
Stripe reached across and stuck the needle into his shoulder. He let out a long, slow breath as he pressed the plunger.
Dixie cursed under her breath, then squeezed her eyes shut. She inhaled sharply as the needle bit.
Everyone turned to Ms. Alba. She held her syringe out to Dixie. “I hate needles. You do it.”
“I did mine, you can do yours,” Dixie snapped.
Ms. Alba held the syringe out to Stripe.
Stripe raised his hands. “Not a chance. I told you to forget about the chip and leave that watchdog alone. But did you listen? No. You had to push it.”
Torch stepped forward and held out his hand. “Here, I’ll do it.”
Ms. Alba jerked the syringe out of his reach. “All right. I’ll do it.” She raised the syringe. “I hate needles.” She squeezed her eyes shut and plunged the needle in.
When she was finished, she flung the empty syringe to the floor.
“You’ve got thirty minutes to get out of Chicago,” East said. “If you’re not gone, our friend here will come after you.”
All three headed for the door.
When they were gone, Vick and his friends stood silently in the sweatshop office. A tightness that had been in Vick’s chest for so long he hadn’t realized it was there suddenly loosened. He took a few smooth, easy breaths, relishing the sensation.
“So what do we do now?” Rando asked, looking around at the wreckage.
“First, we make Daisy a new body,” Tara said.
“And after that?” Rando asked.
It was a good question. Now that Ms. Alba was gone, they were free to use Daisy to earn enough to rent a safe place to live and have enough to eat, but Vick was back to wondering exactly how to do that.
“I have an idea,” East said.
Underdressed was too weak a word for what Vick felt as they rose in the spotless glass elevator, shifting left and right with the contours of the skyscraper. His clothes no longer stank, but they were nothing more than rags covering his skin.
He examined his friends and felt slightly better. They all looked just as bad, except for Daisy with her shiny new body, made from parts salvaged from the watchdogs defeated in the final showdown.
“Remember,” Vick said to Daisy, “you’re just a dumb watchdog. You’re only here to model; we don’t want anyone to suspect we have something that might belong to the military.”
Daisy nodded.
“I still don’t understand how you thought to get in touch with a patent lawyer,” Torch said to East. “How did you even know what a patent lawyer was? I never heard of it before.”
East caught Vick’s eye and smiled. “Something I learned about in a past life.”
The waiting room was all granite and chrome; a miniature waterfall cascaded down the center, through stones that seemed to defy gravity. A guy in a dark suit who’d been messing with his fancy phone gaped at Daisy as they entered, the phone sliding out of his hand and dropping to the seat cushion beside him.
After less than five minutes, the guy, who turned out to be the receptionist, led them into a big room with a long black conference table down the middle. A woman and a man, both dressed in crisp, perfect suits, were waiting. They introduced themselves as Camille Hernandez and Rolfe Weiss, then went right over to check out Daisy.
“Oh my goodness,” Rolfe said, his voice hushed. “I was excited from the photos, but I had no idea. This is magnificent.”
“Thank you,” Tara said.
“Look at this.” Camille pointed at Daisy’s eye. “Is this a three-hundred-sixty-degree design?”
Tara nodded. “I’m very good at designing watchdogs.”
“I’ll say,” Camille replied, running a finger across Daisy’s hip.
Daisy gave Vick a look, as if to say,
Am I acting dumb enough for you? Vick just smiled at her.
“You designed her all by yourself?” Rolfe asked Tara.
“That’s right,” Tara said.
After a few minutes of this, Camille straightened, then looked at Rolfe. “Have you seen enough?”
“More than enough.”
Camille turned to Tara. “We’d like to represent you. I can see a dozen patentable innovations just from this quick examination. Our firm gets fifteen percent, which is standard. East said you want to find investors, rather than sell the patents outright?”
Tara looked at East. “Is that what I want?”
East nodded. “That means you’re going into business for yourself.”
Tara nodded emphatically. “That’s what I want.”
“It complicates things that you’re minors without legal guardians, but in these times I think we can work around that, given what you’re bringing to the table.”
Camille offered her hand to Tara. “Do we have a deal?”
East stopped Tara’s hand before she could shake. “You want one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
East looked Camille right in the eye and said, “She needs ten thousand dollars, right now.”
Camille blinked. “Oh. You mean, start-up funding?”
East pointed at her. “Exactly. That.”
Camille looked at Rolfe, who shrugged. She nodded. “We can do that.”
Vick felt an asthma attack coming on. He also thought he was going to faint. Ten thousand dollars.
“I’ll be right back with a contract and a cashier’s check.” Camille whisked out of the room with Rolfe on her heels. They looked excited. That was extremely cool, that a couple of patent lawyers were excited about representing them.
“Hey.” Rando put a hand on Vick’s shoulder. “Can we, like, work for you? I know you don’t need us, that you can hire pros now, but since we’re friends and all…”
Vick burst out laughing. “You stood between me and a guy who was going to drag me back to Alba to collect a bounty.” He looked at Torch. “And you. You helped me cut up the bot who took my mother’s job, then you cut up a killer watchdog whose fangs were an inch from my face. You’re not friends. You’re family.” He choked up, blinking back tears. It seemed like it had been forever since Vick had trusted anyone besides Tara. It felt good to let a few more people in.
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