CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Rain pelted Coryn. Paula clutched her hand and Aspen huddled in as close as he could, whimpering, his cold nose on her neck. The rain fell at odd angles, driven by unnatural winds. Coryn bent her head to the side to look up, only to have Paula press on her. Paula yelled loud enough for Blessing and Day to hear. “Keep down. Drones. Cover your necks.”
Coryn shivered, staying as still as she could under Paula’s heavy hand, listening. The same dull engine sound of the ecobot drone cover army still existed, but it had been joined by higher-pitched sounds.
It hurt to keep her head down, and she couldn’t stand being unable to see. She carefully tilted her head enough to see to the side. Rain soaked her cheek, and she had to blink it away. Even with lights illuminating the clouds, the rain blinded her. She struggled to make sense of what little she could see. The lights must be from news-bots. Autonomous drones wouldn’t need light, and surely wouldn’t want it right now. The news-bots, on the other hand, were illegal targets. They could wear neon if they wanted.
Coryn fingered the butt of her new weapon, her fingers shaking. How could she pick out what to shoot at? The drones moved as fast as birds. One plummeted in an uncontrolled spin and bounced off the slick, wet top of the ecobot just to her right. It shone for only a moment before it was gone, leaving no mark whatsoever on the robot’s thick metal skin. Had it been an ecodrone, a city police drone, or something else?
The rain stuttered and then stopped.
Moving lights came in closer and brightened. Small spotlights from drones hurt her eyes and threw concert-lighting spears across the sky, a variety of colors that illuminated the machines moving through the dark night. The myriad logos of popular newsfeeds and newsies decorated the sides of some of the drones.
The rain sputtered to a halt. The clouds stayed, far paler in color, bereft of ammunition. The lighter sky made it easier to see the drones darting through her peripheral vision like small flocks of birds: Five to nine drones at a time flew so close it looked like you could barely slip a piece of paper between their wings.
Next to her, Blessing sat up straight. “Wow,” he whispered.
Coryn sat up, too, surprised that Paula no longer tried to restrain her. Just above them, lights bounced off white clouds. The lights of news-bots shone directly on them, ruining her peripheral vision.
It felt like they existed in a movie set, just the smoothly lumbering ecobot with the robot and the three people and the dog on its back, and a few hundred drones of many shapes and sizes shining and flashing in highly variable lights above them.
The ecobots’ drones were mostly shaped like arrows, while the city’s police drones were cylinders, copters, and small planes. Nimbler machines, in general. The ecodrones were bigger, heavier, and more menacing and didn’t flinch as the smaller machines dove at them.
Something pressed into her palm. She looked down. Safety glasses from Paula’s infinite store of useful things.
She sighed and put them on, the colors dulling a little. Too bad Paula didn’t have any AR gear.
Aspen tugged at his leash, jumping and barking at the drones. It was unusual for him, and it took her a moment to scoop him up. After she got him tucked safely in her arms, she glanced back up as a swarm of ecodrones herded about five other drones too close to each other. One rotor snapped and a small bot tumbled down. Two more slammed into each other and shattered. Something dropped from above the level of the fight, knocking an ecobot drone off course so it smashed into another one. Both fell, wings clattering and bumping into each other. Something a drone had dropped on purpose?
Phalanxes of ecodrones flocked steadily around and above them. They didn’t seem to be firing at the other drones, just knocking them down or herding them off and away.
Day screeched, and she looked behind to see his right hand cupping his cheek, blood welling between the fingers. Had one of the drones accidentally hit him with a shot meant for another drone?
Blessing lunged for Day, but the ecobot held onto him, pulling him back. Coryn tried to move, but the ecobot arm supporting her tightened ever so slightly, pinning her. None of the three of them could move. Protection?
Fears stuttered through her. What if the shot had hit his eye? What if a drone laser hit her? What about Lou?
She leaned over and whispered into Paula’s ear. “Will you go check on Lou?”
“I shouldn’t leave you.”
The robot had better eyesight than she did. “Can you see the other bots?”
Paula shook her head.
Coryn changed it to an order. “Go to the edge and see if you can see them from there.”
Yet again, Paula looked like she might disobey, as if she were trying to dissuade Coryn from enforcing her order. Coryn barked at her. “Go!”
Paula went.
Coryn turned toward Day. “How bad is it?”
He shook his head and offered a thumbs-up.
Blessing struggled against the robot arm that held him in place, cursing.
“It’s okay,” Day yelled. “It’s just bloody. I’ll be okay!”
Blessing shouted and pointed behind Day. A uniformed woman scrambled to the top of the ecobot. City colors. Blue and white. She ran toward them.
Another. A man.
Aspen lunged, snapping and barking, twisting so fast Coryn almost lost her grip on him.
The ecobot’s head rose and swiveled toward the officers.
The woman stared at Aspen, fear and surprise flashing briefly in her eyes. Her face made a hard flat plane in the strange light. She braced her feet and pointed a gun toward Coryn. “No one move!”
Aspen slipped free and slid across the slick surface. As if it knew to help her, the ecobot’s arm opened just a tiny bit, and Coryn sprang after him. She grabbed Aspen’s collar with one hand, cupped her other under his belly to pull him back, and looked up to find Paula standing just behind her.
Paula leaped at the woman. The officer’s eyes flared in shock; a blast from her gun hit Paula but didn’t even slow her down.
Paula plucked her weapon out of the woman’s hands and threw it, knocking a drone out of the sky. Paula kicked a similar weapon from the man’s hand.
As one, both officers reached for additional weapons, but Paula grabbed them by the elbows, pinning them to her. “Drop your weapons.”
The man did, but the woman waved hers as if it were stuck to her palm. Paula tightened her grip until the woman screamed and fell to her knees. The gun clattered down with a dull, plastic thud.
“Tell me what you want,” Paula demanded.
The woman looked incapable of rendering a sentence through the pain. The man spat out, “We have orders to capture all of the Wilders.”
Day winced. Blessing still struggled against the robot arm. Coryn had the absurd thought that the city police didn’t need to trap them since the robots already had.
The man’s eyes flicked over them, across the width of the ecobot’s back. Paula questioned him sharply. “Are there more of you?”
He shook his head, but the woman’s eyes widened.
“I think so,” Coryn warned.
“Off!” Paula demanded, yanking her captives to the edge of the ecobot.
“It’s too high!” the man yelped.
Paula shoved him from the edge of the bot and he disappeared, landing with a thud.
“Is he okay?” Coryn asked.
He answered by screaming for his wounded partner. “Jump!”
Paula let go of her arm, and for just a moment it looked like the woman was going to leap toward Coryn and Aspen, but she cursed, turned, and jumped.
Paula stood staring off the end of the still-moving ecobot. “They’re okay.”
“Did you find out anything about Lou?” Coryn asked her.
She shook her head. The scarf had come off and trailed from one shoulder, snapping in the breeze. She looked more like a robot again. “Thanks,” Coryn said. “I’ve never seen you fight before.”
Blessing stared after her, wide-eyed. “She was awesome!”
“She fights well.” Day turned toward Coryn. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine.” He had turned the bottom of his shirt up and started scrubbing the drying blood from his cheek. “Maybe I’ll have a good scar.”
Lights drew Coryn’s attention back upward.
A huge drone—or maybe something else—some flying thing—blocked the clouds. It was almost as big as the ecobot they rode was long, if far slenderer. Another joined it, and another.
If these weren’t on their side, then they were in trouble.
The ecobot drones seemed to come to exactly that conclusion. They made a last flourishing, flocking movement, and then three shot off and up as if on a reconnaissance mission, while the rest started settling back down around Coryn, Day, and Blessing, carefully nestling into the places people weren’t.
Paula stepped around the ecobot’s metallic head, still tucked against its body. “The others have been taken.”
Coryn stiffened. “Lou? Taken?”
“There are soldiers on the top of the ecobot, and it has started going the other way.”
Cold filled her. “Soldiers or police?”
“I think they’re soldiers. They have on green uniforms.”
She had no idea who wore green uniforms. Who knew where they’d take Lou? How could this have happened? “Are there any soldiers near us?”
“I don’t see any,” Paula said.
“And we haven’t changed direction?” She was sure they hadn’t, but the drone fight and the storm together had been disorienting. The drones close to them shuddered from time to time, as if adjusting themselves or preparing for something.
She glanced down at her wristlet’s small screen. “Can you get any news?” she asked Paula. She had contact info for Lou. She tried to send a note. Are you Ok? Where are you?
No answer.
“Primary news sources suggest the city is being attacked and identifies hackers and Returners as the bad guys. They don’t list the farm or Lou. They claim the situation is almost under control.” Paula glanced up, reminding Coryn of the large and almost eerily silent drones that tracked them now. The drones had done nothing, although Coryn kept expecting them to fire. She felt vulnerable on the empty road with the huge drones above her.
Day asked, “By primary news sources do you mean what the city tells you?”
“Not the way it should. I’m searching video and AR logs.”
“What about the social webs?” Blessing asked.
A moment passed before Paula answered. “Rumors. Some say the city’s systems have broken down, and the city won’t tell them that. There’s some truth to that one—Camas and Vancouver seem to be out of power.”
“That’s why it’s so dark.”
Paula nodded. “There’s also some people who think the city is being attacked by Seacouver.”
That was an old fear, that the megacities would fight each other. They never had. Still, it came up every few years. “If the power is down, is the dome up?” she asked.
Blessing answered. “Yes.”
She remained unsure where his loyalties lay. “What do you think is happening?”
He pointed up. “I think those are defending us.”
“Oh.” She had thought they might attack. “They’re on our side?”
“I hope so,” Blessing said.
She prodded Paula. “Is there news about Lou?”
“No.”
“Damn. Damn.” She felt like she should be doing something to save Lou, but from what? Without the ecobot’s help, she couldn’t climb down, and in fact she couldn’t move out of her makeshift chair at all right now. Her wristlet showed that they were almost at the PV bridge.
Where had Lou been taken, and who had taken her?
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
They rode their strange steed toward the PV bridge. Thick clouds obscured the bridge itself, but Coryn spotted other ecobots from time to time. Three long cylindrical drones flew close together right above them. Others hovered nearby. The clouds broke for a moment, and it seemed like there were far more, that perhaps a hundred drones went with them, a sky-army of flying machines.
They had no markings. She tried finding a name for them by taking a picture with her wristlet and running a search, but nothing showed up.
Banned knowledge?
Aspen huddled in her arms, and she wished for Lou, or at least for word of Lou. She still hadn’t received any answer to her query.
Blessing and Day looked around with shocked faces and wide eyes. From time to time, Blessing smiled.
Why was he smiling? Was it his strange desire to beat death back daily with acceptance, or did he recognize the drones? Is so, he wasn’t telling her what he knew. It bothered her. If only she could talk with Paula about him. Did the robot see red flags in the details of his expressions and nuances of his voice?
Whatever Paula might be sensing, she seemed to think they needed a release. She spoke in a light voice. “Here’s the latest from the social webs. The city is being attacked by refugees from the Koreas. The city is not really being attacked at all. The city is being attacked by aliens.”
Coryn laughed at that last, grateful for the humor.
A few minutes later, Paula said, “Here’s a good one: It’s mutiny—Vancouver is trying to separate from Portland. The ecobots have been directed to come into the city and eject the PV police by force.”
She shivered. “Let’s hope not.”
“You know that’s not true,” Day objected.
“I know nothing.” Well, she knew some things. The clouds were a weapon. She half-expected rain to fall when they reached the bridge, but it started long before. A deluge pounded their heads and the bots, struck the drones above them, and dripped from metal wings and tails. Every possible crevice on the wide top of the ecobot filled with puddles.
As soon as the sky finished hurling water down at them, the clouds blew away. The pale yellow-gold of the PV bridge superstructure glistened in the fresh air. “So they are finally letting us see something,” Coryn muttered.
“More likely they want to see us,” Paula said.
Coryn swallowed, trying to look brave. Surely their pictures were being displayed everywhere. She sent another message to Lou. Are you OK? Where are you? She tried to find a news story with their pictures.
“It’s beautiful,” Blessing whispered.
She looked up from her wristlet screen. He was right. The bridge crossed the river in three graceful arches, one for cars, one for people, one for the hyperloop between cities. Lights showcased the four great pylons that plunged deep into the river and the four on each side of the land. A ribbon of bright wire designed for zip-lining ran on each side, making a large X shape above the bridges.
All of it looked empty. The night smelled of water and wind, and the peculiar clean smells of the city. Vancouver smelled far more like Seacouver than either smelled like the Outside.
She reeled Aspen close. “Stay with me,” she whispered in his ear. He circled three times and settled into a small ball, his chin on his paws. She asked Blessing and Day, “What do you think is going happen? The city obviously knows we’re going to the bridge—I’m sure it’s no different from our bridges in Seacouver. There should be traffic. We haven’t talked to anyone except that weird greeting party, and cities are not this quiet.”
Blessing shook his head. “I suspect we are too complex for automated systems to make all the decisions. The wealthy are trying to decide what to tell the city to do. And people are being hurt.”
She froze. “Lou?”
“How would I know?” He shifted his gaze past her toward the bridge. “But I doubt it. Someone may use her as a scapegoat. If this goes bad, they need someone to blame.”
“Could Victor have blamed her?”
The silence
that followed her question suggested she might be right. She tried another question. “What about me? Everyone wanted to blame me, back in the barn.”
Blessing laughed. “You’re too naive.”
His comment stung, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. She’d lose anyway. “What’s going to happen?”
“Remember what I told you back on the trail, just as we headed down to the river?”
She swallowed. “It’s a good day to die.”
“Not quite. But live every day like it could be your last. Then you’ll be ready for anything.”
What could it hurt? She took a deep breath. Chanted inside her head. I could die tonight. The ecobot rolled so smoothly over the slick road it created the optical illusion that the bridge approached them. Some of the ecobots that had been following them stayed behind as they climbed up the empty ramp to the bridge, still dogged by the bigger drones and followed by four other ecobots. I could die tonight.
The silent parade of climbing bots and the drone escort frightened and awed her at once. She was worried sick about Lou, and frustrated that she was being taken for a ride. It wasn’t as if the ecobot had stopped and extended its arms so she could get down. There were no choices being offered to her. None.
Blessing must feel the same, but she couldn’t see it in his body. He rode relaxed and kept flashing his wide smile. He spoke softly, “Let’s figure this out. What do you think you know? Tell me.”
She stared up at the bots and the flashing lights, and then out across the dark river. What did she know? “We, and a bunch of other Wilders, recruited from the NGO teams . . . ” Was that right? Probably. “People are breaking into the city in order to get attention. While we’re at it, we’re assuming the city won’t kill us and that it will in fact listen to us.”
He nodded. “Close enough. Add in that there are a lot of players. Just like Outside has the Returners and Listeners, there are factions in the city.”
She sighed. “Before I left the city, I wouldn’t have recognized a faction if I met one.”
“At least you have a sense of humor,” Day observed with humorless calm.
Their ecobot led the others up the bridge. They quickly climbed far enough to see both cities. Vancouver sprawled behind them; Portland gathered and rose ahead, clearly well over twice the size of Vancouver, with far taller buildings. Portland Metro spanned Washington and Oregon like Seacouver spanned Washington and Canada. Her wristlet screen showed the red line of the state border not far ahead, over the center of the Columbia River. She glanced behind her again. The other ecobots still followed them. “There’s another way to look at it. We’re being restrained by robot claws as we ride machines that could be controlled by anybody to some destination we don’t understand, and the people we thought were our leaders—including my sister—have been abducted and taken who knows where.”
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