The driverless bus headed toward a set of glass doors as it crashed through the valet lot of the Stratosphere. Tanaka jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed his foot on the brakes as hard as he could.
The bus hit a car and it and flew through the air, spinning out of control as it slammed into the glass and tumbled down a few small steps and into a bank of slot machines.
The bus followed, even as the tires smoked and squealed. Soon it came to a stop and the screaming subsided.
Tanaka sat there, trying to catch his breath. Sweat poured down his face. His skin seemed to tingle. Looking at the empty door, he jumped up and ran out. Robot Nancy couldn’t have gone that far. He was going to catch her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Daniel picked up his broken phone and unlocked it. He turned it on hoping to call High-Tech but instead got nothing but static. He looked at the other people around him comparing phones. “Can anyone make a call?”
Several of them put the phone their ears. Each one shook their heads no.
One girl said, “I have a dial tone.”
“I need your phone,” Daniel said, snatching it from her hand. He looked at her angry face. “I am sorry. This is a grave matter, a matter of life and death. May I please use your phone?”
She folded her arms under her breasts and nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” Daniel said then dialed a number. He waited for several rings before the call went into a voice mail. He cursed, then dialed another number. This time he hoped to get in touch with Lenard, leader of the Protectors. As it rang, he tried not to beat himself up for not contacting them to start. High-Tech could have been very helpful fighting robots. Lenard could have sent a few Protectors to help them. But no, Tanaka convinced him they could deal with this on their own. He was wrong; help is sometimes necessary.
The call went into another voice mail. Daniel looked at the girl who was staring at him intently. “One more call, please.”
“Yeah, go.”
Daniel dialed one more number. This one was the main Protectors hotline. Someone had to be there. After two rings someone answered the phone. “Hotline, this is Debbie, how can I help you?”
“Debbie, this is Shadow Ninja. Is anyone there who can help me?”
The caller paused for a moment, either surprised that he was calling the hotline, or something else. “Um, sir. The city... It’s in trouble. I can’t go more into it, but no one is around to help. I’m really here to just take notes and pass them onto the main police force.”
Daniel’s heart dropped. “Explain?”
“I don’t have time, sir. This call is being recorded. I’m sorry.” Then, she hung the phone up.
Daniel looked at the screen, his mind whirling with what she said. The city was in trouble. The feeling of wanting to return home swelled up inside his gut.
“Can I have my phone back?” The girl asked holding her hand out.
Daniel wordlessly gave her the phone and walked away. He heard a scream from a block away. A good block and a half in front of him he saw Tanaka stand from the debris of a fallen vendor’s cart and take off running. Robot Nancy was in front of him, pushing people out of the way as she ran. Daniel took off running again, knowing he’d never catch up to the two of them but hoping he might be able to help.
He saw Robot Nancy enter a bus then toss a man out onto Tanaka. The bus took off down the street and Tanaka teleported again. Daniel stopped and wished one of his powers was super speed.
From his right, a cop car flashed his lights and blew his siren to get Daniel’s attention. He looked over to see an officer leaning out of the window. “Hey, you the guy who was helping Officer Lee?”
“I am,” Daniel replied.
“Get in.”
Daniel ran over to the cop car. “Just follow the bus. My brother is going to do all he can to stop it before it does any real damage.”
Tanaka ran out onto the sidewalk and looked around. He saw a small crowd of people gathering around the building and heard the sounds of the police cars approaching quickly. The cars on the street slowed down to look into the wreckage. Tanaka scanned everywhere hoping to catch a glimpse of Robot Nancy. He ran into the crowd, looking at any woman who resembled her.
It didn’t take him long to realize she wasn’t there and she had somehow got away. Placing his hands on his hips, he sighed and looked to the sky. From the side of the building he caught the site of some movement. He spun around and looked up.
Robot Nancy was scaling the side of the building, digging her metal fingers into the concrete of the Stratosphere’s base, then lifting herself up. She was at least half way up and moving at a fast pace. When she reached the saucer, she could easily climb over it, then onto the roof, then disappear into the hotel itself. Not the best escape plan, Tanaka thought, but a pretty good one nonetheless.
He ran to the base of the building then focused on his hands. He put his right one on the wall, then pulled it off. It did not stick. He shook his hands then focused on them again. Like a switch in his head, he felt his new power activate. Putting his hands on the wall he found them sticking. How sticky was it, he wondered and put his hands above his head. He pulled himself off the ground, his hands staying firmly on the wall. He put his left hand as far as he could reach and pulled, lifting him even further off the ground. He continued like this—right hand, left hand, right hand—until he was well off the ground. He looked up and found Robot Nancy looking down at him, hanging from the building with one arm. Tanaka loved that she had a look of astonishment on her face, as if her processors couldn’t calculate what was happening below. “When did you get those powers?” she asked.
Tanaka looked up and almost smiled at her confusion. “A few moments ago.”
She shouted, “That would explain your teleportation problems. Developing a new power can do that. Now let’s see how well your powers work. Don’t fall!” She turned and continued her journey up the side of the building, moving faster than she had before.
Tanaka refused to look down even as he heard the sirens from the emergency vehicles arriving. Looking down might cause him to lose concentration, and right now, that’s all that was keeping him from slipping off. He felt the muscles in his shoulders and arms screaming for relief as he moved further up the building. Sweat poured down his face. He pushed himself harder than he ever had before, moving upwards one arm length at a time. The top grew slowly closer as he continued to move. The skin on his hands had chapped raw and he felt a multitude of tiny, paper-cut like tears on them. He ignored the pain and continued his climb.
The hair on his head was dark with sweat. His legs hung awkwardly under him feeling like dead weight he was forced to carry upwards. Refusing to look up Tanaka focused all his concentration on his new power, willing it to continue. He wasn’t used to thinking this hard on his skills, teleportation took only a quick thought, but this took a focus he wasn’t sure he possessed.
He risked a glance upwards to track his progress and found himself almost at arm’s length from the bottom of the saucer that sat on top of the concrete column. He stopped moving and looked at the saucer’s curved bottom. Nancy’s finger holes were easy to spot. He placed his right hand on the bottom, took a deep breath, then released his left hand. For a moment he dangled under the dome with nothing more than his strength and his right hand. He didn’t want to look down, didn’t want to think about the pavement below him, didn’t want to do anything more than make it past this nightmare and get to the top of the building.
He put his left hand on the metal, released his right, and swung forward where he placed his right hand. Pulling his left hand off, he swung again until he could put his hand back on the bottom. His heart raced as he slowly moved. His legs continued to be a burden. Reaching the end of the saucer, he managed to spin himself round, then put his hands on the window and pulled up with all he had. Exhaustion passed over his body as he pulled himself upwards. His breathing was hard and the sweat continued unabated. H
e wanted to give up, he wanted to simply stop, to teleport to the ground and collapse and maybe sleep for a few weeks.
The sounds of a window shattering drew his attention. He closed his eyes as shattered glass rained down on him. One large piece slammed into his leg and pulled him down. He screamed as his shoulder took the brunt of the extra weight. The pain sent a surge of strength through his body, and he pulled himself up, hand over hand. Involuntary grunts left his throat as he moved toward the hole in the window.
He reached the hole and put his hands on the shattered glass. He pulled himself up to the hole, rolled through it, and collapsed onto the ground. His arms felt like they were on fire and he found it almost impossible to catch his breath. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and cursed, using as many words as he knew.
He sat up when he heard a scream. Robot Nancy, it had to be her. He slowly got to his feet, and with reluctant legs, ran toward the sounds of the screaming. He found people laying on the ground and some slowly standing. They had been pushed over by the fleeing robot. He followed them, heard Nancy pushing them down. He grew closer to her has he ran. Then he saw her as she passed through a door. A sign above read “elevator.” She was close to getting away.
He turned the corner. Robot Nancy waited for him and swung her leg at him, hitting him hard in the chest. So powerful was the blow that he flipped over, landing face down on the ground.
He felt Robot Nancy stand over him and grab him under his chin. She pulled his face upwards, hoping to snap Tanaka’s neck. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“I can never do that,” Tanaka said as he struggled to prevent her from breaking him. “You killed my Nancy.”
“She never loved you. I have her memories, I know how she felt. She never loved you.”
“That’s okay,” Tanaka said, reaching back to grab Robot Nancy’s ankles, “I only really used her cause I was tired of being a virgin.” He then teleported her off his back and in front of him.
She looked around, shocked. Tanaka rolled forward and kicked her in the back sending her into the window. A giant spiderweb crack appeared where she impacted. She turned and Tanaka teleported in front of her. He reached out and grabbed her shoulders. “Tell me why I shouldn’t teleport you out the window.”
“Because you don’t kill,” Robot Nancy said. “Protectors don’t kill. I won’t fight you anymore. You can take me in. You win.”
Tanaka looked at her. She was at his mercy. Daniel’s word echoed through his mind. They were living, thinking robots. Killing them would be like killing a person. He pictured Nancy, his Nancy, laying dead on the desert sand. Pictured all the people whose lives she and Destructo destroyed. What kind of justice could a robot get? Would it even understand what was going on? He had no more will to fight, nothing left if she decided to run. It would be easier to let her go.
“You’re nothing more than an old laptop computer.” Tanaka said, then teleported her outside the window.
She screamed as she fell. He watched her as she waved her arms, reaching out desperately to grab something that might save her. She shrank quickly and hit the ground hard. Her body seemed to explode, limbs flying out in all directions. Tanaka spotted her head as it hit a parked car and bounced off.
He teleported next to the head. He watched as it rolled across the ground to his feet, her face looking up at him. He picked it up by the hair and looked at the face. Red eyes moved back and forth. Her mouth opened as if she wanted to talk. He turned it over in his hand, marveling at how much it really did look like Nancy.
Dropping it to the ground, he stood over it and lifted his leg. He brought his foot down with as much force he could, denting the skull. He did it again and knocked both eye balls out of the head. He did it a third time, then a fourth and fifth. Each blow took a little pain out of him, making him feel better.
He stopped when there was nothing but a flattened metal plate under his foot. With a sigh of relief, he looked to the sky and to the saucer. Daniel looked down through the glass right at him. Tanaka couldn’t read his body language from the ground but he had the feeling the next time he saw his brother it wouldn’t be a happy conversation.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tanaka sat on the curb near the remains of Robot Nancy and waited. The police were around the corner and approaching fast. Daniel had disappeared from the window and was probably on his way down.
He put his head in his hand and let out a loud sigh. The relief that this was over washed over him, and for the first time, in days he simply relaxed. No thoughts entered his head, no feelings tightened his gut. There would be ramifications of his actions, he was sure of that, but right now, all he cared about was getting out of his smelly uniform, into a shower, and then either go to bed or get so drunk he forgot everything that happened.
One of the officers turned the corner with his gun drawn. Tanaka looked at the young officer, then pointed to the wires and badly damaged frame of the robot. “I think most of these parts are recyclable.”
“We thought it was a body that fell,” the office said putting his gun away.
“It was, I guess. But it was a robot, not a person.”
More police arrived, and before long, the entire block was lined with cars and uniformed officers. Through it all, Tanaka waited. Soon he heard his brother calling, “Tanaka, where are you?”
“Over here,” Tanaka said waving his brother over. “Just taking a breather.”
Daniel walked through the crowd of officers and sat next to Tanaka. He looked at the remains of Robot Nancy. “So, what happened?”
“Had no choice,” Tanaka said. “She threatened too many people, came after me, and I teleported her out the window. Only way to stop her.”
“No,” Daniel said. “That’s not what happened. You had her and you teleported her out the window to kill her.”
Tanaka didn’t reply for a good minute. He knew better than to not tell the truth to his brother. He’d find out sooner or later. “My only regret is lying about me not having a choice.”
“No one will think it’s a murder,” Daniel said, standing from the curb. “But I will.”
Tanaka stood with his brother. His back hurt, he could barely move his arms, and his legs felt as if they were filled with lead. “I can deal with that.”
“Can you now?” Daniel said, turning around quickly. “Can you deal with that? Can you deal with me thinking you killed a real, living thing?”
“It’s a thing,” Tanaka replied weary. He didn’t want to fight. It was difficult to form thoughts, much less argue. “Not real, not a person, a thing.”
“No. Anything that thinks, that feels, is alive. Didn’t you hear her scream as she fell? Didn’t you see the fear in her eyes? You might be able to convince the authorities and the Protectors that she was just a thing, and they might believe you, but I know you killed her on purpose. It’s no different than if she were real flesh and blood.”
“She wasn’t flesh and blood, you sanctimonious asshole. She was a robot.”
Daniel didn’t reply, instead turning to walk away. Good, Tanaka thought. He didn’t want to talk to him about this anyway. “What happened to Destructo?”
“He got away,” Daniel said. “Used his wireless communication system to escape into the Internet. There was nothing I could do to stop him.”
“Did you call High-Tech? See if he had any ideas?”
Daniel shook his head. “Something’s going on in Haven. I don’t know what but I can’t reach any of the Protectors.”
“What’s the issue?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Guess we need to go someplace and find out. And, you know, I think I’d rather do it alone, if that’s okay.”
A surge of anger welled up inside of Tanaka. He teleported over and stood in front of Daniel, his face twisted in rage. “Is that so? You want to just go then? Just leave me?”
Daniel gave Tanaka a little shove to give himself some space. “Yeah, I do. You get a roo
m here if you want, I’m going to Grace’s to see what happened to Haven. Don’t follow. Don’t even think of calling me for a while. Okay? Just go do your own damn thing.”
“I will,” Tanaka replied. He turned and stormed off, ignoring the eyes of the officers who had their hands on their guns waiting to pull them out should there be another Evo fight in Vegas.
No, there would be no more Evo fights in Vegas. That threat is over; it was time for him find a room, max out his card on drinking and gambling and forget how horrible this vacation actually was.
Daniel bashfully knocked on the door of the address Grace had given him. It took a few moments, but she answered the door in a robe carrying a soda can. She looked as if she had just woken up or didn’t expect any company. She hadn’t even had any of her many piercings in. “Oh, hey,” she said.
“Hi,” he said. “Look, I had a fight with my brother and I need to use your computer. Can I come in?”
“Um.” She looked behind her, he guessed checking to make sure nothing that could make him think anything less of her was out in plain sight. Satisfied, she opened the door a bit wider and said, “Come on in.”
He stepped into the house and looked around. It was nice place, much neater than he thought it would be. Pictures of family hung from the wall and up a staircase to a second floor. It wasn’t difficult recognize the family was her parents and many younger versions of herself in different stages of life. “I might not have told you this, but I still live with my parents.”
“Figured,” Daniel said with a smile. “Can’t think of any young woman who still had pictures of themselves on the wall. Are they home now?”
“No, they’re on vacation for a week or so. I have the place to myself. I was just making some lunch, you want some?”
“I had a very busy day so, yes.” He followed her as she lead him through the house to her kitchen.
The Evolutionite Chronicles Book Two: Dagger and Shadow Ninja in: Welcome to Las Vegas Page 23