Prototype Exodus (Prototype D Series Book 2)

by Jason D. Morrow

  “One that you planned to use once I destroyed your enemies for you,” Esroy said. “Very clever. Very clever, indeed.”

  “You can’t kill me,” Bracken said. “Not yet. You still need me. I can help you win this battle.” He turned to look at Esroy, unflinching at the robot’s angry stare.

  “You think I need you in order to win this battle?” Esroy shook his head.

  “What you need is time,” Bracken said. “Let me prove myself to you. I will lead a group to go after the exiting robots. If I can stall them, the others won’t blow the EMP. That gives you plenty of time to get down there and destroy it. They won’t set it off until the robots are out of the city.”

  “How do you know?” Esroy barked.

  “Your creator,” Bracken said. “You and I both know her well. But we also know that the robots are leaving the city because of her. That move had Hazel written all over it. She loves the robots. She thinks they are every bit as human as I am. She will die before she sets off the EMP with them still here.”

  Esroy’s eyes narrowed at Bracken. It seemed that he was trying to assess the truthfulness in Bracken’s words, but Bracken wasn’t lying. What he said about Hazel was truer than anything he had ever said before.

  “Call your elite soldiers,” Esroy commanded. “I plan to have the Outlanders blown to bits before the robots even make it out of the city, but I want you to make sure they can’t leave.”

  “Understood,” Bracken said.

  Esroy got on comm and started barking out orders. Bracken called his elite soldiers and gave them the orders to rendezvous a mile north of their position. Esroy commissioned a group of 300 robots to accompany Bracken, though Bracken didn’t like this fact. What if he had ordered them to kill him while he was out there?

  They slowed the vehicles, and Bracken was about to move to his own when he felt a metal hand grab his arm. He looked up at Esroy.

  “This is your chance to prove that you’re not the snake I think you are,” the robot said.

  Bracken jerked his arm away from Esroy and said nothing as he got into the cab of the truck. The driver pulled away and Bracken breathed deeply, not entirely sure how he had just survived Esroy learning of the EMP.

  Truth was, Bracken had been one hundred percent honest about his assessment of Hazel. But he had neglected to mention his thoughts on Nolan who was also with them.

  Esroy would rip into the Outlanders. He would make it down to the EMP device. He would kill anything that stood in his way. But if Nolan was down there, and Bracken was sure that he was, then he wouldn’t let Esroy get to it first. It was better to destroy all the robots than to let Esroy and his army live.

  Bracken saw two options:

  1. He could stop the robots from leaving the city and give Esroy enough time to get to the EMP. Bracken was willing to bet that Nolan would set off the weapon before Esroy took it over.

  2. He could allow the robots to leave the city and then the Outlanders would set off the EMP, killing Esroy and his followers.

  The first option was a risk because there was a chance that the Outlanders wouldn’t set it off before Esroy got to them. Esroy would survive, along with his soldiers. Then they would take over.

  The second option was a risk as well. Though more than likely the EMP would be set off, it would also let loose thousands of robots who were sympathetic to the Outlanders—potential enemies to Bracken. In that scenario, it would be Bracken and his 200 men against the Outlanders and their thousands of robots.

  Bracken decided that both options were terrible, but his best bet was the first option. He had to believe that Nolan or whoever was down there would set off the EMP before Esroy could get to it.

  This was what Bracken counted on. All he had to do was keep the Outlander robots from leaving the city, and there would be no more robot problem. His plan of letting Esroy take care of his enemies had fallen through. It had been a good plan but one that hinged on Esroy not knowing about the EMP. Now that he knew, Bracken was ready to cut his losses. With his elite soldiers, he might still be able to take control of Mainland. There were still many Mainlanders who opposed the Outlanders, and many new recruits ripe for the picking. It would be a civil war of epic proportions and Bracken would rise to the top.

  No, they wouldn’t let Esroy get to the EMP. And Bracken wouldn’t let the robots leave the city. Esroy had no idea, but he was walking straight to his own death.

  52

  A plethora of emotions sprang up within Hazel’s mind as they walked out to the entrance of the compound. A vehicle for Des was already waiting for him out front and he could hear the rumbling engines of the enemy approaching.

  “How many times am I going to have to say goodbye to you?” she asked him.

  “One more time, at least,” Des said.

  She reached for him as she had in the past and put her arms around his metal waist and squeezed him tightly. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

  She knew the answer before she asked it. They were too different, the humans and the robots. She knew they couldn’t exist together, but she felt like she couldn’t exist without them. They were everything to her. She had created them, and despite how much they had been used for evil, she knew the potential good they could accomplish. Des was living proof of this.

  “I love you, Des.”

  “I love you, Hazel.”

  She let go of him and stepped back. Des looked up at Prototype B. “Take care of her,” he said.

  “With my life,” B answered back.

  “Listen, Des,” Nolan said.

  Des shook his head. “You don’t have to be sorry. I understand.”

  “Go on, Des,” B said. “Or you won’t catch up with the others.”

  Des looked at each of them one last time, then ran toward the truck. In a blink of an eye, he was gone.

  “And so we have a battle ahead of us,” Nolan said to B. “Des, it’s good to have you on board.”

  “We need to get down to the lower levels,” B said. “I will follow you.”

  Hazel’s heart felt heavy. She missed her friend again even though a version of him stood right next to her. Having a second version of Des made her think of Esroy back home on her computer. She felt guilty about Esroy. She felt doubly guilty that she had promised Esroy two a new body, just as she had with the first version, but now he was just going to die like all the other electronics, programs, and robots throughout the city.

  She felt sick to her stomach and she felt the need to vomit on the floor in front of her. The thought that this version of Des had been born to die made her all the more sick. Anger, loss, fear…they dominated her mind and she didn’t know how she would cope if she survived this battle.

  How would the city cope? They would be sent into a dark age. They would have to start from scratch. And Nolan had talked of her being their leader? She couldn’t imagine such a task. She didn’t want it. She just wanted to be gone. Gone from all this. In reality, part of her wished that she was on her way out of the city with the robots. She almost felt like she belonged with them more than she did with the Mainlanders or Outlanders.

  Perhaps someday she would seek them out. Maybe she would find Des again and she could spend the rest of her days among the very robots she had created.

  But she knew in her heart that would never be the case. Whether she liked it or not, this was her home and she was here to stay until the day she died.

  But that day could already be here with the wrath of her most feared creation: Esroy.

  53

  Des drove so fast he could barely register the buildings as he passed them. The Outlander robots hadn’t gotten too far ahead of him and he calculated that by the time he reached them, Hazel and the others would have barely begun their fight.

  The sooner he got the robots across the border, the better off the Outlanders would be.

  Within minutes, he saw the convoy up ahead. He looked through the city map in his archived memory and could see that they w
ere still a good ten minutes out. He shouldn’t have already been on the robots this quickly. Why were they going so slowly?

  The gas pedal was all the way to the floor and he hoped some Mainlander didn’t run out into the street by accident. Des wouldn’t have the chance to stop and crashing at this speed might have deadly consequences.

  The truck screeched as he turned a corner and pressed forward. In less than a minute he had caught up with a small part of the convoy, a large group of them were immobile and had surrounded another truck. That truck had two blown tires and couldn’t go any farther.

  Robots poured out of the truck to provide cover in case enemies were around as others worked on the downed vehicle. Des pressed the gas again and pulled up next to the truck with the blown tires.

  He pointed to the canvassed back of his vehicle and yelled. “Leave it! Get in mine! Go!”

  The robots didn’t take long to respond. They immediately dropped what they were doing and started piling into the back of Des’ truck. One of them hopped into the front seat next to Des.

  Des looked left and right. The coast seemed clear.

  “Is everybody in?” Des asked. The robot in the passenger side stuck his head out the window and gave Des a thumbs up. Des looked at the mirror to the left of his door and saw no movement. He then pressed his hand against the center of the wheel, honking the horn as a call for the others to follow.

  The other robots were quick to get back in their vehicles.

  Des turned to his robot passenger. “Who is in the lead truck? Where are the others?”

  “I don’t know,” the robot said. “We got our orders from N1216. We’re from the Southern Zone.”

  That made sense as to why Des had caught up with them so quickly. These weren’t the ones who had left the military compound. “What’s N1216’s comm frequency?” Des asked.

  The robot gave him the numbers and Des put out a signal.

  “This is N1216.” The sound was in the back of his head.

  “This is Des,” he said. “What’s your status?”

  “We’ve actually run into a problem,” N1216 said. “We aren’t to the gate out of the city yet, but we’re close. The enemy has barricaded the gate. There are trucks and soldiers waiting for us. We’re at a standstill, just out of range.”

  “Okay,” Des said. “Stay there until I can get to you. We’re a few minutes out.”

  “Copy that.”

  It was difficult to keep the convoy together. Des had to keep in mind that there were robots in the back of his truck now and that he couldn’t be so reckless. The block at the city gate meant the Mainlanders had either seen their exit from afar or they had been tipped off. In either case, Des did not want a fight at the edge of the city. They needed to get out of there and fast.

  Des switched frequencies and connected with Prototype B. “Des,” he said. It sounded strange to say his own name. “Prototype B. Do you copy?”

  “I’m here.” The sound of his own voice rang in his ears.

  “What’s your status?”

  “The enemy has reached the top. I’m in the lower level outside the door to the EMP. I have Hazel with me.”

  “Good,” Des said.

  “What about you?”

  “We’re nearing the edge of the city, but there seems to be a hitch. The Mainlanders are barricading the gate.”

  “Well, it’s not Esroy.”

  “Why do you say that?” Des asked.

  “Because he’s here. It’s only a matter of time before he gets to where we are and discovers what we’re doing.”

  “He might already know,” Des said. “Just be prepared. And hold out as long as you can.”

  “And you hurry,” Prototype B said.

  The next few minutes felt like an eternity. He wanted so desperately to be out of the city so the others could set off the EMP. Part of him wanted to give a false report and tell the others that the robots were clear. But he knew he couldn’t do that. It wasn’t his call to make. It wasn’t just his life that would be given up.

  He slowed the carrier when he finally reached the other convoy. There were trucks upon trucks just sitting there, afraid to move forward. Des pulled his vehicle around to the side and then in front of the entire group of them. There were several robots standing on top of their vehicles, trying to get a better look at the gate beyond.

  When Des came to a stop, he decided to do the same thing.

  The robots were at the edge of the building line. As it was in nearly every part of the city, what stood before Des was a giant field with open roads leading to the outer wall of Mainland. There were no buildings out there, nothing to hide behind. It would be just a straight open sprint to the wall and beyond.

  “You’re Des!” a voice called out to him from a robot on top of one of the trucks. “I thought you were going to stay behind.”

  “Part of me is,” Des said to himself.

  Each of them were distracted by a cloud of dust to their left deep in the distance. Des zoomed in to get a closer look. It was difficult to see who might be leading it, but a large convoy of more military vehicles was headed their way. One thing was for sure, these weren’t robots.

  Men hung off the sides, rifles in hand. They wore black outfits, covering them from head to toe. These were Bracken’s men—those few special forces he had.

  But that wasn’t all. As the rumbling of their engines reached his noise receptors, he saw even more military vehicles following behind. Des knew they would be filled with robots, none of whom sported the supporting color of blue on them. By the time they reached the gate, it would be too late. Bracken and his men would already be there.

  It looked like they were going to have to fight their way out of the city. He just hoped the others could hang on a little longer.

  54

  Nolan was ready to die. He wasn’t necessarily ready to die for the robots who were trying to leave the city, but for the Outlanders who stood next to him.

  The last report Nolan had received placed Des and the others near the edge of the city, but apparently they had been blocked off at the exit.

  And the robots coming for the Military compound hadn’t gotten here yet, though he could see them coming. When he had witnessed them through the windows of the main entrance to the military compound, he had seen Esroy leading them in his new, large body.

  Nolan had sprinted away from the opening, narrowly escaping the showering of shattered glass that erupted through the entryway. He had made it to the parking garage where the first 500 or so soldiers waited. The rest of them, about 700 of them, were in the lower level guarding the EMP.

  Nolan had given Hazel and Prototype B the code to the door so they could activate the weapon when the time was right.

  Now Nolan stood at the front of the group in the parking garage. They had barricaded the doors as best they could, but it wouldn’t take much for the robots to get through. Especially Esroy. Then there was the vehicle entrance and exit. There weren’t enough materials to barricade that opening, so they faced it, waiting for their enemies to charge through.

  But they only had to fight for so long. Surely Des could lead the Southern Zone robots out of the city in time. If they could see the wall, then they could fight their way through. They had to.

  He could hear the robots charging in through the building. A large thump against the door made Nolan and a few other people jump.

  Again. And again.

  He could see their shadows dancing through the large entrance in front of them.

  “Get ready!” Nolan shouted out. “They are weak at the necks!”

  The first ones came into view and the Outlanders immediately began firing. Some of the robots fell, others charged forward, took aim, and shot.

  The woman standing next to Nolan took a bullet in the shoulder and fell over. He wanted to bend down to help her, but every moment he wasn’t trying to kill a robot was another chance an Outlander would be killed.

  He maintained his focu
s, taking careful aim as he bent to one knee. It seemed that each shot he took brought down a robot. Others behind him were firing as well, never letting up on their triggers.

  But the robots kept piling in. And some of them brought bigger guns.

  Drones flew through the air, shooting metal netting and tying up victims in their approach. Some of the drones hovered above the Outlanders and spat bullets into the crowd of them, but they were quickly brought down.

  The Outlanders’ shots were true and they stood their ground marvelously. Nolan felt confident. That is, until Esroy marched into the room. Nolan’s trigger finger seemed frozen in place. He wanted to yell out the order for everyone to concentrate their fire on him, but it wouldn’t do any good.

  Nolan aimed for the head, the neck, the chest, the leg. Each bullet bounced off without even a dent.

  The crowd of Outlanders had been pushed back, the idea of hand-to-hand fighting seeming like suicide.

  A man in front of him had fallen, but Nolan never got the chance to help him. Esroy reached for the man, picked him up by the legs and slammed his head into the wall.

  Nolan’s eyes widened and he thought he might throw up. This wasn’t a battle they could come close to winning. He turned his head to the Outlanders behind him and shouted.

  “Fall back! Get to the lower level!”

  None of them had expected their opponents to be this forceful. None of them had expected Esroy to be so impossible to take down. As far as Nolan saw it, if he survived long enough to get to the EMP downstairs, he wouldn’t wait to activate it. If he didn’t, they were all going to die.

  55

  The ceiling above Hazel and Prototype B shook, and dust fell on them in clouds and spread out like little bombs when the particles reached the floor. Hazel looked at the people in front of her. There were hundreds of them, their painted blue faces etched with fear, their hands trembling probably as much as hers were.