by Scott Bly
McCallum hesitated. I’m leaving a child with a monster. Then he reminded himself: She’s not a child. She’s a robot. He snapped his fingers and led Red Team out.
“My dear,” Foxx cooed, “you’ve almost changed since I built you. How can that be? Soon, we will get to the bottom of your … rebellion. And I will correct it once and for all.” The terrifying authority in his voice chilled Geneva to the core. “Enjoy these moments of free thought. They’ll be your last.”
Geneva scanned the room for an exit.
“Don’t even consider it,” Foxx purred. “Welcome home. I am so relieved to finally be reunited with my daughter.”
* * *
As Foxx spoke, Geneva opened her final line of communication with the outside world — the building’s lighting system. She tapped in wirelessly and hoped Charlie was ready.
On alternating floors, she turned the lights on and off, sending her last message out. Morse code.
Would he get it? Had he been caught?
Charlie heard the helicopter before he saw it. He dropped the tablet into his bag. Crouching low, he held the VidCel up to record.
Geneva had told him this would happen. Every window facing Charlie lit up and flashed. He recorded all of it. The lights blinked in a pattern Charlie didn’t understand. But the phone did. It had been programmed to decrypt Geneva’s message.
CAPTURED. STAY HIDDEN. THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU. TURN OFF PHONE. GO TO HIDEOUT. FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS WHEN SAFE. GO NOW.
Then the building lights went dark.
Captured? No, no, no! It wasn’t fair!
The helicopter’s spotlight searched the rooftops, circling closer. He had to run, or they would catch him, too. Everything depended on it. If he didn’t get away, Foxx would succeed. All they had done would be wasted. He dashed for the stairwell.
The spotlight caught him. He wasn’t fast enough. The chopper dropped low.
Charlie shielded his eyes from the bright light. The pounding of the rotors shook the rooftop.
A rope line dropped down. Armed men leaped out.
* * *
“Sir, we’ve spotted the boy. Blue Team is giving chase.”
McCallum’s heart sank. He had hoped the kid would escape.
“Blue Team Alpha! Intercept in stairwells,” McCallum ordered. “You four, come with me. You three, stay here. Ramirez, you’re in charge.”
“Permission to speak, sir?” Ramirez asked. “This is a boy, sir. May I ask why we’re pursuing him?”
“That boy invaded Foxx’s building and blew it up the other day.”
“The terrorist?”
“Yes, the terrorist. Now, get going, Ramirez.” The elevator doors closed.
Was there any way the poor kid could escape?
* * *
Charlie’s legs shook terribly.
At the top of the stairwell, a Mark V plasmonic blast had glanced off his right arm as he bolted through the door.
Thirty desperate floors later, he paused to explore the wound. It hurt — no, tingled — but it wasn’t serious. The blasts continued during his descent, but Charlie wasn’t hit.
His fleet-footedness saved him. The soldiers’ heavy weapons and backpacks slowed them down. Charlie paused to catch his breath, leaning out to look up and down the center of the stairwell. The airway stretched from the ground to the roof more than ninety stories up. The soldiers weren’t far behind. He thought he could outrun them, but another sound caught his ear.
Many floors below, hands grabbed the rails, climbing up the stairwell toward him. Another team of soldiers would cut him off!
Charlie grabbed the handle of the exit door. It wouldn’t open.
He was trapped.
Charlie ran on. He yanked on the exit door on each floor, but they were all locked. He hurtled down the stairs with reckless speed. There was nowhere to hide — no trash cans, no piles of rubble — nothing but stairwell, railing, and wall.
He skidded to a stop.
The men above were still racing toward him. In a minute or so they’d reach him. Below, the soldiers were even closer.
Floor 36. He was still really high up.
In his pocket was the feather from his demonstration to Geneva. The Hum hadn’t been working well for him in this time and place. If not for Callaya, Foxx would have crushed him. Callaya, I wish you were here! But she wasn’t. He saw no other choice.
Grandfather, help me.
Charlie climbed onto the railing.
The stomping boots above slowed. The men stared down at him.
“Kid, don’t jump! We aren’t gonna hurt you!”
Right, Charlie thought. That explains why your guns are all pointed at me. He clutched the feather to his chest and closed his eyes. He slowed his breath until he reached an inner calm. He tuned out the shouting and the boots.
Quietly he began the words and rhythms to pull the power of the Hum into him, through him. His spine tingled.
Believe …
The men were getting close. He had to hurry.
But that was against the very nature of the Hum. No rushing.
Allow the Hum to happen, Grandfather said. Now Charlie’s life depended on it. Lots of lives depended on it. Geneva …
But he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think at all. He had to simply breathe into the energy — into the Hum. Let the words and music flow. He had to simply be.
I have to believe.
Believe …
Believe …
Believe …
Garcia got there first.
The boy was just below, balanced on the railing. His eyes were closed. The kid’s gonna jump. He’s gonna jump, and my job’s on the line. Capture him alive. Gotta capture him alive.
The boy leaned out into space.
Garcia flung himself off the stairs. He intended to tackle the boy. But he was too late.
The kid stepped into the void and dropped like a rock.
Garcia felt the tips of his fingers brush the kid as he hurtled by. He reached after the falling body, heedless of his own safety.
His partner, Molina, was a few steps behind. He lunged in a futile attempt to grab the kid also. He shouted to the men below.
Arms stretched out, trying to catch him. Snag a piece of clothing. Anything. But gravity pulled harder and faster. Charlie plummeted toward the ground.
Six helmeted heads leaned out over the railing, watching a little boy fall to his death. Not one of the professional soldiers could believe what happened. Nor could they fathom how he had stepped off the railing with such calm. No flailing. No scream of terror.
Just a boy with one arm held to his chest and the other raised above his head, palm flat and motionless, except for the terrible speed with which he descended.
Believe …
Believe …
Believe …
“What do you mean, he jumped?”
“The kid jumped, sir,” Molina said, still winded. “Call an ambulance. Or the morgue. No one could survive that fall.”
McCallum closed his eyes. That poor, poor kid. What have I done?
But when he arrived at the stairwell, there was no kid. No dead body. Not so much as a blood smear.
“I don’t understand, sir! The kid stepped into open air from thirty floors up,” Garcia said, dumbfounded.
McCallum had no choice but to believe his men. The events of the last few weeks were blurring his sense of reality. What is going on? “Find the boy!” he commanded. “Fan out. He can’t have made it far.” Silently, however, John McCallum was pulling for the kid. Go, kid, go.
* * *
Charlie’s arm still tingled. Where am I?
The stairwell was gone. He was outside. Wind whistled lightly through the trees in the cool night air. The breeze took him back to his mountain, where the Hum flowed freely and strongly.
What happened? The whole world had gone insane.
Then it came back to him.
Charlie smiled. It worked.
; Allow the Hum to happen, Grandfather had said. His belief had taken him from the stairwell to a safer place. But they were still after him. He couldn’t rest. He had to move.
He made his way to the street. Booted feet echoed through buildings. Where are they? He couldn’t tell. Behind me, he guessed. They’re coming. The thwoop-thwooping of the helicopter returned, drowning out the sound of the boots. But the spotlight hadn’t found him yet.
He had to disappear. It was a miracle he was alive. Now he needed to go undercover and stop Foxx. Hide.
Then he saw it. Across the street on the ground, a long, thin hole was just large enough for a boy to squeeze into. He had discovered a storm drain.
As he crawled in, the stench was overwhelming. He dropped into shin-deep muck and immediately threw up. Above, a spotlight flashed by. Would the soldiers hear him gagging? He must have avoided detection by seconds. Booted feet tromped above.
How long would he have to stay down here? How safe was it?
Keep moving. Keep moving. He didn’t know which way to turn, so he headed away from the Texifornia Building. He trudged through muck for nearly an hour, but Charlie finally found his way back to the hideout.
Callaya jumped for joy and licked his filthy face. She sniffed the stink all over him and watched him wash. Then she curled up beside him.
Geneva. Caught. What are they doing to you right now? He pushed the images out of his mind. Rest. Rest so you can think again.
He needed help.
Where could he find it?
Where?
Geneva’s entire body was on fire. She felt as if white-hot razors were cutting her insides raw.
“This is madness!” Foxx bellowed. “I wrote your code! I should be able to read it!” He tore boxes of circuit boards and memory chips off the shelves, hurling them to the ground in fury.
Geneva was hooked up to a Code Analyzer ten times as large and far more sophisticated than her own. Code streamed across the screen. Foxx leaned low into her face, hatred filling his eyes.
“How did you escape? What have you done to your code set? Or was it the boy? Who is he?”
She tried to ignore the stabbing pain. She kept her mouth shut.
“You insolent, ungrateful wretch!” Crash! Foxx threw another box across the room.
“Go ahead! Scan my memory. You’ll only find your own lousy programming.”
Foxx grabbed her face, crushing her cheeks. “You will talk.” He stormed out of the room.
From the hallway outside, she heard McCallum’s report. Charlie got away!
But something new bothered her. Foxx was obsessed with finding Charlie, but he was even more concerned about Geneva’s code. Why? What had she missed?
She had downloaded The Future code into a sandboxed, encrypted section of memory. She would be able to access it without Foxx’s knowledge. If I compared my own code with The Future, what would they have in common?
* * *
The windows were dark. I must have slept the entire day, Charlie thought. When he tried to move, his whole body ached. He struggled up to a sitting position.
I did it, he thought. I harnessed the Hum and did the impossible. And I survived.
Without Geneva’s laughter, he felt terribly alone.
“Well, not for long,” Charlie said aloud to Callaya. “We’re gonna get her back, right, puppy?” She wagged her tail. “I’m just not sure how.”
Callaya hopped up and went to the corner and sniffed his bag. It was drenched in muck. She looked at him and cocked her head.
“Smart girl!” he said. “You’re right! How could I have forgotten? There’s a message from Geneva in there! And I haven’t read it yet! Did you know that?”
Charlie pulled the VidCel and tablet out of his bag. Both had been banged up. He tried the tablet first. It squealed, then popped. The screen, spiderwebbed and broken, flashed once and winked off with a funny smell. Great. Now everything depended on the VidCel. I need that message.
Bits of the casing had fallen away completely, exposing the inside. That screen didn’t look so hot, either. He could only see the white background through the shattered black glass in a few places. Most of Geneva’s message was missing, but he saw a name: Jane Virtue. And part of a number.
Jane Virtue was the lady who talked about The Future.
What did Geneva want Charlie to do?
There was only one way to find out. Even though he couldn’t see the entire phone number, he highlighted it all and pressed the CALL button.
* * *
Reading Geneva’s code had failed, and now the firmware upgrade had failed. Impossible! Foxx had developed the firmware. How could the upgrade not work? How could any of this not work?
Geneva’s error messages made no sense. Failure. Memory mismatch. Endless loops and syntax errors. Exception: bad magic operation failed. He kicked a chair. Bad magic? The system was mocking him!
These errors weren’t even possible. He hadn’t programmed them!
Five upgrade attempts had failed. Now Foxx would try the sixth.
* * *
Geneva’s mind had been torn open. Her sense of self had been forcibly replaced, again and again. Five times now she had regained consciousness for a moment and felt as if part of reality had been carved out, leaving a gaping void. This was torture. She would rather be pummeled by Gargan.
Her processors crunched The Future, analyzing relentlessly. Her brain had no new insight, but some deep recollection was surfacing.
Suddenly, it was over. She was present again.
To her amazement, the firmware upgrade hadn’t worked. She could still read her current rev number. Foxx howled with rage.
The phone rang. “This is Jane,” she said, and swatted the hairdresser’s hand. Was she becoming a diva? She considered apologizing, but Jane realized she didn’t have to apologize. She was Jane Virtue, Voice of The Future. It was more important to look professional and compassionate than to be professional and compassionate.
In ten minutes she would go live. This was the last show in LAanges before the launch. In the morning she would travel to some of the hottest spots as she covered the largest media rollout in history.
“Miss Virtue?” a timid voice asked.
“Yes, this is Jane.” Important people shouldn’t have to repeat themselves.
“My name is Charles, but my friends call me Charlie, and …”
She cut the voice off. “Who gave you this number?”
“Uh, my friend, Geneva.”
“I don’t know anyone named Geneva.”
“She told me to call you. We’re in trouble, and we need help. It’s about Mr. Foxx.”
“Meaning?” She didn’t have time for this nonsense.
“Miss Virtue, he’s a bad man. He’s what you’d call a … a sorcerer. He’s planning something terrible. The Future is not what you think it is.”
Jane had already heard her fair share of kooks, crackpots, and conspiracy theorists. But sorcerer?
“How did you get this number, kid? Don’t say Geneva, because I don’t know her. Who gave Geneva the number?” Some idiot at the network would lose his job tomorrow for releasing her private number.
“She got it from Gramercy Foxx. She sent me the number right before Foxx kidnapped her. His security men grabbed her, and they almost got me.”
“Sure they did,” she said, and she almost clicked off the phone. But then some deep, intuitive sense made her uneasy. It was the boy’s truthfulness. She could hear it in his voice. After thousands of interviews, she recognized the sound.
“OK, kid. Look, I’m on the air in just a second, so I have to go. But thanks for calling. Cast in for the launch, OK?” She made a mental note to call Foxx’s security guy after the broadcast. What was his name?
“But he has her! He’s taken her! You don’t understa —”
The line went dead.
Jane hadn’t hung up on the kid. His sudden silence disturbed her. Hmm. He’s probably just a boy with an ac
tive imagination, she thought, flipping through her notes for the show.
“Jane. This is your cue,” said a voice at the door.
“I’m coming.”
But she’d call the security guy anyway.
* * *
The phone made a funny purring noise and fell silent. Charlie’s hand was wet. Fluid oozed all over it. Something inside had ruptured during the fall, and now it was leaking.
He tried to turn it back on. No luck. Great. Now what? Callaya tugged his pant leg. “What am I going to do?” He scratched behind her ears.
He had gone over the Hum code again and again in his mind. The portion that baffled both of them had matched the puppy so closely. Which didn’t make sense. Why would Foxx need any of that to control a robot? Normal computer code would control her just fine.
Then it dawned on him. How could he have missed it? They were operating from the wrong assumptions. The code matched because it was mind control.
Geneva isn’t a robot. She’s a human.
* * *
Foxx had Geneva. She wouldn’t be dismantled, only to be reassembled later for more adventures. He was going to kill her.
Charlie’s only advantage was the Hum. To use it he had to be centered. Anger, fear, or anxiety would block it every time.
He took a few deep breaths and began to imagine how things could be. No — would be. That simple change in viewpoint made everything different. Now he could visualize the steps to get from where he was to where he wanted to be. He began to talk it through to Callaya.
Think positive thoughts. “I need to …” Think positive thoughts. “I am going to rescue Geneva. I am going to … defeat Gramercy Foxx. OK, so that’s where I need to be. That’s what I’m going to do. OK, no problem.” But how?
For once, he’d give anything to see his grandfather.
Charlie felt a stab of guilt. He’d barely thought about his grandfather at all. Was the old man worried? Or did he know?
How would his grandfather deal with Foxx?
Maybe he could go get his grandfather and bring him here.