by Rob Vlock
While he worked on the vehicle, Alicia turned to me. “Tell me more about that song you mentioned. What did it sound like?”
“It sounded the same as every other Dixon Watts song. You know, like a hippo with diarrhea, or maybe . . .”
Alicia’s glare stopped the words in my throat.
“Do I need to punch you again?”
I spoke softly in an effort not to enrage her. “I’m not trying to make you mad. But I genuinely think Dixon Watts might be tone-deaf.”
I took a step back as Alicia’s face reddened.
“Well,” she snapped. “Maybe you just don’t get his music—you ever think of that? Maybe I hear something in his songs that you don’t!”
As soon as she said it, an idea hit me. “Wait! Maybe you’re right!”
She nodded smugly. “Of course I’m right! Dix’s songs are awesome.”
“No, no. Not that. But maybe you’re right about hearing something in it that I can’t. Think about it. What’s the biggest difference between you two and me?”
“We’re human,” Alicia answered.
“And I’m Synthetic,” I added.
Will drummed his fingers on the side of the RV. “Wait, are you saying you hear music differently than we do because you’re a Tick?”
“Maybe he just has terrible taste in music,” Alicia suggested.
I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with my taste in music. But there’s nothing remotely musical about Dixon Watts! I’d rather listen to nails on a chalkboard.”
“Phhffft!” Alicia huffed. “I bet you’re probably not programmed to appreciate how great Dix is.”
“What?”
“She has a point,” Will chimed in. “It’s probably just . . . you know, his greatness overloads your music enjoyment circuits or something.”
Okay, that was annoying!
“You know what?” I fumed, my fingernails digging into the palms of my tightly clenched fists. “Forget it! Let’s not talk about it anymore!”
I marched to the door of the motor home, wrenched it open, and slumped onto the cracked vinyl of the passenger seat. Hot anger welled inside my throat.
There it was again. My friends treating me like I was inhuman just because I happened not to be human. I nearly died to save them! What did it matter that I had a CPU instead of a brain? I still had feelings!
Add to that the fact that a half-baked replica of me with a face where his butt should be was taking my place at home with my parents while I was out here listening to Alicia and Will reminding me of how utterly alone I was. . . .
My anger morphed into soul-crushing despair. I was alone. And nobody could ever understand what it was like to be me.
Then, out of the furthest, darkest corner of my mind came a voice. Tiny. Barely audible at all. But still powerful enough to pierce the blackness.
Kill them all.
CHAPTER 3.0:
< value= [Our Plan Goes Up in Smoke] >
THE MOTOR HOME’S DOOR CREAKED open.
“You okay, Sven?” Will asked apologetically.
An explosion of razor-sharp hate detonated in my skull.
Them!
My fingers closed on the arms of my chair until the vinyl skin crackled. A millisecond later, the voice was gone. Completely.
I loosened my grip on the chair and smiled feebly at my friends. “Uh . . . I’m fine.” But the words sounded more like a question than an answer. “How’s Sam doing?” I added, trying to occupy my mind with questions other than What the heck just happened?
Alicia shrugged. “Well, he’s no longer talking about poop in the soup, so that’s a positive sign. Although I might have just heard him say someone had onions growing out of their belly button, which . . . I don’t know how to interpret, actually.”
As if he were summoned by the mention of his name, Junkman Sam hoisted himself up into the RV with a wheezy grunt.
“Did you fix it?” Will asked.
“Only one way to find out.” Sam muttered something under his breath and inserted the key into the ignition.
“Wait!” I cried, and made sure the radio was off. “Okay, I think we’re good.”
Sam crossed his fingers and gave the key a twist.
A horrifying moaning, whining sound filled the air. It turned out it was only the motor home’s engine rumbling to life.
Sam scowled at a couple of gauges on the dashboard and wiped his brow. “Well, I guess it worked.”
We slowly ground our way back up the embankment toward the mangled gap in the guardrail. Finally, when we were once again on the road, I settled onto the lumpy couch, closed my eyes, and pretended to be asleep.
It wasn’t long before I wasn’t pretending.
* * *
I was jolted awake by the flush of the morning sun slanting through the RV’s windows.
“What time is it?” I wondered aloud, too tired to open my eyes.
“Three thirty,” Alicia’s voice answered.
“And where are we?”
“Schenectady.”
“Wait. Hold on.” Sleepy cobwebs disintegrated just enough to let the gears of logic shudder into motion. “If . . . if it’s three thirty in the morning, why . . . why is the sun out?”
“It’s not.”
My eyelids shot open and I rubbed away a couple of crusty eye boogers, which I promptly licked off my fingers. Gross.
I looked outside and realized it wasn’t sunshine I had felt on my face. It was the angry glow of flames.
What was left of Dr. Shallix’s office was on fire.
I looked at Alicia. “Did you do this?” Given Alicia’s tendency to blow things up or burn things down on a fairly regular basis, it seemed like a fair question.
“It was like that when we got here.”
I watched the side wall of the building collapse, sending up a blizzard of orange embers. “What happened?”
Junkman Sam opened the door. “Let’s find out.”
We stepped out onto the sidewalk and made our way toward the inferno, careful to avoid stumbling over the firehoses that snaked across Union Street.
“Stay back!” a firefighter commanded. She wore the white helmet of a fire chief.
“What happened here?” Sam asked.
“Gas leak,” the woman told us. “The whole building exploded. That’s why you have to get out of the area now! For all we know, this entire block could still go up!”
From her tone, I knew there was no arguing with her. Besides, there was no way we’d be able to get anything useful out of Dr. Shallix’s office now.
We filed back toward the motor home, and I leaned, dejected, against its dented side.
Alicia put words to the thought that must have been going through all of our minds. “No way that was a gas leak. Shallix must have planned this in case he didn’t come back from Niagara Falls. He didn’t want to leave any evidence behind.”
“What do we do now?” Will’s eyes were wide. “That was our only lead!”
Sam shook his head slowly. “What can we do? We have no idea what the full extent of Shallix’s plot was. We don’t know who’s involved.” He glanced at me. “We don’t even know who’s human and who’s a Tick.”
The four of us stood in silence, the weight of despair stilling our tongues.
Until a firefighter paused near our position to adjust his helmet. “Girl, you’re as fine as some really smooth sandpaper. I want to kiss your face more than a lightsaber,” he sang in a deep baritone voice.
And a second later, my friends joined in.
“Girl, I love you like a dog loves its kibble.
Why can’t you love me back just a libble?”
“It’s . . . it’s Dixon Watts!” I blurted.
“Yeah, he’s awesome.” The firefighter nodded at me, gave his helmet strap one more tug, and continued on his way.
“No, I mean that’s what we need to do. We have to see Dixon Watts!”
Alicia rolled her eyes. “Good luck w
ith that. Every show for the next year sold out two minutes after tickets went on sale.”
“Besides,” Will added, “I thought you hated him.”
“I do,” I agreed. “And I’m not talking about seeing him perform. I just . . . I think he’s involved somehow with Dr. Shallix’s plot.”
“Please!” Alicia snapped. “Just because you have no taste in music doesn’t mean Dixon is working with the Ticks.”
I turned to her. “You didn’t see how you were acting when that song of his was on! He’s involved somehow. I know it!”
“I think you’re grasping at straws.”
“True. But do you have a better idea?”
“I can think of worse things than meeting Dixon Watts,” Junkman Sam said, half to himself. “He’s such a dreamboat. Maybe he’ll sign my underwear.”
Will, Alicia, and I trained our collective gaze on Sam.
His face flushed crimson. “Did I say that aloud? Uh . . . uh, what I meant was, uh . . . he’s a very talented musician and Sven might be onto something.”
Alicia sighed. “All right. There’s no reason to stick around here, anyway.”
As if to emphasize her point, the sole remaining wall of the burning building crumbled to the ground.
CHAPTER 4.0:
< value= [Roadkill] >
“MADISON SQUARE GARDEN,” ALICIA ANNOUNCED, looking up from her phone. “He’s playing two weeks of sold-out shows there, starting tonight.”
Junkman Sam started up the RV. “That’s good luck. New York City is just a few hours from here. We’ll be there in time for breakfast.”
Will’s stomach rumbled loudly at the mention of breakfast. “Yeah, but we’re going to need more than luck if we want to actually meet Dixon Watts in person. I bet he has the toughest bodyguards in the music business.”
“That’s a problem,” Sam agreed. “But I’m sure once we explain why we want to see him, they’ll let us through.”
Will snorted. “You mean once we explain how there’s a secret race of androids that’s planning to wipe out every person on Earth and we think Dixon might be somehow involved because Sven doesn’t like his music?”
Sam scratched his nose. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to have a plan B.”
* * *
Right around Poughkeepsie, I noticed the black shadow.
I had taken to staring out the window while trying to come up with a plan B. I had just killed the idea of dressing up in bear costumes and telling the bodyguards we were there to deliver a singing telegram when I spotted a blur of motion from the corner of my eye.
I strained against the darkness to try to make out what I had seen, but there was nothing there. Just an endless rush of shadowy green trees faintly illuminated by the distant, cold light of the stars.
Then I saw it again: a dark streak keeping pace with the RV about twenty feet away.
I couldn’t fix it in my vision. It almost felt like the idea of something rather than the thing itself. Every time I tried to focus on it, it blended into the shadows and disappeared. But the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Like they could sense we were being watched.
“Guys!” I called. “Can you take a look outside? I think there’s something—”
The motor home’s tires screeched on the asphalt, then . . . THUMP! The RV bucked like an angry bull.
“A deer! It . . . it just ran out in front of us!” Sam wailed, his voice soaked with anguish. “We have to see if it’s okay.”
I nodded, even though I already knew that deer wasn’t okay. No way a deer could be okay after getting flattened by the old hunk we were riding in.
The vehicle slowed to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Sam shifted into park and unbuckled himself from the driver’s seat. “Maybe we can help it. Take it to a vet if it’s . . .” His voice shook with emotion.
“Sam . . . ,” Alicia began. She sighed. “Yeah, maybe we can do something.”
She got up from the couch. But not before sliding her knife out of her backpack.
The sight of the blade glinting in the RV’s overhead lights sent a jolt of ice down my spine. “What’s that for?”
Alicia paused at the door and swallowed hard. “In case it’s . . . suffering.”
I stared at her. “You mean you’ll put it out of its misery? Can you . . . would you really be able to do that?”
She grimaced. “I don’t know.”
I joined her at the door and gave her shoulder a squeeze. I couldn’t stand the thought of what she was suggesting. But I also couldn’t let her go through that alone.
We stepped out into the cool night air.
“Over here!” Junkman Sam called.
Alicia let out a long breath and took a step toward Sam and the deer. I followed right behind.
The deer’s long, delicate limbs were in a tangle of improbable angles. Its chest was still, its once-impressive antlers nothing more than jagged six-inch nubs.
Sam lifted his gaze. Even in the glow of his flashlight, we could read the distress on his face. “I couldn’t stop. It came out of nowhere. I—I barely had time to brake at all.”
He turned suddenly and trundled down the grassy verge at the side of the road, where he barfed up the contents of his stomach.
Alicia went after him.
I tore my gaze away from the animal and looked up at the stars. A streak of black blotted them out. Something passed so close to my face I could feel the wind as it rushed by.
What was that?
Before I could give it another thought, a sound at my feet drew my attention back to the road. The deer was moving. Its legs twisted and turned, disentangling themselves from one another, bones crackling as they straightened. Its hooves scraped against the pavement, carving gouges into the blacktop.
The animal scrambled to its feet and stood before me, its face still frozen in a grimace.
Until I realized it wasn’t a grimace.
It was a grin.
CHAPTER 5.0:
< value= [Stuck in the Middle] >
“TARGET ACQUIRED: SEVEN OMICRON.” THE voice rattled out of the deer. “Commencing termination.”
“Alicia!” I screamed. “I need you! Now!”
“Geez, Sven,” she called back to me. “Keep your pants on. Sam’s having a tough time here.”
“I’m having a tough time!” I countered, backing away from the deer. It lowered its head and lunged at me, its broken antlers pointed at my chest.
I twisted hard to the left and narrowly avoided being skewered. Still, the animal’s shoulder clipped my side and sent me whirling to the ground.
“Help!” The deer skidded to a stop and turned to take a second run at me. “Tick! It’s a Tick!”
The animal shot forward. Sparks erupted where its hooves made contact with the pavement.
A millisecond before the deer trampled me into mush, I rolled toward the side of the road. But not quite fast enough. One of its hooves came down hard on my right thumb. My entire arm throbbed in pain. I clutched my bloody hand to my chest. Well, most of my hand, anyway. My thumb lay twitching all by itself on the pavement.
“Sven!” Alicia cried as she made it to the road about twenty feet away from me. Her knife was in her hand and she assumed a fighting stance.
“Secondary target acquired,” the deer croaked, swiveling its head toward her. “Engaging.”
The Tick streaked toward Alicia. But she was already on the move. With an almost balletic spin, she buried her blade deep in the animal’s flank. The razor-sharp steel opened the creature’s hide like a zipper.
It emitted an enraged squawk, but the injury closed itself up, fading to a thread of scar tissue, then disappearing altogether. Thanks to the emergency repair system in every Tick, injuries like the one Alicia had just inflicted would barely slow the creature down at all.
I should know. I had experienced the same thing when my arm was torn off while I was trying to jump over a wedding cake on my bike. (Don’t ask.) And when I had
been stabbed by a trio of roast chicken assassins a couple of nights earlier—which, odd as it sounds, is precisely the type of thing that tends to happen when you have an army of cybernetic killers trying to take you out.
I scrambled up and darted to the side of the road. But then I remembered my thumb. I’d probably need that.
I scooped it up just as the deer began charging toward me. I pivoted back toward the grassy verge where Alicia waved me on frantically. But the sole of my right sneaker slipped on a piece of broken antler that lay on the pavement, and I crashed to the ground.
I gasped and coughed, struggling to catch my breath. And all I could do was watch the deer speed toward me.
It lowered its head, and I swear its lips pulled back into a full-on smile. Its teeth glinted in the dim starlight.
Only, I realized a moment later, it wasn’t starlight reflecting off the beast’s teeth. It was headlights.
I looked away from the deer to find a vehicle barreling straight toward me from the opposite direction. I squinted into the headlights, but in the glare all I could make out was a large, dark, trucklike shape.
I waved my arms in a lame effort to get it to stop. But if anything, the driver only sped up.
So there I was.
On one side, a killer Synthetic deer.
On the other, several tons of speeding steel.
I caught my breath just in time to scream. But my voice was drowned out by the roar of the vehicle’s engine as it closed the few remaining feet between us.
CHAPTER 6.0:
< value= [A Walk in the Park] >
THUMP!
A squeal of tires on pavement. A hulk of rusty metal passed over me, no more than two inches from the tip of my nose. It smelled like gasoline and hot steel.
When the vehicle skidded to a stop, I rolled out from under it, lifted myself unsteadily into a sitting position, and looked at the object that had nearly flattened me. It was Sam’s RV.
“Sven!” Will cried as he scrambled out of the motor home. “Are you okay? I thought I might’ve hit you!”
I wanted to tell him that I was fine. But as I opened my mouth, a pair of words rang out in my head. Kill him. They were accompanied by a searing wave of fury.