by Rob Vlock
“WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU DOING?!?” I bellowed. “YOU ALMOST KILLED ME!”
I stood up and shoved Will hard.
He fell to the ground.
I cocked my leg to kick at his ribs when the anger drained out of me as quickly as it had come. I stood there like a fool, perched on one leg, staring down at my best friend, who was trembling on the pavement.
“S-sorry,” I stuttered, returning my foot to the ground. “I’m okay, Will. I . . . I don’t know why I just did that.”
I offered him my hand. He flinched.
Oh, right. My thumb. I pressed the severed digit back into place and held it there while the nanomachines that made up my blood did their work. Flesh and bone knitted together until all that was left of the injury was a red scar.
Will got unsteadily to his feet. “I—I—I saw that deer attacking you. I was trying to drive over so you could get in. I wasn’t trying to hit you! I just . . . I guess I forgot which pedal was the gas and which was the brake.”
“The deer!” I looked around frantically. “Where is it?”
“It’s okay,” Alicia called to us from the front of the RV.
She was standing beside the vehicle’s passenger door, glaring at the pavement. There, under the front wheel of the motor home, lay the deer. It was pinned in place beneath the tire, squirming and struggling to get free.
“Target Reacquired: Seven Omicron.” Its voice was barely audible.
Will took a step back. “Kill it! It’s still alive!”
“That’s what I voted for,” Alicia said icily. “But Sam said he had a better idea.”
Something about her tone made me think that whatever idea Sam had, I wasn’t going to like it.
Junkman Sam rounded the corner of the RV and stood next to Alicia. He had a deeply apologetic look on his face.
And he was clutching a handful of electrical cables.
* * *
“I don’t want to do this,” I said for the twenty-third time. I knew I was going to do it, though, no matter how much the thought made my guts twist.
My head was a foot away from the deer’s. The creature was still talking, its voice so low that I was the only one who could hear it.
“Seven Omicron,” it repeated over and over. “Seven Omicron.”
I wished it would stop. Hearing it chant my name—my Synthetic designation—was far more uncomfortable than the press of the rough pavement against my cheek as I lay on my stomach by the side of the road.
“Okay, I think we’re ready.” Sam had gathered what he needed. The cables, a laptop, forceps, some small magnets . . . and a scalpel. The glint of its blade in the starlight reawakened a searing sensation along the back of my neck—the precise spot Sam had cut open hours earlier, when he’d hooked that very same cable into the interface of my neural network.
“Don’t worry,” Will assured me in a totally unreassuring way. “I’m sure it won’t hurt much.”
I rolled my eyes, although the deer was probably the only one who could see it. What scared me even more than the thought of Junkman Sam cutting into my flesh for the second time in less than twenty-four hours was his harebrained plan.
“Sam, are you sure this is going to work?”
“Absolutely,” he replied with no conviction whatsoever. “It worked last time, didn’t it?”
“Last time you were letting me access my own brain, not a deer’s,” I reminded him. “And that almost erased my mind.”
He scratched his head. “True. But I’m betting this thing doesn’t have the same kind of security systems you have. You were designed to be the Ticks’ ultimate instrument of human destruction. This is just a deer. It’ll probably be a . . . what’s the expression in English . . . ? A stroll in the nature preserve.”
“A walk in the park,” I corrected.
“Anyway, what else can we do?” Alicia argued. “Shallix’s office is a hole in the ground. This is the best chance we have of finding out what the Ticks are up to.”
“We could just check out Dixon Watts, like I’ve been saying all along.”
She sat on the pavement next to me and gently put her hand on my back. “Sven, we know this deer is a Tick, right?”
I nodded and winced as my cheek scraped against the pavement.
“And I know you think Dix is a Tick,” she continued. “But what if he’s not? Or if he is, what if we can’t get in to see him?” She rested her hand on my shoulder. “If there are others like you out there and we don’t try everything we can to stop them . . .”
She didn’t need to finish the thought. There were still Ticks out there. This deer was proof of that. And that meant the human race was still at risk of being wiped out.
“Fine.” I sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Okay,” Sam responded. “Now just hold still and . . .”
Every nerve ending along the back of my neck screamed as Sam’s scalpel sliced through my flesh.
CONNECTION REQUEST:
CHAPTER 7.0:
< value= [Actually, a Walk in the Woods] >
I FOUND MYSELF LYING ON a thick bed of pine needles staring up at sunlight slicing through a canopy of leaves. A breeze whispered through the trees. Somewhere, a bird sang a melancholy song.
I got to my feet and surveyed my surroundings. I was in a vast, dense forest that extended as far as I could see. The RV was gone. The New York State Thruway was gone. My friends were gone. Which only made sense, because I was inside the deer’s brain. But I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.
I took a step forward, snapping a dry twig under my foot. It sounded much louder than it should have. Like a gunshot. The sound set me on edge, and my body tensed instinctively, ready to break into a run.
I scanned the area for danger and noticed that I had practically a three-hundred-sixty-degree field of vision. As if I had eyes on the back of my head. Or at least on the sides of my head.
Like a deer.
Of course. I was experiencing the world the way a deer would. With a deer’s hearing. A deer’s vision.
And a deer’s sense of smell, I discovered as the clean, sweet scent of a mountain spring wafted through the air. Suddenly, my mouth felt as if it had been filled with warm sand. I needed to find something to drink. I needed to get to that water.
Almost before I realized it, I was walking, the crisp leaves under my feet crackling in my ears. I followed the smell of the spring.
A voice in the distance called to me. Sven! Stay in control! If you lose it now, you’re dead! But it felt miles away.
I heard the spring before I saw it. Gurgling and bubbling somewhere just ahead of me. The closer I got, the thirstier I felt. Soon, I was running, dodging tree trunks and traversing tangled roots as easily as I could have navigated the corridors of Chester A. Arthur Middle School back home in Schenectady.
As I crested a hill, a crystalline pond fed by a stream appeared in front of me, glittering in the sunshine. I dashed to the edge and stooped to take a drink. But before my lips could touch the liquid, I froze.
Something was staring up at me from just beneath the water’s surface.
No. Not something. Someone. A man.
He looked like he was in his early twenties, with large, expressive brown eyes, heavy eyebrows, and a head covered with dark, loose curls that coiled around his ears. The man peered straight up at me from the pond. Floating just beneath the surface, his face relaxed, his hands folded neatly on his stomach.
I leaned in close to the water. “Hello?”
He didn’t respond. I waved my hand in front of his eyes. Still no response. A second figure appeared in the water to his right. Then a third. And a fourth. This continued until six forms bobbed gently just below the water’s surface.
Each of them was different.
>
An Asian boy and a girl who looked like twins.
A dog that could have been a cross between a German shepherd and a poodle.
A little girl whose frowning face was adorned with large, round glasses and spotted with a galaxy of freckles.
And . . .
A face I couldn’t help but recognize: Dixon Watts.
What was he doing in this deer’s CPU?
And who were the others? They had to be connected to Shallix’s plan. But how?
I stuck out my tongue and licked a streak of bird poop that had dried on the bark of a nearby tree. Geez. Even in a world made up of a bunch of 1s and 0s, I still did gross things.
I went back to Dixon, studying his pleasant features. How could a guy who looked so good sing so badly? The voice and the face were total mismatches. Like a dog that meowed or a goldfish that mooed.
As I stood there staring, a movement in the pond caught my eye. Something was floating up to the surface just to the right of Dixon.
Another person. Only this one lay facedown in the water.
I swallowed hard and reached toward it, trying to tamp down an intense feeling of dread.
As my finger broke the surface, the form rolled over. My gaze locked onto the figure’s face, and a strangled cry burst from my throat.
It was me!
CHAPTER 8.0:
< value= [Let’s Go Shopping] >
MY SCREAM ECHOED ACROSS SIX lanes of New York State Thruway as I opened my eyes. The Tick deer stared at me, unblinking.
“Seven Omicron,” it wheezed in a barely audible whisper. Then it fell permanently silent.
“Sven!”
I looked up.
A short, round man stood over me holding an electrical cable. Despite his signature tangled nest of gray hair and paint-spattered clothes, it took me a few seconds to recognize him as Junkman Sam.
“Are you with us, Sven?” he asked. “Can you hear me? I had to disconnect you. You went into convulsions. You were screaming. What happened in there?”
I blinked at him.
“Sven!” Will cried. “Say something! Come on, dude!”
“I . . . I think we’re in trouble,” I said once I found words.
Even in the darkness, I could see the color disappear from Will’s face.
“Oh,” he uttered shakily. “I was kind of hoping you’d say something a little less, you know . . . um, troubling.”
Alicia squatted next to me. “What happened in there?”
“There were people in the pond!” I gasped. “And I was there too. And I was dead!”
“Are you okay, Sven?” Sam asked. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Nothing makes any sense! All I can tell you is I saw some people in the deer’s mind.”
“Who?” Alicia’s eyes drilled into me.
“They basically looked like regular kids. Except for one who’s, like, probably in his twenties. Oh, and there was a dog. And two kids who looked like twins. And, of course, I saw—”
“Did you see anything that can help us figure out who they are?” Sam interrupted. “Or something that can lead us to them?”
I shook my head.
Alicia fingered the blade of her knife pensively. “Wait. You said you were there too?”
A cold shiver ran through me. “Yeah. I was . . . dead.”
“Do you think the six other people you saw were Ticks? Like you?”
“Maybe. Probably. I mean, they were inside the Tick deer’s CPU. They must have something to do with everything that’s going on, right?”
Alicia nodded slowly. “But we don’t know who they are, where they are, or what they’re going to do?”
“Not exactly,” I replied.
“What do you mean?”
I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “I know where one is.”
Will goggled at me. “Where?”
“Madison Square Garden.”
“Wait.” Alicia frowned at me. “Madison Square Garden. You mean it’s—”
“Dixon Watts,” I finished. “He was right there with the others.”
“Come on, Sven! Seriously?” she countered. “Are you positive it was really Dix and not some other really attractive, super-talented guy?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said emphatically.
Will chewed on his fingernails. “You’re saying Dixon Watts really is a Tick?”
Sam jangled his keys. “I’d say there’s only one way to find out.”
* * *
The thing about Madison Square Garden is it’s a really stupid name. I mean, the place is round. It’s this big, round building in the middle of Manhattan. If it had been up to me, I would have built it with four corners. Then it would have been a square, and the name would fit a lot better. Still, dumb building names aside, New York was pretty amazing! I had never been there before, and my head practically spun as I looked up at the canyon of skyscrapers that surrounded us. How could they make buildings so tall? And how did they—
“Sven? Hello?”
I had been so fixated on taking in the sights that I had been completely oblivious to Alicia’s attempts to talk to me.
“Huh?”
“I said, what’s the plan?”
I stopped short. “Plan?”
“Yes, plan,” she sighed. “You were supposed to come up with a plan for getting in to see Dix, remember?”
I looked to Will and Sam for support, but they just stared back at me expectantly.
“Right. The plan. Uh . . . well . . . um . . . you see . . .”
Alicia shook her head. “Yeah, figures.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
From nowhere, that little voice in my head piped up again. She’s out to get you.
“Geez, Sven. Chill out. I didn’t mean anything.”
I glowered at her. “So let me guess—you’ve come up with a brilliant idea.”
She squared her shoulders. “As a matter of fact, I have. Let’s go shopping.”
Will looked around at the innumerable souvenir shops lining the street. “I don’t think now’s the time to pick up some I Heart New York T-shirts.”
She grinned at him. “Yeah, I was thinking something a little different.”
The “something different” Alicia had in mind was a hardware store a few blocks away. We arrived just as the owner opened for the day.
“Hi,” Alicia said as she stepped into the small shop. “Where do you keep the sharp things?”
Ten minutes later, she dumped a basket-load of items on the counter. Half a dozen circular saw blades, ten packages of magnets, a lighter, eight bottles of superglue, wire cutters, a large spray bottle, duct tape, and a gallon of kerosene.
Sam paid for the assorted items and we hurried back toward Madison Square Garden, where the RV was parked.
Once Alicia had finished assembling her makeshift weapons, we stepped out onto the street. Alicia’s backpack bulged with six magnetic throwing stars made out of circular saw blades. And a “flamethrower,” which was really nothing more than a lighter and the spray bottle she had picked up at the hardware store and filled with kerosene. Still, I wouldn’t want to be standing at the wrong end of it.
Alicia assured us she used to make flamethrowers all the time back home in the Settlement, and she’d never lost even a single eyebrow. But that didn’t make me feel any better. I wasn’t sure which were more terrifying: the Ticks, or our own weapons.
CHAPTER 9.0:
< value= [Plan C] >
WE HAD WEAPONS. BUT WHAT we didn’t have was a way into Madison Square Garden. Forget about getting past Dixon Watt’s bodyguards, we couldn’t even get by the skinny guy with the long, scraggly hair sitting at a plastic table underneath the awning that read SOUTH VIP ENTRANCE 31ST STREET. And even if we could get by him, the heavy steel gate he was guarding looked completely impenetrable.
I sighed. I wasn’t sure I had ever felt less like a VIP than I did at that moment.
Nonethe
less, that particular entrance seemed to be the least well-guarded way into the place. We had already ruled out the main entrances or either of the loading docks, since they were crawling with police officers—and none of us wanted to spend the next several years in jail.
So there we were, standing in front of a man who wore a windbreaker with SECURITY in big yellow letters on the back and EDDIE on the front, trying to trick him into letting us in. He took a big swig of coffee from a thermos. “Nope. I don’t see none of your names on the list. Can’t let you in.”
“But I’m telling you,” Alicia insisted. “We won the ‘Meet Dixon Watts At Madison Square Garden’ contest. Which means we’re supposed to meet Dixon Watts. At Madison Square Garden. Which is here. So if you’ll just let us in, that’d be great.”
“I already checked the list. You ain’t on it.”
“Fine, Eddie,” Alicia huffed. “But I’m sure Dix is not going to be happy when he doesn’t get to meet his contest winners. And I’m going to make sure he hears that you were responsible.”
Eddie’s only response was a big yawn.
“Come on, guys.” Alicia turned on her heel and strode away.
The rest of us followed her. Once we were out of the guy’s sight, Alicia sighed.
“Well, that stinks. All right, plan B.” She pulled the lighter and flamethrower out of her backpack.
“You can’t just go around flamethrowing people!” Will cried.
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m only going to singe him a little.”
Will pocketed the lighter. “No singeing people! Or broiling them. Or roasting them. Unless they’re Ticks.”
“That guy might be a Tick,” she replied hopefully.
We frowned at her.
Her shoulders slumped. “Fine.” She put the flamethrower away. “So, Sven? Did you end up figuring out a plan? Because obviously no one is behind mine.”
I looked at the ground and watched a big black cockroach munch on a scrap of discarded bagel. “No.”
I was suddenly immobilized by despair. Dixon was our only lead. And we couldn’t even come up with a way to get in the door.