Bot Wars, Line Zero

by J. V. Kade

  I make quick work of an arm and another shell. The voices from the ground sound farther away and I can see the tops of the trees through the spaces between the robot parts. I look up. Almost to the top.

  I reach for a hollowed leg and catch my left hand on a sharp edge. It slices through my palm. Blood fills the cut. It stings instantly and I have to grit my teeth against a yelp.

  “What’s wrong?” Po shouts.

  “Nothing!” I call back and keep going.

  I scramble over another torso. Then another. Just one more to go. I dig my feet into a nook between two bots and push with a grunt. I nearly clear the top when I notice something in the rubble.

  A robot head. Two giant owl-like eyes stare back at me. The mouth is contorted like it was trying to screech when someone smashed its body to pieces. It reminds me instantly of Cleo.

  I shrink away, and my bloody hand slips. I lose my footing and suddenly I’m dangling from the mound of bot junk by one hand.

  The crowd gasps. Po yells, “Trout!”

  My fingers ache. I can’t hold on anymore. I let go and slide down the side of the fountain. Water mists my face. I clunk against an arm, bang my elbow on a foot and thunk over a shell before I find something to grab hold of.

  “Trout!” Po calls again.

  I hang for a second before I find a spot for my feet and grab on to a neck hole with my other hand. I take a deep breath as the water trickles down my face. “I’m okay,” I say, but I’m feeling the sting of the cut and the bruise of the hits.

  At least I didn’t crash to my death.

  “Can you make it?” Po asks.

  “Yeah.”

  My way down is slower than my way up. When I finally reach the ground, Po crushes me against him in a hug. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. But you’re squeezing the air outta me.”

  People behind us are cheering. Johz whoops. Marsi and her friends clap. For a split second, I forget about the war and about Dad being gone, and scan the crowd looking for him. To see if he’s proud of me too.

  But he isn’t there. Obviously. It’s just Po and me now.

  FOUR

  JOHZ DUBS THE butt-kisser chair my throne. “Because the gnarly lad is King of Bot Mountain!” Any other time, I’d soak up the special treatment, but I’m feeling empty inside. What if Dad is never around to see the cool things I do? Like when I get my driver’s license. Or when I graduate from high school. I never thought about all the things he’ll miss if he never comes back.

  As Johz and Po reenact a Man vs. Bot scene, I pull out my Link, careful of the cut on my hand, and check my e-mail. I refresh my in-box and one new message pops up. The subject reads: Getting to Know Brack Submission.

  My heart war-drums in my chest. I click on the message, holding my breath as it loads. The world goes silent so all I can hear is the beating of my heart. This is it.

  Dear Mr. St. Kroix,

  We have reviewed your submission to the Getting to Know Brack show, and must regretfully decline to feature you and your father on the show at this time. Please know that your submission was given careful consideration . . .

  I stop reading. My legs go numb. I can’t feel my toes. I can’t feel my fingers. This was my last chance to get help looking for Dad.

  Now my chance is gone.

  How could they turn me down? The disappointment turns into a black hole in my chest, threatening to swallow me from the inside out. Tears sting my eyes. I have to get out of here. NOW.

  I leap out of the butt-kisser throne. “Po!” I shout. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

  I don’t wait for him to answer. I follow the winding paved path around the fountain and to the convenience center. I have to pass the concession stand in order to get to the bathrooms, and my stomach growls at the smell of French fries and cotton candy.

  I skirt around an old lady as she tries to quiet her kid. He’s wailing about getting a red snow cone when he wanted a blue one. I’m so focused on the kid that I’m not watching where I’m going and before I know it, I smack right into someone.

  “Jeez, clanker!” a raspy, girly voice says. “Watch where you’re going!”

  I don’t have to see the face to know who it is.

  Tellie Rix.

  I bounce back a foot and look up at her. Big blond curls hang around her face like a tangle of old computer wires. Her mouth is screwed up in a scowl, and the purple lipstick she wears only makes the expression scarier. She looks like an ocean monster drudged up from the trenches of the Pacific.

  She holds her Link in one hand, while she fingers a cluster of charms hanging around her neck with the other hand. She pops a hip out, like, Whatchya gonna do now, drain clogger? But I’ve got nothing to come back with since she’s pretty much the last person I want to see right now.

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  “Sorry?” is all she says, still playing with her necklace. “Gosh, St. Kroix, get your eyes checked before you find yourself stumbling into Bot Territory or something.”

  Hearing mention of the bots makes me want to cry harder and I don’t want Tellie, or her friends behind her, to see me cry like that snow-cone kid. I rush past her, arm my way through a group of old people, and slam my way into the bathroom. I hide out in one of the stalls, locking the door behind me with the press of my thumb.

  The toilet lid slams in place when I knock it down, and I plop onto it, holding my head in my hands, ignoring the stinging in my palm as the tears finally come pouring out.

  I miss my dad more than anything in the world. And no one cares except for Po. People like Tellie Rix have their mom and dad and a big stupid house and they have no idea who Robert St. Kroix even is.

  Two years ago, the night before Dad left, I cried really hard and Dad sat down with me on the stinky old apricot couch and said, “I’ll be back before you know it. It’ll be like I was never gone.”

  I had swiped the tears outta my eyes. “Promise?”

  He grinned big, hooked me around the neck, and gave me a weak bolt burn across the top of the head. “How could I not come back when I have you and Po to pick on?”

  I laughed and wrestled out of his grip.

  I’d believed him when he said he’d come home.

  But the longer he’s gone, the more I think maybe he’s gone for good.

  FIVE

  IT SEEMS LIKE forever before I’m able to sniff back the tears and snot and show my face outside of the bathroom. Only three people stand in line at the concession center now. The smell of food turns my stomach into a snarling beast and I don’t want to go back to Po just yet anyway. At least not until my eyes stop looking like juiced strawberries.

  I get in line behind a burly man who smells like pizza and engine grease. As I wait, I check my cred balance, punching in the pin on my Link to log into my account. I have ten creds. I look at the menu board above the ordering window. The digital sign glows neon green like a radioactive dump.

  I have enough creds for a bottle of water and a small bag of chips. I order, tap my Net-tag on the pay pad, and watch my creds count down to zero on my Link.

  Outside, the sun is gone and the sky has melted to a shade of dull blue. I follow the path back to Po and his friends, but I take my time getting there. I don’t think they’ve noticed how long I’ve been gone. No one even looks at me as I plop back down in the butt-kisser chair. The holo-fire has grown since I left.

  As Po relays his latest Chinley’s prank (he stuffed his fake leg in a box of wrapped chicken so the other cook found it, which made her scream her choppin’ head off), I finish my chips. All around me, voices rise and fall. Laughter and shouting and dogs barking and kids screaming. I usually like being in the park when it’s like this, but all I can think about is Dad in Bot Territory and how geared out he must have been when he fought in the war.
I can almost hear the sound of the laser guns in my head. Thwip. Thwip. Thhhhhwip.

  Thinking about the war while sitting in the middle of a park is weird. It’s like the war is a movie I watched on vid—a story someone made up. Because here everything is fine. Just fine. Even when the war first started, and bots were dragged out of houses and stores, not a lot of them fought back. At least not here.

  All I want to do is go home and crawl into bed. Could I sleep the next gazillion years away? Maybe when I wake up, this stupid world won’t be as nuke and doom as it is now.

  “Po!” I shout, and he glances over a shoulder.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can we leave?”

  His eyes dart to Marsi and her group. They’re sitting around a holo-fire too, but their group is a lot quieter than Po’s group. Dad would have said “civilized.” Unlike Po’s group, who’s as loud as a pack of hyenas.

  “It’s still early,” Po says.

  “I’m tired.”

  “Aren’t any of your friends here?” he tries. “Take a walk or something. How about that?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  He looks at Marsi one more time and then says, “Please?”

  Like he’s suddenly going to get brave enough to troop his way over there and talk to her. Like tonight is his last chance and if he goes home, he’ll lose it. Like he even has a chance.

  Every part of me goes wiry with anger. Ogling Marsi is more important than me, his own brother? I’d never choose a girl over him. Like girls are that important.

  I get up and stomp right over to Marsi and her friends and announce in my loudest voice: “My brother has the fiery hots for you. He’s just too much of a chicken to do anything about it.”

  Marsi and all her friends stop talking and stare at me like I’m a total space case.

  And that’s when Po yanks me back by the shirt and drags me out of the park.

  SIX

  “WHAT WERE YOU thinking?” Po shouts.

  The front door slams shut when he gives it a kick. I plop down on the couch and cross my arms over myself. This is stupid. This whole day is stupid. Sending the letter to Mrs. Rix was stupid. Why did I think my story was special enough to get on the show? If I had a vid account on the Net, I’d post my own vid and I’d get my dad home. I know I would.

  I look at the arm of the couch, at the burn mark in the apricot-colored material from the time Dad accidentally set the iron down. He used to sleep on the couch so Po and I could have our own bedrooms. He used it for everything. Sleeping. Eating. Ironing.

  Suddenly, I don’t want to be here sitting on the same couch Dad sat on right before he left for the war.

  I leap up.

  “You made me look like an idiot!” Po says, and I realize he’s been talking this whole time and I haven’t heard a word he’s said.

  “I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I didn’t mean to.” Really all I wanted was to get his attention.

  Well, congratulations, bolt sniffer, a tiny voice in my head says, you got his attention. And I kinda feel bad now that it’s all over with. The look on Po’s face is part angry beast, part sad puppy, and I wish I could take it all back.

  Po stops pacing the living room and sets his hands on his hips. “What’s gotten into you lately?”

  My confession zooms through my head. I think about telling Po about the letter, about how badly I want to do something to get Dad home, about how I can’t stop thinking about Dad at all.

  But I’m scared he’ll tell me it’s pointless. Instead, I shrug and say, “I had a headache and didn’t want to be there anymore, and you wouldn’t leave.”

  He runs his hand through his hair. “How about next time you just say, ‘Hey, let’s get out of here before I gear out and ruin your life’?”

  I fidget with a string hanging from my shirt, avoiding looking my brother in the eyes.

  “I’m going to bed,” he says, even though it’s a good two hours before his usual bedtime. His footsteps thump down the hallway and into his bedroom. His bed squeaks as he drops down on it. There’s a click a second later as he undoes his fake leg, taking it out of the bracket.

  I stand there listening to the emptiness of the house and the hollowness of my chest, like my heart ran off in the middle of the day because it was sick of hurting.

  Not that I would blame it.

  • • •

  I wake the next morning feeling like a pancake, and it takes everything I have to crawl out of bed. It’s a good thing it’s summertime, because I would have missed the bus to school if it weren’t. And then Po would probably ground me.

  I trudge down the hallway and find Po in the kitchen making eggs. I stall a second to see if he’s still mad.

  “Yo,” he says. “You want any?”

  My stomach grumbles and Po cracks open two more eggs without me saying anything. So I guess we’re all right. I do my part in our morning routine. I put the bread in the toaster and set the table. If you can even call it a table. It’s just this tiny round piece of wood big enough for Po and me. I think it was supposed to be for a front porch and probably had some fancy-schmancy name like The Lily Garden Café Set. We bought it last year after our last set, the one with three chairs, finally bit the space dust.

  When the toaster dings, I scoop up the bread and plop it onto two plates. Po slides the eggs out of the pan next to the toast. We sit and dig in like a couple of starving dogs. We don’t talk. Just eat. And while I eat, I scheme ways to get Dad home.

  I still think getting his name on the Net is the best way. Sometimes people make vids that spread through the Net like crazy, and pretty soon everyone is talking about them. And if everyone is talking about Dad, then everyone will be looking for him.

  There’s just one problem. Or two. Okay . . . a lot of problems.

  I don’t have a vidcam. I don’t have a vid account. And it takes the United Districts Net Control, or UDNC as everyone calls it, weeks to approve new accounts. Half the time they deny the requests anyway. Plus the application fee is probably way more than my allowance.

  I bet Tellie Rix has a vid account.

  “Earth to Trout?”

  I look up. Po is staring at me with his eyebrows scrunched together. “What?” I say.

  “I’ve been talking to you for like five minutes and you haven’t said a word.”

  I gobble up the last chunk of egg and shrug.

  “You’re still acting weird,” he says. “I was hoping a good night’s sleep would bring you back to the land of normal.”

  All I say is, “You’re weird all the time.” Po wrinkles his nose at me.

  When breakfast is done, I’m the one who cleans up and Po mutters something about needing a shower. When I hear the water running through the pipes, I hurry onto the Net and look up Tellie Rix on Luna. There’s a vid on her front page of her and some of her lame friends shopping.

  I knew she’d have a vid account. And I’m not surprised she uses it to post stupid vids of her and her friends picking out dresses.

  Tellie Rix has everything. And all I’ve got is this old stinkin’ house and a brother with one leg who tries to be my dad but can’t.

  I log off the Net, beat on the bathroom door, and yell to Po, “I’m going for a walk!” and hurry out before he can tell me no.

  SEVEN

  TELLIE RIX LIVES in the Outer Banks and it takes me a half hour to walk there. As I turn down her street, I’m surprised at how thin the hover rails are here. They must be the newer models I heard about. The upgrade is supposed to be more powerful (gives the cars and hoverboards a quicker boost, so you can get where you’re going in less time). They break down less. Which is cool. Because the rails in our neighborhood break down all the time and then you coast along the road at the pace of a snail, running on nothing but leftover b
oost.

  Even though I’ve never been in this neighborhood, I know exactly where Tellie lives. Lox had a crush on her last year, so I got to learn all sorts of random facts about her life. Her house is on the corner of Fifth and Ocean and it’s easily three times the size of mine. The outside is the color of pineapples, and the trim is white and fancy.

  A brand-new XR33 sits in the driveway. You don’t even need hover rails with that thing. They call it an off-roader. You can take it wherever you want without needing a boost, because it creates its own. It probably drives itself too. Lox’s mom has an auto-drive car. Sometimes she lets us take it to the movies or the mall, but if they had an XR33, Lox and I could go anywhere we wanted. We could go to 4th District and see the floating island cities in the middle of Lake Michigan.

  I hesitate as I stare at the house, feeling like a slug in a box of jelly doughnuts. I don’t belong here.

  Just go, gearbox.

  I cross the street, but as I head up the front walk, an underground sprinkler system kicks on and cold water blasts me in the face. I screech like a little girl and run the rest of the way to the front door. But it’s too late. I’m already soaked. My white T-shirt is plastered to my body and shows off my non-existent muscles. My brown hair is plastered to my forehead.

  Maybe you should go home, that annoying voice in my head says. But I can’t. I made it here and I need a vid and Tellie is the only one I know who has an account.

  So shut up, I tell the voice.

  I fix my hair and ring some of the water out of my shirt. As I stand there, the front door pulls open and an older woman (who isn’t Mrs. Rix) looks down at me.

  “Can I help you?” she says as she wipes her hands on a towel.

  “Is Tellie home?”

  “Are you a friend of hers?”

  “Um . . .” I stall for a millisecond as I try to decide which is better—a lie or the truth? “Sorta,” I say. “We go to the same school.”