by J. V. Kade
But then Dad says, in a quiet but serious voice, “Please, kiddo? Take a break and come back later with a clear head. We need all the fresh brain power we can get.”
I sigh. I don’t want to admit it, but he’s right. I need to come up with a new plan, some way to get Po back without anyone getting hurt. My vid worked for finding Dad. Maybe not the way I thought, but it still worked.
“Fine,” I mutter, and push off the support column with a foot. Scissor trails behind me, her audience cheering the whole way.
TWENTY-THREE
I GET ICE CREAM at Janolli’s, and Scissor buys a round of oil. “For my joints,” she says, like I don’t know. There’s no Bot-N-Bolts here, so I take a leap and try something new. Raspberry Hairy Coco Hut ice cream. And holy jet smoke is it good. It’s this weird combination of raspberry ice cream threaded with coconut flakes and topped with donut “hair.” Basically it’s just a doughnut made into strings.
I don’t come up for air until my bowl is empty. When it is, I sit back in the booth and pat my stomach. “That was mega.”
A group of bots file inside and line up across from us, their backs to the wall. They go still as sentries, hands at their sides.
“Umm, what are they doing?” I whisper.
Scissor looks up from her can of oil. “They’re charging. See the black strips in the wall? Those are charge docks. A bot just needs to be near enough for their battery to connect.” She pours more oil in a spigot at her shoulder. A second later, it leaks out her elbow. “Jam.” She sops up the mess with a napkin.
“How is it you’re still running when you have live wires sticking out of weird places and oil leaking out your elbow? Shouldn’t you be backfiring and farting blue smoke or something?”
Scissor gives me an are-you-serious look. “Blue smoke? Please, Trout. Give me more credit than that.” A smile spreads across her face. “I fart confetti, of course.”
I roll my eyes but can’t bury the laugh that knocks its way outta my throat. Anyway, it feels good to laugh.
When we’re done at Janolli’s, we walk east and stop in the park where I had my major nuclear meltdown yesterday when I found out Dad was part bot. The park isn’t super-busy, but there are more people than I saw the day before.
Two bots look after a group of kids running circles around the playground kicking up woodchips as they go. A gray-haired man rides an oldie bike with the kind of pedals you have to move yourself. Lox’s mom said those were “making a comeback.” I guess she was right.
I haven’t been on a playground in a kajillion years, and I get the sudden urge to run around too. I start with the monkey bars. The healing cut on my hand from the fountain climb burns a little, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with. I swing from one rung to the next.
I leave the monkey bars and climb up the giant metal dome made out of thin linking bars. I make it to the top without breaking a sweat. Propping my feet on one bar, and my butt on another, I kinda hang there at the top, letting the wind push through my hair. If I close my eyes, it almost feels like I’m on a hoverboard, like I’m weightless.
“Hey you.”
My eyes snap open. There’s a girl only inches away from my face. I gasp, lean back, lose my balance, and slip through one of the gaps in the dome. At the last second, I scramble for another bar, catching myself before I plummet to the ground.
The girl pokes her head through a gap and laughs. “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”
“I could have broken my neck!”
“Nah. Scissor woulda caught you with her stretch arms. Besides, it’s not that far of a drop.”
“Far enough.” I latch on to the bar with my other hand and get my body swinging like I’m an acrobat at the circus. When I have enough momentum, I arch my back, kick, and wrap my legs around another bar. From there it’s easy. I push up, duck beneath one bar, pop my head out the top of the structure. Then it’s just a matter of pulling myself into a sitting position.
“Impressive,” the girl says.
As I catch my breath, I take a good look at her. She’s nothing like the girls in Brack. Her hair is spiked at the top, but shaved on the sides, and long down the back. And when she shifts, and the sunlight catches her at a different angle, her hair changes color. It’s gone from pink to purple to blue in a matter of seconds. The only word I can think to describe it is iridescent, like pearls or something.
Her skin is rich and golden, and her eyes are wide, but pinched at the outer corners like a cat’s. I can’t tell if it’s a natural thing, like from her heritage, maybe, or if it’s an illusion from some wrenched makeup that I don’t know about.
“Hi,” she says. “I’m Veronica, but everyone calls me Vee. You’re Trout.” She squints, and looks me up and down. “And you are just as small in person.”
“You know me?”
“Sure. Your face has been plastered all over the news feed.”
Oh, right. I forgot that everyone here probably saw the feed where I was declared an Official Criminal. “Sorry to disappoint you with my shortness.”
Vee giggles. “It’s okay. Anyway, my dad sent me to check on you. How are ya? You getting into trouble?”
I narrow my eyes, ignoring the dig, and say, “Who’s your dad?”
“Parker Dade.”
The tiny guy, Dad’s friend or bodyguard. Now that I know the connection, I see similarities between the girl and Parker. The brown eyes, for one. And they both have this wiry kind of energy like they could spring on you at any moment. Maybe Parker would make a good bodyguard after all. There’s more to defense than just muscle. You have to move quickly, and think quickly too.
“I met him.” I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “So I guess you’ve checked on me, then. You don’t have to stay.”
Vee waves her hand around. “Ain’t like I have anything else to do.”
A dog Scissor was petting darts away and barks at a squirrel. Scissor calls after him. “Here, boy! I’m friendly! I scratch ears better than squirrels!”
Vee guffaws. “Scissor is so hilarious.” She watches as the bot disappears in a grove of trees, trailing the dog by a foot or two.
“Yeah. She’s pretty awesome. LT too.”
Vee turns to me and readjusts her position on one of the bars beneath her. “So my dad says you’re here to stay?”
I shrug. “I guess. I mean, no one’s really saying what’s going on.”
“What’s it like in the Districts? I have family up there, but they don’t talk much about it.”
“Umm . . .” I trail off, because I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say. But then, if Dad trusts Vee’s dad, then maybe that means I can trust Vee.
“I don’t know. Lame. Bots are nonexistent. My brother and I were always broke. He’s always complaining about parking taxes. Says everything is regulated and restricted in the Districts. I try not to pay attention.”
Vee pushes a wisp of now dark green hair behind one ear. “I can’t picture a place without bots. I grew up around here. I can even kinda remember when people called this place Louisiana, instead of clumping the entire southern and eastern coasts into Bot Territory.”
The area where I live used to be Colorado. They teach us in history class what the states in 5th District used to be, so we never forget where our country came from. Our teacher even made a mnemonic for it: Serious Nations Knit Classy Orders. SNKCO=South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma.
Lox and I couldn’t stop laughing at the image of President Callo knitting anything, let alone his orders for Congress, but it really did work for a memory tool. I got that question right on the test. I think that might have been one of the only questions I got right. I’m not very good at history.
“What was it like around here? When the Bot Wars started?” I ask.
“Split chaos. People geared
out and left their houses empty. Lots of them jetted north.”
“Why did you guys stay?”
Vee picks a pebble out of the bottom of her shoe and flings it to the ground. “My dad comes from a family of believers. Like in fate and spiritual messages and stuff. He said he had a bad feeling about moving north, so we stayed.” She snickers. “Don’t tell him I told you that, though. He keeps that stuff to himself. Says no one takes a religious man seriously anymore.”
“I don’t know. He seems pretty tough if you ask me.”
“And definitely don’t tell him that! He thinks he’s so jammed as it is!” She laughs, tilts her head back, and her hair shines golden.
“If a bunch of people ran north, where did all these people come from?” I ask.
Vee shrugs. “Some of them just stayed, like us. Some of them are soldiers who fled the war when they stopped believin’ in what the UD was doing. It’s just a mixture of a lot of people.”
I guess that’s true, because, like Vee, everyone looks so different down here, like they were born of a dozen different cultures. I like it. Everyone looks the same in Brack.
“I didn’t know some of the missing soldiers were down here in Bot Territory the whole time.”
Vee nods. “The UD probably knows, but doesn’t want to admit it. They don’t want people thinking this place is inhabitable, probably.”
I look around at the park and the city beyond it. “The UD always made it sound like Bot Territory was a machine wasteland.”
“A load of nuke waste. They’ve been lying through their fat teeth. The only place that got hit real bad was northern Mississippi because it’s close to the military zone. And I think some of the East Coast got it too.” She scrunches the top of her hair, like she’s trying to make it stand straighter. “We’re pretty much untouched here.”
Scissor runs past us down on the ground, still chasing after the dog. “Doggie! Doggie!”
We’re quiet for a second as we watch her. Then Vee says, “You think you’re gonna join the Meta-Rise if they let ya?”
I snap my attention back to her. “You know about the Meta-Rise?”
“Course I do. Everyone knows about it.”
My cheeks flame red. It’s like I’ve been living under a rock this whole time. “I don’t,” I admit, because I want answers and I think it’s the only way I’ll get them. “What is it?”
Vee leans back on her hands, propping herself up on a bar. “It’s people and bots, a big group of ’em, fighting for rights and fairness, ya know? Bots want their rights. And people want choice. I heard my dad saying the Districts are turning into a regulated rat maze. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know people want the Districts to return to a democracy. And if they don’t, they want the UD to declare Bot Territory a separate country so they can have their freedom.”
I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. This is big. Maybe bigger than I thought.
“I’m gonna join it one day,” Vee adds. “As soon as I’m old enough.”
Even though I just got here, I think I want to join it too. “Who’s the leader?”
Vee lets out a tiny little laugh, more a grunt and a breath disguised as a laugh. “You mean you don’t know?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Um . . . no. If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s your dad, you nutter. Robert St. Kroix is the leader.”
I can’t feel my face on account of the numbness running through me. I nearly fall over again, but catch myself at the last second and lean forward for balance.
Vee snorts. “You’re not gonna gear out, are ya? You’re lookin’ a little toothpasty.”
I gulp down some air. Dad is the leader of the Meta-Rise? Course, it all makes sense now. The reason Po kept all those secrets from me was because he knew how dangerous it was being Robert St. Kroix’s son. It’s why the government wanted to use Po and me as bait, to get Dad to turn himself in.
They know he’s up to something. And apparently they’re up to something too.
I should be angry—it’s just one more secret that everyone has been keeping from me—but all I can think is, Holy. Space. Junk. My dad is the leader of the Meta-Rise.
It’s beyond wrenched. I want to tell Lox ASAP. I want to shout about it from the rooftops.
“You sure you’re okay?” Vee asks.
I ignore the question. “How did he become the leader? Did he start the Meta-Rise?”
Vee pushes her long hair off her shoulder. “He was part of the founding, yeah. Everyone nominated him as leader. I think it had to do with him being the first human with bot parts. People could relate to him as a man, and bots could relate to him as a machine.”
It’s weird hearing someone refer to Dad as a machine, but I guess it’s half true. He doesn’t even have a normal heart anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.
“How do you become a part of the Meta-Rise?” I picture stacks of applications and big red stamps that say REJECTED or RECRUITED. And I’ll do anything to get a RECRUITED stamp.
“I don’t know. I think you just have to have the same beliefs as everyone else, ya know, so you’re fighting for the same thing. Also, I’m bettin’ it helps if your dad isn’t Parker Dade and wants to protect you At All Costs.”
I snicker. “It’s a good thing my dad isn’t Parker Dade, then.”
“Yeah.” Vee rolls her eyes. “My dad doesn’t let me do anything. Ever. At this rate, you’ll be a Meta member eight decades before I am. And you just got here.”
Scissor runs past again, but this time it’s the dog chasing her.
“Hey,” Vee says, “there’s a big thing here tonight. You should come.”
The dog barks as Scissor climbs the playground structure shaped like a pirate ship. She clings to the pointy bow looking down at the dog.
“What kind of thing?”
“A party. You’ll learn we’re big on parties and get-togethers here. It’s a southern thing. But I promise it’ll be fun.”
I narrow my eyes. “Your dad didn’t ask you to ask me, did he?”
“No. My dad doesn’t decide everything I do.” I must look skeptical, because she adds, “Besides, I like you so far. So it doesn’t really matter whose idea it was.”
A perma-grin spreads across my face. She likes me? No girl has ever said that to me before. Back in Brack, I was the lame-o with lame pants and lame gadgets and lameness stamped across my lame face. Here, I’m Trout, son of the leader of the Meta-Rise. I like the sound of that.
“Yeah, I’ll probably come,” I say, all cool-like. That’s how Po’d say it.
Vee slides down the structure. “You ever been on a hoverboard?”
I lean over. “A couple of times. Why?”
She hops to the ground. “Tonight. At the park. I’ll show you the southern version of a hoverboard. You’ll love it.”
“What, do they go faster or something?”
She walks backward. “You’ll just have to come to find out!”
TWENTY-FOUR
WHEN I RETURN to the park later that night with LT in tow, I’m overwhelmed with everything. There are a ton of people and rows and rows of food. Flickering lights hover around the park on tiny little pods. They look like candles, but I think they’re holo lights.
“Scissor’s invention,” LT says when I ask. “She may be physically clumsy, but she is a genius when it comes to creating. I suspect you will love her hoversuits.”
“Her what?”
LT starts to explain when Vee runs up, grabs me by the hand, and wrenches me in the opposite direction. “I’ll see you later, LT!” I shout as I stumble after Vee.
A group of grown-ups are clustered around a holo-fire. The night air is so warm and balmy that I doubt the heat feature is on. Crickets and bugs chirp and
snap and croak in the dark.
Vee nods at a food table set up below a large white canopy. “You hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.”
A bot named Wen6 serves us taco pops and I cover mine in cheese. We make the trek up the big hill in the middle of the park and plop down in the grass. From here we can see the entire north side of the park and a good chunk of the city too. I can just make out the leaded glass ceiling of the Fort. The entire thing is lit amber with lights. When I left, Dad was still working, but said he’d try to come later.
Vee picks a diced tomato from her taco and flicks it down the hill. “Tell me the story with your brother. I heard my dad talking about him.”
Po.
No one has heard from him. He might not even be at City Hall anymore, for all we know. And here I am at a party. But I have to remind myself that Dad and his team are on it. Po WILL come back. I just know it.
I tell Vee what happened right before I bolted from home. She listens as she finishes off her taco. “Basically, my brother sacrificed himself for me,” I say. “So the guilt is turning into nuclear waste in my gut. I just wish there was something I could do to help him.”
Vee nods. “I get that. If I were you, I’d go after him.”
I blink. Look over at her. “How the chop would I get him out of a government building?”
“There are ways. You just gotta think on it. Your dad said you were massive smart.”
“He did?”
“Course. Never stopped talking about you and Po. Sometimes I felt like I already knew you, even though I’d never met ya.”
I let her words sink in. I spent so much of my time feeling sorry for myself because I was alone in Brack, but I never really thought about Dad being here without any family. Was he lonely too?
“Hey, so, ya wanna see our version of the hoverboard?” Vee says, pulling my head outta my thoughts.
“Sure.”
We toss the sticks from our tacos into a nearby garbage can and start off toward the patch of woods. A gravel path winds through the trees. A few hovering lights keep us from tripping over our own feet.