The Redwood Trilogy Box Set

by Jaxon Reed

  She held up a hand and kept walking toward Phang and the others.

  “Relax. I come in peace.”

  Phang regarded her with cool contempt.

  “A female? Not too many of those around here, I take it.”

  She gave him a look that matched his icy stare.

  I said, “She thinks she’s bulletproof.”

  Dee Dee nodded.

  “I’m Consuela Cruz, the Professor’s daughter. I can tell you what you need to know.”

  Sebastian quirked an eyebrow, showing surprise. She had managed to crack his façade.

  “Is that so? And where is the Professor? Why isn’t he here instead of you?”

  Connie shrugged and looked around in apparent indifference.

  “They’re still arguing about it. My parents and the others are all talk, little action. I can tell you what you need to know, and there’ll be no need for anymore unpleasantness.”

  She wrinkled her nose at the bloody body of the Engineer still lying on the ground.

  “Alright. Tell me what I need to know, Consuela.”

  She turned and met his eye.

  “There are no monkeys here. Nobody knows where they are.”

  That lie, I thought, was a good one. It showed she still cared about her father and wanted to protect him. She knew that he had hidden the monkeys personally, and few if any of the others knew where they were. By telling Phang nobody knew, it deflected attention from the Professor.

  Then, as soon as I began to admire her chutzpah, she said, “But there are two humans here that are . . . vampires. Marcus and Diane Savitch.”

  One of the Technicians who had been captured spat on the ground.

  “You would sell out your own sister?”

  “My adoptive sister. She became nothing to me the day she was transformed into . . . into a freak.”

  Connie practically snarled the last part. Dee Dee burst out in tears. I reached over and grabbed her hand. It was obvious Connie wasn’t acting now.

  Phang smiled at the exchange, then he looked over his now depleted resources. With the three bots I had taken out, he was left with only seven.

  Not bad on our part, I thought, considering he entered the city with seventeen. Somehow, against all odds, we had eliminated ten of his synthetics. Too often, though, it had come at the cost of our own people. Meanwhile, Phang remained alive.

  “Alright, Consuela. I will let you show me where they are. Adams!”

  “Yes sir, yes sir!”

  “Stay here with the prisoners. I’m leaving you one bot. It will kill anybody who gets out of line.”

  A look of cruel delight crossed the Head Servant’s face, and he smiled wickedly at the men lined up in the park.

  Phang motioned to the other synthetics.

  “The rest of you, accompany me on high alert. Okay, Consuela. Lead the way.”

  He held his palm out, in the direction leading back to the elevators. His smile did not touch his eyes.

  She snorted a bit at his dramatics, and began walking that way without looking back. Phang followed, surrounded by six bots.

  -+-

  I ran out into the living room and grabbed a heavy coffee table. I took it back and smashed the communications console with it, several times over.

  “Wish we had another grenade.”

  Dee Dee agreed. Then her eyes grew big and she ran into another room to grab the portable blood bank. It looked like a metal suitcase.

  “Will that thing fit through the escape hatch?”

  She said, “If it doesn’t we’ll take a bunch of baggies out and take them with us.”

  I nodded and bashed on the console some more. Then I followed her to the bathroom where she was already squeezing through the escape hatch in the ceiling, pulling the blood bank up after her.

  I gave it a helpful shove, followed her up and closed the ceiling vent behind me. Then I followed her through the trap door into the corn field. I shut it behind me, and noted that it blended in with the dirt.

  Dee Dee said, “Which way?”

  I reoriented myself, trying to get my sense of direction.

  “I don’t know where anybody is. Let’s head away from the elevator bank.”

  I led the way out of the cornfield back toward the direction of the orchards.

  We cautiously stepped out from among the stalks.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Savitch!”

  I tensed, ready to run back into the cornfield. Then we saw who hailed us: the boy from the orchard who said he’d take care of things. He jogged up to us, smiling.

  “Professor Cruz said to keep an eye out for you so I could bring you in. Follow me!”

  I grabbed the blood bank suitcase from Dee Dee, and we followed him at a brisk run. He led us to the orchards and through the apple trees. I noticed the abandoned baskets and ladders were all gone. Somebody had evidently come back and cleaned everything up.

  We kept jogging through the trees, and eventually came to a maintenance shack near the glass wall at the edge of the roof.

  From here we could see out, and we caught a glimpse of the horizon in the distance. The land stretched out from our vantage point over 3,000 feet high.

  I noted the panel for the door to the maintenance shed had been disabled. We paused near it to catch our breath.

  “My name’s Dalton, by the way.”

  I caught my breath and tried to stop panting so hard.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Dalton opened the door to the shed and we went inside. He moved an old plastic chair out of the way, then bent down and slapped the floor. A hidden doorway popped open, revealing another ladder going down.

  “Maintenance shaft. This one goes down all the way to the ground level.”

  He shimmied down the ladder. Dee Dee followed. I came next with blood bank, closing the trap door behind me.

  The ladder opened up into a giant chute with little hallways branching out to either side at each level. Dim lights showed cramped passageways leading off in four or five directions away from the edge of the cube.

  I was impressed. I never knew about the maintenance shafts in all my time as a Servant. I decided Engineers and Technicians must guard their secrets pretty close.

  I struggled to climb down the ladder while holding onto the blood bank. It’s not easy going down ladders with only one free hand. We followed Dalton down seven levels. He stepped off the ladder near a little painted sign that read, “Level 43.”

  I gave a glance downward and realized the shaft had no safety mechanisms. If someone fell while climbing the ladder, they were likely to go all the way down. I wondered briefly if anybody had suffered such a fate over the years. Then I decided maybe the Engineers and Technicians had good reasons to keep some things secret.

  Dalton headed down one of the service corridors, and we hurried to catch up. The way was lined with water and septic pipes, electrical conduit, and other lines I couldn’t identify.

  He stopped after walking several yards at a latch to another doorway. He opened it carefully, stuck his head through and looked both ways. Then he opened the door wider and motioned for us to follow.

  We walked out into a storage room. Boxes of parts and other maintenance paraphernalia lay scattered around. Dalton walked over to the room’s other door and poked his head out again before opening it all the way. We followed him into a featureless hallway that looked like any other one in the city.

  We walked down to a nondescript doorway, a regular one indicating entry to a suite of rooms. He knocked on the door twice.

  Mrs. Cruz opened it, ran out and hugged us.

  -+-

  “Well, that didn’t last for very long.”

  Professor Cruz seemed extremely upset, both with himself and Connie.

  “It’s not your fault, dear,” Mrs. Cruz said.

  “Yes, it is my fault. I am the one responsible for letting Consuela know about their quarters. I knew how she felt about them, and I let her know about their quarters any
way.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” I said. “Nobody could have expected her to turn on us like that.”

  He didn’t argue, but my point didn’t make him feel any better.

  “Heads up,” Charlie said.

  She monitored the cam feeds, and her screen showed the scene in the hallway outside our former hiding place. We turned and watched Connie leading Phang and his bots to our hidden door.

  Connie reached up and tripped the switch on the hall light. The door slid open. She gave Phang an “I told you so” smile.

  He hesitated, wary of traps.

  “After you.”

  She made a noise that sounded like, “Harrumph!” and walked into the room. Phang and the bots followed, guns at the ready.

  “Did you leave any cams in our suite?”

  The Professor shook his head.

  “We wanted to give you some privacy.”

  A few minutes later Phang and Connie came back to the doorway. We couldn’t see them, but the cam’s mic picked up the conversation.

  “It appears you were correct, Ms. Cruz. But evidently they have been monitoring our every word, based on the communications console they destroyed. Even though we did not capture them, you have earned my trust. Come along with me and we will increase the pressure on your father.”

  They walked out of the room, Phang and Connie staying between the bots. She followed a pace or two behind him. Now, the expression on her face seemed slightly troubled. Her eyebrows knitted together and she stared at the floor as they walked back to the elevator shaft.

  “Hmph. It didn’t work out the way she thought it would,” Charlie said.

  “At least he hasn’t decided to take it out on her,” Professor Cruz said.

  Then, as if in afterthought, he said, “Yet.”

  Chapter Nine

  Phang and Connie returned to Park 7, and he retrieved his portable city-wide com device. He turned it on and spoke into the mic.

  “Professor, my patience is wearing thin. But I am a man of my word. You have twenty-two minutes to produce a specimen for me, or I start killing people.”

  He flicked it off, then turned and gave Connie a bored frown.

  “Let’s see if your father is smarter than he appears to be.”

  Connie gave him a disdainful look and turned away.

  Back on Level 43, we desperately tried to find another solution besides letting Professor Cruz give himself up. And, left unspoken, not giving Dee Dee and me up, either.

  “We’re all out of bombs,” Ranger Jones said. “We’ve used up our bricks. We still have some primers, but they’re useless without plastic explosives.”

  “For what it’s worth,” I said, “I’m pretty sure Phang is out of bombs too, ever since I took out his XO unit.”

  “Those things are practically indestructible unless you blow them up.”

  Everybody nodded in agreement.

  Then Andrea said, “What about the downed units on Level Five? They can self-destruct, can’t they?”

  Jones nodded, slowly.

  “That’s the problem. If we mess with them, they self-destruct. You saw how bad the explosion was.”

  “But we can still move them without them blowing up, right? Maybe we can booby trap one of them, somehow.”

  We looked at Andrea, then we looked at each other. Five minutes later, we had a plan roughed out.

  Jason felt confident he had worked out control of the city’s basic functions, and could isolate certain circuits through the suite’s terminal. He tested it out by having Charlie switch over to a cam on Level 10. He flicked a switch, and all the lights in the hall went out. He flicked it again, and they came back on. He announced that his part of the plan was ready.

  I decided I needed to be the one who moved the bots. Everybody disagreed, vehemently at first. I reminded them that out of all of us, I had already survived one explosion and was the most likely candidate to survive another one.

  Before they could disagree with my logic, I grabbed a few baggies of blood, threw them in a backpack along with some rope, a grappling hook, and several detonators. I gave Dee Dee a peck on the lips, and jogged out the door.

  I retraced my steps back down the hallway to the storage room, then went through the doorway into the maintenance corridor and over to the ladder leading all the way down to the first level.

  I jumped on the ladder slid down. After maybe twenty feet, my hands started to burn from the friction. I stopped at Level 42 and looked at them. They were all red.

  “Well, just gonna have to do it the hard way,” I said to myself.

  I took a deep breath and let go of the ladder.

  I counted the lights from the different levels as I fell down the shaft. After three, I thrust my arms and legs out into the rungs, grabbed a hold and arrested my fall. I’m pretty sure my screams of pain could be heard the entire length of that kilometer-high shaft.

  I grit my teeth and did it again. And again.

  By now I was in a lot of pain. I pulled myself shakily up to the nearest floor and rested a moment. Then I took out the rope and grappling hook.

  I tied the rope around my middle a couple times, then cinched it tight under my armpits. I left a few feet of rope hanging out, then grabbed the grappling hook.

  I got back on the ladder and jumped backwards, pushing myself away slightly. I plummeted downward.

  The signs showing the levels flashed by. When I saw them go into single digits, I threw the grappling hook toward the ladder.

  It caught on a rung and arrested my fall abruptly, yanking my arms out of socket and squeezing my stomach tight. Then I slammed into the ladder.

  I dangled for a moment, dazed, stars dancing in front of my eyes. I felt like puking, but fortunately nothing came up.

  Slowly, painfully, I grabbed the ladder. I crawled up, wincing all the way, until I could loosen the grappling hook. I was near a floor by then. I carefully climbed off the ladder and collapsed.

  My arms were a bloody mess. Several bones were broken, including some ribs. My kneecaps were popped and I had bruises all over.

  Slowly, I reached into the backpack and struggled to open a baggy of blood. I spilled half of it on the floor, but managed to swallow the rest.

  “Fifteen minutes, Professor.”

  Phang’s voice reverberated in the maintenance shaft. There must be a speaker somewhere nearby, I thought.

  I waited a minute, feeling the bones in my body knit themselves back together. Then I stood up, unwrapped the rope, grabbed the backpack and repositioned it over my shoulder.

  I looked at the sign to figure out where I was. It read, “Level 6.”

  I started back down the ladder, going down one more level as fast as I could.

  I came out in a maintenance closet near Customs Entry. I turned and jogged down the hall, then skid to a halt at the giant hole in the floor.

  I saw movement up ahead in the hallway. Somebody had seen me and hurried toward me. When he came closer I recognized Ranger Jenkins.

  “Marcus? What are you doing here?”

  “No time to explain. Tie this off so I can get across.”

  I pulled the rope out of the backpack and tossed the hook end toward him. He looked around and found a beam sticking out on his side. He tied off the rope, and tested it.

  I tied off my end to another beam, then jumped down and swung hand over hand to the other side, still in a little pain from my fall. He grabbed me and pulled me up.

  “Thanks. I gotta get to the elevator shaft.”

  The speakers in the hallway crackled to life.

  “Ten minutes, Professor.”

  I took off in a run down the hallway. Jenkins fell in behind me. I found myself hoping I wouldn’t need the rope I’d left behind. There was no more time.

  I vaulted over the bots left at the flower pot. They were too far away to move, and at greater risk of exploding.

  Finally, I got to the main lobby and paused for breath. The three bots taken out
by Major Moore’s group remained where they had fallen. I went up to the elevators and palmed the pad.

  “Commander Sebastian Phang, this is Professor Curtis Cruz of New Texas A and M University.”

  “That’s smart,” I said to Jenkins. “Jason has piped in the Professor’s voice the same way Phang has, so we can listen in.”

  Phang’s voice came back over the speakers.

  “Finally. I was beginning to think you were going to let your people suffer and die, Professor.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen. I give up. I’ll tell you whatever you need to know, just leave everybody else alone.”

  “Very well. You still have a few minutes to appear here in Park Seven. Show up before the designated time, and nobody has to get hurt.”

  “I can’t do it, Phang. I’m injured. One of your bots blew off my legs up here on the top level. Everybody has abandoned me. I’m by myself. Send somebody up here to fetch me, and I’ll go willingly.”

  “Unacceptable, Professor. My terms are for you to show up here, or else these people die.”

  “I will show up there. Don’t kill them. I just need help getting there. Both my legs are gone, and I’ve lost a lot of blood. Send someone to get me. They’ll see me as soon as the elevator opens on the top level.”

  Ding!

  The elevator closest to one of the downed bots opened. I knew Jason must be controlling it.

  I turned toward Jenkins.

  “You should probably move away, in case this doesn’t work.”

  His eyes grew wide when he realized I meant to move the bot. He nodded and crossed over to the other side of the lobby.

  I reached down and carefully dragged the synthetic man into the elevator. It didn’t explode.

  “So far, so good.”

  I opened my backpack and took out the detonators. Major Moore explained that they were actually explosive devices themselves, kind of like priming caps for ammunition. The smaller explosion of the detonator was designed to spark a much bigger explosion.

  I placed two around the bot’s faceplate, one at his neck, one under each arm, and three near its middle.

  “Now for some math,” I said.

  I knew the Redwood City elevator ascended at 30 kilometers per hour at its fastest. It theoretically took two minutes to go from the bottom level to the top, although I had never had the chance to try it since they kept us too busy working to play around on the elevators.