The first explosion at the walls brightened the screen in front of Esroy and he heard the rumble seconds later. The fight was on and it was time to take to the sky. His mechanical legs shook the floor beneath him as he stomped away from the screen and toward the floor to ceiling window. He raised a hand in the air, exposing his palm and let off a blast that threw shards of glass in all directions. He stepped to the ledge and activated his rocket booster, propelling himself into the air.
Esroy had one job to do: find the convoy headed for the tower and destroy it. All he ever wanted was legs. Now he could fly. He was all too happy to oblige.
41
Hazel couldn’t help but notice that Des kept himself between the wall and her at all times. If she moved to the right, he moved to the right. If she stepped forward, he stepped forward. When she noticed this, she started to say something until a stray bullet landed a foot or two from her, kicking up dust and hitting her with tiny grains of dirt. She quickly realized there was no reason for her to be moving around and took shelter behind a large truck as more and more soldiers stormed past them toward the border. At some point, someone had handed her a rifle, though she swore to herself she wouldn’t use it. There was something about firing on her own people that made her feel uneasy. Des carried a gun too, and she had yet to see him fire it. It made her wonder if he thought the same way she did.
Explosions shook the ground beneath her. When she did steal a glance from behind the truck she could see streams of smoke trailing behind rockets from the Mainland soldiers. The situation looked hopeless, but Nolan didn’t seem worried. He constantly stayed in contact with leaders on the front lines, waiting for confirmation that it was time to send in Des and Gus. She watched Nolan as he crouched behind a different truck about twenty feet away. He didn’t seem nervous or scared the way she felt. He had seen plenty of life threatening situations in his time on earth. Maybe he hadn’t been in many firefights before, but he’d been fighting this battle for years. All this was because of his hard work—the end result resting on the shoulders of a robot who was built to destroy him.
Des crouched next to Hazel, his head sticking out from behind the truck.
“What do you see?” she asked him.
“A lot of smoke,” Des said. “And bodies. A lot of bodies.” He shook his head.
Hazel felt sick to her stomach. Des pulled away from the corner of the truck and sat closer to Hazel. “I want you to reconsider coming with me,” he said. “It’s going to be dangerous. There’s a reason I volunteered for this.”
“What reason is that?”
“I can take a bullet and you can’t. Simple as that.”
“I’m not just going to be a spectator in all this, Des. I understand your concern for me, but if you think I’m just going to stay back and watch then you’re malfunctioning.”
“Hazel, I will need to focus. If you’re with me, I’m going to put all my attention toward protecting you.”
Hazel stuck out her jaw and shook her head in defiance. “You have free will,” she said. “You can choose not to protect me. You can choose to focus only on your mission. In fact, to do otherwise is to put us all in danger.”
“Which is why I’m asking you to stay behind. I promised your father I would protect you.”
“Well, I’m not staying behind, so you have to deal with it.”
Des’ eyes narrowed and his brow turned downward, his disapproval apparent. “You’re right. I do have free will.” He set his gun on the ground beside him and looked away from Hazel. “I’m not going if you’re coming with me.”
She turned her head to him sharply. “What are you talking about?” This was the first time he’d ever defied her. It felt weird. Frustrating.
He shrugged. “I don’t have to go at all. If you decide to come with me then I’m not going.”
Hazel clenched her fists. This was no time for Des to throw a tantrum. Her jaw muscles pulsed over and over as she stared straight ahead, anger welling up within her. “You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t sacrifice these people’s lives like that.”
“I owe nothing to them,” Des said. “Besides, Gus is going to the Tower too.”
“You and I both know his chances of getting there are lower than yours,” she snapped.
A smile spread across Des’ face and Hazel knew he’d won the fight.
“If you don’t go these people will die for nothing,” she argued.
“You don’t know that. I don’t know that.”
She cursed under her breath. It wasn’t fair. He should listen to her. She created him!
Gunfire. Explosions. Screams. All the noises of war and death surrounded them, seeping into her ears and burning into her memory for the rest of her life. She didn’t want this to be remembered as a day where she stood back and watched others fight. She had no intention of killing Mainlanders or Outlanders, but she knew Esroy was out there. He would attack Des. Hazel was confident that she could stop him or at least stall him long enough to let Des get to the broadcast tower.
“Hazel!” The yell came from Nolan who still sat behind the truck. “Get ready to go!”
She clenched her teeth together and shook her head. “I’m not going!”
“What?”
“I’m not going!”
Des stood from his spot and looked down at her. The teams were assembled and were ready to penetrate the city. Anger pulsed through her veins at a level she hadn’t felt in a long time. She stared up at Des with no words, feeling betrayed despite the fact that he was trying to save her life.
“Thank you,” Des said.
Hazel looked away from him. “For what?”
“For giving me a purpose. You have given me a life worth living.”
With his words, her anger quickly turned to an overwhelming feeling of sadness. Tears came to her eyes as he smiled at her.
He reached out a hand for hers, and slowly she accepted it. “You are a good person,” he said. “I would have chosen no other to make me because no other could have made me the way you did.”
“I made Esroy too,” she said.
“Esroy chose a different path. That’s not your fault.”
She felt a tear fall down the side of her cheek as he let go of her hand and started to walk away.
“How about you come back alive, okay?” she yelled to him.
He turned to face her. “I will see you when this is over.”
42
Des drove the first truck in front of Gus, Phil, and the rest of their crew. The others thought it best since Des was bullet resistant. He’d thought about mentioning that he wasn’t bullet proof but he didn’t think it would have mattered.
His ability to drive just about any vehicle came from his programming. It was like muscle memory that he never had to learn or practice. It was something he had been made to do. It was the same for shooting a gun or fighting an enemy hand-to-hand and he wondered if practice and experience would make him even better than his basic programming.
He allowed these thoughts to drift through his mind in order to distract himself from the carnage surrounding him. Blood. Fire. Smoke. Soldiers on the front lines had been victims of a massacre. They had poured out of trucks ready to fight, only to get mowed down by Mainlanders positioned on the wall in front of them. The evidence of this surrounded Des as he drove through the death and destruction. Still, the Outlanders pushed forward. Already there were five large gaping holes in the wall and the Outlanders were forcing their way in by the hundreds—most of them on foot, others still in military trucks.
For the offensive, the Outlanders seemed to be doing well. Having broken through the border was no small task. But Des knew, as the leaders knew, that the Mainlanders hadn’t brought everyone in for defense at the wall. It was as if they were on reserve or in some other location, waiting. Des feared that Bracken somehow knew of their plan. It was a strong possibility considering Esroy had taken Hazel’s father into custody. Hazel was insistent that her father wouldn�
�t have divulged their secret plan, and Des still hoped that was true. Now, however, he was beginning to doubt.
A voice cut into his comm signal and he recognized it as Gus’. “You ready, robot?” He said the word robot like it was a distasteful thing to say. Did he not realize that Des was there to help? Or did Gus think Des was stealing his thunder? If that was the case, Des didn’t care. This was about more than taking glory for something. This was life or death for so many. Only when the eyes of the public saw the truth would the Outlanders stand a chance of survival.
“I’m ready,” Des said.
“You’ve got the route? You’ve got the schematics? The debris in the road hasn’t jostled your hard drive?”
“I said I’m ready.”
Once they crossed the wall into Mainland there was no turning back. Des was to take the southern route to the broadcast tower while Gus went in from the west.
He looked to his side, half-expecting to see Hazel next to him. He couldn’t lie to himself. Having her here would have given him some comfort. He felt uneasy. Nervous. In truth, he was scared. He didn’t want to give up his life even though he was willing. He felt that there was so much left to experience and that he had barely scratched the surface. He wasn’t so ignorant to believe that the rest of the world was devoid of life. That was a secret made up and kept by the Mainland government. There were others out there who needed help surviving this harsh world. But if this was all he would ever do in his short existence—delivering a helpless group of people from the reaching claws of extinction—he was at least glad to have a noble purpose.
He had become lost in these thoughts when a bullet cut through the windshield and embedded itself in the passenger seat. He swerved as another bullet cracked the glass and ricocheted off his right arm. One after the other the bullets bounced off the front of the truck and struck him one or two times.
“Receiving heavy fire,” Des said over comm. “Keep your heads down back there.”
“Yeah, we’re catching a few,” Gus answered. “We’re moving in close behind.”
Des felt the truck bump forward as Gus revved and hit the back end of his truck. The wall was upon them now and the bullets pounded the front of the truck like rain. He swerved the truck behind another that was mounted with a large gun and gunner. The man atop the truck never let up on the trigger, aiming at any Mainlander daring enough to peek his head over the wall.
Des tried to avoid the large chunks of rock—remnants of the broken section of wall—but still the tires met large enough bumps that came close to ruining the suspension. One way trip, Des thought to himself.
The wall stood high above him, towering like an ominous sky threatening a powerful storm. Only, the storm was already upon them. To the right and left he jerked the wheel, sometimes to avoid the rocks, and other times to avoid Outlanders running headlong into the newly made entrance.
As thick as the wall was, it only took Des a mere second to find himself on the other side of it. The smoke passed and the perspective changed entirely. Other trucks in front of him pulled off to the side to release soldiers from the back, the plan to take over the wall succeeding in a way Des would have never imagined.
This side of the wall was scattered with plenty of debris, bodies, and blood, only this time the victims wore a different uniform. He looked in the rearview mirror behind him and saw Gus and his crew, a bit further back now, but still tailing him closely. The split in the road was just ahead of them and it was time to part ways.
Des knew this operation could go a number of ways and he didn’t like the odds of any of them. He still hadn’t seen any sign of Esroy which indicated that he was toward the middle of the city, waiting.
“Are you ready to separate?” Des asked.
No answer.
Des looked at the rearview mirror again and could see Gus driving, though there seemed to be a bit of a commotion in the cab.
“Is everything okay?”
The response came back hurried and crackled. “Phil’s been hit. Trying to stop the bleeding.” It took a moment for Des to understand what he’d said, but he soon worked it out. He didn’t really know what to say. There was nothing to say. They had to push forward no matter what. This operation was bigger than all of them.
“We can’t stop,” Des said. “I’m taking the southern route now.” He veered the truck to the right, wondering if Gus was going to respond, but the other driver said nothing. Maybe it was chaotic in the other vehicle. Maybe Gus didn’t find it necessary to relay more information to a robot. In either case, Gus no longer followed Des and continued straight to take the western route. Des watched the truck to his left and wondered if they traveled rapidly to their deaths.
Turning from the window, he stared straight ahead. The streets were eerily empty as building after building rushed past him. Either he’d made it through the lines unnoticed, or the enemy was waiting for him. He pushed his foot against the gas pedal all the way to the floor and the truck gained in speed as a certain rush of urgency fueled him.
Minutes passed by until he finally made it to a clearing and could see the broadcast tower in the distance. The building stood higher than any other part of the city by a considerable height. Perched on top were the antennas that would soon push out the sinister message of the Mainland government. Des had seen the tower before, but he had never thought he would go there for any reason, much less to begin a revolution.
The familiar crackle of a transmission sounded in his comm system and Gus’s voice broke through. It was loud and scrambled together, indiscernible to Des. “You have to repeat yourself,” Des said. “I can’t understand you.”
“I said—und—ack!”
“You’re under attack?”
“We—n’t—come—”
Des’ mind tried to think of every possible scenario. He wanted to know how close they were to the tower or if they were still far out. Des calculated that he was only about two minutes from his destination and whether or not he was about to face the same sort of resistance as the others. He reached for the assault rifle beside him, knowing it would do little against someone like Esroy, and even less against a large group of soldiers.
Someone pressed the button on the comm system again. “Des,” the voice whispered. “Can you hear me?”
The speech pattern told Des that it was Gus, but why was he talking so quietly? Where had the noise gone? “I’m listening.”
“They’re dead. They’re all dead.”
“Who is dead?”
“My team. Cal. Brooks. Phil. I’ve been hit.”
“Who was it?”
“It’s good you decided to help. You’re the only one that can get the message out now.”
“How many are there?” Des asked.
“We didn’t make it to the tower,” Gus said. “We’re still a few miles out.”
“How many soldiers?”
“It’s Esroy,” he said. “Oh no. No!”
The feed cut out and Des was left sitting in the truck, his face twisting into an expression of fear and anger. The men on Gus’s team were dead, and probably Gus as well. There was no one left to do this job. Before he started this, he really thought it would be the others who made it through to the tower and got the job done and that he was the backup. Now Des was the only one who determined the success or the downfall of the Outlanders. The burden of that brought fear and doubt to his mind and he suddenly wasn’t sure if he could do it. Had this all been in vain? Was there even a point in trying? What could have possessed them all to think they could actually be successful in taking on the Mainlanders? Even if Des made it to the tower, there was still no guarantee that the Mainlanders would revolt. What if all this was shrugged off and forgotten in a week’s time?
Des had to shake these thoughts away. There was no room for doubt. Right now he had a single purpose: to get to that tower.
He was right in front of it. Just a couple of more minutes and he would be there. Would it really be as easy as it l
ooked? Had the success of their mission truly relied on a fifty-fifty chance?
He thought about the last words Gus spoke to him. Esroy was the one who met them. That meant he was watching for them. That meant he knew they were going for the tower. But what Des saw next confirmed not only that Esroy had been waiting, but Bracken as well.
He slammed his foot on the brake when he saw it—the angry mob of soldiers surrounding the tower’s base. At the front of the line, Bracken stood on top of a tank, fixed on Des with a mad stare that slipped into a devious smile. He had been waiting.
Des didn’t have time to throw the truck in reverse and start driving the other way. He knew as soon as Bracken brought the radio up to his mouth that the truck was finished. Des reached for the door, slung it open and leaped out, rifle in hand. The truck exploded into a ball of fire with a boom that might have made most humans go deaf. Des found himself flat on the ground. He looked back to see black billowing smoke where he had just been sitting, the truck rendered as nothing more than fiery trash now.
A trail of bullets came next. Thousands of them. Everywhere his eyes darted he saw chunks of asphalt break open and shoot up into the air, windows shattering above him. He jumped to his feet and quickly squeezed into an alley, safe from the bullets that were aimed to kill.
He held the gun in both hands now, knowing there wasn’t a chance he could take down all of those soldiers. He switched the comm channel to Nolan’s and he hoped the leader was still alive.
“Nolan can you hear me?”
“Des?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s happening? Is it done?”
“Hardly,” Des said. “I think I found the rest of Bracken’s army.”
“What? Where are you?”
“They’re surrounding the tower,” Des said. “There’s no way I can get to it.”
Nolan swore loudly over the radio. “How many soldiers do you need?”
Prototype D (Prototype D Series Book 1) Page 31