Zora doesn’t immediately follow and I whisper a silent prayer for her to just drop it, and a few seconds later, she’s hurrying to catch up with me. ‘I preferred him without that baku,’ Zora hisses in my ear, and – as if he’s heard us – we hear a huff and snort from the boar behind.
‘He’ll probably upgrade him again in no time.’ Despite myself, I sneak a glance over my shoulder. It’s true: Carter is like a different person with that boar by his side. He’s standing taller, his stance wider and his blond hair less lank and greasy on top of his head. The Profectus makeover. It’s a thing.
‘Come on, guys,’ he shouts after us. ‘This might be the last time we see you – soon we won’t exactly be travelling in the same circles.’ He’s tossing a ball up and down in his hand – I recognize it as a baku training tool, so owners can play ‘fetch’ with their bakus, just like with a real pet. ‘Unless I need someone to come and clean my house. Isn’t that what beetles do? The grunt work of the animal world?’
‘What does that make you, a garbage disposal like your pig?’ The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them. I might hate my little beetle, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give Carter permission to diss him.
A flare of red creeps over Carter’s pasty skin, rising up from his collar to his cheek like an angry tide, and his fist closes over the baku ball. We don’t want to see his reaction rise any further (satisfying though it is); I know full well I might have just poked an angry bear . . . or boar. I pull Zora forward.
‘I’ll have you know pigs are highly intelligent and resourceful creatures!’ Carter’s screechy voice follows us down the trail. ‘Come back! Don’t you want to see what a level 4 baku can do?’
We ignore him, half-running, half-walking until we are out of sight and earshot before we relax.
Once upon a time, I would have loved to see a level 4 baku at work – especially something as complex as a boar model – but now I only want to get away. I hate how small Carter can now make me feel. It’s less than twenty-four hours since I got the rejection from Profectus, and already it’s like my dreams have shrunk down from sky-high to subterranean.
There’s a snapping of twigs and leaves behind us, a sinister snarl.
The boar is back. I reach out and grab Zora’s hand – the boar baku might be intimidating but he can’t hurt us or Linus. If we can get across the bridge and into the city, we can lose them for good. I start to run.
At first, Zora surges forward with me, but then her palm slips from mine. There are angry shouts from behind us and then a piercing screech from the eagle. I stop and spin around, already halfway across the bridge.
Tobias’s eagle soars over the top of Zora’s head, so close his wings brush her hairline, and he snatches something too small for me to see out of the air in his talons. She screams with fear, but she’s running so fast she stumbles over her flip-flops, skidding out of control, and she lands with a thump on the metal surface of the bridge. Something escapes her collar then bounces once, twice, and over the edge and down into the valley.
Out of instinct, I grab the closest thing I can find – a pine cone – and whip it at the eagle to get it away from Zora. My aim, surprisingly, is good. The pine cone rattles against the eagle’s golden wings, sending it off balance.
Then I hear Zora’s panicked scream: ‘Linus!’
Oh no. My throat drops into my stomach and I race to Zora’s side, leaning out over the railing as Carter, Tobias and the rest of his friends run past us on the bridge, disappearing into the forest on the other side. Cowards.
But her brand new baku is absolutely nowhere to be seen.
‘NO!’ CRIES ZORA. SHE’S SHAKING, HER hands clawing at her collar and at the leash around her ear, as if praying to find Linus tucked away in a fold somewhere. ‘Linus? Linus, are you there?’
But if he was there, he would have answered. Instead, there’s a deafening silence.
She grabs my hands, pulling herself to her feet. ‘Lace, I can’t lose him! I just got him. All my savings . . .’
‘I know.’ I take a deep breath. I know exactly how hard Zora has worked to save up for her baku and I’m not going to let Carter and his friends take that away from her. I look down towards the valley floor and the railway tracks – then at my feet encased in their sturdy boots and Zora’s in flip-flops. I know what I have to do. I turn back to Zora, pressing my phone into her palm. Even though the screen is broken, it still works. ‘Call the Moncha guard. Tell them what happened.’
She stares down at the phone through tear-filled eyes, her forehead wrinkling in confusion. It looks laughably old-fashioned in her hand already. But then she sniffs, and closes her fingers tight around the handset. ‘Okay.’
‘Good,’ I say, before pulling my sleeves down so they cover my lower arms and tightening up the straps on my backpack.
‘Wait, where are you going?’ she asks.
I climb up on to the metal railing. ‘I’m going to find Linus.’ Without waiting for her response, I swing my leg over and hop down on to the overgrown slope on the other side. Zora hesitates – I can tell she wants to follow – but she does the mental calculations in her head. She can’t clamber down into the ravine in her footwear. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I tell her, and after another second she relents.
‘Thank you!’ she shouts after me.
I start my hike, pushing aside the shrubs, trying not to think about the ticks and bugs that lurk in the long grass. I hear the start of Zora’s conversation with the Moncha guard. ‘Hello? Yes, I’d like to report a lost baku . . .’
The deeper I get into the ravine, the steeper it becomes, and Zora’s voice fades away as I concentrate on my footing. Stupid rational thoughts crowd my brain like how am I going to get back up out of here? And Why did I leave my phone behind? I push them away again. When I look back up at the bridge to try and make sure I am following Linus’s most likely arc, I can barely make out the metal railings. From here, it just looks as if I am in a forest – all I can see are the tops of the trees and the shrubs and the blue sky. It could be peaceful.
Then, I’m almost forced to my knees as there’s a loud screech of iron against iron and a strong gust of wind as a train hurtles by on the tracks below. It intensifies my need to find Linus – I only hope the baku wasn’t thrown as far as the tracks. He would be squashed dormouse parts if that was the case, and impossible to fix.
I’m surprised by how quickly Zora has bonded with Linus – it’s one of the magic side effects of the bakus that Monica Chan said she never could have predicted. Of course, she had known that having a companion would be part of the robot’s appeal – but what started out as a tool to help her overcome her smartphone addiction exploded once it hit that mass market. People really came to love their bakus. And Monica was keen that she built each machine to last, with upgrades fully backward-compatible. She herself still had her first gen model – a slinky cat by the name of Yi – and the Moncha marketing machine played on that for their slogans. A baku is for life – so get one for Christmas.
My own grandma would tell me stories of how people used to be addicted to their phones, sitting at the dinner table scrolling on tiny screens rather than talking to each other. And they had to be charged every single day, tying you to the wall. Sometimes, if you used them too much, they even lost charge in the middle of the day and you were stuck, phoneless, until you could find a plug socket. When Toronto passed a bylaw that stated you couldn’t use plug sockets in public places – because people were sitting there for hours waiting for their phones to juice up again – there was almost a revolt.
That was the Moncha breakthrough part two. She always credited her business partner, Eric Smith for the discovery, even though I’m positive she had more to do with it than him. Still, together, let’s say, they discovered a way to convert the natural kinetic energy of human movement into battery charge for the bakus. Combined with solar power back-ups, as long as they spend some time being ‘leashed’ to their owner, they re
mained fully charged. It was a strange concept to get used to at first, but the procedure to install a leash was no more invasive than an earring. One gun and done. I’d had my leash put in that morning – I just hadn’t connected the beetle to it yet. But once I did . . . maybe I would bond with it.
Beetles are the best bakus. They take up hardly any energy; they don’t even need to be leashed every night. They’re virtually indestructible. They’re super customizable. Beetles are the perfect companions.
Yeah, says everyone who can’t afford anything different.
I think about Companioneers Crescent, the road we would have moved into had my dad not . . . disappeared. If I’d gotten into Profectus, I could have guaranteed a good life for Mom and myself. A big house. A job for life. Life-long benefits. But once I graduate from St Agnes, I’ll have to leave Monchaville, or else get a Moncha job suitable for a beetle baku owner.
The trains are even closer now and the force of the wind they generate is close to knocking me off my feet. They were recently upgraded to super speedy trains from Japan, allowing people to commute from the suburbs much more easily. The ironic thing was, the challenge of addressing Toronto’s urban sprawl and population explosion was solved by so many different people at the same time, the trains barely run at capacity. Moncha, for example, had made a difference in urban planning. Since they offered subsidized accommodation for their employees, most people chose to live in Monchaville, the city-within-a-city, making a commute virtually non-existent. You could live an entire life without ever leaving Monchaville. Other companies had started to follow the model, especially as smaller startups began to merge into huge monoliths to rival Moncha, Google and Apple. None were as good as Moncha’s though.
My foot slips on the muddy ground, and I steady myself by grabbing a branch. The arc that Linus took means that he should have landed nearby – but who knows how far he might have continued to roll down the hill. Zora didn’t have him long enough to install a baku beacon – that will be the first thing I’ll do once I leash my beetle.
I need to think of a name for him. Anything except ‘Beetlejuice’ or ‘Crawly’. People are so unimaginative. Maybe I’ll call him ‘Speck’. Because compared to other bakus, he’s a tiny bit of machinery.
Bakus do have built-in distress signals for if they’re away from their owner’s side or if they’re broken. My ears prick up as I hear a tell-tale beep – not as strong as a normal signal, but maybe the fall damaged that too.
‘Linus?’ I call out. The bakus are programmed to respond to their names. Sometimes it doesn’t work so well with someone other than the owner’s voice, but the beeping speeds up like a chew toy on steroids – I’m sure it must be him. I crash through the overgrown foliage, trying to locate the source.
Then I see him, so small he’s caught in the centre of a huge leaf, right where the foliage meets the stem. I push the leaf down and scoop the little mouse up in my palm. He doesn’t look in too bad shape – his tail is a bit bent and I’ll have to take some test pictures to see if the camera still works, but I’m confident I can fix him.
‘There, there, Linus,’ I say, even though it feels a little absurd to be comforting a robot. He seems to appreciate it though, twitching his nose before giving a final wheeze and all electronic life leaves his eyes. He needs to be leashed before I can assess him any more. Now to find a way out of here.
I place Linus in my jacket pocket and search for a path back up the hill.
The leaf I’d been leaning on snaps as I shift my weight. Before I can grab anything else, I tumble, my shoulder colliding with the ground as I catapult forward and slide deeper down into the ravine.
I scramble with my feet, trying to stop my fall towards the railway tracks and super high-speed trains at the very bottom of the valley. I grab at every passing branch and plant, slicing my palm in the process, but I can’t think about it before I launch off a small concrete wall and land on the stony ground below. Something crashes down beside me.
I wait a beat, then another, my breath coming in hard, fast gasps as I wait for pain. I can’t wait too long. I can hear the whine of an approaching train and my feet are way too close to the tracks. I yank them in, curling my arms around my knees, my back up against the wall. I close my eyes as the train whooshes by me.
It seems to last for ever, the scream of the wind and the debris hitting my face, but eventually it passes. I take a deep breath that fills my lungs. I’m not hurt – or at least, nothing is broken – but I’m going to ache like hell in the morning.
MY HAND SNAPS TO MY POCKET. I almost don’t want to look inside but I do, and breathe a sigh of relief – Linus doesn’t look much worse for wear after my fall. He’s survived one big drop already – I guess another didn’t do him any more harm.
My heart jumps as I see a smear of red on my jeans, my jacket . . . everywhere. Blood. It’s coming from my palm where I sliced it on the way down. The wound is sharp and clean and gapes like a mouth – my stomach turns just looking at it. I pull out an old gym T-shirt from my backpack, which I awkwardly wrap around my hand to staunch the blood. I need to get home. Now.
The benefit of being by the railway tracks is that I know there are steps for workmen leading down into the valley. I can follow them back up to the main road.
As I swing my bag over my shoulder, I hear a trill of electronic beeping. My instinct makes me think of Linus, but it can’t be him – he’s powered down.
Then I see it. At my feet is a crumpled pile of black metal – the thing that fell down next to me. One side is slick with bright red blood – mine, I realize. This is what I must have sliced myself on.
‘Stupid piece of junk,’ I say, kicking it with my boot. It seems to make a tiny mewl of pain – but I must have imagined it. It rolls over against the concrete, revealing a gaping hole, grey and charred around the edges. It looks like it’s been through the mill.
Something catches my eye, and I kneel down to look closer. I blink rapidly, my brain hardly processing what my eyes are seeing. It’s the Moncha logo. At least, I think it is – it’s distorted and half-hidden by what look like scorch-marks. But Moncha-made metal can be valuable – especially when it comes to doing unauthorized repairs on bakus.
The railway lines hum again and I don’t give myself any more time to think. I scoop the metal contraption into my bag, shoving it to the bottom beneath my smelly gym kit and the new beetle baku I’ve just bought. There might be parts to sell or salvage, if anything.
Then, without wasting any more time, I climb the steps back up out of the valley.
The top is blocked by a gate, but I clamber over it without too much trouble, relieved to be out of the woods. It takes a while to orient myself – without a phone or an active baku, I feel cut off, missing a limb. I’ve come out on a quiet residential road, towering apartment blocks all around, but the signs mean little to me. I don’t normally travel anywhere without GPS.
How did people handle it, before? With physical telephone boxes on the side of the road that needed change to make a call or actual maps that didn’t provide automatic directions . . .
My hand throbs where I’ve sliced it. I swallow and spin around 360 degrees. This can’t be too difficult. Toronto is built on a grid. I’m not in Monchaville, so that means that the ravine is east. If I walk away from it – west – I’ll find a main road and from there, a subway station.
I adjust the straps on my bag, face what I hope is west, and start walking.
‘Hey, you there!’ A gruff voice sounds from behind me.
I spin on my heels and my heart lurches. Three men are jogging up to me in perfect synchronization, coming from the set of stairs I just climbed up out of the ravine. Three vicious-looking panther bakus are at their heels, sleek and efficient. No attempt has been made to make them look even remotely like real animals. They’re all sleek metal plates, exposed pistons and wires, flashing yellow eyes and razor-sharp claws. The men wear full-face masks and black uniforms, but I don’t see
the distinctive Moncha-logo or the Toronto police badge on their shoulders. One of them lowers his visor enough to reveal dark brown eyes under his bushy black brows.
‘Don’t move. Moncha guard.’ He flashes his badge at me so quickly, I barely register it. It did look vaguely like the logo so I stay put. My feet are rooted to the floor anyway. I’ve never once been in trouble with the police or the Moncha guard.
The man flicks his eyes up and down, taking in the state of me. I can’t imagine what he must be thinking – the T-shirt wrapped around my hand is blood-stained, I’ve got bits of tree and dirt stuck in my hair and my jeans are all torn up – not in an artful way.
In an I’ve-just-tumbled-down-a-ravine-trespassing-on-train-tracks kind of way.
‘We need to see your baku.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I stutter out. ‘I didn’t mean to trespass. My best friend’s baku fell down into the valley and I went to find it . . .’ I babble.
‘Your baku, please.’
‘I . . . I don’t have one yet—’
‘Active baku indicated in—’ the man talks over me and the panther baku steps forward.
Then I remember. Linus. I quickly grab him from my pocket. ‘This is the baku I have on me! He belongs to my friend, Zora Layeni.’
The panther stalks forward and sniffs at Linus. A stream of information appears on his back, which the dark-eyed man leans over to read.
‘Property of Zora Layeni. Reported missing forty-five minutes ago. What’s your name?’
‘Lacey. Lacey Chu.’
‘You’re on the approved list.’ He steps back and stares at me. ‘Did you see anyone else while you were down there? Or see any other bakus?’
I shake my head, my legs trembling. ‘No . . . nothing! I just grabbed Linus and came straight out again.’
The panther circles me once, and the man waits for several of my loud heartbeats before waving his hand. ‘You’re free to go,’ he says, dismissing me.
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