“We get you. It’s okay,” she said, mimicking Shortcut again. “What the hell does that mean?”
She kicked another rock and walked back to camp.
They drove back to town at dawn, following a long, winding, dusty road. Jazzlyn slept in the backseat.
“Why are we taking the road?” X asked.
“The UEA satellite city will intercept any unknown flying objects,” Craig said, “and I didn’t want to approach at night. Hunters like to patrol the city limits after midnight.”
“We appreciate your help, Craig,” X said.
They approached the twin cities; the UEA tall and majestic on one side, and the badlands town dark and sinister on the other.
As they neared, they saw columns of smoke rising into the sky from the badlands.
Craig leaned over the steering wheel and squinted. “Never seen anything like this before.”
Jazzlyn woke up and rubbed her eyes. “Holy hell.”
An explosion bloomed near the center of the city.
X connected to the UEA network. “The UEA has set up a perimeter around the city.”
“A perimeter?” Craig asked. “For what? Is Crenshaw attacking the badlands?”
“No,” X said, shaking his head as his algorithm chip buzzed. “The UEA is.”
Chapter 15
Gunfire and explosions rocked the city as they approached. UEA androids had set up a makeshift checkpoint. Nobu was among them.
Craig pulled to a stop at the checkpoint. X climbed out, and he and Nobu shook hands.
“What happened here?” X asked.
“The Council sent us,” Nobu said.
“The Council!” Shortcut cried. “Why?”
“They’re furious about what happened to Brielle.”
“If Brielle was so precious, why’d they let her out?” Jazzlyn asked.
“Apparently, she snuck out,” Nobu said.
“The people in this city did nothing wrong,” X said. “Jeanette Crenshaw is to blame.”
“The Council disagrees. They’re angry at the android hunters for turning you over to Crenshaw. They launched an initiative against Lax’s gang.”
“Android hunters are like cockroaches,” Jazzlyn said. “You can’t scatter them with force—they’ll just hide in the cracks. Tell the Council to start by creating jobs in the badlands. That would be a better start.”
“It’s not up to me,” Nobu said. “In any case, it doesn’t matter. The Council sent troops last night. This was supposed to be an easy mission: bomb the gang’s key location, scatter them, and send a message that we’re not going to tolerate violence against our androids. But the android hunters were stronger than we thought. They fought back. And hard. Reinforcement troops are set to arrive in the next hour. The whole place is in chaos, guys.”
“What about Fahrens?” X asked. “Is he supporting the Council?”
“Nothing he can do. The Council’s vote was unanimous.”
“The Council is making a mess,” X said. “They didn’t think this through.”
“Brielle was their voice of reason,” Shortcut said. “She’s a symbol of international importance. Her absence hurts the Council.”
“Funny how six humans can’t make informed decisions by themselves,” Jazzlyn said. She started through the checkpoint. “We’ve got to find Lax before the Council blows up our chances of finding Jeanette.”
“If we can’t find him,” Nobu said. “What makes you think you can?”
“You’re not an android hunter,” Jazzlyn said. “Fortunately, I am.”
X joined Jazzlyn. “Nobu, we have no problem with you arresting Lax. But we’ve got to get to him first. Once we’re done, we’ll turn him over to you.”
Nobu nodded.
X dialed Fahrens.
“Sir, I need you and the Council to hold off on attacks until we can find Lax.”
“Why?” Fahrens asked.
“If the UEA wipes him out with a mortar blast, we’re going to be worse off than we were before.”
“I can give you a little while,” Fahrens said. “But once reinforcements arrive, we’re going to make another sweep.”
“Then we don’t have much time,” X said, walking away.
The streets were desolate, even emptier than normal, windows and doors closed. Dust hung in the air, thick and hard to breathe; it covered the sky and made it bluish-brown.
“I know where to find Lax,” Jazzlyn said. “This won’t take long.”
“Wouldn’t he be hiding?” Shortcut asked.
“No,” Jazzlyn said as they ran across a roof. “The UEA thinks they know where he is, and they’re attacking the wrong place. Lax won’t change his hideout until they’re almost on top of it. Knowing Lax, he’s already plotting to strike back in ways the UEA hasn’t thought of yet.”
They crossed a rope bridge between two roofs as an abandoned building in the distance exploded. Shortcut paused, and tried not to look down.
“Keep up with me,” Jazzlyn said.
They ran and leapt across rooftops until finally stopping on a roof with a grassy courtyard.
“Here we are,” Jazzlyn said, drawing her guns.
“That fast?” Shortcut asked. “That was easy.”
“Too easy,” X said. His algorithm chip buzzed. “Why aren’t there guards? I can’t scan the inside of the building.”
“They installed a signal jammer,” Jazzlyn said.
“So how do you know you’ve got the right place?” Shortcut asked. “There are signal jammers in a lot of buildings—it throws the UEA off sometimes.”
“Trust me for once, will you?”
Shortcut drew his electric rod and X activated his guns. They entered a metal door and went down a narrow stairway, emerging into Lax’s loft.
“Holy—” Shortcut said.
There were dead bodies everywhere, and blood all over the walls. Lax lay in a pool of blood, staring up at the ceiling, and Xadrian stood over him with a bloody knife.
“You’re too late,” Xadrian said. “I never liked Lax, and neither did Mama. He was scum.”
“Why did you kill him?” Jazzlyn asked.
Xadrian still didn’t turn around. “Because we no longer needed him and his gang. They had served their purpose.” He looked at X, his eyes glowing red. “The Android Winter is here.”
“Where is she?” X asked.
“Mama’s not the same as she was.”
“What?” X asked.
“Mama, she’s not the same,” Xadrian said. He dropped the knife. “I never had to kill anyone before. She said it wasn’t in my programming. Now she’s making me kill all these people. It’s not fair.”
“She didn’t take the truth well, did she?” X asked.
“Mama’s gone crazy,” Xadrian said. “Ever since we left the mansion, she’s hardened. She won’t stop cursing or screaming or crying. She’s impossible to be around. Inconsolable! How do you think that makes us feel?”
“Like the trash you really are,” Jazzlyn said.
“Mama only wanted revenge,” Xadrian said. “She just wanted to prove her power to the UEA. Now she’s talking about complete world annihilation. She wants to be with Big Papa.”
“Where is she?” X asked again.
“I am not supposed to say anything,” Xadrian said. “I’m still loyal to her.” He activated his guns. “I was supposed to go home after this, but Mama will approve of the delay. No matter how bad she gets, I’ll never let her down.”
X and Xadrian ran at each other. X landed a punch to his chest, knocking Xadrian back. Xadrian sprouted buzz saws from his arms and slashed at X, but Shortcut zapped the saws with his electric rod, sending high voltage through the android’s arms.
Jazzlyn fired a shot and hit Xadrian directly in the left eye. He collapsed and lay sparking on the floor.
“You’re not meant to be an attack android,” X said. “It was never in your programming.”
Xadrian looked up at the ceiling. His left
eye had sunk into its socket. “Maybe you’re right. But at least I fought my hardest. At least Mama will be proud of me. Big Mama, too.”
“Who?” X asked.
“You want to know where Mama is?” Xadrian asked after a few seconds of hesitation. “She’s heading for the forbidden city.”
“Beijing?” Shortcut asked.
“No, dum-dum, the other one.”
Shortcut scratched his head. “Wait a minute, you don’t mean Terminus?”
Xadrian laughed weakly.
“But Terminus was destroyed in 2199. It sank to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean,” X said.
“Ask Big Papa about that. You should know, X. It was in your memory chip.”
X put a hand to his head. He couldn’t remember anything about Terminus, yet when he scrolled through his memory, he felt there were memories of the city yet to be explored. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
“Mama’s losing her mind,” Xadrian said. “I only told you because I don’t know what she’s going to do. She’s not well, and I was programmed to protect her.”
“You’re a traitor now,” Jazzlyn said.
“She needs to be protected from herself. Trust me … she was crazy before, but she’s unstoppable now. But I’ll always—”
BOOM! An explosion rocked the building, igniting a fire. Flames erupted all around them.
X reached for Xadrian. “We’re leaving.”
“I appreciate the gesture of goodwill, brother,” Xadrian said. “But I’ve reached the limit of my usefulness.”
He jumped into the fire, and his body erupted into flames.
Shortcut watched as the android burned. “There goes a source of information.”
“Time to go,” Jazzlyn said. They turned toward the stairs leading up to the courtyard, but flames blocked their path. “Damn it. We’ll have to go down.”
“Fast!” Shortcut cried. “This building could collapse at any minute!”
They started across the room when X’s memory chip buzzed. Green lines of code scrolled across his memory.
“Not again,” X said. He stumbled forward and struggled to keep his balance as a memory overtook him.
Chapter 16
When X refocused his vision, he saw only blinding white. Snow. A wall of white, glinting and sparkling and speckling against a horizon that stretched for miles.
He was in the middle of a line, wearing a parka and several layers of clothes to protect his circuitry. Dr. Crenshaw was ahead of him, trudging forward in snowshoes. Behind him, several androids and humans forced themselves through the snow, carrying equipment and supplies on their backs.
X felt the gripping, bitter cold. It assaulted every inch of his body, threatening to shut his systems down. The thick parka and bodysuit lined with thermal gel generated enough heat to keep him warm and functioning as close to normal as possible, but still every command he issued his body took a microsecond longer. He triggered his fingers and they moved, but not with the dexterity that he was used to. He glanced behind him and saw the human crew gritting their teeth, snow in their eyes and their beards overgrown with ice. They rode on dogsleds carried by a pack of dogs who panted as they pulled the crew through the snow.
“We’re almost there, gentlemen,” Dr. Crenshaw said. His voice echoed off the snow and disappeared over a dune. A digital screen floated in front of him as he walked. He studied the screen, looking over the top of dark sunglasses that took up nearly half his face. A white dot showed his location on a map, and it moved with them toward a blinking orange dot not too far away.
X remembered the memory. The trek to the North Pole. It didn’t take him long to pinpoint the date and time. He remembered all that had come before and after this moment, and he was surprised that he hadn’t remembered it sooner.
“We’ve been traveling for a while, sir,” the guide said. He had been walking next to Dr. Crenshaw, and he wore a bright red snowsuit and curved sunglasses. “We should stop for a break.”
“Can’t stop, won’t stop,” Dr. Crenshaw said. Frost gathered on his brow and his beard was frozen. His steps crunched hard in the snow, leaving behind giant footprints that were twice the size of X’s. “We’re too close.”
The guide wiped his face and patted his backpack. Squinting into the sun, he consulted his lens and shook his head. “With all due respect, sir,” he said, “Terminus has been gone for decades. Another day of camping won’t kill us.”
“The guide is right,” X said.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Dr. Crenshaw said. His tone was cranky, like a child who needed a nap.
“There’s a storm moving in from the north,” X said, pointing to the sky. “It’s clear now, but in a few hours we’re going to be trapped. We’d better set up camp now.”
Dr. Crenshaw stopped and stared at the horizon. “That’s part of their trick.”
“Who?” the guide asked. “The singularity androids? Yeah, right. They’re at the bottom of the Arctic. Joke’s on them.”
“The closer we get, the harder it’s going to be,” Dr. Crenshaw said. He looked back at the party and saw them shivering, then pursed his lips and said, “Fine. We’ll stop, but we’ve got to leave as soon as the snow lets up.”
A storm moved in overnight, whipping the air into blades that cut across the Arctic plains with gale force. Every grain of snow was a needle of frostbite.
They huddled in tents, and the dogs howled. The storm blew out their fires and there was no chance of starting another one. Even X couldn’t see through the blizzard conditions, relying on his GPS to locate himself and the members of the party.
And just when the cold seeped into X’s system and threatened to shut him down, just when the subzero temperatures threatened to kill off the whole crew, the storm faded as quickly as it had come, leaving a great quiet over the plain. Snow dunes drifted and ice cracked beneath them, and the Northern lights danced across the sky in brilliant wisps of green, red, and blue. Even the dogs sat and watched the lights, their bells jingling as they stretched and yawned.
X kept watch as the party slept, constantly stirred by huge booms resounding through the area. At first, he thought they were under attack, but it was just ice cracking. The sounds were severe, as if a crevasse was opening up underneath them, threatening to swallow them into the subzero ocean just meters below their feet. X sat in front of the fire surrounded by sleeping dogs, wondering what lay beneath the ice in the darkest depths of the Arctic Ocean.
They set off at first light the next morning, and several hours later, they encountered a gigantic clipper ship sticking out of the ice. A lake of clear blue water surrounded it, frozen solid by the Arctic temperatures.
Dr. Crenshaw jumped when he saw it, grabbing onto X so hard they both fell into the snow.
The ship was blue and gold, with broken sails. A generator hummed from within, still operating even in the Arctic cold. X performed a larger scan of the area and saw more ships under the ice.
“This is a fleet yard.”
“Ha ha,” Dr. Crenshaw said. “We found it! We found it!” He sneaked a sidelong glance at the guide. “Good thing we didn’t stop for too much rest.”
The guide marveled at the ship while the dogs hung behind him with their tails between their legs. “What are we looking at?”
“Android singularity technology,” Dr. Crenshaw said, recording everything with his lens. “You haven’t read a history book, young man. At the height of the singularity, the androids created their own city and technology. They even had flying warships. No one knows how they built them. We never found out how they operated, but we suspected that they used magnetic energy. If you saw one of these babies easing through the sky over your city, you were as good as dead.”
“My grandparents were Canadian,” the guide said. “They lived near here and didn’t have to worry about the androids. They were after the big pockets of people, not the small settlements.”
“You were lucky,” Dr. Crenshaw said as th
ey approached the ship. “They wiped my hometown out completely. My grandparents escaped, but barely.”
The guide touched the hull of the ship nervously. “These things are pretty scary. Why couldn’t we see them from above?”
“The Northern Lights,” Dr. Crenshaw said. “The singularity androids were too smart for us at the time. They scrambled their signals. We didn’t even know they had built an entire city until it was almost too late. If this is the fleet yard, we must be on the outer limits of Terminus. This is scary indeed, gentlemen, but we’ve got to keep going.”
X threw a grappling hook to the top of the ship and tugged it to make sure it was tight. He climbed up and motioned for the rest of the party to follow. When Dr. Crenshaw joined him on the ship, his lenses were lit and he was talking to himself, recording his every move with accurate detail.
“I’m on an android singularity ship, probably constructed in 2198 and very much intact. The ship is a clipper-style model, probably for aerodynamics, and it has sails, though I don’t know why. The deck appears to be made from a synthetic metal blend that can withstand cold temperatures. Even on the deck, I can hear the generator humming below, which must serve as the energy source and also play a major part in the ship’s cloaking mechanisms, which we know very little about.”
X walked down a staircase into a long blue hallway, where zeroes and ones were shining in the walls. It was dark, damp, and the floor was covered in a sheet of ice.
“Watch your step,” X said.
“Information is encoded in the walls,” Dr. Crenshaw said. “So close, yet light years away. We will have to figure out how to access it.”
They entered the command center of the ship, a room with wall-to-wall computers and three small rectangular windows on the far wall. An android sat in the pilot’s seat.
Dr. Crenshaw screamed.
“Nothing to be afraid of,” X said. He turned the chair around, revealing the deactivated android; it was steel blue, with orange eyes and an evil sneer on his face. He wore no clothes, and his metal shone in the sunlight. “This guy was part of a collective mind. Imagine all the androids of the world joining their minds together into one huge consciousness. Pretty scary. Thank God that can’t happen again, though the city is only dormant and could be revived. When we killed the city’s mind, we killed all of the androids instantly. When the city sank into the Arctic, the cold water made sure they stayed dead.”
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