City 1

by Gregg Rosenblum

  Years ago, on a stupid dare, he had jumped off the roof of his shelter and dislocated his shoulder and broken a rib, and that had been the worst pain he had ever felt. It was nothing compared to this. He lay on the ground, and his limbs were flailing but he couldn’t stop them, and the pain was flowing like liquid fire through his veins, up into his brain where it exploded like a star, burning down along his arms and legs out to his fingertips and toes. He couldn’t draw a breath. He was going to suffocate. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t make a sound, and his limbs continued to flop, and he felt blood filling his mouth from his bitten tongue.

  The Senior Advisor bent over Kevin, his face close to his. He was still smiling. “You will be fine momentarily,” he said. “Be calm.”

  Kevin glared at the Senior Advisor, and it actually helped, to focus his anger and attention on the damned bot. He was able to draw in a shuddering breath, then another, and his limbs stopped thrashing. They felt incredibly heavy, though, too heavy for him to lift. He turned his head to the side, and spit out a mouthful of blood. “Rust . . .” he managed, whispering. “Go rust . . .”

  “Should I kill you right now?” said the Senior Advisor. “Or your grandfather? Or your parents?”

  Kevin said nothing, trying to fight back a crippling wave of fear—not for himself, but for his family. What was he thinking, trying to attack the bot? After all this, was his stupidity going to get his parents and grandfather killed?

  The Senior Advisor waited for an answer, and finally Kevin rasped, “No.”

  The Senior Advisor nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I will keep you alive awhile longer. You may still prove useful.” He stood. “Take him to a solitary cell,” he said to the guard bot. “Kill him if he does not cooperate.”

  The Senior Advisor left, and the guard bot reached down, grabbed Kevin’s shirt, and hauled him to his feet. It pushed him toward the door, and Kevin staggered forward, struggling to keep his leaden legs underneath him. He managed to stay on his feet, and the bot pushed him again, into the hallway. As the door to the cell slid shut behind him, Kevin caught one last glimpse of his grandfather, pulling himself slowly onto the bed. He looked impossibly old, impossibly frail.

  The guard bot led him down the hallway and into another cell. The door slid shut, locking him in, and Kevin sat down on the bed. With his head in his hands, he pushed in on both of his temples, hard. He wanted to stop the flood of emotions—the anger, and guilt, and fear. He kept pushing, harder and harder until it hurt, and then he felt foolish and let his hands drop down to his knees.

  “Bastard,” he muttered, and he wasn’t sure if he was talking about the guard bot, the Senior Advisor, or himself. He stood up and examined the doorway, which he knew was a waste of time—there was barely even a seam where the door and frame connected, and there was no visible control unit that he could patch into, not that he even had tools.

  He wondered what was next. Re-education? He shook his head. He’d rather die. Then again, maybe that’s what he’d be getting soon, anyway—a lase in the back of the head.

  Kevin heard a rumble, quiet like distant thunder, and the bed shook. “What the hell?” he muttered. A ship landing? An earthquake? Then there was another rumble, a bit louder, and the bed shook harder. He stood up but was knocked down by a third rattling explosion, shaking his cell like a snow globe. The lights turned off, plunging him into utter darkness. He felt his throat tighten up and wanted to yell but couldn’t find his voice, and then the light flicked back on, at half-power, leaving his cell in a murky gloom.

  He banged on the doorway. “Hey!” he yelled. “What’s going on?” There was yet another explosion, staggering him, but this time he kept his feet. He resumed banging on the door, yelling, pounding so hard it hurt his fist but he barely noticed.

  Kevin heard the unmistakable crackle of lase fire, and he backed away from the doorway. The lase fire grew louder, closer, and he heard running in the hallway, and shouting, and then there was another explosion that knocked him to his knees. He hit his head on the side of the cot as he fell, and he felt a burst of pain. He reached his hand up to touch his face and felt wetness.

  CHAPTER 40

  CASS SAT IN THE TENT, HER LEGS TUCKED UNDERNEATH HER, WATCHING Penny sleep. She reached down and picked up the note that she had crumpled and thrown, and smoothed it out on her leg. She read it again.

  Cass heard Farryn wake up, but she didn’t look at him—she didn’t want him to see her crying. He pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, and walked over to her with his stiff-legged limp. “What’s wrong?” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  Cass brushed the tears away from her cheeks with the backs of her hands, then silently handed him the note from her parents. He read it. “Damn cowards!” he said.

  “Shh!” said Cass. “Don’t wake Penny.”

  “You were trying to save them,” he whispered angrily. “And they just gave up.”

  “They left her behind,” Cass said. “What am I going to tell her?”

  Farryn gave the note back to her and eased himself down to the ground. He sat with his shoulder touching hers. Cass leaned into him. “They left me, too,” she whispered.

  Farryn put his arm around her. “They’re fools,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Cass said. “Maybe I am, too.”

  Farryn held her tight, and they waited, and soon . . . too soon, Cass thought . . . Penny opened her eyes and sat up, blinking and stretching. She smiled. “You two just sit there and watch me sleep?” she said. “That’s kind of creepy, you know.” Farryn gave Cass’s shoulder a squeeze, and Cass sighed, and stood.

  Penny’s smile faded as she saw the way that Cass was looking at her. She scrambled to her feet. “What’s wrong?” she said. And then, with the beginning of panic in her voice, “Where’re Mom and Dad?”

  Cass handed her the note, and Penny read it. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Penny—” began Cass, not knowing what she was going to say, but Penny didn’t give her the chance.

  “Did you write this?” Penny said angrily, waving the note at Cass.

  “What? No,” said Cass.

  “Did you?” Penny waved the note at Farryn. He shook his head.

  “I don’t understand,” Penny said again. “They left me?” The anger on her face dissolved, and she began to cry. “I don’t understand. . . .”

  Cass hugged her, and at first Penny tried to push her away, but Cass held on, and Penny buried her face in Cass’s chest. Cass could feel her shirt getting wet from Penny’s tears. She didn’t know what to say. What do you tell a kid when her parents abandon her?

  She held Penny tight, feeling her shake as she cried, and Cass felt terrible for her sister, and angry, and then she realized, They’re Penny’s parents. They’re not my parents. Biologically, yes, they were family—she still believed that—but they were not her parents in the way that they were to Penny. Cass’s real parents were the man and woman who had raised her in the Freepost, who loved her, whom she loved. They, and Kevin and Nick, were her true family.

  “We’re going to find my brothers,” Cass said, stroking Penny’s hair. “And then we’re going to find my parents, my Freepost parents. And if we can, we’ll find your parents, but if we don’t, you’ll have a new family with us. They adopted me. They’ll adopt you, too.”

  CHAPTER 41

  BEYOND THE FIELD, A HALF MILE DISTANT, WAS CITY 1 PROPER—a tight cluster of uniformly gray buildings, mostly one and two stories, with a small group of towers in the center. There were no windows on any of the buildings—every structure, except for a doorway, was smoothly featureless.

  Nick felt his stomach tighten. Erica had been right—this was not a city for humans.

  The City, with its windowless, inhuman buildings, would be for another day. Today the plan was to quickly hit the prison, freeing who they could and doing whatever damage could be done. Ro had argued for a larger group of fighters; Grennel hadn’t wanted to risk the resou
rces. In the end Ro had agreed with Grennel, but Ro insisted on leading the small group himself. It was going to be interesting, Nick had realized, with those two—Grennel had taken over command after Clay’s death, but many of the fighters were loyal to Ro.

  Nick had volunteered to go. He wanted to find Erica’s brother. He kept that motivation to himself—Ro wouldn’t appreciate it, and Lexi certainly wouldn’t understand.

  Nick stood in the middle of the road with Ro and two other rebels—Parson, and a woman named Kalya. They were all cloaked. A few hundred yards ahead of him the road ended in a wide concrete field, featureless except for a squat one-story building, with a large black door that stretched from ground to roof. Grennel said this, according to Clay’s maps, was an entrance to the City 1 prison.

  “Check comm,” Ro’s voice said quietly in his ear. Nick tapped his bracelet. “Nick. Check.” Parson and Kalya checked in.

  “Let’s go,” Ro said.

  Nick entered the concrete field, feeling vulnerable and exposed, despite the cloaking. It was possible that the bots had monitors beyond just visual—would they detect his body heat? Sense his weight walking on the concrete? Hear his footsteps? He hurried forward, running as quietly as possible.

  “I’m at the door,” Nick said. Ro, Parson, and Kalya also confirmed that they had arrived.

  “Step back,” said Ro. “Remember, twenty minutes and we rendezvous back here with survivors. Don’t be late.”

  Nick moved away from the door and shielded his eyes. He felt his heart beating hard and he concentrated on his breathing, slowing it down, trying to be calm. There was a flash of light and crackle—Ro releasing a burst at the door control panel—and then the doors slid open, and Nick ran inside.

  Nick’s first thought, with a queasy rush, was re-education center. The hallway looked just like the interior at the City 73 re-education center, with the same bright white walls and ceiling and metallic gray floor. He ran down the hall and took the first left—his task was to move north as much as possible. They were each taking a cardinal direction, and would hopefully stay out of one another’s way.

  Behind him he heard a crackle of lase fire, and in his earpiece he heard Kalya yell, “Here we go!” and then an alarm began to sound, a loud, pulsing, high-pitched buzz. A Petey rounded the corner, twenty yards in front of Nick, and he dropped to the ground and released a full burst that hit the bot in the face and knocked it down. It slowly got up, while Nick cursed under his breath and waited for his rifle to recharge. The bot began shooting wildly down the hallway, and Nick squeezed himself as tight against the wall as he could. The bot might not be able to see him, but a lucky shot would kill Nick just as quickly as a well-aimed one. His rifle recharged, and Nick zeroed in with his bot eye and released a full burst that hit the bot’s armpit. It crashed down, and was still.

  Nick waited a moment to be sure, but the bot was definitely down. He began running down the hall again, jumping over the smoking shell of the Petey. He came to a door, and released a half burst into the control panel, then pried open the door, careful to stand to the side and use the wall to shield him from whatever was inside. The cell—just like my re-education cell, Nick thought—was empty.

  He moved down the hall to the next door, and as he began prying it open a burst of energy came crackling through the doorway and hit the far wall. Nick dropped to the ground, tight against the wall, and peeked into the cell. Two bots stood facing the door. They were smaller than Peteys—more like Lecturers—and unarmored, so Nick took them down with two quick half bursts. He stepped inside and looked around. Nothing. No people. Were there going to be any humans to rescue in this rescue mission?

  He heard the loud thumping of an approaching Petey—that sound was unmistakable—and moved toward the doorway but then the Petey appeared. How had it moved so quickly? Nick backed up into the cell. The Petey had its lase arm raised and was scanning the room. He tried to decide if he should shoot, or just be very quiet and wait for the bot to move down the hall—in such close proximity, he could get hurt from his own blast.

  Nick took another quiet step backward, but his left heel kicked the arm of one of the Lecturer bots with a screech. At that sound, the Petey swung its lase arm and Nick dove to his left as the bot fired. Nick could feel the heat of the burst as it narrowly missed him, singeing his right shoulder, and his human eye was momentarily blinded by the light. He released a full burst, hitting the bot in its face, and it crashed backward into the hallway.

  Nick lay there a moment, waiting for the sight to return in his human eye, and gauging how badly he had been hit. He flexed his arm. Just a burn. He checked the status of his cloaking vest. It seemed fine. He stood up, crawling over the Petey’s legs that were blocking the doorway.

  The lights went out, plunging the hallway into darkness, and Nick froze until his bot eye adjusted. Through Nick’s enhanced vision, everything was bathed in a dim, smoky, green light. Ahead of him the hallway widened into a large room, in which Nick could see four Peteys. He dropped to the ground and crawled closer. Should he double back? Sneak past them? If he shot one, his rifle bursts would give away his position to the other three. There was no way he could take down all four.

  From a side hallway two more Peteys appeared, and then four of the Lecturer-type bots. Nick held his breath, and prepared to run if they came down his hallway. Instead they all moved off to the east, away from Nick. He waited a few more seconds, then carefully he got to his feet and entered the room. He hurried north into another hallway.

  “Status,” Ro said in his ear.

  “Four bots down,” said Nick. “No prisoners found yet. Bunch of bots moving to the east.”

  “I’ve got four prisoners,” said Parson. “Took down three bots. Saw ten or so moving east also. Heading back toward the rendezvous.”

  “I’ve got two live ones,” said Kalya. “And ditto on the bots moving east. Looks like they’re falling back toward the City.”

  “Five minutes to the rendezvous,” said Ro. “I’ve got two saved.”

  Five minutes, thought Nick. Time for a few more doors. He moved on to the next door, fried the control panel, and opened the doorway while shielding himself against the wall.

  His parents were crouching in the back of the cell, his father protectively covering his mother. The light from their cell spilled out into the hall.

  Nick just stood there. He was more confused than anything else—his brain just wouldn’t process what his eyes were seeing. I see my parents, but how can that be?

  “Where . . . how . . . ?” he whispered, then louder, “Mom? Dad?”

  His father stood up, a look of wild confusion on his face, and Nick realized that his father couldn’t see him. He flicked off the camo vest.

  Nick’s father took a step back, letting out a cry of surprise, and then he rushed forward and grabbed Nick, crushing him hard against his chest. Nick could feel that his father was crying, and then it was real, and he hugged his dad back and started crying, too. “Are you okay? How are you here?” Nick said.

  Nick’s father just shook his head, like he didn’t even know where to begin. He turned and helped Nick’s mother to her feet. Nick hugged her, and she stood stiffly, patting him awkwardly on the back. Nick felt a rush of dread. No . . . she has to remember me by now. . . .

  “She’s still . . . she’s still working on remembering,” Nick’s father said.

  Nick’s mother gave him a confused smile, like she knew him, but couldn’t quite place exactly how, and he felt a pain in his chest like his heart was literally breaking. He clenched his hands into fists and dug his fingernails into his palms to keep from crying more.

  Nick let go, and fought back the urge to just sit down on the ground and sob, from relief, and surprise, and exhaustion, and sadness. There was no time for that. “Stay with me,” he said. “We have to get you out of here.”

  “We need to get Kevin,” Nick’s father said. “It told me Kevin was here. That’s why they brought us, it
said. To use us against him.”

  Nick felt a new surge of shock. “Where? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” said his father.

  “Come on!” he said.

  Nick hurried down the hall as the lights flickered on and off, fighting the urge to just break into a run. He had to be careful—there could still be bots nearby, and he had to protect his parents now. He tried another cell, and it was empty, and then another one, and it was empty, too.

  “Rust!” he said. He’d bring his parents up to the rendezvous. Ro would get them out. And then he’d come back and find his brother. He tried one more door.

  Kevin was inside.

  Kevin just stood there, completely stunned, and Nick rushed forward and grabbed him in a bear hug, and then he gave him to his father. He watched, his heart hurting, as their mother stiffly accepted Kevin’s embrace, and saw Kevin realize that she didn’t know him. Kevin didn’t cry. Nick saw Kevin fight it, his fists clenching, holding back the tears, and he was amazed by his little brother’s strength.

  “Grandfather!” Kevin said suddenly. “Did you get him? Dr. Winston? Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nick.

  “Come on!” Kevin said, and he pushed past Nick and ran down the hall. Nick ran after him, glancing once over his shoulder, to make sure that his parents were following. He turned the corner, and he could see Kevin standing silently in front of an open cell door. He felt a sudden dread. He skidded to a halt, grabbing the doorframe.

  An old man lay on the ground, eyes open and unblinking, face ghostly pale, mouth open in a grimace. His arms were sprawled out at his sides, and one leg was tucked awkwardly underneath the other. His chest was a smoking ruin, a cauterized lase cavity.

  “Rust,” Nick whispered.