Class Zero

by Y A Marks

  I reached the grass field. Café Lanta didn’t have any of its lights on, but its silhouette was clearly lit by the buildings behind it. When I was fifty yards away from the building, a crackle extended into the air. I turned my eyes skyward. Something that resembled AJ’s jet flashed into view. It streaked upward at an arc in search of something, the only thing, the drone.

  Two ear-splitting sounds, like two gigantic snakes slithering in the air, thundered around the market. A second later, the sky burned bright blue. The light fizzled outward in a ring shape. Five distinct flashes bent through the clouds before everything went dark and silent.

  The crowd quieted. Josalyn’s cacophony of sounds ended. Only the theme music played.

  My tongue pressed against the top of my mouth. My hands dried. My skin itched.

  A howl screeched. A fireball slid out of the dark clouds and fell into the distance. It landed behind some buildings and burst into a bright, white light.

  Twenty tons of mental weight lifted off of me. My body lightened and a freeing air filled my lungs which expanded in pulses. As my eyes glossed, my mouth cracked into a weak smile.

  It was over. The drone was down.

  I pulled myself together. I couldn’t let my elation slow me down. There was still more work to do.

  I reached Café Lanta and hit the metal steps as fast as my legs could take me. Once I made it to the middle landing, I grabbed the ladder and tugged myself up to the rooftop. The hoverbike sat against the far side. The front metal glowed with light from the distant fire. I grabbed the handlebars and hopped on. Three small pods surrounded the hoverbike. As soon as I revved the engine, the pods blinked to life and began to hover. I assumed those were the holo-decoy drones Rylan rigged up. They began mimicking the rise and fall of the hoverbike. There wasn’t a hologram present because I hadn’t touched the button on my wrist-watch-thing.

  I had to admit, Escerica’s toys were pretty cool. Maybe I wouldn’t give my holo-decoy-thing over to Miko.

  Giddiness tickled my neck and slid down my back. The first part was over. I just had to leave the area. The decoys would fan out and the police would dash after them. Hopefully, I’d get away by turning the lights off and taking the bike into one of the alleys or side streets. If I did pick up a tail, I still had the pocket holo-decoy Rylan gave me.

  Excitement danced over my skin. In thirty minutes, the second part of my plan would be over, and I would get to see Dhyla and the kids.

  I revved the engine again and lifted from the rooftop.

  My throw away PCD rang. I didn’t even bother to pick it up, because it was all clear. We won. I saw the drone fall.

  Something whizzed across the sky. My gaze locked onto the object. A piece of metal cut through the air and rammed into the rooftop.

  The PCD rang again.

  A dark hand turned my stomach. What was going on?

  After viewing the second drone crash, I expected one big hunk of metal to fall out of the sky. Confusion spread over me. I rode the hoverbike over to the metal wedged into the roof. The closer I got, the more my blood chilled. My throat tightened around my voice box. Small murmurs escaped into my mouth.

  The item was a piece of wing. Written on the side in spray paint was the weird circle-E symbol for Escerica.

  My head craned toward the market. Glowing orbs showered down, brightening the sky like shooting stars. My heart yelled to my mind that something awful had happened. The lights were pieces of the plane that was once attached to this wing.

  I clicked on my PCD, but my focus blurred the world around me. Josalyn’s voice was frantic. She said something, but I couldn’t hear it, couldn’t understand it.

  The ground rumbled. A wave of hot air pressed down from the sky.

  My mind emptied, and my stomach twisted. Sweat pooled near my hairline as fear took hold.

  The entire Perimeter Market lit up like it was daytime. Café Lanta rattled beneath me as a stench like a forest burning slid into my nose.

  Slowly, a gigantic machine descended from the sky wrapped in light clouds and condensation. It stopped fifty yards overhead. The whole thing was beyond my scope of vision. It had five fan-like rotors. Under the bottom, there were nooks with at least ten alpha scrappers pinned. Tiny lights etched out its dimensions. Along one side, a blue sign read, “Georgia Bureau of Homeland Security.”

  A bright spotlight encircled me. I shielded my eyes as thousands of thoughts buzzed through my brain. It didn’t take me long to understand this was the mysterious fourth drone. The reason why no one knew about it was because it wasn’t a drone at all. It was a mobile base that could fly over the city and drop scrappers or police or whatever it wanted. No wonder the police always showed up so fast.

  As tiny vibrations played on my fingertips, my muscles locked. The last bits of my courage fluttered away with the wind. My mind drifted into blankness.

  A noise—a voice lifted from the chaos. “Paeton Washington, this is Captain Teresa Davis. You are under arrest. Please stay where you are. Any movement will be considered hostile.”

  The wine of robotics and bending metal turned my head back to the ladder to the roof. Two android cops crawled onto the rooftop. They scanned me with their three camera eyes and paced toward me.

  My breath tore at my throat while my heart roared in my ears. Panic cut into my skin. I needed a way out, but how could I get away now? Activating the hologram wouldn’t help.

  Josalyn cried over the PCD. “We’ll come for you. I promise. I’ll do everything I can. We’ll save you some kind of way.”

  All I could think about in that one moment was: Who was going to save Mari and Miko? Who would be there for them? It wasn’t enough that Dhyla was on her way to Juvenile. I had to see them myself, hold them, touch them. I couldn’t go to jail, especially for something I didn’t even fully believe in. I had to live, and I had to stay free.

  Besides, I really hated androids.

  CHAPTER 24

  With the two android cops less than six feet away, I revved the engine and drove in the only direction I knew to go—forward. The blinding light guided me. Worst thing that would happen would be that I’d run into the ship, like I did to AJ’s plane in the hangar.

  “Paeton Washington, please defer your course,” Capt. Davis said over the ship’s speakers.

  It dawned on me because I wasn’t shredded into tiny pieces, they wanted me alive. That way they could torture me into confessing secrets I didn’t know. Before I talked with Rylan a week ago, they didn’t know anyone inside Escerica. I was the first real name. The first real face they had seen. They weren’t going to kill me.

  The hoverbike zipped over the spotlight. The spotlight stretched beneath me. My vision returned with huge red and yellow spots in the middle. A huge glass window at least fourteen feet wide and six feet tall wrapped around the front of the police-ship. As I blinked my eyes clear, Capt. Davis narrowed her eyes at me. Two white men stood next to her. One was Governor Read. The guy next to him I didn’t know. He was old with large arms and a firm but thick torso.

  As the hoverbike soared over the window, I waved and smiled.

  Governor Read faced Capt. Davis. He shoved her in the shoulders and yelled before waving his hands around like a lunatic. The burly man’s eyes narrowed, and he smiled back at me. Chills radiated over my skin. His smile released cockroaches into my veins.

  I throttled the hoverbike. The world around me warped into a blur. The end of the ship came into view. I passed beyond it and dropped down beneath the ship. Freedom reached out toward me.

  I giggled. I didn’t know how I was going to pull this off, but at least they weren’t going to kill me.

  A whine of robotics sliced into my eardrums followed by the flurry of steel pipes spinning. Yellow streaks blazed through the air around me—bullets.

  I was wrong. They were going to kill me.

  Every piece of me trembled. I gripped the handlebars and dipped my head low. A scream welled up in my chest, but my voice r
efused to release it. The scream throbbed inside my neck as a tear slid down my cheek.

  I had to make it. I had to live. Mari and Miko needed me.

  “Hang on, Paeton.” I glanced down. The PCD was still on and Josalyn’s voice rang into my ears. “AJ’s almost ready.”

  I rotated through the wisps of smoke. The brick walls in front of me exploded into lines of dust. Kiosks of toys and gadgets tore into pieces as cries from teddy bears announced their deaths.

  I yelled at the PCD, “Tell AJ to hurry up!”

  A light fizzing whistled through the air. Less than a second later, bright light surrounded me along with heat slamming into my back. The slight whine of metal bending curled into my eardrums.

  “Now, Rylan!” Josalyn yelled.

  Another flash appeared. The guns stopped firing. I glanced behind me at the flying monstrosity. Two of its rotors used to fly the police-ship churned to a stop. The last three rotors kept it adrift.

  The guns reoriented themselves and blasted into the distance. Flickers spread through the darkness. In my mind, AJ and Rylan scurried from their locations to get behind anything they thought could withstand the gunfire.

  A streak of blue whizzed around the edge of the market square. By the time I focused on Sun Hi, she landed underneath the belly of the police-ship. Her two guns erupted toward a control panel near the front rotor. The streak brightened again and disappeared.

  The last strum of the third of five rotors ended. The police-ship tipped forward. The gigantic nose rolled downward increasing in momentum with every second.

  I revved the engine and sped into the half-open end of Perimeter Market. By the time I reached the monitors in the main hallway, the police-ship’s nose cracked into the side of the marketplace. Plaster, glass, and smoke blasted toward me. Bricks crumbled and rolled over the sidewalk and main hallway. Streams of dust rolled into the air. Steam burst from several compartments and fire licked the hull. The police-ship rested.

  The hoverbike wavered back and forth. I twisted the handlebars and maintained balance.

  My hands pulled back on the throttle. The hoverbike circled and came to rest on the porcelain floor. Dust reached out toward me and pieces of roof bounced down the metal and scattered over the floor.

  I couldn’t believe I survived. In less than a minute, I had flown over the machine. AJ, Rylan, and Sun Hi had disabled it somehow, and I was able to avoid it crushing me. Awesome, I needed to celebrate. Maybe, I would make a good rebel. I destroyed stuff really well.

  My lungs gasped for breath. I lifted my chest to relieve some of the pressure. I couldn’t believe how tired I was from such a tiny moment in time. I exhaled and revved up the engines. I was done. It was time to leave.

  A buzzing noise filled my ears. I craned my head toward the wreckage. The huge dust cloud dissipated. The dented, main hub of the police-ship appeared. The buzzing continued followed by scores of tiny popping noises. Motors spun up.

  I squinted my eyes trying to see into the shadows beneath the police-ship. Scores of red lights appeared. My blood roared through my arteries.

  Dozens of scrappers dropped off the bottom of the ship. They zigzagged back and forth. In less than a second, they whizzed toward me.

  “Crix!”

  I had forgotten about them. All of my exuberance faded into nothing as fear rocked my spine. I pulled my hands back as hard as I could. The hoverbike curled backward before shooting forward. I blasted through the mall, avoiding patrons and ducking under advertisements. I dashed around corners and tried to lose them in the aisles, but no matter what I did, the scrappers drew closer.

  Allison Riley kiosk sat near the far end of the hallway, closed for the night. Out of desperation, I flew close to the edge of the kiosk so hopefully the scrappers would slam into it like in the movies. I’m not sure what happened to them, but the right edge of the hoverbike’s wing grazed the side. The hoverbike spun. The world flew by in streaks of burnt orange, beige, and bright blue. Dizziness circled my head, and I lost all orientation.

  I crashed through a wall and slid into several racks of clothes. Screams reflected around me as patrons ducked for cover. My body tumbled off the hoverbike which continued to roll into the Back-to-School section, knocking over mannequins and punching a hole through a picture of the boy group, Heartthrob.

  Several scrappers blurred over me. My head rattled. It took a second for me to fully understand what happened. The constant drumming of my heart continued in my ears. My head wobbled as I focused through the constant noise.

  The scrappers hovered. I was almost fully covered in clothes, so the scrappers had to be tracking me some other way. As fast as I could, I grabbed my headband and pressed it against my D-tag. I shuffled deeper into the clothes as I pulled my backpack around to find my scanner.

  The scrappers that flew after the hoverbike reentered the area around me. My gaze locked on forty women and young girls. All of them petrified by the scrappers and my abrupt entrance.

  “Paeton Washington, this is your last warning,” Capt. Davis said through the speakers on the scrappers.

  Her voice abruptly stopped. A high-pitched tone echoed from the scrappers. Silence spread over the store. I pulled out my scanner and found Mr. Cheater’s D-Tag. I immediately broadcasted it as I pressed my headband into my neck.

  The speakers noised again. This time it was a man’s voice. I had heard that voice a few times. It was the governor, Bobby Read.

  “There are no more warnings, Capt. Davis. I want this little bitch dead. Her and—” He began cursing about Rylan, Sun Hi, and AJ. I wondered if he knew the microphone was on.

  A second silence came through the speakers. It was followed by a long whistle which faded away.

  I didn’t waste any more time. I pulled my top off and grabbed the nearest shirt and put it on. I looped my hair to the side into a quick ponytail. The most pathetic scream I could manage echoed out my throat.

  I surfaced eyes sad, arms up. The scrapper cameras jostled but nothing happened. I ducked down and as quickly as possible scampered after the forty ladies who searched for an exit.

  When I got outside, a Middle-C girl about eight years old stared at me. My stomach tightened, but her eyes slid from my face to my shirt and back again. After a second, she pointed toward my chest and smiled.

  I glanced down and read the words, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

  I put my finger over my lips, and she copied my movements. After she waved goodbye, I sped off toward the train station. Without the hoverbike, I had no way to get to the Juvenile building in time. This distraction, as in the shooting down of the drone, should have been enough to draw most of Atlanta’s police forces. My hope was that I could get into the building and get the kids with few problems.

  The train station rose as I neared. As I reached the sidewalk, a train picked up speed and sped south toward Atlanta. I glanced at the monitor outside the station. The next train arrived in fourteen minutes and twenty-two seconds.

  My eyelids closed, and my fingers balled into fists. I couldn’t wait that long. Who knew how long this little distraction would work?

  Crix!

  A melodic voice stirred my ears. I gazed toward a gated entry across the street. A news reporter blared from the radio of an expensive convertible which was painted candy apple red. It was a magnacar with six magnapads and gull-inspired half-wings for stabilization. Even someone who didn’t care for cars would have been awestruck at the machine.

  A black man sat in the driver’s seat, fiddling with his PCD. I shrugged and dashed across the street. I yanked out my gun and held it low. He took a selfie and admired himself in the image for a moment before, I imagined, uploading it to some website. I guess driving was an important task everyone needed to know about.

  As I neared, the reporter’s voice sharpened. “…all happened less than three minutes ago near the Perimeter Market in Dunwoody. Atlanta Police and Georgia Bureau of Homeland Security are headed to aid with the d
estruction.”

  The man stopped. He took a double take at the radio and turned it up as though he couldn’t hear it. When he turned back around, his eyebrows lifted and his mouth dropped. I took a step forward and lined the gun with his head.

  “Get out,” I said.

  His hands raised, and he opened the door. “You can’t—”

  I didn’t even let him finish before I grabbed my scanner with my left hand. I forced the scanner against his chest to steal his D-Tag. Once it had a reading, I slid into the driver’s seat. “Thanks… DaVonte,” I said after reading his information.

  “Y-Y-You’re that girl. The one everyone’s talking about,” he said.

  “Yep.” I checked around to make sure the road was clear.

  He turned around. He took a few steps before a flash went off.

  I jumped from the abrupt and oddly timed light. My foot slammed into the gas pedal. Trembles slid through me. It wasn’t until I hit the on-ramp heading to the Upper-Tier of the Interstate that it dawned on me what he had done. That jerk took a selfie with me in the background. Crix, a person can’t even do a proper car-jacking these days without the victims wanting to celebrate every moment of it.

  The magnacar roared around the Interstate. Excitement tickled my knees and elbows. I had never driven a real car before. I had played various video games and splurged six months ago taking Mari and Miko to a go-kart place, but not much more. The magnacar drove rather well. I didn’t understand most of the panels, so the radio continued to blast some news interview type thing about me. He took a few calls from people around Atlanta before bringing an expert onto the show who knew more about me than I knew about myself.

  “So, Ms. Washington is an orphan?” the reporter asked.

  “Yes,” the expert answered. “Most of them are. They come from diverse backgrounds, but the one thing that is always constant is that they are orphans.”

  “And you believe this affects their personality?”

  “Of course. Without parents, a child is lost. They don’t know what to do and seek out love from others. First, they’ll try a teacher or some other adult, but they generally end up joining gangs, or in this case, rebel organizations.”