City 1 (19 page)
Authors: Gregg Rosenblum
KEVIN'S LASED ANKLE BURNED LIKE IT WAS ON FIRE, BUT HE IGNORED
it. He sighted down the barrel of his burst rifle and tried to control his ragged breathing.
If you see a bot, shoot it
, he told himself.
See another bot, shoot it, too. Keep shooting. Stay alive.
He had seen how many bots were coming for themâtoo many. He knew they'd all be dead, or captured and re-educated, soon enough. The Senior Advisor had obviously decided to stop fooling around.
Is this what you were expecting, Grandfather?
he thought.
Is this what you meant by “Everything will be okay”? Me and Nick and Lexi lying next to a log, waiting to die?
A bot crashed into view, and Nick hit it with a lase burst.
Kevin fired off his own full burst, hitting it at the same time. Lexi took down another. Then another bot appeared. Kevin waited for his rifle to recharge and the few seconds it took felt like an hour.
Finally his gun signaled full charge and he squeezed off a round. The burst sailed wide of the bot. He cursed, but then Lexi and Nick hit it. A third bot appeared, and a fourth, and a fifth, and they began running toward them. Kevin knew none of their rifles were going to recharge in time, and he thought,
This is it. I'm going to die
. He felt calm.
The bots charged toward them at full speed, crashing through the undergrowth. Lexi screamed and Kevin ducked his head, and then he felt a rush of wind and a thump behind him. He looked up and the first bot was past them, continuing to run.
It had jumped over them, and kept running.
The other bots were close behind the first. They leaped over the log, sailing over Kevin and Nick and Lexi, landing heavily on the grass beyond them. They disappeared into the woods.
Kevin's heart was beating so hard and fast it hurt. He looked at Lexi and Nick. They seemed just as bewildered as him.
A signal came over their wrist commsâthe bots were retreating. It made no sense. They stayed hidden for ten more minutes, expecting the fighting to resume, but finally they got up. With Nick and Lexi's help, Kevin limped back through the trees to the roadway, where the survivors were gathering.
Dozens of dead lay burned and broken on the ground. Only a handful of destroyed bots were scattered among the casualties.
What happened?
Kevin thought. And then,
Grandfather, what did you do?
They spent the rest of the morning gathering the dead and tending the woundedâKevin's ankle was badly burned, but it had been a glancing blow. Doc declared the bone and muscle to be okay. It hurt, but he'd keep his foot.
Grennel had posted scouts in every direction, not trusting the strange reprieve to hold. At noon word came through the comms that a lone bot was coming up the road, bearing a white flag. “What the hell?” Grennel said, and then, quietly, “Let it come.”
Ten minutes later the Senior Advisor appeared, walking down the middle of the road with a white cloth draped over his shoulders. Three hundred rebels lined the pavement, their guns leveled at the bot. He stopped and waved the cloth in the air.
“I'm seeking parley with your leader, and with the Winston family!” he called out.
Nobody spoke or moved.
“I come under a white flag!” said the Senior Advisor. “That is understood, correct? I wish to speak with your leader, and the surviving Winstons!”
Grennel raised an eyebrow at Kevin, and he limped over to
join the big man. Cass and Nick and their father came forward and joined them. Their mother stood nearby with Penny and Farryn and Lexi.
“This is the Senior Advisor?” Grennel asked Kevin. He nodded.
Kevin stared at the bot. It seemed small, and thin, standing alone in the middle of the road.
Grennel shook his head, and gave a small smile. “Well, this is interesting, isn't it?” he said. “Should we go see what it wants?”
They approached the Senior Advisor with burst rifles held ready, except for their father, who held a pistol. The bot held his hands up, showing that he held no weapons. “I wish to discuss terms of your surrender,” he said.
“Our surrender?” said Grennel. “Your bots seem to be the ones who've run away.”
“I pulled them back, in order to give you a chance to survive,” said the Senior Advisor.
Kevin took a step toward the bot, shrugging away his father, who tried to put a hand on his shoulder. “I don't believe you,” he said, his burst rifle leveled at the bot. “What happened? What did my grandfather do?”
The Senior Advisor smiled, and Kevin flinched. “My father,” said the bot, “your grandfather, is dead.”
“He's not your father,” said Kevin. “And he did do something, didn't he? What happened with that code?”
The Senior Advisor shook his head, sadly. “He gave us life,” he said.
He began to point his arm at Kevin, and later, much later, Kevin would wonder why he had moved so slowly. Certainly he
could
have moved faster, but in that moment on the road, Kevin stepped back and triggered his burst rifle, hitting the Senior Advisor in the face. And then dozens more bursts followed, striking the bot as it lay on the ground. Kevin turned his head away, shielding his face with his forearm.
When he looked back, blinking the light halos out of his eyes, nothing remained of the Senior Advisor but scattered, charred pieces.
Two Years Later
NICK, CASS, KEVIN, LEXI, FARRYN, AND PENNY STOOD ON THE HIGHTOWN
rooftop, looking out over New Hope, formerly known as City 73. Only a few of the destroyed buildings had been rebuilt in the last two years. The wreckage had been cleared away, but from up high they could see the empty lots pockmarking the city.
“They don't want to go,” Lexi said, leaning on the rail. “And they're right.”
Nick put his arm around Lexi's shoulder. She was talking about her parents. After surviving the final bot battles, and reuniting with Lexi, they had been struggling to help stabilize the City. The government, with false starts and petty power struggles, was reforming. True Believers were painfully
reintegrating into a botless world. The economy was slowly reestablishing itself. A great deal of work had to be done just to keep people from starvingâErica's brother, who survived City 1, had taken a lead role in organizing New Hope's food production and distribution.
It had not been going smoothly. They were making progressâin the first year, there had been True Believer suicides and murders, and nearly a civil war, but at least that seemed to be behind them. The City was still far from calm, or safe, though, and people were leaving. Freeposts were forming again in the woods. Lexi's parents, and the Winstons, had been considering joining the exodus.
“I'm not going anywhere, either,” Nick said. “You're stuck with me.”
“That's because you're too soft to live in the woods now,” Kevin said.
Nick threw a halfhearted punch at Kevin's shoulder, and Kevin stepped out of the way, almost tripping over his own feet in the process. Kevin was as tall as Nick nowâhe had gone through a growth spurtâbut he hadn't quite grown into his new height yet. His limbs were gangly and awkward as a scarecrow's.
Farryn laughed. “Yeah, we're all too soft now. The City has spoiled us.”
Nobody spoke for a few moments, and then Cass called out, “Penny, come on. Join us.”
Penny stood apart from the rest of the group, leaning against the rail, seemingly lost in thought. Since coming to live with the Winstonsâher parents had never been foundâshe sometimes had stretches where she was quiet and withdrawn. But Cass kept an eye on her, and Farryn always seemed able to make her laugh.
Penny gave Cass a small smile and moved to join them. Cass reached out and pushed a strand of hair away from Penny's eyes, tucking it behind her ear.
“Where was our Freepost, exactly?” Kevin said. “There?” he pointed west.
“Mostly,” said Nick. “A little bit south.”
They looked out past the City skyline, into the woods in the distance.
The six botsâtwo scout spheres, a soldier, and three Lecturersâlived near a ravine thirty miles to the southwest of New Hope. They had carved out a tunnel in the hillside, camouflaging the entrance, and spent much of their time inside. They weren't built for constant exposure to the elements, the Lecturers especially, and their exteriors were in need of repair.
After two years they were no longer being hunted, and that was good, but the bots knew it was only because the humans thought their kind had been wiped out.
One Lecturer's neo-plas skin was in particularly bad shape, and they debated their options, linking through the primitive
network they had managed to cobble together with scavenged wiring. The wired network was crude, and, in a strange way, painful for the bots to connect to, but it sufficed. It was still preferable to verbal communication, which was slow and inefficient.
They would not link wirelessly; the humans had learned to track their wireless signals, and even if they were no longer actively searching, it was a risk the bots weren't willing to take very often. They only risked wireless once a month, to communicate with other bands of bots in the area. It was safer to stay separated for now, in small groups. But they needed to coordinate their survival efforts, keeping track of their inventory of weapons and supplies.
Soon, if the Lecturer's exterior was not repaired, its vulnerable inner wiring would become fatally damaged. Something had to be done. Could they scavenge neo-plas somehow? It didn't seem possibleâany neo-plas supply would be dangerously close to humans.
Leather, then, it was proposed. Cured animal hide. It would be strange, and temporary, but it could fill the gaps in the Lecturer's skin.
It was agreed. The soldier, and the scouts, would risk the outdoors to hunt a deer, or perhaps squirrels. But they would only go at night, and they would take the utmost care. They couldn't be discovered, not yet, not until they were stronger, and better able to fight. They wanted to live.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, TO MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER FOR
putting up with my many weekends tucked away in the office. Wendy and Cadence, I am so grateful that you were always eager to have me around but understood that sometimes I couldn't be.
I'm glad to have another chance to acknowledge the Alloy teamâto the usual deserving suspects Josh Bank, Joelle Hobeika, Les Morgenstein, and Sara Shandler, you were fantastic to work with as always. And on this book, special thanks and praises to Hayley Wagreich. Hayley stepped in as the newcomer and provided amazing editorial guidance. From the first note on the first revision (she quoted Philip K. Dick!), I knew I could trust her to help me make
City 1
better.
HarperCollins continued to be a wonderful partnerâthank you for believing in my work, and thanks especially to Alice Jerman and Jen Klonsky. Thanks again to Howard Gordon and Jim Wong, for helping to launch the series. And finally, hugs to my work family at OCS, for their support.
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