The meta rise, p.15
The Meta-Rise, page 15
My stomach swims as the seconds tick away in my head. I take a deep breath and try to give myself a pep talk.
You can do this, Trout.
He’s just a robot. He’ll get another arm. If he’s okay, that is. If you didn’t kill him with that serum.
He already lost one arm and had it repaired. What’s one more?
I wrap my hands around his wrist, brace my foot on his stomach, and give his arm a yank.
Metal pops and crunches. The arm hangs loose by a few threads and bolts.
So I dig my foot into his stomach even more, clench my teeth together real tight, and yank one more time.
The arm comes free and I stumble back, hitting the floor on my tailbone. Pain shoots up my back and down my legs. “Oooooh,” I moan, rubbing at the sore spot.
I get hold of myself, slowly rise to my feet and take LT’s arm with me. I try not to look back at him, at the empty arm socket, but I can’t help it. He looks so sad and pitiful. Everything about him is wrong.
I just want my old friend back.
Carrying LT’s arm with me, I go out into the hallway. Po is there at his door, glaring down at me. “What are you doing?” he asks, his voice muffled through the door.
“Saving your butt.”
He snorts.
I find the main control panel near Po’s cell. It opens with the press of my finger. The controls on the inside gleam bright red. There are a series of numbers along the top row, white buttons beneath those. Then a row of ports. There’s a circular port, a rectangular port, then one with a flat bottom and rounded top.
Holding LT’s arm between my legs, I sort through the wires in his compartment. The first couple of wires I grab are the wrong ones. I check several more, finally locating the circular port. I plug it in, and it fits perfectly. I find the rectangular port next, then lastly the flat-bottomed one. When they’re plugged in, I hit all of the buttons, and one by one, the cell doors slide open with a rush.
Po is the first out of his cell, then Tellie and Marsi.
“Come on,” I say. “We have to hurry up! The cameras will come back on soon.”
I go to the end of the hallway and scoop up my bag. Po rushes past me and slowly pops open the door, peering out. “We’re clear,” he whispers, and ushers us through one by one.
“LT told me where to find Mr. Rix and—”
“My dad is here?” Tellie asks, and her eyes immediately fill with tears. “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. LT didn’t say. They’re all on Level Two. Mr. Rix, Georgette, and Heather Evans, from Fourth District.”
“Getting down there is going to be hard,” Po says.
“But we have to,” I point out, and he nods.
“LT say if there was an alternate way down? Like stairs?”
“He didn’t, but I bet there are. It’s, like, mandatory isn’t it?”
“In a place like this? No idea.” He looks past me down the darkened hallway. “Come on.”
We follow him around a curve in the hall, then take a left, then a right, and finally spy a stairwell sign at the very end of another hall.
Po is the first one inside. He looks down the well. “We’re good.”
Since we only have to go down one floor, the descent down the stairs doesn’t take long at all. I take the lead this time, checking the hallway before waving everyone else in.
“Now where?” Tellie asks.
“We go right, then . . . oh crap.”
“Oh crap what?” Po whispers.
“LT gave me directions, but they were directions for taking the elevator.”
Po turns around and scratches at the back of his head. I think he’s hiding all of the curse words he’s muttering beneath his breath.
“Sorry!” I say.
“No, it’s okay. We’re okay.” Marsi taps a plastic sign glued to the wall just outside the stairwell. “It’s a map of the floor layout. We can figure out where we need to go using LT’s directions. It’s like doing a division problem instead of a multiplication.”
“Yeah, she’s right,” Tellie adds, joining Marsi at the sign. “It’s a piece of cake.”
Po and I glance at each other. I think neither of us knows what the girls are talking about.
“What are the directions?” Marsi asks, using her finger to trace the route as I relay it.
“LT said, take one right, then two lefts.”
“So, my dad is here,” Tellie says, and plants her index finger on a hallway marked 2.5.
“And we’re here,” Marsi says, pointing to the red dot that’s supposed to represent our location. “So we need to go left, right, right.”
Tellie smiles and her and Marsi give each other a high five. “Girls rule,” Tellie says.
“Yes they do,” Marsi replies.
“Then, lead the way, ladies,” Po says with a grin.
• • •
When we reach the hallway we need, we find a hulking robot guarding the entrance. He’s easily twice the size of me, which would put him at nearly ten feet tall. His shoulders are broad and sharp, his face nothing but a bubbled lens. Wires run in and out of his torso, pumping a sickly green liquid.
“Jam,” Po breathes, and pushes us back before the bot spots us.
Tellie exhales. “We’re so close.”
“We need a distraction.” Po gnaws at his bottom lip as he thinks. “If only I had a weapon.” He turns to me. “What’s in the bag?”
“Just some snacks and my arthropod.”
Po furrows his eyebrows. “A what?”
“It’s this thing that goes on my arm and creates its own hoverpoints, like . . .” I look up, my jaw dropping open. “I got a plan.”
I hand Tellie LT’s arm, then drop the bag to the floor and unzip it, pulling out the arthropod a second later. I remember exactly how Scissor taught me to open the contraption, how to slide my arm in, then close it.
“What’s it do?” Po asks. “What’s your plan?”
“You’ll see.”
“No, I don’t want to see. I want you to tell me before you end up dead.”
I go to the end of our hallway, ignoring him. I plant my feet for a running start. “Back up,” I mouth, waving them aside. They press themselves into the wall.
I take off at a sprint, pumping my arms at my sides. I round the corner into the next hallway and the robot immediately squares himself in a fighting stance, ready to take me on.
The gun on his forearm starts spinning, charging itself up.
“Trout! Get out of there!” Po yells.
I count to three, waiting for the split second before the robot shoots.
One.
Two.
I whip my arm up and hit the button on the inside of my thumb.
“Trout!”
Three.
A laser shot blasts from the gun. My hoverpoint zings out of the arthropod, lodging itself in the ceiling. My feet leave the floor. I fly through the air as the laser shot zooms beneath me.
The bot doesn’t have a chance to collect himself.
I pick up momentum, arch my back, kick out my legs, and slam into the bot’s torso with both feet.
He sails backward, turning in midair so he hits the floor on his side.
Po runs beneath me, leaps on top of the bot, and rips open the torso panel. He jams his hand inside and pulls a fist of wires out. Sparks snap through the air as the bot seizes up and fizzles out.
I detach the hoverpoint and hit the ground with both feet, sweat beading beneath my nose.
“That was so kila,” Tellie says as she and Marsi come up behind us.
I wipe the sweat away with the sleeve of my shirt. “I’m glad it actually worked.”
Po whirls around. “You mean you weren’t sure?”
“Well . . .”
He growls and charges after me, but Marsi stops him with a hand on his chest. “It worked. That’s all that matters. We should focus on rescuing Tellie’s dad and Georgette.”
“Agreed,” Tellie says. She hands me LT’s arm and pulls open the door behind us. She rushes inside the hallway, checking the tiny windows set into the cell doors.
At the third door, Tellie jumps up and down and shouts to me, “He’s in here!”
I use LT’s arm at the control panel and the cell doors open a minute later with a whoosh of air. Mr. Rix dashes out, scooping Tellie into his arms in a big hug. He twirls her around.
Next, Georgette comes stumbling out of her cell, and behind her a woman I recognize from the news feed—Heather Evans.
“Good to see you all,” Georgette says. She nods at Heather behind her. “This is Ms. Evans. Ms. Evans, these are friends of mine.”
She eyes us. “They’re just kids.”
“Clever, brave kids at that,” Georgette adds.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” Ms. Evans says. “Though I wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Nice to meet you too,” I answer.
Po nudges me with his elbow. “How about we get out of here now?”
“Yeah, about that . . .” I start. “How are we getting out of here?”
“I can get us out,” Georgette says. “This is an old research facility that Cland Industries used before the war. There’s a tunnel off Level One that will take us two miles outside of the city to a warehouse we used for storage.”
“How hard will it be to reach the tunnel?” Po asks.
Georgette shrugs. “I suppose that all depends on how many robots we run into.”
“And when we get out,” Po starts, “will you tell us the way to the facility where they’re controlling ThinkChips?”
She nods. “I will.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
WE MAKE IT to Level 1 quickly, but have to hide in a storage room as a group of bots marches past. One of them says something about the prisoners, about them escaping, and I know right away we’re cracked if we don’t get out of here soon.
When the hall is clear, we file out.
“Access to the tunnel is to your right,” Georgette whispers, and stops us about fifty feet down the curving hallway. “Here.” She nods at an unmarked door in the middle of the wall. “This is the one we want.”
The door opens easily and I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m waiting for something to happen, for a robot to jump out at us. My dad used to say that if something is too good to be true, it usually means you are about to get yourself in trouble.
There are no lights on inside the tunnel, so Tellie and I hang on to each other, while I use my other hand to trail along the wall, following the shifting, twining stone.
I can’t wait to be outside in the fresh air.
It’s totally silent down here, save for the shuffling of our feet, and the in and out huff of our breath. It feels like we’re climbing into the center of a tomb.
Finally, after what feels like hours, I see little pinpoints of light in the ceiling. Red and green and yellow. Georgette leads us to the left. Po and Marsi are in the back, moving along at the pace they can manage. I know it’s too slow, though. Po walks slow by normal standards. And Marsi is still healing.
I worry that neither of them has enough energy to make it to our final destination.
Even though it’s dark inside the tunnel, I can tell instantly when the space widens. Our footsteps echo around us. It’s colder too, and goose bumps stand on my arms.
“Keep straight,” Georgette says over a shoulder.
I check to make sure Po and Marsi are still behind me. Po has his arm around Marsi’s shoulders, and her head is hung low.
“Is she okay?” I call.
“She’s fine,” Po starts. “I think we just need to—”
A low humming noise fills the space around us, and suddenly the cavernous room is blazing with light as one fixture after another flicks on.
Tellie squeezes my hand.
I freeze in place.
There, in the middle of the room, blocking our path to the other side, is Ratch. And he isn’t alone.
He has a prisoner.
He has our dad.
• • •
I guess our escape was too good to be true.
I take a step toward Dad, but Ratch holds up a hand and shows me a little black device the size and shape of a remote control. “Come any closer,” he warns, “and I’ll press the button.”
Po’s fingers tense into fists. “What happens if you do?”
“Po, don’t, please,” Dad starts, and then Ratch presses the button.
Dad’s robot hand curls into a fist, and his arm swings upward, catching him across the jaw. He stumbles back. He punches again, this time denting the metal plate in the side of his face.
“Stop!” I shout.
“That’s what happens,” Ratch answers.
“He has control of Dad’s robot parts?” I say to Po. “But how?”
“I gave him a ThinkChip,” Ratch says. “Didn’t have one until now. I think it’s a vast improvement.”
Po turns away from us, running his hand through his hair. He curses beneath his breath. Usually when he’s like this it’s because I left out the milk. I wish that was the case now. I can deal with that.
When Po turns back around, his jaw is clenched tight, so when he speaks, his words come out mashed together. “So what do you want? In exchange for our dad.”
“Po,” Dad says again, this time in his warning voice. But Po ignores him.
“Come on, metal head. Tell me your demands.”
Ratch smiles. “All right. You made a speech after the bombing on Edge Flats. The one that made you a celebrity? Respected by many. Robots and humans. I want you to make another.”
Po shuffles his weight around. Sweat rolls down his temples. Veins rise in his forehead. “What do you want me to say?”
“Address the Meta-Rise and Texas.” Ratch takes two steps forward. “Tell them your dad and his team have been working on a tech patch. Tell them it was designed to combat technological warfare. Tell them you worry there will be a second wave aimed at Bot Territory and Texas, particularly the areas heavy with human populations. And that, if they want their electronics and Net connections to be safe, they should download the patch immediately.”
Po snorts. “So you can take over their electronics too?”
Ratch shakes his head. “That isn’t good enough anymore. I don’t want to control them. I want to shut them down. For good. How do you make a strong, defiant society come to heel? You take away everything they know and you refuse to give it back. You know what happens after that? Total chaos. Guess who will fix it?”
“You,” I say.
Ratch laughs. “No. LT. They will trust him and I will control him.”
Behind him, Dad plants his feet, grits his teeth. His hair hangs in his face, coated with dirt and sweat. Black circles ring his eyes, but determination is etched into the lines around his mouth.
He brings his machine arm up, points it at Ratch’s back. His new upgrade shines in the light. The Raven Blast activates, the veins glowing orange, and a shot whumps out of the arm. The ground vibrates beneath me as the blast hits Ratch in the back, blowing him into a thousand twisted pieces.
For a second, relief floods through me. Dad stopped Ratch. We’re safe. It’s over.
Ratch is dead.
But then a door opens to our left and another Ratch—a clone—marches out.
I forgot about the clones.
“Excellent shot, St. Kroix,” Ratch says, and pulls out a new remote, hitting a button.
Dad’s face contorts with pain. He collapses to one knee and clutches at his heart. His skin turns bright red.
“Stop!” I turn to Po, desperate for something. “Make him stop!”
“Okay!” Po shouts. His shoulders level out. “I’ll do it. I’ll make the speech!”
Ratch lets go of the button. Dad pitches forward to both knees. He sways back and forth. “Son,” he tries, but he has trouble staying upright.
“I have to do it, Dad. You would have done the same thing.” Po grits his teeth. “Let’s get this over with.”
Ratch says, “Follow me.”
WE’RE ALL TAKEN back inside the building, out of the tunnel, and to the California Level. Dad is put in a chair, handcuffs placed around his wrists and latched onto a pipe behind him. Tellie, Marsi, Georgette, Mr. Rix, Heather, and I are told to sit in a row of chairs across from Dad, near the door. So we do. We’re guarded by a tall bot with thin legs but bulky shoulders. There’s a laser gun attached to his left arm.
Ratch leads Po into another room. Half the wall that separates us from him is made of frosted glass, so we can only see the movement of shadows on the other side until someone hits a button and the frost dissipates.
I see Po first. He’s seated in front of a vid cam in the middle of the room, and sitting next to him, just out of sight of the camera, is President Callo. There are bruises beneath his eyes, and another along his jaw. His lip is crusted over with blood, and his hair, usually sprayed into a swoop over his forehead, sticks up funny on the side of his head, like he slept on it that way for days. When he sees us on the other side of the glass wall, hope flickers in his eyes.
There are two robots behind the camera, one standing guard, the other holding a SimPad. “This is your script,” Ratch explains, and points at the pad. “We’re recording, and we aren’t live, so don’t think you can warn everyone by veering off the script. This won’t air until I’m satisfied it’s done right.”
Ratch crosses his arms and stands just out of the camera’s frame. “Now, everyone quiet. We’re recording in three . . . two . . . one . . .”
Po sits up straight, clears his throat. Ratch motions him to begin.
“People and bots of the Meta-Rise, citizens of Texas and Bot Territory, I come to you with an important message. In light of the recent attacks on the UD, we believe we’re next in line for an attack. The terrorists known as the rogue robots from Old New York are looking to take over everything we’ve worked so hard to build. My father’s tech team has created a patch designed to combat technological warfare. The patch will protect you and your electronics from Ratch’s attacks.
