Beat (28 page)

I leapt toward him.

The robots’ extended arms exploded. I hunched and flinched, expecting an explosion of pain as I bounced off Holland’s translucent desk. The bullets hit the floor at my feet. I flung myself to the right. The guns tracked my movement, firing again. I jumped, tripping on my own feet and falling to the left this time. Bullets tore into the stone floor again, the noise squeezing cottony pain into my ears.

Melisa’s voice cut into my head as I dove at the man. “I got two of them! Only the electrodes work.”

“Dodge, boy! You can’t dodge your blood!” Holland cackled.

I kicked myself mentally. He didn’t want to shoot me; he wanted me to die of the Bug. Everything would be easier that way.
Not a chance.
I sucked in a breath, listened to my heart beat. If I wasn’t at 140 yet, I was close. Everyone knew 140 wasn’t an exact number, but was a minimum threshold. What was my vulnerable range?

Bug him. I planted my feet. “Frag off!”
Slowly, Nik. Get it under control.

Holland snarled and lifted the thing in his hand. The robots’ arms lifted slightly, but still aimed down. They fired faster than I could move, the explosions crashing all around me. A bullet slashed across my calf as I rolled to the left. Another slammed into my left shoulder. I kept rolling and scampering, the bullets shattering against the stone floor and sending jagged bits of stone and metal into my face. My right arm throbbed as I put weight on it, making for the chair I’d been sitting in.

The explosions stopped.

“How’s the heart, Nik?” The high voice felt like hundreds of knives in my ears. I pictured my heart, willed it slower.

“Bug you!” I threw the chair at Holland, knowing my heart rate was too high. I could almost feel the bio-toxin in my blood streaming through my veins toward my heart.

Holland dodged the chair but didn’t see me coming right after it.

Holland tried to dodge me, but he was slow. I hit him, my right shoulder slamming into his chest, just as the robots began firing again. I felt a sting and fire on my ribs, my neck, and my left leg as bullets grazed my skin. Then we were tumbling over the desk and slamming to the floor.

I grabbed for the tiny gray controller he held.

The desk shattered in a hail of bullets from the robots. I rolled again, instinctively ducking behind the largest shield I had: Adam Holland. His body jerked as bullets slammed into him. He made no sound. I got hold of the controller as bullets sliced into me. Burning agony covered me from head to toe. More explosions, more searing pain. My vision blurred, I searched the controller and found a red button. I hit it.

The explosions stopped. Hissing and tensing, muscles spasming, I struggled to my feet, which miraculously still held my weight. The robots were frozen, smoke leaking out of their barrels.
Bug me.
I stopped, focused. Counted. 145, maybe 150.

No.

I waited for the coughing to start, willed my heart to slow down.

No good. Even if I closed my eyes, I knew the Prime Administrator was dead at my feet, the Bug about to infect my heart.

I needed to calm down. I needed—

I needed the knockout.

I dug through Holland’s pockets, found the syringe. A drop of the knockout remained in the cylinder. I tapped the air out of the cylinder, sucked in a breath.
Better calm than dead.
A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.
Please work.

I jabbed my wrist and everything went dark.

The pain from the bullet wounds and my arm as well as voices in my ear woke me up maybe ten minutes later. I lay there for a minute, listening to my heart. The knockout was a wonder. Strange to inject my killer into me and have it save me. As I pushed myself to my feet, my eyes settled on Adam Holland’s face. “Too bad the knockout part works so well, huh?”

I leaned against the wall, eyeing the silent robots. Pits dotted the floor, tiny rock debris scattered everywhere. I felt trapped, like the walls were going to squeeze the life out of me at any second.

“Melisa, I need help.”

“Are you okay?”

I grunted. “I can walk, sort of. But I need help getting out of here.” I struggled across the room, taking long, slow breaths. No more knockout. Not ever. “What’s going on out there?”

“After the broadcast finished, the Enforsers threw down their Keepers. Then it was just the robots. Killing the grid didn’t stop the robots.” I heard Melisa breathing hard. “Where are you?”

“S1. I’ve got the Bug, so I need help.” I limped through the door. “I think it was just the Prime Administrator. I don’t think anyone else knew. You can turn the power on, because I need the elevator.” The thought of stairs made me feel like throwing up. I scanned my body, limping across the room. Trails of red and brown marked where the bullets had come too close. I worried that if I looked closely enough at my ribs, I’d see bone.

“How do I get to you?” Melisa asked.

“Everybody out here is crying.” Koner’s voice came over the EarCom. “Everybody. It’s weird.”

“We’ll be out there soon,” I said. “Melisa, go to the Pod lift and take any elevator you find to S1. Then just follow the doors and hallway.”

In the reception room, I looked around for something to lean on. Blood oozed from at least ten places bullets had grazed me. I was lucky Holland had been so big.

I tapped my EarCom. “Kate Granjer.”

A click followed by soft silence. “Nik? Is that you?”

The tension in my muscles eased a little. “Yeah. It’s me.” I heard her say Dad’s name.

“Nik! The explosion and the video . . . you?” Dad sounded out of breath.

“Careful, Dad. It’s time to avoid the knockout.” I smiled into the empty room. “Yeah, it’s me. And my friends. We did it.”

“Where are you?” Mom asked.

“Prime One.”

“We’ll be right there,” Dad said.

More tension leaked from me. I scanned the reception room, noting the glass table I’d stopped at my first time in this Dome. I saw again the doors that looked like elevator doors and made my way to them. I didn’t remember an elevator here on the schematic I’d seen.

There was no button, only a flat sensor box. I needed a card.

Melisa chose that moment to show up.

“Hey,” I said. “Great timing.”

“Greetings,” she said. Then she noticed my state. “Bug me! Are you okay?”

“Working on it.”

“Let’s get out of here.” She took my arm.

“Still got that card?”

She pulled it out of her Enforser jacket. I pointed at the sensor box. She swiped the card and the doors parted into the walls.

“An elevator?” Melisa poked her head into it. “Where does it go?”

“Let’s find out.”

“Not yet. You need a Med.”

“It can wait.”

She looked me up and down. “You’re bleeding all over. Were you shot?”

I forced a smile. “A little. But, you know, better calm than dead.”

Her eyes lit up with understanding. “Bug me. Oh yeah.”

“No. Bug
me.
” I stepped into the elevator. “I can stay calm for a week or two.” I motioned her in. “Going down? Maybe up?”

She followed me in, confusion on her face, and the doors closed. “No buttons.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Maybe ten seconds of an incredibly fast drop later, the door hissed open. Melisa helped me limp into a room whose lights flickered on as soon as we emerged from the elevator. Several computer terminals, along with a lot of monitors, lined the bottom half of the walls of the semi-circular room. Lines beeped across the monitors, with all kinds of strange-looking data on the edges of the monitors. We stepped farther into the room. Tall, wide windows completed the curving walls, allowing us to see what lay beyond.

As the lights flickered on in the room beyond the windows, we saw that it was a lab of some kind with maybe ten clear glass cylinders that looked like long, wide pods, each with one end pointing at the room we stood in and the other end pointing away, like the spokes on a cycle.

I looked closer and felt my heart rate spike.
Bug me.
I tried to force my heart to slow. This was insane. Totally bugging crazy.

“Nik. That’s not. That can’t be,” Melisa’s mouth had fallen open. “Are those
people
in there?”

“Yeah. But not people. Those are
all
Adam Holland. They’re all the Prime Administrator.”

We stood in stunned silence for a while, taking in the glass pods and the inert forms in them.

“Clones?” Melisa asked, leaning over a pod.

“No.” A voice filled the room, loud and angry. “Well, yes, but that’s not all they are.”

We spun around, searching for the voice’s source.

There was nobody else there. “Who is that?”

“Nik, for being so smart, you are disappointing sometimes,” the voice said. A matte, flat skreen flickered to life. The Prime Administrator’s face appeared. But instead of the lifeless eyes I’d gotten used to seeing, these ones blazed furiously. “After all that time interacting with my avatar and you never put it together.” Behind Holland’s face was a completely blank, gray wall.

“Your avatar?” I took in the pods again. “These are your avatars? What does that mean?”

“Like I said,” Holland glared at me from the skreen, “one voice, one authority. That’s how you ensure humanity’s prolonged success.”

“You call this success? You call poisoning people to keep them in line success? You’re bugging crazy!” I leaned on the table where the skreen stood.

“No wars. No hunger. No discord. Almost all disease eradicated. And technological advancement beyond your imagination.” Holland’s hot glare dropped a few degrees. “Yes, that is success.”

“That’s robots, you fragging bug-eater! And you killed my boyfriend!” Melisa thumbed the ammunition cylinder on her keeper. “Here’s your success.” She pulled the trigger and shot one of the pods. The glass shattered, liquid spilling out and dropping through the metal grate floor. The avatar in the pod erupted in explosions of gory red. As the pounding of the Keeper’s explosions faded, loud machine beeping and keening filled the room along with smoke and a sour smell.

I jerked closer to Melisa. “Easy. Relax.”

“Go ahead,” Holland’s voice cut through the noise. “Destroy them all. Throw your childish tantrum. Enjoy your last minutes.”

I grabbed Melisa. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

“Goodbye Nik. While losing New Frisko is frustrating, the New Chapter proceeds.” A smile creased Holland’s face. “Perhaps you have time to see your parents. Good luck with that.”

Dread sank deep into me. I tapped my EarCom. “Koner, Pol! Use the EarComs. Everyone has to get out, get away! Something’s coming!”

Deadly aware of how fast my heart rate was spiking, I ran for the elevator. Melisa jumped in after me, thumbed her ammunition drum and fired just as the elevator door closed. A second later, as we shot up, we heard and felt an enormous thud under us.

I stared at her. “Grenade?”

“Yup. Had to be done.” Melisa let her Keeper drop. “How close are you?’

I listened for my heart beat. “Too close.”

“What did he mean? Losing New Frisko? Good luck with that?” Melisa led me out of the elevator door and we hurried across the room.

I tried to run calmly, breathing evenly. “Don’t know exactly. Something really bad though. I’m sure of it.” We found the next elevator and less than a minute later emerged from Prime One. My heart rate had settled somewhat.

The area near the dome of Prime One was filled with people. I spotted Koner, Pol, and Devera. Nate, the tall broadcasting guy was with them. “What are you doing? We have to go! Get in pods, get on cycles. Get out of the city!” All the shouting made me lose control and I felt my heart rate climbing again.

The people cheered, a lot of them crying. A familiar face stood out to me. “Jan!” Her name was out of my mouth before I could think. Her eyes met mine for a heartbeat, then she turned away. I stepped after her, but brought myself up short. No time right now. She disappeared into the crowd.

I saw people working on Papas and the wrist-dads were falling to the street steadily. Confused at how they were doing that, I looked closer. Rojer and Fil were handing around a few nano-cutters, making sure people worked fast and handing the tools along. Maybe Fil wasn’t so bad.

Melisa fired her Keeper into the sky. She yelled at the top of her lungs. “Listen!”

Everyone quieted fast. “Everyone stop taking your Papas off! You have to let the Bug leave your system first.” Understanding washed across the people and most everyone bent to pick their Papa back up. “But we have to get out of here. Spread the word. Get on cycles and use Enforser pods. Do whatever, but run!” People still stood there, not moving.

They had to know more. “The Prime Administrator wasn’t real. The real one is named Adam Holland. He made the Bug. He’s controlling everything and he can’t afford to let anyone from New Frisko get to any other cities in the New Chapter. He sent something to kill us all. We have to go, but don’t let the knockout hit you. Move!”