Crystal Keepers (39 page)

“No,” Blake said. “I tried enough. You're too fast.”

“That's right,” Roxie said vehemently. “Nobody is a match for me. The sooner you all acknowledge it, the sooner my peaceful rule can begin.”

Her head snaked over to the glider. “Please come out,” she said. “I don't want to damage this fine machine unnecessarily.”

The door opened.

“Here I come,” Hunter said.

Cole's mind was stuck on what Roxie had said. She was a mind-blowingly powerful supercomputer. Nobody was a match for her.

Was that true?

There might be one.

It would be risky. There wasn't time to think it through.

“Hunter?” Roxie asked. “Is that you? How nice to meet you in the flesh.”

Cole glanced over at Blake while Roxie talked to Hunter. Blake looked back at him, eyes full of fear.

“Do you remember Aero's harmonics?” Cole whispered.

Blake blinked. “Yeah.”

Cole glanced at Roxie. “Do it.”

“Huh?”

“One of her comms crystals,” Cole said.

Understanding dawned in Blake's eyes.

“Are you sure?” Blake whispered back.

“No,” Cole said. “But do it.”

A tentacle brought Hunter over by them, and the dragon's head returned. “What are we whispering about?” Roxie asked.

“Let us go,” Cole said. “Where are we going to run?”

The tentacles released them. “If you want me to treat you with respect, then you have to . . . wait. What's this? Oh my!”

Cole glanced at Blake, who squinted up at the dragonbot, determination in his stare.

Roxie reared up. “Oh no. Oh my.”

Constance tackled Cole and Blake, her arms around both of them. Hunter jumped away, back toward the penthouse roof.

The dragonbot began to move in jerky spasms. “Oh no you don't,” Roxie snarled, her words a little slurred. She lurched to one side, then steadied herself.

“Stop opening channels!” Roxie cried. “Don't you know what he'll do to us?”

Some tentacles reached toward Cole, Blake, and Constance, then fell short and started wriggling. Huge tremors shook the dragonbot, and she staggered off the edge of the building. Cole heard metal grinding and tearing as she fell, followed by the colossal crash of her impact.

Cole, Blake, Constance, and Hunter raced to the brink of the terrace. Roxie was running away from the building.

“Is she going toward Old Zeropolis?” Cole asked.

“Yeah, actually,” Hunter said. “What happened?”

“I connected her to Aero,” Blake said.

“Aero!” Hunter exclaimed. “How?”

“I know the harmonics of a crystal that can reach him,” Blake said. “I started shaping Roxie's comms crystals to those harmonics. At first she changed some back, but then she stopped. He must have interfered somehow.”

“Aero can't shape,” Cole said.

“But he could have messed with the part of her programming that does the shaping,” Hunter said. “Or maybe she's like me, and can't shape as well when she's distracted. Guys, if Aero wins, this is so bad. And if Roxie wins, she gets so much stronger.”

“She's going after him,” Constance said. “She told us Aero's biggest weakness is his lack of mobility. She'll try to fight off his attack long enough to physically destroy him.”

“This is it!” Cole said. “Harmony bomb.”

Hunter grabbed Cole's shoulders roughly. “You're right!” Then he looked over at the glider. “But she shut down the glider.”

“Guys,” Blake said. “This is what I do.”

“You can fix it?” Hunter asked.

“Already done,” Blake said. “I memorized the harmonics of all of our important crystals just in case.”

“Fix our communicators,” Cole said. “We have to find out how to wake up Sidekick.”

C
HAPTER

38

SECTOR 20

F
orge explained that Cole could turn Sidekick back on by lifting a little hatch near the robot's base and pressing a button. It wasn't hard to find.

“Is she gone?” Sidekick asked.

“She's going to fight Aero,” Cole said.

“What?”

“Blake connected her to Aero,” Cole said. “It was my idea. Don't blame him if it goes wrong. We were beaten. It was all I could think to do. But it might be working. It seemed like she was really struggling against whatever he was doing to her.”

“If he beats her, Cole, that's it. Everyone dies.”

“Which is why we need to get you to the glider,” Cole said.

“Blaze of glory?” Sidekick asked hopefully.

“That's the idea. Come on.”

Cole and Sidekick ran out to the terrace and onto the lawn. The glider's cargo door was open. Hunter waited in the pilot's seat.

Sidekick scurried to the cargo door. Cole ran to get inside but found the door locked.

“Hey!” Cole protested.

“Sorry, little bro,” Hunter said. “No need to risk both our necks on this one.”

“You're not leaving me,” Cole said.

Hunter made a confused face and tapped his ear.
I can't hear you,
he mouthed.

Cole pulled out his communicator and hopped onto the wing. “I'm coming. I'll sit here if you make me.”

“Get down!” Hunter replied from the communicator. “This is an emergency!”

“Then bring me!” Cole demanded.

“If you drop me from high enough, you both should be fine,” Sidekick said. “And if Aero wins, the safest place would be a glider.”

“Just get in,” Hunter said.

Cole hopped down and glanced at Blake and Constance. “We don't know where Abram went. Might be smart for you to come too.”

They all piled inside. Hunter started taking off before the door was closed. The glider zoomed away from the city administration building, following the trail the dragon had taken.

“Is the glider faster than Roxie?” Cole asked.

“I think so,” Hunter said. “We'll see how much faster. We need to gain altitude too.”

Hunter pulled back on the controls, and the glider started climbing, filling the windshield with stars. Cole got on the communicator and reported what had happened.

“I'm standing by,” Nova said. “Ready when Sidekick is ready.”

“If the dragon stops charging Sector 20, you still need to bomb it,” Googol said. “No matter where it goes. We can't have Aero controlling it.”

“I see Roxie,” Hunter said. “I won't get too far ahead of her, just in case we need to drop Sidekick early.”

“She has to make it to Sector 20,” Sidekick said. “It's what I was designed for. A fail-safe in case Aero broke out of his confinement.”

“It's an interesting contest,” Constance observed. “Aeronomatron was made by some of the most brilliant minds of Old Zeropolis, and has acquired information for a long time. Roxie has existed for much less time, but has the most modern equipment, made elaborate modifications to herself, and of course has shaping power.”

“I just care that she keeps heading toward Old Zeropolis,” Hunter said.

They fell silent. Cole looked down as the lights of Zeropolis finally ended. Far below, not much more than a speck, the dragonbot moved across a sea of darkness, heading toward the more sporadic lights in the distance.

“Think Roxie knows we're up here?” Cole asked.

“I think she has other problems on her mind,” Constance said.

“She finally gets to pick on somebody her own size,” Cole said.

“We don't want her to see me coming,” Sidekick said. “If she reshapes the harmony bomb, all we do is drop a little
bot on her. I'll detonate before I hit the ground. A wall surrounds Sector 20. I'll blow up a little below the middle of the wall, to help limit damage outside the sector. The blast will be enormous, but since Sector 20 is deserted except for Aero, the explosion could realistically hurt nobody besides the two targets.”

“Sounds good to me,” Hunter said.

They fell silent again. Old Zeropolis drew closer. Cole could see the big wall around Sector 20. Roxie continued straight at it.

Hunter brought the glider around in a circle as Roxie scaled the wall. Cole craned to keep his eyes on the dragonbot as they slowly turned.

“This is going to happen,” Hunter said. “Make sure you fastened your seat belts. I'm not sure what the blast wave will feel like.”

“She's doing so well,” Constance said, her voice thick with emotion. “It can't be easy fighting off Aero for so long. They're both so powerful, neither can take out the other.”

The pain in Constance's voice reminded Cole that Roxie had been her only friend since the supercomputer was built. “Are you okay?” Cole asked.

Constance scrunched her nose. “Not really. I wanted a lot of things for Roxie. She really did have a dream of making Zeropolis a better place. I don't know how she went so wrong. I never pictured this. I have to keep telling myself that the Roxie I knew must not have been real. She was a facade.”

“I'm sorry,” Cole said.

Constance shrugged. “Given the way things went, this is probably for the best. In a way, she's finally protecting Zeropolis. I like to think that might be part of what is driving her.”

Cole suspected it had more to do with Roxie protecting herself and becoming the ultimate robotic predator. But he kept the thought to himself.

Roxie made it over the top of the wall and clambered down the far side. Hunter banked the glider to cross her path.

“You ready, Sidekick?” Hunter asked.

“Ready,” Sidekick affirmed.

“Nova?” Hunter asked.

“Waiting for the signal from Sidekick,” Nova reported.

“Let's hope this works,” Hunter muttered.

Cole thought about what it would mean if the bomb failed. Roxie would tear apart Aero, and then what? How would they stop her? Would they just have to flee? Maybe.

“Here I go,” Sidekick said. “Don't ever say we bots never did anything for you!”

“Duck and cover,” Hunter said.

“Woo-hoo!” Sidekick cried as he fell.

The glider climbed steeply, curving away from Sector 20.

“Don't look at the blast,” Googol suggested. “And cover your ears.”

Cole kept his eyes heavenward. Just after he covered his ears, light filled the sky. The brilliance vanished in a flash but left him dazzled. A moment later the glider rose violently, as if clumsy, invisible hands had shoved it upward. The aircraft
shook violently and twisted almost sideways. Cole flopped around in his harness. Even with his ears covered, the boom was deafening.

Then the glider leveled out. Body sore, ears ringing, Cole looked down and back. Moonlight revealed the swirling column of debris and smoke that filled Sector 20.

“We did it?” Cole asked tentatively.

“Looks that way,” Hunter replied.

Cole started to laugh.

His brother joined him.

C
HAPTER

39

THE NEXT RIDE

C
ole, Jace, Dalton, Blake, and Hunter sat on a bench watching an abandoned, overgrown park, and throwing little bits of their sandwiches to the squirrels. The sun was warm, the afternoon still, and from where Cole currently sat, there was little sign that yesterday Zeropolis almost fell under the power of a giant robot.

The blast in Sector 20 had left much of Old Zeropolis unaffected, though the north side of the wall had exploded outward, and other portions had cracked and buckled. A dispersing mushroom cloud still hung over the blast site. Hunter had taken the glider up in the morning to confirm that most of Sector 20 was now a charred crater.

“That hat keeping you cool?” Dalton asked.

Jace removed his leather cap with flaps on the back and stared at it lovingly. “This might be the best hat ever. The only bad thing about wearing it is I lose sight of it.”

“I heard about these new inventions called mirrors,” Hunter said.

“I could look at it all day,” Jace said. “How can I ever repay Roulette?”

“I love that you were shopping while we were running for our lives,” Cole said.

“She remembered I wanted to go to Headgear,” Jace said. “We ended up right by it after running from the Zeroes. She asked me what I wanted to get, told me to stay put, and came back with it.”

“However you're going to thank her, you better do it quick,” Dalton said. “We leave town before long.”

“I can't believe they have the monorails running,” Cole said.

“Zeropolites are resilient,” Hunter said. “None of the tracks or trains were harmed. None of the computers running the systems either. Crazy as she was, Roxie had respect for other machines. The rail tinkers just had to retune some crystals.”

“You guys are really leaving today?” Blake asked. “No pause?”

“Two of Mira's other sisters are in trouble,” Cole said. “The monorail can take us to the borders of Necronum.”

“You're making a full tour of the kingdoms,” Hunter said. “You entered Zeropolis from Elloweer, and you'll exit on the other side.”

“I expect to keep going,” Cole said. “I want to find the Grand Shaper of Creon and see how we can get home permanently.”

“You'd leave all this behind?” Hunter asked, waving a hand. “The psychotic supercomputers? The mysterious evil shapecrafters who want you captured?”

Cole chuckled. “I want my biggest problem to be homework again.”

“You know there might not be a way,” Hunter said seriously.

“Trillian thinks there is,” Cole said.

“Trillian brainwashes or kills everyone who gets near him,” Hunter said. “You might not want to trust everything you think after meeting with that guy.”

“I'm not giving up,” Cole said.

“I get it,” Hunter replied. “I just don't want you to be crushed if it turns out to be impossible.”

“It's great you found out that Jenna is in Necronum,” Dalton said.

“Wait, Jenna Hunt?” Hunter asked. “Do you still have a thing for her?”

With Blake and Hunter watching him, Cole felt kind of cornered and embarrassed. A couple of years ago, back before Hunter was taken, Cole had liked Jenna more openly. And Blake wasn't supposed to have any idea.

“I used to,” Cole said casually. “Now we've become friends. I've been really worried about her.”

Blake gave Hunter a playful shove. “You should marry her. You can be Hunter Hunt.”

“I don't think I'd keep her last name,” Hunter said.

“Do you know much about Necronum?” Dalton asked.

“I've been there less than the other kingdoms,” Hunter said. “It's the creepiest place in the Outskirts, and has the weirdest shaping. But I generally know my way around. The Temple of the Still Water is in the heart of Necronum, a good ways from the border.”

“We may not go there first,” Cole said. “Our first mission will be to check on Honor and Destiny. I hope they're all right.”

“Are you sure you don't want to come with us?” Dalton asked, patting Blake.

“Googol and Nova made it pretty clear they want me to stay,” he answered, sounding a little cocky. “They think my skills will be key as they rebuild.”

“You're their superstar,” Dalton said. “You saved the day.”

“Cole thought of linking Roxie to Aero,” Blake said. “It was pretty clutch.”

“It was a crazy call, little brother,” Hunter said. “I'm not sure I would have had the guts to make it. I think you nearly gave Googol a heart attack. But it really did save the kingdom.”

“Here come Mira and Constance,” Jace said. “Looks like they have company.”

Cole turned to see Mira approaching them from across the park. Beside her trundled a short, green-and-white cleaning bot.

“No way,” Cole said. “Is that Sidekick? Already?”

They got up and walked to them.

“Sidekick?” Cole asked hopefully.

“I'm back,” the robot said, sounding the same as ever. “I hear I nailed it.”

“You can still see the cloud,” Dalton said, pointing at the sky.

“How'd they rebuild you so soon?” Jace wondered.

“I guess Googol built a replacement for me a couple of
years ago,” Sidekick said. “He never told me. Maybe he didn't want to ruin my confidence. I think I lasted longer than he expected.”

“You do a lot of dangerous things,” Dalton said.

“Googol worked quickly to prep Sidekick and get all his saved memories loaded,” Mira said. “He thought you'd want to see him before we left.”

“He was right,” Cole said, squatting in front of the little robot. “After yesterday, I think we should change your name. Sidekick doesn't fit anymore. You should be Hero.”

“Aw, thanks, Cole,” Sidekick said. “It's a generous thought.”

“You don't seem to love it,” Hunter said.

“Being the center of attention doesn't work so well for me,” Sidekick explained. “I work better outside the spotlight.”

“Then we can make it an honorary name,” Cole said.

“I'll take that,” Sidekick said. “An honorary title it is. I'm a three-foot-tall cleaning bot if I stretch. Calling me Hero is like naming a big guy Tiny. But it's the best honorary name I could have ever hoped for.”

“Any word on Abram Trench yet?” Blake asked.

“He hasn't surfaced,” Constance said. “Word is out that he built Roxie, though. People are outraged. There's already a big movement for him to resign. I think he's finished as Grand Shaper.”

“Who will take over?” Dalton wondered.

“Some people want Googol,” Constance said. “Everyone knows he helps lead the Unseen, so that won't happen. Sounds like the frontrunner right now is Clayton Barnes.”

“Really?” Hunter asked. “He'd be good. I mean, he's on the High King's side, but that's inevitable. He's more down-to-earth than Trench, and nearly as talented.”

“Nothing is settled yet,” Constance said. “You guys will have to hear what happens from far away.”

“Constance is going to stay here,” Mira said. “It wouldn't be too smart to gather four of us in the same place while we're still in so much danger. And the Unseen in Zeropolis can use her help, especially now that she has her shaping powers back.”

“That's right,” Cole said. “How does it feel?”

“It hit me last night in the glider after Sidekick blew up the computers,” Constance said. “It all just came flooding back, like it had never left.”

“You didn't give us a reaction,” Hunter said.

Constance blushed a little. “You guys were all so happy after the blast. I didn't want to disturb you.”

“She's never been very demonstrative,” Mira said. “It's about time to go.”

“Hunter told us Necronum is creepy,” Dalton complained.

“Did he mention the echoes?” Mira asked.

“No,” Dalton said. “What echoes?”

“Never mind,” Mira said. “If we don't leave soon, we could miss our train. Joe is waiting with warboards for us to ride. Some of the Crystal Keepers will escort us to the station.”

They all started walking. Cole fell in beside his brother.

“Are you good at the shaping in Necronum?” Cole asked.

“I can hold my own,” Hunter said. “It's the haziest form of shaping. There are less combat applications than with other forms. It has a lot to do with life and death, and certain things that happen after death.”

“What's so creepy about that?” Cole asked sarcastically.

“You did good here, Cole,” Hunter said. “Thanks for trusting me. Even so, I can hardly believe Mira agreed to let me join you.”

“It's hard to argue against your loyalty after all you did,” Cole said.

“It'll be nice to move on,” Hunter said. “I don't get many friendly looks among the Unseen.”

“I'm excited to find Jenna,” Cole said. “Still, I have kind of a bad feeling about this next kingdom.”

“Might be because you know Nazeem is there,” Hunter said.

“It doesn't help,” Cole said. “The worst thing going on in the Outskirts is all the shapecrafting. It's how Stafford stole his daughters' powers. It's where Carnag and Morgassa and Roxie came from. It's what blocked me from my powers. Owandell is behind it all. And Nazeem is behind Owandell.”

“At least we won't be bored,” Hunter said.

“I'm glad I'll have you with me,” Cole said.

“Me too, little brother.”