Fugitive X (21 page)

Cass kneeled next to Farryn’s head and laid a hand on his shoulder. She put her other hand on his forehead and brushed his hair back from his eyes. “Can you give him something for the pain?” she said to the medic.

The medic shook her head. “We’re in the woods, not a hospital,” she said. “I’ve got very little.”

“It’s okay,” Farryn whispered. He put his hand over Cass’s and held it on his shoulder. “Just stay here, okay?”

Cass nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Third-degree burns, deep-tissue laceration,” the medic said quietly to herself. “Heat cauterized the bleeding but caused extensive muscle damage.” She stood up, sighing. “I’ve
got a bit of antibiotic I can spare. We’ll keep it clean and hopefully stave off infection until we can get to a Freepost, where I can do more.”

Cass stood and whispered, “Is he going to be okay?”

The medic stepped away from Farryn and dug through her pack, pulling out an injector. She hesitated, then pulled out a second injector. “If he stays out of shock, and survives the night, and avoids infection, he’ll pull through.” She bent down and injected Farryn on the hip with the first shot. “Antibiotic,” she said. Then she gave him the second injection. Within a few moments of the second shot, Farryn’s body relaxed, his breathing slowed, and he slumped back, closing his eyes. “Painkiller and sedative. Won’t last the night, but at least he’ll have a few quiet hours.” She squatted and took another look at his leg, then stood. “The leg’s gotta go,” she said. “No way to avoid that, unless you’ve got a rejuve tank you’re hiding somewhere. I’d just like to get him to a Freepost first, so I don’t have to amputate out here in the woods.”

KEVIN LAY ON HIS BUNK. HE AND THE OTHER BOYS HAD THE MORNING
off work—a rare break. He thought he might sleep in, but he had too many thoughts churning through his mind. The Governor was Dr. Winston. Dr. Winston was his grandfather. The man who had basically created the bots. Kevin didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t know what to do next.

His grandfather seemed content hiding in the woods tinkering with his bots, but Kevin didn’t have time to just sit around the Island and wait for him to change his mind. Kevin’s brother and sister were out in the woods somewhere, looking for him. And his parents were still stuck in the City, his mother still—hurt. Kevin felt a wave of sadness. Did his
mother remember him yet? He had to leave, whether or not his grandfather wanted him to.

It would be a whole lot easier if he could convince his grandfather to open the gates and let him walk out, though, since he still hadn’t figured out how to disarm or bypass the perimeter alarm.

Otter interrupted Kevin’s thoughts with his usual wakeup, dumping Kevin out of bed. “Up,” he said. “The girls are waiting for us at the mess hall. Wex said Becca likes your face, for some reason, so you gotta be there.”

Kevin pushed himself to his feet. He didn’t even know which one Becca was; he had only seen the girls a few times and had barely spoken to any of them. He didn’t like the sound of this.

He tried to think of something to say to Otter that would get him out of the breakfast. Maybe that he wasn’t feeling well? Otter would just laugh or punch him. Or both, most likely.

The ground shook and he heard a muffled boom in the distance. “What the hell was that?” he said.

Otter, Pil, and Cort were already throwing on clothes. Kevin quickly put on a shirt and pants, stepped into his boots without lacing them, and followed the others out the door.

Smoke was rising from the direction of the mess hall. Islanders were running toward the smoke. Otter took off at a dead sprint, and Kevin and the others followed.

Kevin followed the path around a corner and skidded
to a halt. The mess hall was gone. In its place was burning wreckage.

A crowd was starting to gather, including a handful of bots, one of which Kevin recognized as 23. What had happened? A bomb? Among the crowd were the orphan girls, all except Wex. One girl was screaming and pointing at the remains of the mess hall. “Wex was inside! The bots blew it up!”

Otter rushed toward the wreckage, but 23 stepped forward and grabbed him as he ran past, roughly stopping him in his tracks. “It is not safe,” said 23.

“Wex is in there!” Otter said, grabbing 23’s arm. “Let me go!”

“There has been an accident,” said 23. “It is not safe to enter right now.”

“It wasn’t an accident!” said the girl. “Two bots were working on the mess hall gridlines and then they started running and then it exploded!”

“I repeat,” said 23, “there has been an accident, a malfunction of the power grid—”

Otter struggled against the bot, which continued to hold him tight. “I said let me go, you damned bot!” said Otter. His face was bright red, a mask of exertion and rage. He balled his right hand into a fist and slammed it into a leather patch on 23’s cheek. 23 staggered back a step, its head whiplashing,
but it didn’t release Otter. There was a crackle of energy, a brief flare of light from 23’s hand, and Otter fell to the ground, convulsing.

“I regret having to take coercive measures to restrain you,” said 23.

There was a communal growl of outrage from the gathered crowd, which pressed forward, and the five bots gathered closer to each other, facing the people. “The remaining Island robots will be arriving shortly,” began 23, and then someone threw a rock that hit 23 in the face, and that was the trigger that released the Islanders’ anger.

The crowd rushed the bots, and the air crackled with energy from stun blasts. Men and women went down, but there were too many Islanders for the bots to stop, and they were overpowered, disappearing under a tangle of flailing, screaming, growling people.

Kevin saw 23 taken down by four men. They were kicking it and one was pounding a rock, repeatedly, on 23’s flattened face. “Stop!” Kevin screamed. He tried to push his way through the crowd, but he was knocked down in the chaos, someone’s elbow landing hard on his forehead.

Kevin tried to stand, but he kept getting jostled. Through the crowd he saw 23’s arms reach up and twitch spastically, then flop lifelessly to the ground, while the Islander continued to pound its face with the rock. “Stop!” Kevin cried again,
finally pushing through the crowd and approaching where 23 lay on the ground. Its arms gave one last twitch, and then the bot stopped moving completely. Kevin felt sick as he took in the bot’s flattened face. It was over.

NICK RAN FRANTICALLY THROUGH THE CAMPSITE, CALLING OUT HIS
sister’s name, and Lexi’s, and Farryn’s. Finally he heard Lexi say, “Over here!” and he rushed over to the medic, dizzy with relief.

His relief vanished when he saw Farryn. He was lying on the ground, asleep or unconscious, his head in Cass’s lap. He looked pale, and his breathing was shallow, and his right leg was bandaged from the knee down.

Lexi stood and hugged him tightly. Cass remained on the ground with Farryn, but she did give him a brief, weak smile.

“What happened?” he said. “How bad is he hurt?”

“A sphere bot,” said Lexi. “I shot it, and one of the rebels shot it too, and it exploded on Farryn.”

“He shielded me from the explosion,” said Cass. “The medic said he’s going to lose his leg.”

“Rust,” whispered Nick.

“What about you?” said Lexi. “What happened? How many bots were there?”

“Five or six,” said Nick. “We took them down.” He no longer had any desire to rehash the battle.

Nick wanted to hear more about Farryn’s injury, but Ro strode up and grabbed Nick roughly on the shoulder. “Come with me,” he said. He nodded at Cass and Lexi. “You two also.”

“What’s going on?” said Nick.

Ro started walking without answering. Nick and Lexi followed, and after Cass carefully extracted herself from Farryn, she joined them. Ro led them back to the creek bed, where a group of ten rebels, and Erica, were waiting. Two men were holding Erica by her forearms. Her jaw was set hard—she looked so angry that Nick wouldn’t have been surprised if she tried to take on all the rebels herself. All their packs—Erica’s, Lexi’s, Farryn’s, Cass’s, and Nick’s—lay piled in a heap, opened, their few belongings scattered in the dirt.

“Scan them,” said Ro. “Thoroughly. Slowly. Don’t miss an inch. Nick first.”

“I’ve already been scanned,” said Nick. One of the rebels stepped forward with the scanner. He bent down and began very slowly moving the scanner up Nick’s left leg. “You don’t
trust me?” said Nick. “Without me, the bots would have killed all of you today!”

“Or maybe without you, the bots would never have found us in the first place,” said Ro. “I saw that bot hold its fire. It had you dead, and then it scanned you, and it didn’t take the shot. Why is that?” He pointed at Cass. “And your sister, who you rescued so easily from the bots . . . Odd that the bots find us as soon as she enters camp, isn’t it?”

Nick shook his head. It didn’t make any sense, it was true, the bot not killing him. And Cass, the way she had been just waiting for him outside the City . . . He hated himself for thinking it, but he couldn’t help it . . . Was she helping the bots track them somehow? Maybe a chip, an undetectable chip, that she didn’t know about?

“I’m not a traitor,” he said. “And neither is my sister.” The rebel finished scanning Nick’s left leg and started on the right. “I hate the bots as much as you do,” said Nick.

“Maybe,” said Ro.

The scan had moved on to Nick’s torso. The man slowly dragged it over Nick’s chest, then his back, then his neck and head, lingering over Nick’s bot eye. Finally he pulled the scanner away. “Clean,” he said to Ro.

“See?” said Nick.

“Now the sister,” said Ro.

The rebel began scanning Cass. “Don’t even think about collaring me again,” Cass said.

“Be quiet,” Ro said. “I lost three more fighters today, and I’ll do whatever I have to, whether you like it or not.”

“If you collar my sister again, you’ll regret it,” said Nick, taking a step toward Ro. Two rebels grabbed his arms and pulled him back. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Ro gave a short, humorless chuckle but otherwise ignored Nick.

Cass was carefully scanned and declared clean. “Scan her again,” said Ro. The rebel repeated the scan. “Still clean,” he said.

Lexi went next, and then it was Erica’s turn.

“You know I’m clean, Ro,” Erica said. She appeared calm, but Nick thought something else flickered on her face—was it fear?

The scan moved slowly up the front of her right leg, then down the back, then moved to the other leg. Erica shifted her weight. “Don’t move,” said the man running the scanner. He ran it slowly up her left thigh as Erica watched. The man paused, and Erica stepped away. “I said don’t move,” he said.

“I told you I’m clean!” she said.

“Do we need to hold you down, or will you stand still?” said Ro.

Erica crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Ro, then after a moment stepped back to the scanner. The rebel returned to her left thigh, holding it in one spot, staring at the display. “Ro, this is interesting,” he said, beginning to stand. Erica
kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling backward, and turned to run. She made it past two rebels taken by surprise at her quickness, but one of the faster men grabbed her before she slipped past, and quickly two others had grabbed hold and pushed her to the ground. One set his knee on the back of her neck, another held her arms, the third pinned her legs.

“Let me up!” she growled.

Ro helped the man who had run the scanner to his feet. His lip was swollen and cut, his cheekbone bruised. “What did you find?” Ro asked him.

“Left thigh, close to the surface. Scanner doesn’t recognize it as a bug, but it is reading as something foreign.”

“Bone implant, from an old injury,” said Erica, her voice muffled by the men on top of her.

Ro raised an eyebrow at the man who had been kicked. The man was gingerly touching his face. He shook his head. “No, don’t think so,” he said. “Too close to the surface.”

“Turn her onto her right side and hold her tight,” said Ro. He nodded at the man. “Show me the exact spot.”

“Enough!” said Nick, struggling against the men holding him. They were too strong.

“Stay out of this, Nick,” said Ro.

Erica fought, grunting and growling with the effort, but there were too many rebels holding her down and they managed to push her onto her side and hold her immobile. She tried to bite one man’s forearm, but she couldn’t move her
head enough. “Help me,” she said, managing to twist her head enough to look at Nick.

Nick had to do something. He couldn’t just watch this happening. He pulled hard against the grip of the men holding him, but a third man joined them and he was pinned tight. He gritted his teeth, helpless. “Let her go,” he said.

Ro unsheathed a hunting knife—Erica’s knife, Nick realized, and sliced open the side of Erica’s pants, revealing her thigh. The rebel ran the scanner over the exposed skin, then pointed at a spot halfway between her knee and hip. Without hesitating, Ro cut into Erica’s leg and gouged the tip of the blade underneath the skin. Erica cried out and tried to thrash, but she was held tight. Blood flowed down her leg, and Ro moved the blade carefully, gently, digging into the wound, and Erica groaned, and then with a flick of Ro’s wrist a small square piece of metal popped out of Erica’s leg and landed on the dirt.

Ro picked it up and cleaned it off on Erica’s pants, then handed it to the scanner, who held it up to the light. He studied it for a moment, then said, “Yup, it’s a bot comm chip. Seems to have some sort of coating on it, must be to cloak it, but it’s definitely a chip.”

Nick stopped struggling. He stared down at Erica, at her leg seeping blood, at her face, now pale, being pressed into the ground. Had Lexi been right all along?

“Stand her up,” said Ro.

The men hauled Erica roughly to her feet. Erica stood straight, returning Ro’s stare. “Well?” he said.

“The bots have my brother,” she said. “He’s all I have left, and they’ll kill him if I don’t help them.” She spit blood on the ground; her lip had been split. “Any one of you would have done the same.” She turned to Nick. “I’m sorry,” she said.