My shins throbbed as my boots pounded the unlit sidewalk. Silhouettes of houses and trees flew past, shadows in the night air. I focused on Matt’s labored breathing and the drumming against my ribs. It seemed like we’d been running forever, but it’d probably only been like ten minutes.

The amber glow of suburbia beckoned ahead, street lights bringing welcome shape to the night. We slowed to a trot in a neighborhood with speed bumps and verdant lawns, estates deep in their lots. A coupe worth years of rent lounged on a flagstone driveway beneath a Juliet balcony.

Oh my God, we’d made it out. The inky wall of black from the EMP lingered behind us like the line between day and night on another planet. I couldn’t shake the image of Garrett smashing to the ground, completely shot to shit. After everything today, this was beyond too much. Why the hell had we gone back to that alley?

Matt stopped in his tracks in the shadow of a tree, gasping for air, his hand to his ribs. “I … feel like … I’m gonna hur—” He turned and emptied his stomach into the gutter.

I padded to a halt and slung my trembling hands behind my neck, panting. “Are you okay?” We would’ve heard them if they were chasing us, right?

“Urrrgh.”

The street was dead, not even a leaf stirring. “What are we gonna do? We can’t stay here.”

He bent over, his hands on his knees. “Gimme … a minute.”

Matt had that same lost look in his eyes as when he climbed the flagpole in third grade and wouldn’t come down. When I’d clambered up beside him to introduce myself, talk him back to Earth for half my PB&J.

Only now, I needed someone to talk me down. I swallowed the panic threatening to bubble up, my legs weak from adrenaline come-down. “We should let Garrett know we’re alright.”

Matt straightened, shoving his hair from his eyes. “I just wish … I could’ve done something to keep you safe … since RoboCop sure didn’t.”

“How chivalrous of you. I’m pretty sure Stanton couldn’t use that EMP without taking out himself.” He’d really been freaking out, like he was having a bad flashback or something.

Matt’s breath was shallow as he stepped into the light of a street lamp, one side of his polo saturated with damp crimson.

My belly filled with dread. “Matt! You’re bleeding!”

He looked down, aghast, pressing a hand to his side and touching his fingers to his lips. His expression softened. “Pizza sauce. Pretty good too.”

Oh, thank God. I let out a yelp of relief and ran over to hug him with both arms.

Matt’s face turned a color not dissimilar to the sauce.

I shoved him away and socked him in the shoulder. “Don’t freak me out like that!”

He toed the sidewalk. “I just … I felt useless there, you know? I was so scared. All I had was Garrett’s knife from the coffee shop….” He looked up, his eyes hard and glossy.

A wave of guilt hit me. It was my fault Matt had been in danger. Things could’ve gone really bad. I squeezed his arm. “Any time killer robots are shooting at us, you’re the person armed with a three-inch blade I want by my side.”

He smiled, fighting a frown. “Thanks.”

“One question though. What the hell did you see in that dumpster?” Maybe there was a silver lining, something important to tell Mom.

He spread his hands. “Nothing.”

Was this the setup for a joke? “That’s what you couldn’t wait to tell me?”

“No, it was nothing. The dumpster was straight-up empty.”

He didn’t look like he was joking. “It was clearly full of stuff when I was in it before the gunfight. You sure it was empty empty? It was kinda dark.”

Matt pawed at the sauce on his shirt, making matters worse. “I was hiding near the fence, right? And I saw light through a hole in the dumpster. So I squeezed past something wet to look inside and the dumpster was empty, Ko. For real. But in my extensive experience, trash doesn’t disappear on its own.” He registered my expression. “I know how it sounds! But I swear the dumpster felt … warm. And there was that giant fricking EMP.”

“So?” Had Matt hit his head in the dark? “It was a burst of electromagnetism—not a magic trash wormhole. You’re taking the same Physics class I am.”

“Yeah, and I spend most of it doodling elaborate stick man fights.”

“That … explains a lot.” A siren moaned in the distance. We were staying here too long. “Hey, can you text Garrett? My phone’s still rebooting.”

“I, er, don’t have a phone at the moment.”

“I saw you with it in the alley.”

“Sooo … when we were taking cover from the cops, I started recording video. You know, so they’d maybe think twice before arresting us. But then I got worried they’d just take my phone. And I, uh, may have stuffed it into the dumpster’s railing. So they couldn’t. I wasn’t thinking real clearly. Adrenaline is a helluva drug.”

“Wow.” Matt’s logic was sometimes … astounding. My own phone, finally rebooted, showed missed calls from Mom—and a text from Garrett demanding to know if we were alive. I banged out a response to him.

me: we’re okay

me: I sorta accidentally emped the whole alley

me: including you and stanton and the suv dudes

me: laramee tried to grab us and we had to run

me: sorry

Matt shook out a sandal. “I guess we go home now and call the cops?”

I didn’t get his fascination with the police. “The cops were there, Matt. I need to talk to my mom. I think … I think she was right. I probably should’ve let her take care of this to begin with.”

He nodded sagely. “Wise words. If only someone had advised you of that before the shooting started.”

I gave him a mock death glare. “We can still research this Otokotronics company on our own, figure out how they have all this crazy tech.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Matt’s hand went for his phone—before realization flickered through his eyes.

I raised an eyebrow, which he met with a dour look. “Well,” I said, “some of us can research it.”

The wind picked up and cut through my hoodie. I shivered, flipping my wrist to check the time—only to recall I’d lost my watch.

Matt crooked an eyebrow of his own.

I pretended to ignore him. “We’re not far from the alley. We should get going.”

#

Matt left his RV where he’d parked it and we took separate buses home. When I got to my front door, I steadied myself on the stone facade outside, just letting my lungs fill. I’d promised Matt I’d talk to Mom if he’d hold off on calling the cops, which had seemed like a good deal at the time. Except we’d just survived a shoot-out with robots, and now I had to tell my mother about it.

I had that fluttering, helpless feeling in my belly, of life slipping out of control. After tonight, after almost getting murdered, I was over Las Yerbas. Dealing with the mounting threats wasn’t like a homework problem after all. I couldn’t logic my way out, and I was done with dark alleys.

I let myself in and shut the door behind me, wincing at the click as I crept into our apartment. My hands had finally stopped shaking, a nice change of pace. I should be freaking out more after surviving a shoot-out, right? Maybe that was coming. Or maybe I was made for this whole getting chased by robots lifestyle.

Mom would be waiting for me in her room, stewing. But she’d understand once she saw the video with Ko Prime—and heard about my evening. I had it all planned out, a carefully crafted narrative to trigger minimum outrage and maximum action. We could finally go somewhere safe.

In the darkened kitchen, the coffee maker’s LED shed a cool blue over the counters and fridge. My little power outage hadn’t made it this far. And, huh, was that a faint scent of sencha? The reading lamp shone in the living room, casting long shadows behind the futon. Mom probably left it on so I wouldn’t have to stumble around in the—

“Ko!” Mom shouted from the living room.

I nearly jumped out of my boots.

She dashed over to pull me in for a tight hug, warm and soft and smelling of lavender face lotion. “I was so worried! You weren’t answering your phone.” She held me at arm’s length, her face lined with concern. “You’re okay?”

My mind whirled, suddenly unsure of where to begin. I felt an urge to spill about the gunfight, to tell her how scared I was. To get her admonishments and reassurances, to cry in her embrace. But … that wasn’t the right place to start. “I’m okay, Mom.”

“Good.” Her gaze skipped over my bandaged hand as she paced back to the living room, lowering herself into the armchair. An ominous tone crept into her voice. “Come. Sit down.”

I sighed inwardly. Based on hard-won experience, my best bet was to keep things brief, get right to the punishment so we could move on. I slid off my boots and padded after her.

On the carpet beside Mom’s chair, there was a chipped mug and a splayed paperback, something about labor history. The espresso-colored media center behind her was an obelisk in the gloom, the TV a window into night.

“I know,” I said. “I’m grounded. I went out when you said not to. So how many weeks is it?” Not that grounded would have a lot of meaning from a Motel 6 in Union City.

Mom looked up with tired eyes, graying hair escaping her bun in the lamp’s glare. She had on one of her oversized band tees, faded to near illegibility. “Hold your horses. I had a whole speech prepared about respect and responsibility. I even wrote most of it myself. You can’t just skip to the being grounded part.”

Any enthusiasm I had for confiding in her was rapidly evaporating. But I couldn’t let that stop me. “Mom, I’m tired. I had a really long day. How many weeks is it?”

“Please, sit down.” There was an edge to her voice. “We need to talk.”

I dragged my hands down my face, slumping onto the futon. Why’d she always have to make this a thing?

“Thank you. I’ll spare you the speech. Well, most of it. Responsibility, respect. Both important. You know I’m always in your corner and that’s why I want you safe. Etcetera.” She paused, her brows drawn. “But what I want to talk about now is the game system.”

My arm hair stood on end. Crap. I was already losing control of the narrative. What did she know? “The game system?”

“Yes, dear.” She slid the console out from under her chair, fixing me with a knowing look. “You may recall using up all our aluminum foil on it.”

What the hell was she doing going through my stuff? I unclenched my teeth, keeping my voice neutral. “What do you wanna talk about it?”

“I know what it is, Ko.”

She must’ve plugged it in. My pulse thumped in time to the bass from next door. “You do?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes hooded, “because I used to work with the woman who designed it.”

My eyebrows reached for the roof. “When did this happen?”

“At the company I worked for when you were little.”

When we were with Dad. “Lemme guess. Otokotronics.”

Now it was Mom’s turn to do a double take—melting into a flash of anger. She levered forward, her fingers squeezing her chair. “Where did you hear that name?”

I leaned back on the futon, draping an arm along the top. “Why’d you go through my stuff?” Or did Matt, in his haste, leave the console sitting out?

“Uh uh.” She waggled a finger. “We’re way past the point where you get to be outraged about privacy violations. You need to tell me where you got the console.”

We were getting off track. “First, I wanna know why it has a video of a girl with my face. Who was she?”

“Believe me, I’m trying to figure that out myself. I truly didn’t know that girl existed until you found her.”

Riiight. “So you’ve seen the video? The bearded guy from the alley is looking for me now. He said so himself. Matt and I were trying to get audio from my watch to prove it, but then things got real crowded in the alley and we had to run in the dark….” Shit, I was babbling. I blinked back the heat behind my eyes as Mom gave me a look of concerned befuddlement. Maybe my day was catching up with me after all. “What’s the game system even for? Why the hell does it control a fricking robot?”

She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “The answer to that is … complicated. It was originally for entertainment like any game system, but with more advanced communications tech. It sounds like you’ve figured out the game avatar is real—a mechanical robot, far beyond the capabilities of anything you’ve seen. We can get into the details, but right now I need to know where this particular console came from. Please, Ko, our lives could depend on it.”

I threw my hands up. She wasn’t leaving this alone. At least she recognized the danger now. “I found it in the dumpster with my dead twin. You know, the one you’ve totally never heard of.”

Mom had the good grace to give me a brief look of guilt.

I knew she was hiding something. “Why do our lives depend on a game system from the same dumpster I found her in?”

“The console you found is almost certainly owned by Otokotronics, as is the bot it controls. And they won’t let a couple under-supervised high school kids take their stuff.”

My teeth hurt from clenching and the rotten one throbbed. That gunfight in the alley, the bullets picking at Garrett’s robot. I had a real idea of how dangerous Otokotronics was. They must’ve been the ones moving electronics, these game systems. “But what do you have to do with all this? Is it what you’ve been afraid of all week?”

Mom’s eyes flickered. “I’m afraid they’ll use this console you brought home to find us.”

All those surprise road trips and motel stays over the years … This Otokotronics was bad news. But maybe it was the push we needed to leave for good. I could fill in Mom on the road. “If this company is still so determined to find you years later, how have we stayed out of their reach until now? And, like, why are we still here talking about it?”

She swept back a lock of hair, frowning. Her gaze fell to her lap.

“Mom!” I was seriously going to flip a table if she didn’t tell me what was going on, and we didn’t even own a table. I vaulted from the futon and thrust my phone at her. “I’m grounding myself, starting now, unless you tell me how you’re involved.”

She ignored my outstretched hand, her arm hung over the side of her chair, nails ticking the mug. Finally she nodded to herself as if making a decision.

“There’s something we need to talk about first.” She slid her chair to face me, angling forward with a tight frown, her eyes dark hollows. “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for quite a while. It’s just … never been the right time. It has to do with why Otokotronics hasn’t been able to track me down. Why you won’t find anything about them online. And how these consoles control advanced robots.”

My gut roiled. Something about her tone, the pent-up emotion behind it. “What is it?” I whispered, my hands loose in my hoodie’s pockets.

Mom let out a ragged breath as her gaze crept up to meet mine, her eyes glassy with guilt and sorrow.

“Ko,” she said, her pale fingers curling over the arms of her chair, “I’m not from this world—and neither are you.”