“Hello, darling,” Dia crooned from her lounge chair, oblivious to the frigid weather in jeans and a denim shirt. Behind her, the deck ended at a railing like the prow of a ship, the light swallowed by a wooded ravine beyond.
The tang of fear burned the back of my throat, the morning chill biting through my hoodie. Or maybe that was the icicle tiptoeing down my spine at Dia sitting there—very much not dead in the street, her brains not painting the inside of a panel van. She must have been piloting a mechanical bot all along.
“I-I thought you were human," I said. "That you hated using bots.”
She propped herself up on one arm, her gray mullet stirring in the breeze. “Just a story I created. A myth. To make my enemies think me lesser, come at me with the wrong gun. You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Her eyes shone with an unnerving zeal. “We all have our place in the hierarchy, yes? The Otokotronics bosses, the big bad men—they accept me when the church does not. But they require submission. You know submission, darling?”
I gulped, practically vibrating from the hammering in my chest. I wasn’t submitting to anything with this lady. “What do you want?”
Her scowl hardened. “Is it not obvious? I made mistakes, yes. But the bosses, they are wise. They forgive. I only need bring back the Talisman, make amends for letting it get away. They will take me back along with it.”
The other houses were set deep in their lots, just inky silhouettes at this hour. It was unclear if anyone would hear me scream. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Keep your voice down, darling. A little birdie whispered in my ear. I followed the policeman out front, the traitor from Executive Guard.”
My throat felt like it was closing up. “You know him. Stanton. From Otokotronics.”
“I know the bearded flesh twin who put bullets in me, who killed my men. Eye for eye is only fair, wouldn’t you say? I will visit them both after I'm done here.”
My skin crawled. So Athleisure was a bot made in Stanton’s image? His twin from Executive Guard? I was right. They were working together after all. Shit. If this was true, we couldn’t trust Stanton with anything. I had to warn Laramee. But first, I had to get out of here. “Listen, I don’t have the Talisman. I’m looking for it too.”
“You’re looking like the girl who had it.” Dia slid to her feet, the butt of a gun peeking from the small of her back. She drifted toward me, scanning the houses—the gleam of metal gaping from the side of her head where Athleisure had shot her.
“But I’m not her,” I said, quivering. “She’s my clone. Or I’m her—She’s a bot! You know bots? Like you? Like the flesh twin. Please, I just need to go—”
“You’re not going anywhere, darling.” She stepped around the prone LYPD officer, her cross earrings swaying.
I set my jaw, my pulse galloping. “I’ll scream. Stanton will hear.”
“Your big police men are receiving calls now concerning their children. They will not be coming. But you must know … the rumors of my cruelty are untrue. More myths, necessary for the men to take me seriously. No, violence is only a means. A tool.” She glided forward with a frown, her hands hovering. “But a good toolbox, darling—it has many tools.”
A barn owl’s screech pierced the night, and the pit in my stomach quadrupled in size. The motion-activated deck light chose that moment to click off, plunging us into blackness.
Dia’s silhouette drew near. Her hand went behind her back.
Every muscle in my body tensed. I stumbled back in the dark, my heel catching on the decking—her hand coming up near my elbow.
“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked, slapping away her arm as somehow a … switch flipped in my head. Tiny snapping arcs of light sparked from my robot fingertips and connected with her skin as if I’d dragged my feet on carpet, my vision crackling with color again like something was glitching out. The sensation in my hand wasn’t just a crackle though. There was a sense of something flowing through me. Like an electrical charge. Like with Mom’s jacket.
Stolen story; please report.
Dia lurched back, the whites of her eyes shining in the dark. “W-what did you just …”
My own eyes, just as round, bounced from my hand to Dia’s shadow. Whatever that was, I knew an opportunity when I saw one.
So I leaned in, teeth set, and planted my gunmetal fingers against her chest. Then I turned my focus inward, flipping that switch again and pushing every last ounce of energy into my hand.
Nothing happened.
Dread’s iron fist gripped my lungs. Dia barked out a laugh.
No, you know what lady? Screw you. I gathered my strength and lunged at her, giving her a hearty shove with both hands.
She went flailing backward, arms windmilling—until her metal skull met the railing with a satisfying thunk and she ragdolled to the deck.
I raced past her bot, vaulted over the railing, and barreled into the black of the ravine.
My eyesight was still messed up, flashes of color in my peripheral. And as I strained to make out trees in the dark, another part of my mind I hadn’t noticed before opened up, flooding my vision with amber and lavender tones.
Gnarled, false-color trees stood before me as I fled, almost as plain as day.
#
Twenty minutes later, Laramee still wasn’t picking up.
I squeezed the burner phone until it creaked, stomping through dead-of-night Las Yerbas sprawl, already nearly at Bayside. I’d escaped from Dia, no thanks to my surprise electro fingers, barely navigating the ravine with my super timely infrared vision. And now Laramee couldn’t be bothered to answer his fricking phone. Day or night, my shiny robot ass. But if I ditched the burner to avoid being tracked, I’d really never reach him—or anyone else.
A wall of lunch spots hugged the sidewalk, everything dark except a digital construction sign flashing BRIDGE CLOSED USE ALTERNATE ROUTES. I limped past, guilty as sin.
It was risky being out at this hour without a hand cannon or a linebacker of a best friend, but it wasn’t like the buses were running. I had to get to Bayside and find this nonsense texter and the Talisman. Every minute counted—unless I was already too late. A world without Mom was impossible to imagine. Except how could I save her by myself?
I slicked my fingertips on a bike rack pebbled with dew, scanning an alley with my newfound infrared layered over the visible spectrum. Maybe it was the nuke that had unlocked these new … abilities in me. I wouldn’t have had to use them though if all six plus feet of Matt had my back. But he didn’t—and might never again. At that thought, a pang sucked at my chest, a caving inward of my heart.
No, I needed to focus on what I could control now. Dia made it sound like Stanton was originally from Otokotronics’ Executive Guard where Athleisure had been cloned. So would Stanton alert Laramee of my escape—or Athleisure? I shivered, sparing a glance back. It was the right call to run. If Laramee wasn’t answering though, I should let someone know about my plans. But there was only one number I’d memorized beside Mom’s.
I sighed, tapping out a text to Matt, no doubt asleep.
me: hey it’s you know who
me: just fyi I’m heading back to that building
me: looking for asshole texter
I made myself backspace over not that you’d care as soon as I typed it. I couldn’t get sucked back into that drama now.
When I reached Bayside’s main drag, the office building loomed large in predawn shadow, the plaza’s tasteful uplights dark at this hour. No sign of the rooftop helicopter. The building’s front door would be locked tight, security on high alert after my armed dumpster larceny. And even if Garrett could get me in using some incredibly relevant manual he’d forgotten to mention, I still didn’t have his number.
I was on my own. Just an artificial person trying to single-handedly save my human mother while on the run from an interdimensional megacorporation.
Jeez, I was a robot. The vertigo from the bay threatened to bubble up again as I diverted to the alley hugging the building, the same one I’d ridden out of in a dumpster just yesterday.
As I crept toward the garage door, my neck tingled and I stopped cold—because the watchful eye of a red-ringed camera shone from above.
Shit. There was no way in without being seen. I banged out a text to the 395 number.
me: I’m at your building but there are cameras everywhere
No response. A chill wind whispered through the alley, stirring wayward receipts.
Then the camera winked out and, with a deep thrumming, the garage door rolled upward.