flung myself into a corridor to the side, looking around frantically for Ani. “Ani!!!” I called.
Since it was just me and Ani here, I really only had two options: fight or flight. One was far easier and safer than the other, making my answer obvious.
The robot splashed behind me, nearly close enough to turn into my corridor. “ANI!”
There was the pitter-patter of paws splashing in the water, and a dark shape flew to my side. Ani. Without hesitation, I bent down to touch him, then closed my eyes, focusing on my destination. The splashing noises disappeared, and the air changed. When I opened my eyes, Ani and I were standing safely at the rendezvous point. Sweat dripped down my face and into the waters below, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
That was too close to danger. And I’d been alone, to boot.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, clicking the screen on to check the time. I had fifteen minutes until I was supposed to meet up with Cove.
To pass the time, I stood in a dry area of the room and pulled out the map on my phone, verifying it was as I remembered. When I’d completed my check-through only a few minutes later, confident in my map, I opened up the notes section and began jotting down everything Cove had told me and our conclusions about my dreams.
I flicked both it and the flashlight off when I heard more splashes echo in the passageway, hopeful it was Cove, weary it wasn’t. The noise picked up a sudden burst of speed as Ranch sprinted through, tacking Ani and sending him tumbling into the waters.
I relaxed, flicking the flashlight back on in the direction she’d appeared from. Cove turned into a statue beneath the light, holding a hand over his face with a whispered curse. “Eyes!” He yelped.
I moved the flashlight away, shining it down onto Ani and Ranch instead, allowing Cove’s eyes to adjust.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief and gratitude. “Thank you.”
When he’d fully adjusted, he moved to stand near me, pulling out his own phone. “How’d it go?” He asked conversationally, motioning for me to move my phone closer to his face. I did, letting him add to his map of the complex.
“Didn’t find anything. I did run into another robot at the end, though. Just teleported here.”
Cove adjusted to look me over, scanning for any sign of injury. I waved him off. “I’m fine; we teleported away before there was any trouble.”
Cove smiled proudly, “Good job!”
“Thanks,” I said, without any feeling. Getting praised for running away felt wrong, somehow, though it was the focus of my training so far.
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Cove’s lips twitched like he’d noticed my lack of enthusiasm, but he didn’t call me out. “I didn’t run into any robots or cave entrances. Maybe it was a little further south….” He mumbled, the screens reflecting in his eyes, turning their usual dark blue bright and icy.
I smacked my forehead, stealing my phone back.
“Hayden?”
I pulled up the options on the note. “We don’t need data to send these to each other.”
“We don’t?”
I sent my section of the map over and held my hand out for his phone, wiggling my fingers in invitation. He handed it over silently, leaning to watch over my shoulder as I shared the file through Bluetooth.
“Oohhhhhh,” he said in my ear. “Huh.”
I shoved his phone back at him once I was done, pulling up the shared file to mash together with my section of the map, double checking the orientation with Cove. It wasn’t long before we had around a mile’s worth of tunnels mapped out.
Frustrated, I locked my phone screen, shoving it back into my pants pocket. “This is getting us nowhere. There’s got to be a more efficient way to find this thing.”
Cove held up his hands in the universal sign for ‘I don’t know.’ “I’m all ears.”
I spitballed a few suggestions, which Cove immediately shot out of the air. Rightly so. Cove, however, contributed no suggestions of his own. If there were any magical solutions to this, Cove didn’t know them.
“You sure there isn’t a way to trace the robots or something?”
Cove didn’t look up from his phone. “I’m telling you, that’s not how our magic ticks.”
I racked my brain for other suggestions. If magic wasn’t working, what about manually?
Wait. How had they known the robot with the fragment had been acting off in the first place? I recalled how quickly we’d been found after taking out the one robot, and a light bulb sparked in my brain. “By the way, do you remember if they tracked the robots?”
Cove finally lifted his head from his phone. “Now that you mention it, they did.” His eyes narrowed in thought.
“Do you know how?”
Cove shook his head. “I think maybe the cameras? And GPS?”
I slid my phone back into my pocket. “I think I have an idea. “
The basics of my plan were simple. Grab a robot, find a decrepit electronics store, and see what I could discover. From what Cove remembered, random survivors had rebuilt and reprogrammed these robots after the fall. I was betting that they’d seen no need for security.
We left the sewers, climbing out onto the sunlit street. With the warm caress of the sun, it was temperate enough that I was able to remove my jacket, stuffing it once again into my bag. As neither of us could magically sense inanimate objects, we roamed through the city, looking for the electronics store and for any signs of the robots that should be scouring the city.
Hours later, the sun pounded down from overhead, and my stomach growled. Done, I stopped abruptly to plop down on a mostly intact concrete bench and began digging through my backpack for my food, as well as one of the water bottles I had packed, with a mental pat on the back.
I’d really outdone myself with my packing capabilities. Ani pawed at the contents of my backpack as I dug through them, forcing me to shove him off to the side so I wouldn’t get scratched. It did nothing. He recovered to stand up on his hind legs, peering into the bag curiously with his paws raised, ready to strike at anything that caught his interest.
When Cove heard the ruckus I was making, he paused, turning around. Curious, he trod back to me and peered over the bag, not unlike Ani. His stomach growled as I pulled out one of the wrapped foods Mattie’d handed us, and I couldn’t help my smirk as I passed it and a water bottle to him wordlessly. He unfurled his arms from his stomach to grab it with a ‘thanks.’
We unwrapped the bread and dried meat and devoured it in seconds, downing the water in an equally short time. Ani and Ranch scurried off, presumably looking to hunt food of their own. There were plenty of rats around, so I doubted they’d have trouble.
As we dusted the breadcrumbs off our hands, I heard the tell-tale clanks of the robots we’d been looking for on our right. Cove and I exchanged a silent series of rapid exchanges while we waited for it to crest a pile of debris to our right, gesturing back and forth until Cove agreed to ambush the thing with his slingshot. Since I had the worse aim, I used mine as a distraction, sending rocks clanking into a decaying street lamp on the other side of the street.
The robot was entirely focused on the wrong side of the street when it cleared the pile. Cove sent one of his rocks whistling through the air, arching up from the side.
It was a perfect hit.