The robot crashed into the concrete with a clang.

Cove and I stalked up its resting place. I smiled at Cove, feeling proud of myself. Cove was unenthused. “Now what?”

“Now we just need to find an electronics store.”

Cove’s foot hit the metal arm of the robot with another clang. “What about this?”

“We’ll just take it with us.”

He leveled me a flat look at my response and gestured for me to proceed. I shrugged and grabbed one of the robot’s arms, then began walking. The weight of the robot knocked me backward, and I let the metal fall from my grip.

Lost in my thoughts, I’d forgotten how heavy these things had been. Cove, who’d been waiting for me to fail, said, “Did you forget to process weight in your equation?”

I brushed the comment off my shoulder, maintaining what I thought was a good poker face. “It’s still a better plan than running aimlessly through the sewers. Can’t we carry it with magic?”

By we, I meant Cove. He considered for a few seconds. “If I increase my strength, maybe?” He caught my eye. “You’ll have to take out any others we encounter through.”

“You can’t levitate it or something?”

I received a flat stare for my suggestion. “For a quarter mile, if that.”

I raised my hands in surrender. Curious, I reached out with my magic to ‘watch’ as Cove pushed his magic through his body, shooting continuous cool tendrils through his muscles. He flexed his hand before picking up the heavy hunk of metal and tossing it over his shoulder into a fireman’s carry as easily as I did my backpack.

Ani and Ranch, who’d run off, greeted us by nearly tripping us as we walked. I scouted ahead with my unburdened body, peering around the rubble of collapsed buildings and looking for our destination or signs of danger. Cove kept pace easily. It was only a matter of time before we saw more.

Something rustled to our left, and I held my hand for Cove to stop. He paused, waiting as I crept forward and peeked around the surprisingly intact wall. Two red eyes looked at me. I jerked my head back. Cove looked at me questioningly, and I nodded. He shrugged and tossed a hand forward as if to say ‘after you.’

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The off-sounding, metallic bangs of the footsteps grew closer, and I eyed the robot Cove was carrying. They’d found us quickly–to quickly. We were being tracked.

I sighed and pulled out my slingshot, aiming it where I expected the robot to exit the alleyway. As I waited, I slid a few additional stones into my hands, holding them as spares.

Sunlight glinted off the metal. I released the leather strap, letting the stone slice through the sky. It smacked into the robot, knocking it to the ground with a loud crash. I cringed at the noise.

We continued forward. When we saw no sign of an electronics store, even after hours of walking, Cove asked, “Better than ‘running aimlessly,’ huh?”

I rolled my earning between my fingers, thinking. There were undoubtedly more possible electronics stores than entrances to a cave, but he was right. There had to be a better way to find them.

We hadn’t seen any maps yet, so I threw that idea right out. I tried to think of where someone would place an electronics store. Mentally, I mapped out the areas of Chicago I knew and marked off the locations of electronics stores, trying hard to remember what was around them.

It didn’t take long for me to realize there was one place where an electronics store was almost guaranteed. My hand fell from my earring; the realization made me feel foolish.

“A mall.”

“Thats…a mall-velous idea.”

My eyes rolled of their own accord at the pun. The real trouble was finding one.

We were currently closer to the city's residential area, so a mall shouldn’t have been too far off.

The next time we ran into a robot, I felt ready for it. Before I could even doubt myself, my hand released, and the rock was soaring in the air. Pride unfurled in my chest as it crashed into the top of the thing’s head, dislodging the internal components and knocking it flat to the ground. That was twice, now, that I hadn’t missed.

It wasn’t long before I saw yet another one. It was perhaps a quarter mile away, far outside the range of my slingshot or the much smaller range of what I could hit with the slingshot.

Well, that would usually be the case. But I’d been thinking, and I had other ideas. “The strength it takes to teleport something–what is it dependent on?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the hunk of metal.

“Mass,” Cove answered instantly.

I looked at the rock in my hand. “Do I have to be touching something to teleport it?”

“Yes?” His confusion was as evident as the sun shining in the sky.

Knocking the internal components out of place took little force. So, perhaps…

Keeping my eyes open this time, I focused inwards, pulling at the part of my magic I used to teleport. Thousands of strings and threads sparked around me, connecting everything in front of my eyes. I took a deep breath, carefully avoiding letting my magic trail along the threads and allowing most to fall away. Another breath, and I spotted the connection between the rock I was holding and the air above the robot’s skull.

I pushed the rock ever so carefully with my magic. It skirted along the chosen thread, disappearing and reappearing instantly. It was a direct hit. The rock fell out of the sky, landing precisely into the robot's skull.

I wiped a bit of sweat from my temple, and a victorious smirk crept onto my face.

“Massterfully done.”

The wind under my sails disappeared, blocked by the bad pun.

Over the next hour or so, I had to use my slingshot a few more times and my magic even more. The stones we’d gathered were depleting quickly, and I replaced them with some of the chunkier rubble. The rubble, I quickly discovered, was not good for slingshotting, but it did work fine with teleporting.

Cove’s pun-filled presence at my side was reassuring, as I knew that if I failed, he could take care of them.

During one of these encounters, we ran into another unexpected character.