Juzo began to descend and not of his own volition; he was losing height. It was difficult for the thruster to continue working at full capacity; the extra weight that Adam represented had already drained the turbines too much. They were an easy target, and the A60 attacked again.
Juzo did a flip and managed to keep the light grenade from hitting them squarely; however, the discharges touched his backpack on the side, turning it into a bunch of burned scraps. The little content that did not vaporize instantly jumped scattered through the air; fragments of folders, charred sheets of paper, and pieces of objects now destroyed, rained down on the highway like confetti of a macabre celebration.
Juzo disposed of what little was left of his backpack when another attack hit him, this time bursting one of the thruster wings, taking it with a roar and millions of silver sparks. The other wing whistled louder, but the aura that it emitted lost power, causing them to lose even more height.
Taking advantage of the density of the smoke column rising from the truck trailer, Juzo hid behind it and diverted his course, heading to a huge park that was next to the avenue: a green space that covered several blocks, full of trees and shadows that would serve them as a hiding place, as well as help him put fewer lives at risk.
Keeping away from the lampposts and any other sources of light, avoiding the prying eyes of the surveillance cameras installed there, Juzo skirted the bushes and took cover in the shadows, descending below a great canopy of leaves formed by the treetops. The place was deserted and dark, the perfect place. Pressing the X-shaped suspender buckle, he retracted the only remaining thruster.
“Stay alert,” he warned Adam and released him. Adam took a few seconds to let go of him.
Nobody around. Apparently, they had lost the android.
Seeking to keep his heart in place and catch his breath, Adam leaned his hands against a tree and lowered his head. He was grateful to be back on solid ground, though the nausea gripping his stomach was not the best way to show it.
“What’s that son of a bitch’s plan anyway?” he said between gasps. “Blow us up and collect the proteins from our corpses?”
Drenched in sweat, he peered through the trees and saw from afar the car accident caused by the energy ball. The fire painted the edges of the park, and its flickering light spanned the distance over the grass, reaching him in a ghostly reddish halo.
Inadvertently, he and his brother had saved their heads—literally—by sacrificing other people’s. For crying out loud! How had an encounter with his twin gone from surreal to awkward and disturbing, and from there escalated to a life and death situation where who knows how many innocents had just perished? He closed his eyes and wished that everything would end, that everything would disappear.
And when the specter of guilt was about to settle on him, his brother brushed it away with a tap on the shoulder.
“Follow me,” Juzo told him and went into the wooded area of the park where the darkness was deep.
It took Adam a second, but he managed enough strength to make his shaky legs obey, and he followed his brother. Every now and then he made sure that no one was following them, that there were no signs of the android; back there, he could only see the howling light that came from the accident, digging through the trees and skimming the shadows. He took a deep breath, and while he tried not to make his footsteps crunch so much on the grass, he gulped, wanting to get rid of the bitter taste that this feeling of guilt—and the reflux he suffered from so many pirouettes in the air—had left in his throat.
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“I think I get it,” he said, trying to keep his voice low.
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, if I were a scientist with a secret long-term project, what better than to have an android monitor it?” Adam replied. “He doesn’t say a word. I don’t have to pay him overtime. He doesn’t need to take breaks to smoke, nothing. But an android like that, with such a destructive capacity, is a threat and just as illegal as what they did to us. I mean… ‘Turn yourselves in and everything will be over quickly?’ That’s what that bastard said! A60-R8s should have a very limited parameter of sentences! How is it that in a country as strictly policed as yours, someone can do things like that? I imagine his Directive 001 must not be activated.”
“No android will kill or raise his fist against a human being,” Juzo said.
Adam snorted. “Yes, it sounds nice; all Directives do. Too bad we’re just test subjects for this Broga fella; most likely he doesn’t even consider us human. Protocol 128. You know what it is?”
“The dormant programming?”
Adam nodded.
“Even the A60s, the first Cyclops to enter the market, have it in their programming. The 128 allows the android to restart his task automatically, regardless of whether his master is dead or has already forgotten the order he once gave. It’s enough to receive an update for the Protocol to start. You said that the Project was suspended due to the loss of a supply; if that supply entered some online catalog or something, the information could have reached the android, and his 128 got activated,” he explained with some suspicion in his voice. “You know something about that?”
Juzo glanced at him over his shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’ those eyes said, however... “You know a lot about androids to be an underwear model,” was all he said.
Was that a display of his brother’s sense of humor?
“Don’t play dumb,” Adam said. “I know you keep something in there, in your pocket, and I think it’s that damn supply. Why don’t you get rid of it?”
Juzo didn’t even turn to look at him. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Well, I think I do,” Adam insisted, and halted. “If you have nothing to hide, let me see your pocket.”
“It doesn’t matter what I bring here. If you don’t move, you’ll make the job easier for Broga and his group.”
“Group?”
“The Eddanian woman and two mercenaries who come with him,” Juzo announced.
“Mercenaries?” Nausea kicked Adam. “No, dude. We need to get help from the police right now! I know you’re a fugitive, but you can ask the Markabian embassy for amnesty and—”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Juzo turned. “We are alone in this!”
“Alone?” Adam pointed at the accident. “We’ll end up just as dead as those people!” He searched in his trouser pockets. “My phone, where’s my freaking phone?!” There he only found his ID card and the ticket from the restaurant where he had dined a few hours before with Trevor and the girls. “I must have left it in the car… Or it fell while we were flying! Shit!”
“Shut up!” Juzo scolded him without raising his voice.
“I need to call Trevor. If I tell him what’s going on, he’ll be able to help us.”
“Gentlemen...” a synthesized voice called them.
The Cyclops!
The brothers pivoted defensively and found a red light shining in the dark like a beacon of terror. The eye of an android.
“I am sorry, but the park is closed to passersby right now.” The park ranger Cyclops, an android in a green jumpsuit, stepped toward them carrying a bag full of fallen leaves in one hand and a rake in the other. “Please, return to the public road. You will be able to enter here again tomorrow after 8 a.m.”
But before they could recover from the shock, the android stopped short, dropped the bag of leaves he was carrying, and his head began to shake, sparking as if it had short-circuited. His circular eye blinked out, and a new red, almond-shaped eye gleamed in his rear.
The purple rain-coated A60-R8 had appeared behind the park ranger, and crushed his head as easily as he would a tin can, spewing chunks of metal and oil spurts everywhere.
Headless, the green-suited robotic body collapsed on the grass, and the enemy Cyclops continued forward, this time heading toward the twins.