Fugitive X (2 page)

THEY DIDN’T SEE ANY MORE BOTS, OR PEOPLE, THAT DAY. KEVIN
trudged along in silence, brooding, ignoring Cass’s occasional attempts at conversation. That night, while it was his turn to keep guard, Kevin watched his brother and sister sleeping, using their backpacks for pillows. His stomach growled; all he had eaten for dinner was a handful of sour berries. He tried to let his anger go. But he couldn’t. He shifted his back against the tree he was sitting against, hoping to find a more comfortable position. He sat silently for a few more minutes, then noted the location of the moon in a clear patch of sky between a gap in the trees. “Late enough,” he muttered to himself. He stood up, stretched, then walked over and nudged Nick with his foot. Nick grunted but didn’t move, so Kevin nudged him
a bit harder. Not quite a kick, although he was tempted. Nick rolled over and sat up, yawning. “My watch already?” he said.

“They must have been from the Freepost,” Kevin said.

Nick stood up slowly. He looked confused for a moment, then shook his head, frowning. “You don’t know that,” he said. “And didn’t we already have this conversation?”

“Those rifles weren’t just for hunting game,” Kevin said. “I bet they were trackers. All we had to do was stand up and we’d be sleeping in a shelter right now.”

Nick shrugged and held his hands out at his sides, palms up. “Or we’d be dead,” he said. “What do you know about them? Nothing. Except that they were holding burst rifles.”

“They were people. Free. In the woods,” said Kevin. “Like us.”

Nick walked over to the same tree Kevin had used for his watch. He sat down and put his back against the trunk. “Look, kid, it’s done. It was too risky. We’ll find the Freepost on our own.”

Kevin felt a rush of annoyance. “It’s Kevin,” he said. “Not kid. No more kid.”

Nick shrugged. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. No more Kid. Go to sleep.”

“Don’t tell me to go to sleep,” said Kevin.

Nick chuckled. “Fine, then stay awake. But keep quiet at least. No point waking up Cass, or broadcasting to any bots or hunters exactly where we are.”

“I’m awake,” said Cass. She rolled over to face them. “And if there were any bots within a half mile of here they’d have heard you two idiots arguing. Will both of you shut up, please?”

“I was just saying . . .” began Kevin.

“Save it for the morning, Kevin,” said Cass. “Right now I don’t care.”

Kevin lay down, his back to his brother and sister. He knew he was right, even if Nick and Cass refused to listen.

He thought there was no way he’d be able to sleep, considering how annoyed he was, but next thing he knew he was being shaken awake by Cass. The sun was shining softly in the early-morning light. He blinked and sat up. His clothes were damp from dew. He felt stiff from lying on the hard, cold ground. He was still annoyed. If they had just let the trackers lead them to the Freepost, he would have woken up dry and warm and comfortable, in a shelter. He grabbed a water bottle that Doc had given them during their rushed exit from his apartment. It was expandable neo-plastic, which shrank from its one-quart capacity as the water it held dwindled. Right now it was empty and at its smallest, about the size of Kevin’s hand and only an inch thick.

“I’ll find some clean water,” Kevin said.

“Wait,” said Nick. “We’ll find some water when we start heading north again.”

“It’s fine,” said Kevin. “Back soon.” Without waiting for Nick to protest, he left their campsite, pushing west through
the trees. Birds chirped and sunlight pushed through the leaves. It was a beautiful morning, not that he particularly cared. He needed some time alone, before he could face another day of trudging north, every step taking them farther away from their parents still trapped in the damned City. He sighed. That was it, he had to admit to himself. It wasn’t so much that he had been outvoted about reaching out to the trackers, soldiers, whatever they were . . . even though he still knew he was right. Or even that Nick was still treating him like a child, although that was plenty annoying. . . . No, he was mad because they had failed. Their parents were back in the City, despite all the effort and danger. And Lexi and Farryn, who had risked everything to help them, were possibly also still stuck in the City or wandering around in the woods with absolutely no idea how to survive even one night. And then, of course, the bots. Kevin’s device had worked. It had overloaded the mainframe, and that should have been an amazing victory, but instead it was just a ninety-minute time-out and now the bots were probably completely back to normal again.

They had accomplished nothing. Actually, they were probably worse off than before they had started.

Kevin followed the terrain slightly downhill, where there’d be a better chance of finding a water source. He walked for a few minutes, keeping mental note of the general path he was taking. If he didn’t find water soon, he’d give up and head back.

The woods were silent except for the occasional small
sound he made as he pushed west.
Silent.
He stopped in his tracks, realizing that the birds that had been chirping incessantly had gone completely quiet. Kevin was no tracker, but he knew enough . . . His fingers began to tingle with nerves and the back of his neck itched, as if something were behind him. He whirled around. Nothing but empty forest. He began walking quickly back the way he had come. He wanted to run, but he forced down the panic.
It’s probably nothing,
he told himself.
Just stay calm, don’t act like a scared little baby.
He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, controlled his breathing, and began to relax.

A loud snap sounded behind him, and he spun and saw a figure stepping out from behind a tree ten yards away. It was thin, about Kevin’s height, with long arms and patchy skin that was a mottled sickly, inhuman gray and rugged brown, the brown spots raised above the gray. It had no hair and wore no clothes. It had green lidless eyelids, no nose, and a small slit for a mouth.

A bot.

Kevin let out a quick involuntary yell, then spun and began sprinting through the forest. He flung himself through the trees, trying to push branches out of the way but still getting stung on the arms and face.

Nick and Cass—he had to get back to warn them. Suddenly he was struck by a thought that cut through his panic. The bot had found him, but Nick and Cass were hopefully still safe, and
here he was, leading the bot right to them. He shifted course, diving off to the south. He’d lead it away from his brother and sister first, and then if he could lose the bot, he’d find his way back to them.

Kevin was flying, ducking under branches and jumping over roots and rocks. He took a quick glance behind him and saw nothing and felt a sliver of hope, and then he ran past a tree and a gray arm shot out and Kevin slammed into it face-first, not having enough time to get his hands up. It was like running into a wall. He heard a crack—his nose—and he flew backward, slamming onto the ground. The wind was knocked out of him, and he couldn’t breathe, and the world was bright white, and then it slowly leeched back to green and brown and blue again. His nose throbbed and he could feel something running down his face—blood?

He struggled to sit up, groaning, but then a gray arm pushed down on his chest and the bot face loomed above his. Close up, the patchwork face was a hideous mask of gray plastic and some sort of brown leather. The brown spots were literally sewn on; he could see the black-threaded needlework. The dead, lidless green eyes stared down at him. He struggled to move, but he was still dazed from his collision and the bot was too strong.

“Let me up!” he yelled, and the blood from his broken nose ran down into his mouth. He tasted the bitter iron tang and had to cough and spit to keep from choking.

“Please keep your voice down,” said a staccato female
voice that came from the bot, although the lips didn’t move. “There are hostile robotic humanoids and hovercraft nearby. We apologize for the injury. The violence was regrettable but necessary. You must come with us, for your safety.”

Hostile robots nearby?
thought Kevin.
Chasing him through the woods and breaking his nose didn’t qualify as hostile?
“Rust yourself,” said Kevin. He began struggling to rise again.

A second bot face leaned over him, into his field of vision. “There is no time,” said the second bot, with a male voice. “Again, we regret and apologize for the necessary violence.” Kevin wondered why the bots were behaving this way, and then the bot reached down and pinched a spot hard on Kevin’s neck just above his left shoulder. Kevin felt a burst of pain that began at the pinch and bloomed across his chest, up to his head, and then all was black.

CASS WAS DIGGING THROUGH HER BACKPACK FOR ANY SCRAPS OF FOOD
for breakfast—even though she knew there’d be nothing to find—when she heard the faint scream, far off in the direction Kevin had gone. She stood, spun toward Nick. Nick stood rigid, facing the direction of the noise. He looked at Cass. “Kevin,” he said. “Come on.” He ran into the forest.

“Rust,” said Cass, lightheaded and cottonmouthed with adrenaline and fear. She dropped her pack and took off after Nick. She quickly caught up to him and then dashed into the lead.

“Wait!” said Nick, but Cass ignored him, continuing to pull ahead. At full speed, nobody—at least nobody from their Freepost—could keep up with Cass in the woods. The trees and underbrush barely even touched her as she dashed through the
forest.
It had to be nothing,
she told herself.
Probably wasn’t even him. Or maybe he just fell into a cold stream getting the water, the idiot.
But she knew that even Kevin wasn’t stupid enough to scream unless he was in real danger.

She wasn’t even sure where she was going, but she pushed herself to move even faster, leaving Nick farther behind. Her little brother was in trouble.

Cass ducked under a chest-high branch and then she saw, in her peripheral vision, a glimpse of something gray in the distance to the southwest. A person? A bot? She adjusted her course, heading straight toward what she had seen.

There was a flash of movement from a tree to her right, and then a crackle and a burst of light, and the world exploded.

All was quiet and calm.

The sky was blue through the green trees.

Cass lay on the ground, looking up, her vision slowly curling back into focus. A lone white cloud hung motionless in the sky.
A beautiful day
, thought Cass.
But wait . . . what . . . why . . .
She fought to pull her thoughts together. There had been a loud noise. Her ears were still ringing. And a flash of light.
An explosion
, she thought calmly. She knew she should be moving, not just lying on the ground staring at the sky like she was taking a nap at a kidbon. Her mother would tell her, with a smile, to get up and do something productive. Her brothers would tease her for tripping. Her father would help her up and brush the dirt off her.

She felt a wetness on her belly and back—she must have landed in a puddle. Well, she had found that water source that Kevin had been looking for, at least. Cass reached down and felt her shirt. Soaked. It began to hurt to breathe . . . She found she could barely suck in air, like she was trying to breathe through a straw. She held her hand up to her face. It was bright red.

Red? Red water?
Cass felt dizzy and confused. She fought for another breath, trying to fill her lungs, but only managing a shallow gasp. Blood? She tried to sit up, but found that she couldn’t move her torso or her arms. She managed to lift her head for a moment to look down toward her toes. Yes, there was blood. Lots of blood. A tree branch jutted out of her right side, above her belly. A flash of white bone was visible up at her right ribcage.

She still felt so strangely calm. She must have landed funny when she got lased, she thought dispassionately. Somehow managed to get a branch stuck through her. Punctured a lung, judging by where it was, and how it was so hard to breathe . . . Cass reached down again, felt her wet ribcage, touched the stick jutting out of her—could she pull it out? Should she try?—and then without warning a wall of pain rolled over her and she cried out. She wanted to scream, the pain was so horrible—a burning, like someone was holding a torch against her ribs and wouldn’t take it away—but she could barely draw a breath, and all that came out of her mouth was a choked sob.

“Help me,” she whispered. Her vision was tunneling—the blue sky was growing dark at the edges, and she fought to remain conscious, to push back the blackness. She was Cass. She was on the forest floor. She was badly hurt.

“Nick,” she said. “Mom.” But nobody came. She was alone. The black edges pushed inward again, and she couldn’t stop it, and then the pain began to fade, to wash into the grass, to flow away from her body. She realized, calm again, comfortable almost, that she was going to die.

CASS DASHED PAST NICK, AND HE CALLED AFTER HER TO SLOW DOWN
, but she ignored him. He tried to push himself to move even faster, but there was no way he could keep up with Cass, even if he weren’t injured.

Nick could still hear Kevin’s scream echoing in his head. It had been Kevin, as much as he tried to convince himself that it had been something else, a bird maybe. No, it was his brother, in trouble. In trouble because Nick had let him wander off on his own when they were only a few hours from the City. With bots and armed men and who knew what else in the woods.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Nick pushed aside branches, ducking and leaping as best he could.

And then he saw the flash from the south, heard the crackling boom, found himself on the ground with the wind knocked out of him. He struggled to breathe, to pull his scrambled thoughts together.
Explosion. Bots. Must be bots. Kevin. Cass. Were they okay?

Nick lifted his head and saw Cass ten feet in front of him, lying motionless on her back. There was smoke rising from her body, and a stick jutted out of her shirt. Nick began to crawl toward her, still too dazed to stand. He was confused. The stick . . . How could the stick be jutting out of her shirt? He reached her, and touched the stick, and saw the pool of blood. Cass had her eyes closed and she was so pale and her breaths came fast and shallow, like a dog panting, and Nick felt a rush of horror.