Sparked (The Metal Bones Series Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter 8

Timmy T’s lyrics reached my ears as I walked through the front door. I was glad Mom was off painting, or whatever she did, in her studio. I didn’t know how to act around her.

Robotatouille scurried around the kitchen.

I didn’t know how to act around anyone anymore.

I headed down the other hallway, past Mom’s studio. The music was still blasting so I didn’t have to worry about tiptoeing around the place.

“Vienna?”

Everything kept getting worse. How did Mom know I was home? I turned around, facing Mom.

Mom tapped her fingers together. “Vienna, I . . .”

I pulled a strand of hair from my ponytail and twirled it.

The silence stretched, neither of us talking. I don’t know why Mom started this if she had nothing to say. I got it. She couldn’t talk to me. So why didn’t she talk to one of her artist friends? They were her go-to people, people closer to her than I had ever been.

“Don’t worry about it.” I turned away.

Mom reached for me. “Vienna . . .”

I stopped again. Was she waiting for me to say something? I’d already said everything I felt. I had unloaded
everything
. There was nothing left for me to say. Mom had said nothing, explained nothing, and apologized for nothing. Mom’s actions had said also everything, too clearly.

I had my back to her, listening to see if she would say anything more. The music turned off.

“I keep painting the same thing.”

What was that supposed to mean? Now she could sell a bunch of paintings.

I frowned. “That’s great, Mom.” I don’t know what she wanted from me. To gloat at how good her art skills were? Whatever. I couldn’t take it anymore. I started off toward my room.

“No, it’s not great.”

I stopped walking then turned to face her. What did she want from me?

“I’m creative.” Mom leaned against the door. “That’s what I do, and now I can’t come up with anything. I keep painting the same thing.”

Mom was still further than I had ever gotten at painting then. “I keep painting things on fire.” Mom ran her fingers on the edge of the door. “Every scene I paint ends in flames. I tried painting still lifes, but they turn out to be bowls of burning fruit. I tried people, and they burn. I tried a lake.” Mom’s eyes filled with tears. “The lake catches fire.”

“I thought you hated—”

“I know.” Mom leaned against the door. “I do.”

I didn’t know how to help Mom. I hardly knew Mom.

We stood in silence again. Mom had never opened up like this before, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to handle it.

“Have you tried asking other painters how to . . .” I scratched my head. “Stop, whatever it is you are doing.”

Mom stared at the ground.

“Mom?”

“They can’t help me.”

“Maybe they can.”

Mom’s fingers looked as if they were sketching flames up along the door.

I swallowed. “Are you all right?” I went to her.

“I’m fine.” Mom yanked her hand away from me and the studio door slammed shut in my face.

I was left standing there, dumbfounded. Strike Number Two.

What was wrong with her? What was wrong with me? What did she want me to do? Drop everything and run to her rescue? How did she expect me to help her the one time she let me in? I didn’t even know how to help her. I didn’t even know where to start. Try painting with different brushes, try painting with the brushes in your mouth? I rubbed my temples. I always thought Mom was weird, but this? I looked back at the shut studio door. This was something else.

I walked into my room and collapsed on my bed. Mom had ignored the fight between us. She’d acted like nothing had happened. But what had I expected to happen between Mom and me? I wrapped the comforter closer around me. Mom was Mom, and nothing was going to change that. I had to learn to accept it.

Mom didn’t care.

I clenched the comforter between my fingers and buried my head in my mattress.
It’s the simple truths that sting the most.

Ten minutes later, I heard the front door shut. Mom had left for her cake-decorating class. I knew Mom wouldn’t let this little episode faze her. Nothing could keep Mom away from what she loved doing most.

And I just wasn’t one of those things.

Chapter 9

The aroma of chicken noodle soup settled around me and the pitter-patter of rain tapped against the window. I rubbed my eyes, and the behemoth book and three other robot books I’d been reading tumbled to the floor. They were getting me nowhere in my searches. It was time to try something new.

I powered up my laptop, my fingers itching to have their way with the keyboard. The cursor blinked, and I took a deep breath and typed in ROBOTS and VIRGINIA BASE.

And I got hits. I scrolled through the websites.

The Virginia Base had been emptied. Site after site showed pictures from the time when it was teeming with robots. And now, the base was deserted. I frowned. This was the base that started everything. I slumped back in my bed. Then where did they all go?

Caribbean plopped in his tank.

“I know. I know. I’ll be there in a minute.”

That was so odd. They just shut it down? Just like that?

I typed in a new search, ROBOTS and EMOTIONS, but nothing came up. Humph. I tapped my finger against my lips. How could it be no one else noticed this glitch or gave the slightest possibility of something like this happening? Shouldn’t there be blogs about this somewhere?

I rubbed my head and slowly got out of bed.

Caribbean whizzed across the surface of his tank. I dropped in three flakes and opened my window blinds. Stars twinkled in the night sky against the patches of rain. A plane flew overhead and the moon cast a soft glow on the tips of the dead limbs of the trees pointing back up at the moonlit sky.

But everything had changed. I was no longer living in a winter wonderland in Philadelphia. It was now a desolate wasteland covered in frost. It was now the land of government and their robots, not their people.

The dead branches seemed to swell around me, enclosing me in my room. The glow cast shadows on them, making them come alive, turning into stalking predators. Their pointy tips ready to wreak havoc on any it crossed, becoming the bringers of death to the valley. Almost like an army of robots.

A breeze blew through a few of the trees around me. The bringers of death swayed back and forth and I waited for the breeze to blow through the rest of the trees but it stopped there.

I frowned then brushed the unsettling sensation off. The wind seemed to be like Mom, fickle and uncaring. It went where it wanted, not caring about those it affected or rather, didn’t affect.

I went over to my bed and picked my book bag up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the branches sway again and I sighed.

The wind was playing games with my emotions. A feeling I was used to.

I turned around and dropped my book bag back onto the floor and then something exploded behind me, piercing my ears with the sound of glass shattering into millions of pieces and catapulting me into my bed. My heart pounded in my chest and my face slammed into my comforter. Tiny pieces of glass cut into my skin and lodged in my hair.

Then I heard the plunk of boots, thumping down on my carpet.

Chapter 10

I spun around, glass crunching under my feet. Rain pelted against the man standing in the center of my room. Moonlight glinted off his cropped hair and highlighted the bulges of muscles popping out of his shirt.

“Oh, God.”

My knees gave out, and I buckled against the nightstand. There was a man.

A massive man.

Standing. In. My. Room.

My hands clenched the sides of the drawer. His teeth flashed white as a smile raced across his lips.

“Get out,” I screamed, flinging my bed pillows at him.

“Pillows?” He laughed and brushed them aside, like he was batting away a fly. “Let’s see if you can come up with anything better?” His voice was deep with excitement as he stalked forward, step by step, his smile getting wider and wider, leaving me a mouse, trapped in a corner.

My hand glided across the dresser and my fingers stilled. “Then how’s this?” I grabbed and swung.

The weight of the glass lamp lightened in my hand as it shattered across his forehead, pieces cascaded around us, flying in all directions.

And he was still there, smiling, like it didn’t even . . .

Oh, God.

The shatters of glass embedded in his face gleamed in the moonlight against the glow of the tiny cuts marring his skin.

“Nice touch. Would have worked, too.” He tapped his skull, and I heard the click of metal upon metal.

No.

The broken lamp base thudded to the floor.

My heart pounded in my chest.
No.

“You can’t be,” I whispered.

“And now.” He reached for me. “Game over.”

But my life was not a game. Not ever. And especially not for him.

I threw my fist at him as hard as I could. It flew through the air, all my hope tied up in this last punch. My fist collided into something hard. I opened my eyes and then my knees buckled. He had my fist in his hand. And squeezed.

“Ahh.” Pain seared through my fingers. I collapsed to the ground.

He squeezed harder. The bones cracked under his pressure. Pain ripped across my knuckles and he twisted.

“Stop,” I gasped.

“Did you really think you could hurt me?” He twisted again.

Pain blazed through my arm. I screamed. My arm was on fire. He twisted me around, and I slammed into him.

“You’re ours,” he whispered in my ear. “Finally.”

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Robotatouille throw open my door. It banged against the wall. His eyes were a wild shade of brown and my captor’s arm tightened around my waist.

“Drop her,” Robotatouille hissed. “Now.”

A smile spread across my captor’s lips. “But you didn’t specify.” He gave my waist another squeeze and air fled from my lungs. “Dead or alive.”

I fought for oxygen and frantically yanked at his arm. Water soaked through my jeans and I looked toward the window and saw Caribbean’s broken tank on the floor.

“No!”

Caribbean
.

My heart exploded in my chest.

I struck out, ramming my elbows against my captor’s ribs and it felt like I hit a brick wall.

I gasped, and he squeezed tighter. Black and blue spots blurred my vision. I clawed at his arm as my last supply of air was forced out. This was it. My life was over.

And then Robotatouille launched at him, vaulting over broken pieces of glass. I felt myself going airborne. I hit my dresser like a sack of rice. Edges of objects jammed into my sides, and I gasped as air rushed into my lungs.

I heard another crash. Robotatouille was half off the desk, my captor’s arm wrapped around his neck, and Robotatouille’s hands shoved at my captor’s face.

“Vienna!” Dad barreled through the door with a baseball bat in his hand. He came to a stop, paralyzed by the situation.

“Dad, no!” I tumbled off the dresser.

My body ached when I hit the floor.

Dad ran at me and pushed me behind his shoulders as we watched the stark scene unfolding in front of us.

Robotatouille was losing, his neck trapped between my captor’s arms.

“Stay here.” Dad jumped on the bed and his bat came swinging down on the top of my captor’s head. There wasn’t even a crack to be heard. My captor spun, pushed Robotatouille to the floor, and shoved Dad against the wall, his hand at Dad’s throat, choking him.

“No,” I screamed.

Robotatouille sprang off the floor, grabbed my captor’s hair, and threw him into the closet door.

Dad sagged against the wall and dropped to his knees.

“Dad, are you okay?” I raced toward him.

My captor rammed through the closet door like a bull ready to charge, pieces of wood splintering across his shoulders. He lunged at us, and I pushed myself in front of Dad.

The scene enfolded in slow motion, my captor propelling toward me, his arms reaching out to crush me, and me, frozen, staring back unable to move. I waited for the impact to jar me, for his weight to topple me, but it never did.

Robotatouille leaped from his hidden position, shot through the air, grabbed my captor’s shirt, and rolled on top of him. They wrestled at the foot of the bed.

Robotatouille was pinned in a matter of seconds. The robot had his arm under Robotatouille’s chin. Robotatouille’s feet thrashed on the floor as he struggled to push him off.

I looked around for something, anything. Next to them was the broken fish tank, with a pool of water around it, saturating the carpet. The water was seeping toward their fight near . . . My eyes widened. My captor’s foot. I yanked my desk lamp’s electrical cord out of the wall circuit, dipped the metal prongs into the soaked carpet and jammed the wet electric cord into my captor’s Achilles’ heel charging area.

His head jerked up and his body convulsed. Hot sparks flew from his Achilles’ heel, hitting my face and burning my arms. The white of his eyes turned lime green and then white again, spazzing back and forth. Smoke poured out from his mouth and ears. His body jerked one last time and everything shut down. He crashed to the floor as Robotatouille rolled out from under him. The smoke hissed from his ears and mouth as he laid there.

His hair was a deep chocolate color that matched his bronzed skin but his eyes, they were dark. From the outer corner to the inner, everything was black.

Robotatouille leaned over the robot and closed the intruder’s eyes. I sat back on my heels. The moonlight reflected off the robot’s face, revealing perfectly handsome, unthreatening features. Now he looked nothing more than a sleeping giant.

A sleeping giant.

“Vienna,” Dad whispered and pulled me into his arms.

My eyes were glued to the dead robot on the floor. The one I had killed.

I had killed.

“Dad . . . I.”

He hushed me. “It’s going to be okay now.” He held me close and put his head on top of mine. His touch didn’t make anything better. It couldn’t take away the hole inside. It didn’t change the fact that I had killed someone. I had killed a robot. I was the reason his eyes turned black, his body convulsed, and smoke blew through his ears. Had it felt pain? I pinched my eyes shut. I felt hollow inside.

I had killed it. My soot-covered arms rubbed against Dad’s freshly pressed suit.

“I’m sorry.” I eased back.

“Vienna.”

Dad waited for me to look up at him. His eyes were blurry. “You know that I love you, right?” Dad held me tighter to him.

I had always thought Dad loved me but it was different to know for sure. Dad, Dad loved me. I hugged him back. His love was enough to fill the emptiness death had marked upon me. Dad loved me in spite of what I had done, in spite of who I had become. It was enough, for this moment.

I never thought death would affect me this way, especially not the death of a robot, a thing I had once considered nothing more than functioning pieces of metal.

But they were more than functioning pieces of metal. Robotatouille was more than functioning pieces of metal. He had feelings and quite possibly thoughts and maybe had even so much more than we as humans could even be capable of. And no one knew.

I cried in Dad’s arms. I cried for his love. I cried for the secrets the world might never understand. I cried for the robot I killed that may have been so much more than I could ever understand. And I cried because I had just ended what might have possibly been another form of life.

I probably took away from him something he could never get back. No more mistakes for him to undo, no more sorry’s for him to say, no more hugs and kisses for those he might have loved because I took them all. I took them all away. All the memories, all the laughter, all the tears, gone, plunged into nothingness.

The sleeping giant lay there as proof of what I had done. As a reminder to all who witnessed that I would now and forever be: Vienna Avery, the killer.

I pushed myself further into Dad’s arms, wanting his love to supersede everything else. And it did. Dad’s arms clutched around me, his chin stroking my head and his hands twirling my hair. The little touches, the little sensations, the little gestures of love restored warmth to my body. I clung to him, absorbing his love, allowing it to fill the emptiness. It felt wonderful.

Dad loved me.

Robotatouille cleared his throat, diluting the moment. “We have to talk.”

His voice sounded so human, and I shivered in Dad’s arms.

Dad rubbed his chin against my hair again. “I know.”

“You . . . You can talk?” I should have known.

“As you’ve figured out, I can do a lot more than talk.”

I know. You have feelings.

Robotatouille leaned over the dead robot, taking survey of him.

Dad helped me to my feet and then also bent down to look over the dead robot. “What are we going to do with the body?”

“Believe it or not, that’s not the problem here.” Robotatouille paced across the room. “It’s what we’re going to do with your daughter.
That’s
the problem.”