Ch. 13...
Bells’ motorcycle barely has enough charge to make it back to town, let alone all the way to Emma’s house in Andover Heights. It dies, spluttering and stalling, and Bells scrambles off, then runs the rest of the way.
She doesn’t even blink when Bells launches himself through her bedroom window and gets in a fighting stance, ready for anything.
“Hey,” Emma says, barely looking up from her bed. She hasn’t changed into pajamas yet and is still wearing her favorite sunglasses on top of her head. “I know you think the movie adaptation of The Gentleman Detective is terrible, but it’s always good for a laugh… what are you doing?” She raises her eyebrows at Bells.
“MonRobots, the new ones, they just came after me,” Bells says, walking past Emma to the door. “Did your moms ever open that giant present you guys got from Kingston?”
“They came after you?” Emma follows Bells down the hallway and to the basement door. “No, I think they were planning to send it back unopened, why?”
Bells darts down the basement stairs. Sitting in in the corner is a massive box addressed to Samantha Robledo and Family.
He rips the box open, and sure enough, a rectangular new MonRobot stands there impassively.
Emma gasps. “Okay. It’s not on, and we definitely haven’t charged it, so it’s probably—” The panel flashes to life, and a series of red lights blinks at them.
“Emma Robledo,” it says.
Bells throws his arms in front of Emma. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Kingston probably had everyone in our family programmed in it,” Emma reasons.
“Kingston approved of Captain Orion experimenting on people!” Bells grabs Emma’s hand.
Hovering above the floor, the robot advances toward them.
“I don’t think your MonRobot wants to vacuum!”
“Emma Robledo,” the robot repeats. “Daughter of Councilmember Samantha Robledo. Class Five threat. Objective: Detain.”
“What? That isn’t in your— You’re a chorebot!” Emma says.
Two panels on the robot’s sides swivel open, and arms unfold. Bells has seen the various types of arms robots have—vacuum cleaners, brooms, and so on. The ones at the Broussard’s restaurant have cooking utensils.
These arms look like prongs, and a sizzle of electricity pops between the tines.
“Emma, let’s go!” Bells grabs her hand and darts out the door. The MonRobot starts after them. Bells slams the door shut and shoves a table in front of it. Will it hold?
Thump. Thump.
They dash down the long hallway to the exit, and Bells turns to look at the still intact door. Emma exhales, trying to catch her breath. “Why am I a Class Five threat? I haven’t done anything. I’m not even a meta-human like you—”
“I don’t know!”
Emma shrieks and points at the door; the wood around the doorknob glows as a line of fire laces through it, and then the doorknob falls off. A long arm protrudes through it, finds the table obstruction, and then—
SMASH.
The MonRobot crashes through the door, rumbling as it chases them.
“Come on!” Bells says, throwing open the front door. He doesn’t bother closing it.
Emma waves her DED frantically, and the car hums to life. Doors click open. It’s still filled with all their luggage; they haven’t unpacked from their trip. They scramble into the car.
“Program your destination, or start manual—” the computer suddenly flashes and the display goes blank.
“What—”
The MonRobot is holding its electric prongs to the engine, as though it’s tapped into the car’s database. “Exit the vehicle, Emma Robledo,” it says in that slow monotone, and the car’s computer echoes the same voice.
“Come on! Just turn on the manual option! You know, the one you requested, the one you practiced so hard for, parking your car perfectly every time—”
“Oh, right, I forgot!” Emma says, fumbling in her pocket for her keycard. The card slots neatly into the dashboard, and the engine purrs.
The MonRobot’s arms crackle with electricity again.
Emma accelerates, whizzing them backward. Emma turns the wheel sharply and changes gears, and then they’re zooming down the street.
The MonRobot chases them for a block, and they lose sight of it as they turn the corner.
Emma exhales, trying to catch her breath. “What in the world just happened?”
“We need to get out of here. All of us.” Bells flicks through his DED and calls Jess. The projection shows the rotating swirl, dialing, dialing…
“I don’t know how to get to Abby’s new house without the navigation system; it’s way out on the other side of an Unmaintained zone!” Emma wails.
“Just head east,” Bells says. “I remember how to get there.”
“Hiking! Climbing!” Emma groans. “My MonRobot tries to attack me, then we’re going out in the Unmaintained zone again, then… ugh. At least it’s not raining anymore.”
Bells directs her to the canyons and the new Jones house while calling Abby and Jess. “Head east, out of the city, take the old highway 120, there’s a sign for Blue Diamond, and follow the road for about fifteen miles.”
Abby doesn’t pick up the call, and Jess’ line rings and rings. Finally it connects, fuzzy, as if she’s holding up her wrist unsteadily.
“Jess! We need to—”
Jess appears in the projection, blinking at the screen. There’s a pillow crease on her forehead, and a lock of hair stuck to her cheek. “Bells? What’s up?” she says blearily.
“MonRobots freaking out! The new ones!” Bells blurts out. “Emma’s mom had one of the prototypes and it just tried to attack Emma! It called her a Class Five threat. And wanted to detain her!”
Jess sits up, eyes wide. “Are you guys okay?”
“We’re on our way to Abby’s house. Can you meet us there?”
“Ah…” Jess blushes.
“A Class Five? That’s interesting,” Abby says, popping into frame. “Actually, don’t come here; we can get to you faster.” Her hair is in chaos, and Bells is pretty sure she’s wearing Jess’ T-shirt. Abby tilts the screen; it looks as if they’re in Abby’s bedroom. “We can meet you on the edge of Old Town. What about on East Cameron? Jess, did you see where my—”
Jess buries her face in her hand, blushing fiercely, and then waves at the projection and the call ends.
Bells laughs.
“The light is green, where do I go?”
“Old Town,” Bells says, pointing them past downtown.
They arrive in Old Town twenty minutes later. Abby and Jess should be here by now, but there isn’t a sign of them.
“Wait, isn’t that Abby’s car?”
Parked is a generous word for the way it’s on the curb, smoking and sizzling electricity, with the doors still swinging open.
“Keep driving,” Bells says, “They would have gone down this street; they wouldn’t have gone far.”
“There they are!” Emma says.
In the car’s headlights, they can see at least ten MonRobots, their electric prongs out and sparking, advancing on Abby and Jess at the end of an alley. They’re surrounded with nowhere to go.
Bells blanks; he doesn’t know what to do. He just sees his friends in danger, surrounded. Are the rogue bots going to hurt them? Capture them? Turn them in to the League?
“Assets located,” the MonRobots are chanting. “Abigail Jones Monroe, Jessica Tran…”
It feels as though the bottom has dropped out of Bells’ stomach. If these bots know their names… whatever security they thought they had is long gone.
“No, no, no,” Emma mutters, and the car swivels in a wild turn, almost tipping. It falls back to the street with a loud clang, and then they’re zooming backward.
Emma puts her arm on the back of Bells’ seat, looking back. Her heart-shaped sunglasses fall back onto her nose. The metal of the car exterior screeches as the car barely fits into the alley, and they hit the MonRobots dead on, smashing them to pieces as sparks fly.
Emma stops short of Jess and Abby, who are frozen and staring at them. “Come on, get in!” she says, her voice filled with urgency.
Jess grabs Abby by the hand, pulling her forward. The back door clangs open and they fumble inside.
Emma accelerates before Abby gasps. “Go!”
“We need to get somewhere more secure,” Abby says.
“We have to get Brendan,” Jess gasps. “If the rogue MonRobots think I’m an asset, they’re going to want him too.”
Emma nods, turning down the road that leads to Jess’ neighborhood, and then—
Crash.
The Trans’ minivan smashes into a streetlamp. Brendan tumbles out of the front seat, wobbling. He grabs a box full of tech and other assortments and runs toward them. “I don’t know how you do it; driving is terrifying. Did you guys get a bunch of robots chasing you and insisting they detain you?”
“Brendan,” Bells says. “Get in the car!”
Behind Brendan a number of MonRobots stalk forward, and Brendan turns around and aims something at them.
The robots shut down, clattering to the ground.
“What the hell, Brendan?” Jess yanks him by the shirt into the car.
“Directed electromagnetic pulse,” he says, giving them a shaky grin. “Thought these would come in handy!”
“How many more of those do you have?” Emma asks. She turns onto the highway that leads out of town, and the endless stretch of the desert night is open to them. The usual brilliance of the stars is hidden by looming clouds in the night sky.
“Uhh, it’s good for one blast before it needs to charge for forever,” Brendan admits. “But we should be fine, unless there are more…”
“There are more of them!” Abby shakes her head as a fresh dozen round the corner behind them.
“Where are we going?” Jess asks. “Do we have a plan?”
Emma nods. “I just figured that we can outrun them, since I’ve got a full battery and those things have to recharge sometime.”
“Good plan,” Bells says, peering out the window behind them. The sound of the robots behind them has ebbed; he can see only a few now. They’re stopping, and one of them in the front rank opens a panel, and a light blinks briefly.
Bells winces, expecting a blast of—anything—
The car stops cold, and Bells can feel the DED on his wrist power off.
“Did it just fire an EMP back at us?” Emma groans, patting her car’s dash.
They scramble out of the car and run. “We need a new plan!” Bells shouts.
“Run!” Jess points to her left and they follow; Bells assumes she’s using her power to find the safest route, but he doesn’t see how this is going to work. The robots are going to catch up to them, and fast.
“That’s not a plan!”
“Do you have a better one?”
“What… are those?”
A slim device protrudes from the robots pursuing them, and Bells barely has a chance to look, but a chill of recognition runs down his spine. It’s the barrel of a gun.
Abby screams, “Get down!”
The shots ring out, and Bells doesn’t think, just reaches inside himself for his power and shifts. He thinks of protecting his friends, nothing else, and stretches out his arms. He barely has enough power, but Bells doesn’t hesitate to use the last of his energy. He’s getting bigger, taller; his body is changing in an entirely new way, and his senses are dulling.
Will this be his last heroic act?
The clamor stops. Someone must have figured out how to disable the MonRobots.
“Bells?” Emma’s voice is soft. It feels so far away, though, as if he’s hearing her from underwater.
Bells takes a deep breath, but then finds that he doesn’t have… He isn’t breathing, exactly. Or he doesn’t need to? He feels solid, with the weight of the earth, as if blood isn’t running in his veins. He’s a wall, a sheer mass of rock.
“Whoa. I didn’t know you could do that.”
Bells lets go of the shift, gasping as he’s flung back into his body. His heart pounds as he gets used to flesh and blood again. It’s as if everything is happening at once; every nerve in his body screams with sensation. He’s shaking and curls up into a ball, willing the world to stop moving. The tears come unbidden, coursing down his face, and he tries to see what’s happening, but it’s all a blur. His friends are standing around him; the wreckage of MonRobots lies behind them, riddled with bullet holes.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Bells; you’re okay.” Emma pulls him into her arms. “Bells?”
Bells shudders; he knows he’s here, knows she’s holding him, but he can’t squeeze her hand back.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Shock, I think,” Abby says. “Come on, we have to get him somewhere safe. The first time I over-used my telekinesis I threw up. It looks like he may have overdone it.”
Bells opens his eyes; they’re in a different car. He gets a glimpse of a needle in his arm, a bag of fluid suspended over his head, Emma leaning over him. Abby is asleep in the other seat; Jess is driving, and Brendan’s face is lit by a projector screen with a string of numbers on it. Bells barely gets a sense of the sparse forest and rocky terrain outside before unconsciousness claims him again.