I stop and smile as bravely as I can. “You guys gonna lock me up?” I ask. “I guess I get my pick of beds, huh?”
I don’t expect the Hu-Bot to laugh—but nor do I expect him to whip out an Electroshock 12 and aim it at my neck.
Suddenly the world goes white, then black. And a second later, I’m on the ground, writhing as my muscles contract from a barrage of high-voltage electric shocks. It feels like I’m being punched all over by a million tiny, burning hands. I think I’m screaming, but I can’t hear anything—the pain is too much.
I claw at the concrete floor, as if I could pull myself away from the agony. My legs flop; my spine snaps forward and back again—I must look like a dying fish.
Then suddenly, the shocks stop. I’m on the floor, shaking and sobbing. I’m holding a fistful of my own hair. I’ve wet my pants.
“That was fun, wasn’t it?” the tall Hu-Bot asks. “Shall we do it again?”
I open my mouth, but nothing but a mewling cry of pain comes out.
“Just shoot her,” the shorter one says.
The tall one nods. “Yes, that is more efficient.” He reaches for his gun.
It feels like a dream to me. Like it happens in slow motion. I think, I hope it’s a Mercy, because I can’t stand any more pain.
But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see this flashing blur of movement, and before I can cry out, the two Hu-Bots are on the ground. One of their guns comes spinning toward me. I try to reach for it, but my fingers are so weak, I can’t even pick it up.
But I don’t have to, because Mikky is here, and she’s holding her own weapon, pointed right at the guards.
“Shooting is efficient,” Mikky agrees. “One… two…”
But instead of saying three and blowing a hole in their chests, Mikky leans down and yanks me up, tossing me over her shoulder as she sprints out into the prison yard, slamming the heavy metal door behind us.
She runs toward my van, which I’m in no condition to drive. So she shoves me into the passenger seat and leaps behind the wheel. A second later, we’re peeling out down the street, the sounds of the prison alarms already growing faint.
“You saved my life,” I manage.
She smiles grimly. “Now we’re even.”
CHAPTER 69
THE COMPOUND IS lit up like it’s Christmas, and Sergeant Macy is sweating and swearing, running around, trying to arrange sleeping quarters for the prisoners who were too weak to go back to the Reserve.
I feel bad for a second—like maybe I should have warned her and J.J. about my plans—but I tell myself it had to be this way. I couldn’t risk them stopping me.
Martha and I limp toward J.J.’s wing of the compound. Mikky follows us, and somewhere behind her is the tall, fuming figure of my brother. I swear I can feel his fiery gaze burning holes in the back of my T-shirt.
J.J. comes out to meet us. “Your stupidity never ceases to amaze me,” he says to me. But he doesn’t sound angry. And, in fact, a moment later, his face cracks into a smile.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do that before.
“J.J.,” I say, “Mikky found out about an attack—”
He holds up a hand to stop me. “Later,” he says. And he enfolds my frail sister in his arms. “My sweet Martha,” he whispers. “And Ricky. I’ve missed you! Come in, come in.” He pauses. “Mikky,” he adds, “I’m so glad you’ve come back. I knew you would.”
I give J.J. a sideways look. What’s with the human warmth? Did he get knocked on the head recently?
He ushers us to a table, and pretty soon we’re all sitting around, eating chicken soup, like it’s a regular Sunday-night family dinner. It’s the best food I’ve had in a long time, and the effects of the electric shocks are wearing off. I’m almost feeling happy.
Except that Ricky eats in stony silence. And he’s staring at me like I’m some giant cockroach. Like something he’d like to crush under his boot.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I finally ask, my mouth half-full of biscuit. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be rotting inside that prison!”
His eyes narrow. “Nothing can change what you did.”
“What did I do besides come visit you every freaking month? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
He sneers at me. “Look at us—me with a hunched back, crippled from a decade of hard labor. And Martha, nothing but skin and bones. Remember the last time you came to see us? She waved at you, and because of that, they knocked most of her teeth out of her mouth.” He spits soup on the table as he talks. He’s got his butter knife held like a weapon. “And you think you’re a hero! It’s disgusting.”
I clench my fists. “Did you want to get blown to bits when the Hu-Bots bombed the prison? Because that’s what they were going to do, Ricky. Tomorrow.”
J.J., startled, sits up straighter. “What?”
I turn to him. “Mikky found out when she ran away. The premier’s launching an all-out offensive on humankind. I guess he was going to kill the weakest ones first.”
I didn’t think it would be possible for Martha to get any paler, but she does. A small whimper escapes her mouth.
J.J. starts to say something, but Ricky interrupts. He doesn’t care about anything but his own anger at me. “You’re a murderer,” he seethes.
And before I know what’s happening, he leaps up from his chair and comes at me. I rise to meet him—but I’m not even all the way standing when his fist shoots out and connects with my brow bone. I hear a crack, and stars explode in front of my face. Blood gushes into my left eye. I reel backward, knocking over my chair.
Ricky advances, his fists raised. I’m wiping the blood from my face when he lands another punch, this one to my mouth. I can feel my teeth rip my lips open, and now I can taste the blood, too.
Mikky’s screaming at Ricky to stop, but J.J. holds her back.
I get it: this is my fight.
The adrenaline coursing through my system is making me shake all over—but on the upside, it’s dulling the pain. I figure I’ve got one good punch in me. I feint left, then right. Ricky’s fists are flying, but they’re not connecting with anything anymore.
I skip backward like I’m retreating—and then I charge. I send my right fist flying into Ricky’s stomach. He doubles over, arms wrapped around his guts. Then he drops to his knees, panting.
“Why the hell do you hate me so much?” I yell at his bowed head.
Ricky won’t look up at me.
I turn to J.J. “Do you know? Why does he despise me? And why do you, for that matter?”
J.J. presses his lips into a thin line. “I suppose it’s time you knew the truth,” he says.
CHAPTER 70
DIZZY AND DRIPPING blood from the cut on my brow, I follow J.J. into a tiny room off the kitchen area. He flicks on a dim light. The entire space is stuffed with outdated gadgets—gaming stations, bulky TVs, and stereo speakers, all of them covered in dust.
“What is this, the tomb of the unknown computer?” I ask.
He ignores me, as usual. He’s fussing with a small machine that looks like an old-fashioned laptop. A moment later, an image appears on the screen.
A six-year-old girl.
Me.
“What is this?” I whisper.
“My cloud access,” he says. “Watch.”
I see myself in a black doorway, clutching a loaf of bread. I recognize it immediately: it’s the entrance to the shelter where we lived in the aftermath of the Great War, when the Hu-Bots were combing the City and the countryside for human survivors. Rounding them up. Taking away their names and giving them numbers. Killing anyone too weak or too strong. Enslaving or imprisoning the rest.
We’d been hiding underground for three months while my parents tried to figure out where to go, how to keep us safe. We’d been eating nothing but canned tuna and beans, and our supplies were running low. I wanted to help. I wanted us to have bread. So I’d gone out and stolen it. I w
as so proud of myself! I remember all of it. After that, though, my memory goes dark.
But what I’m watching isn’t my memory. It’s my mom’s. She’s hurrying over to meet me—she doesn’t know how I got out, but she’s so relieved that I’m back. But then, materializing right behind me, so silently I’m not even aware of them, are two Hu-Bot soldiers. My mother shrieks in fear. My sister starts to scream. The soldiers’ eyes flash.
I see the Hu-Bots knocking me down as they push past me. I see my father leap forward, covering me with his body. My mom dives under the makeshift table, saying Please no please no please no. Then there’s a flash from the muzzle of a gun—and everything goes dark.
I’m shaking even harder than I was when I fought my brother. I can’t believe it: I just saw my mother die.
J.J. watches me, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Is there more?” I manage to ask. “Other memories… from anyone else?”
He shakes his head. “You don’t want to see those.”
My face is streaked with tears. I collapse onto a chair. “Why did you show me?”
J.J.’s shoulders hunch. He looks smaller, older. “The truth is,” he says, “I always blamed you. It was your act of thievery that brought the Hu-Bots to your hiding place.” He pauses, scratches his thinning hair. “But only recently, I realized something. You were doing what you thought was best. You were fighting. You were only six years old, but you were already a soldier. You were trying to save your family.”
“But instead, I killed them,” I cry.
“You didn’t kill them. The androids that I made killed them. Don’t you see, Sarah? Not a single one of us is innocent. But we have to move on. We have to make our own justice. We have to…” He trails off.
I feel a terrible resolve building inside me. I look up and meet his gaze. “We have to fight,” I say. I stand, holding myself steady on the table. My face is covered in blood and tears. “And I’m not Sarah anymore,” I tell him. “I’m a soldier. I’m Six.”
CHAPTER 71
“ARE YOU ALL right?” Mikky asks, gently touching the cut on my brow.
“I’m fine,” I say, flinching. In fact, it’s sore as hell—but that’s not the pain that’s bothering me. I look around the now-empty room. “Where’s Martha and Ricky?”
“Sergeant Macy took them to their quarters,” Mikky says. “Ricky had to make a stop at the infirmary.”
Good, I think. He won’t mess with me anymore.
J.J. walks back to the table, slurps down the rest of his soup in one gulp, and then says, “Okay, you two, follow me.”
“Time for some more laps?” Mikky asks, sounding almost eager.
He shakes his head. “Time for another family reunion.”
Mikky looks at me in confusion. I just shrug—although I’m pretty sure I know who we’re about to go see.
Except that I’m not prepared at all for where J.J. takes us. At the far end of the compound, enclosed by a high metal fence, is a huge barracks. And inside, it’s positively crawling with Hu-Bots. There must be hundreds of them, a thousand—all bunking down in a room the size of a football field.
Some of them are lifting weights. Others are lying on their bunks, looking at maps and graphs (nerd alert!). There’s a group playing cards near a window, and another group having what appears to be a push-up contest.
Mikky gasps. “Who…,” she says, and then stops, overcome.
J.J. gazes over them like a proud father—which, in a way, he is. “These Hu-Bots were outcasts and renegades, Mikky,” he says quietly. “They suffered under the repressive laws of the premier. They didn’t want to enslave the human race. They wanted a new life. A new world. And so they came to me.”
He makes it sound so simple, so easy. I guess it helps when you leave out the whole brain-surgery part. The whole they’ll be reprogrammed or killed the minute they show their faces in the City business.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispers. “I thought I was alone…”
Suddenly there’s a commotion on the far side of the room, and a tall, dark-haired Hu-Bot comes racing toward us. Reflexively, I duck. Mikky freezes, and a moment later I see her jaw fall open.
“Kris!” she squeals.
And then they’re falling all over each other, laughing and crying and hugging. It’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen coming from two Hu-Bots—can their systems even handle it?
I’m happy for them, I am. I just wish my own family reunion had looked more like this and less like a bar fight.
When they finally stop squawking in joy, J.J. says, “Are you ready, Mikky?”
“Ready for what?” Mikky asks. Tears are still shining on her flushed cheeks. Her blue eyes glitter, and her smile lights up everything around her.
“For your future,” J.J. says cryptically.
He’s truly a man of few words—unless he’s in front of a crowd.
“I’m ready for anything,” Mikky asserts.
And so J.J. turns to the room. “Everyone, listen!”
All eyes snap to him.
“You all have been waiting for this moment,” he says, “even if you didn’t know it. Now is the time when we come together to overthrow our oppressors. And to lead the troops, I give you—MikkyBo.” He sweeps his arm behind himself, motioning Mikky forward.
She hesitates for a moment before stepping to his side. Unlike at the meeting of the Rezzies, no one protests. They simply gaze at her for a moment—taking in her long, strong body, her fierce eyes, her confident stature—and then they begin to clap.
J.J. turns to me, his face lit up with victory. “The revolution has begun.”
And I think: I hope we survive it.
CHAPTER 72
MOSESKHAN THROWS THE report down on his desk in fury: a group of rebel humans has attacked the Central Prison, freeing all prisoners and destroying an entire Bot-cop squadron in the process.
It was a carefully planned raid, carried out under cover of darkness. But grainy security-camera footage shows a Hu-Bot leading the deadly charge.
MosesKhan knows who the traitor is before he even glances at the tapes. The detestable former detective MikkyBo, whose expiration he himself had confirmed—prematurely, it would seem. She has returned, and she has tricked him. He should have destroyed her when he had the chance. Buried her right alongside the stinking humans in the Pits.
He’s starting to round up an assassination squad when the door to his office bursts open. The force is so great that the top hinges rip out of the frame. Standing in the doorway is the biggest Hu-Bot MosesKhan has ever seen—and behind him is the premier.
MosesKhan freezes. He even stops breathing. This is not good.
The premier barges into the room, his face purple with barely suppressed rage. “What is the meaning of this?” he demands.
MosesKhan falters. “Sir,” he says, “I assure you—”
The premier cuts him off with a backhand to MosesKhan’s cheek. “You assure me of nothing,” he seethes. “You have committed a grave and perilous error, commander.” The premier leans closer, and his voice becomes soft. Threatening. “You have underestimated the humans’ capacity for treachery.”
MosesKhan reflexively brings his hand to his stinging cheek, then lifts it farther up in a belated salute to his leader. He has failed—there is no way of disguising it. The only question is: how acutely will he suffer for that failure? “Sir, I have sent search patrols out to all corners of the Central Capital,” he says quickly. He must try to salvage his Elite position. “The escaped prisoners will be rounded up and—”
The premier spits on the floor—a gesture so foul, it seems almost human. “If you think I care one bit about those starving, worm-riddled walking corpses, then you are mistaken, commander. What troubles me,” he says, coming even closer to MosesKhan now, his eyes glittering with menace, “is the message it sends to our populations. It tells the humans that revolt is possible. And it tells the Hu-Bots that our power is not absolute.”
He inhales deeply, his eyes closed. Then he snaps them open again and roars, “Do you understand the problem with this?”
MosesKhan nods vehemently.
The premier smiles coldly. “Good. Because if you did not, it would not be so hard to come by another commander.” He turns his back to MosesKhan and gazes out the window. “And what would you do then?” he asks. “Perhaps, after a minor system reboot, you could join the drones on janitorial patrol,” he suggests. “I’d leave just enough of your memories for you to know how much you’d lost. How far you’d fallen.”
“Your Honor, I—”
The premier whirls around. “Bow down, Khan,” he whispers.
MosesKhan starts. Did he hear that right?
But a glance at his premier’s cold, diabolical eyes tells him that he has. MosesKhan clenches his fists. The humiliation being demanded of him is unbearable. He is not a human. He is not a slave. And yet—
“Bow down.” The premier’s soft voice booms in MosesKhan’s head.
There is no alternative. Unwillingly, MosesKhan bends his knees. He lowers his body. Slowly, his mind fuming—This is intolerable—he leans down, down, down, until his face is pressed against the floor.
“There will be no more patience,” the premier says from above him. “No more mercy.”
MosesKhan can see only the tips of the premier’s boots as he paces the room. Then the boots stop, an inch from his face.
“Our soldiers have been alerted,” the premier says. “Munitions have been gathered. Land mines, incendiaries, Mercys, and missiles: all will be brought to bear upon the pathetic human pestilence.”
MosesKhan dares to look up. The premier is staring down at him, his eyes lit with murder.
“The time has come for the elimination of the human race,” the premier declares. “It will be over in a matter of days. And there is nothing the humans can do to stop it.”