Rise of the Robot Army

  “But I won’t make that mistake again. Now I see there’s something else to it. It’s gotten so it doesn’t matter if Gilded is needed. It’s about you wanting to be needed. It ain’t right.” He held his hand toward Henry. “Give me the cape.”

  Miles’s head was pounding as though his heart knew it couldn’t burst out through his chest and was trying to go the skull route instead. Henry and his dad were trying to take everything away from him. He couldn’t allow it. Gilded—Miles—was too important.

  Miles shot up from the sofa. Quicker than Henry or his dad could react, he snatched the cape. “I’M GILDED!”

  “Miles! No!” Henry shouted.

  A blinding shock of lightning cracked outside. Thunder rattled the building. Miles didn’t care. He dashed for the window, dropping the cape over his shoulders as he moved.

  “Stop!” Mr. Taylor yelled.

  Henry leaped onto Miles, but there was no tackling him. Miles concentrated, imagining a world imperiled. Seismic upheaval. Dinosaurs brought back to life. It didn’t matter what or why. All that mattered was that Gilded was flying to the world’s aid.

  The cape was silent. Inert.

  All Miles wanted was to be Gilded.

  The

  cape

  blinked

  out

  again.

  Miles

  couldn’t

  hold

  on

  anymore.

  Miles had crashed down in an overgrown field behind a half-vacant strip mall. He was disoriented, on his back in the trench his impact had carved into the soggy ground. He wasn’t hurt, but he was wet and cold, the fat drops of windblown rain stinging his skin.

  The storm was intensifying.

  Miles sat up on his knees, clutching the cape tightly. It didn’t glow. It didn’t hum. The storm that battered his body was nothing compared to the storm raging inside him.

  The cape was rejecting him.

  “Miles! Where are you?”

  He heard a faint voice call over the blustery wind. Through the rain, he spied a bouncing circle of light. It darted back and forth in search of him.

  Miles couldn’t let Henry or his dad see him like this. They’d say “I told you so.” His dad would take the cape. Maybe never give it back.

  Miles ran. Not toward home or friends. He ran away. Rain pelted his face. He didn’t know which way he was going. He just kept running with the cape clutched in his muddy hand. He risked a look back over his shoulder and saw the circle of light was pointed right at him. Through the gloom, he could just make out Henry’s vague shape behind the glare.

  Miles ran faster, his legs burning from the effort to get anywhere he and the cape could never be separated.

  His foot caught on a rock. He tumbled forward, landing facedown on the sodden earth, sliding through the muck and mud. He came up spitting grass and gritty water. The cape lay in a mud puddle next to him, dark as the rain-choked night.

  “Miles!” Henry rushed over, examining Miles’s state. “I saw you fall from the sky. I thought for sure you were dead. Are you hurt?”

  It wasn’t lost on Miles that Henry was in a thunderstorm with winds strong enough to turn him into the world’s first human kite, but all he could think about was him.

  “I’m all right.” Miles held forward the lifeless cape. The next words he spoke were nearly too heavy for his voice to lift. “I think . . . I think I broke it.”

  Suddenly, the wind picked up even greater speed, thrashing water about like a cyclone.

  “What’s happening?” Miles could barely hear his voice over the noise.

  Henry clung to Miles. “I don’t know!”

  Miles looked up just as a glaring, white spotlight shined down from overhead. If he hadn’t already been using his hand to shield his eyes from the rain, he would’ve been blinded. Was it the Unnd? Had Lord Commander Calamity somehow sensed that Gilded was out of commission and returned to finish the job?

  The light descended. Miles wanted to run, but his feet were rooted in the mud sucking at his feet. The cape offered no response. All Miles could manage was to watch helplessly as the light dropped closer on its collision course with him. Now he knew how it felt to be a deer transfixed by headlights on a midnight country road.

  The light banked hard, and Miles saw it wasn’t beaming down from a spaceship at all. It came from a helicopter.

  No. Not a helicopter. Helicopters were things tourists used to get a bird’s-eye view of the city. This was a state-of-the-art weapon of war. Guns and missile launchers jutted from its sides like porcupine quills. Miles hadn’t noticed it before because it was painted black to blend in with the dark sky. The engine was whisper-quiet, scarcely audible over the sound of the rain beating the ground.

  Henry wiped his glasses to get a better look. “Oh, no,” he breathed. “They found us.”

  The helicopter touched down. Several hulking, shadowy figures lurched from its sides. The light was shining right in Miles’s eyes, so all he could see were their shapes. Most of them looked identical—tall, broad, and their right arms pointing some sort of gun. Actually, it looked like their right arms were guns, but that didn’t make any sense. Miles must’ve knocked his head harder than he thought.

  One of the figures was shorter and pudgier than the others, its movement more uneven. It stepped closer, allowing Miles to see he was a soldier of some kind.

  “Put down the weapon!” the soldier ordered.

  Miles threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender. The wind caught the cape and billowed it like a flag flapping in the breeze. “Weapon?” he screamed in panic and confusion. “We’re eighth graders!”

  Henry grabbed Miles’s hand, lowering it. “He’s talking about the cape, Miles. He wants you to put down the cape.”

  Just then two of the shadowy figures moved aside to allow a tall, thin figure dressed in combat fatigues to stride past. He had deep grooves in his face and a thick, white mustache sprouting from his lip. The wind and rain didn’t seem to bother him, as though he were a chunk of granite who’d weathered far worse storms than this. Miles could swear he’d seen him before.

  “Children?” The man scowled, like the word tasted bad on his tongue. Then he shrugged, as if it made no difference what age Miles and Henry were. “Mechanized infantry, secure the cape. Then bag these two up. They’re coming with us.”

  The shadowy figures closed in. Light reflected off their rain-slicked skin like it was armor.

  Miles felt a pinprick stab the back of his neck, and everything went black.

  CHAPTER

  11

  BLINDING WHITE WALLS.

  A cold, stainless-steel table.

  Horrible, misshapen figures paced at the edge of Miles’s vision, disappearing and reappearing like sharks swimming in and out of shadows.

  The world was distorted and fuzzy around the edges, as though he were viewing it through milk-soaked cloth. He was unconscious, then semiconscious, then unconscious again, all his effort spent on lifting eyelids that weighed a thousand pounds each. A throbbing ache pounded in his head and ears.

  The last thing he remembered was the sharp pinprick on his neck. He tried to reach for the spot, but his arms wouldn’t move.

  Oh, no.

  He was strapped down to the table, thick metal brackets squeezing his wrists, waist, and ankles. He blinked, and it felt like his eyes were closed for a year. When they finally rolled open again, figures were looming over him.

  He saw now why they were misshapen—they wore balloonish suits like scientists had in sci-fi movies to protect themselves from radiation and who knows what else. One of the figures raised a gloved hand holding a syringe.

  Who are you? Leave me alone!

  Miles’s mind screamed those things, but his mouth wouldn’t say them. His tongue clicked thick and dry in his mouth. “Luk a-nuh.”

  “Subject Two is waking up,” one of the figures said. It was a woman’s voice, soft and clinical. “Administer more sedativ
e.”

  A warm sensation like liquefied clouds started in Miles’s neck and soaked up into his face and head.

  No! Please!

  Then . . . nothing.

  CHAPTER

  12

  CHILDREN?

  General Breckenridge sat behind his polished oak desk in his office, filled to bursting with distaste. He’d never been fond of children. Even when he was a child himself, he hadn’t cared for the other children around him. He’d seen childhood as beneath him. A nuisance. An unfortunate period he was forced to endure on the road to becoming the adult he always knew he was inside.

  The General had no children. He wanted no children. One of the policies he appreciated most about the army was that they didn’t even allow children through the gate.

  Nevertheless, the General had to admit it to himself—he was surprised. Despite his crackerjack military training and his experience fighting all manner of soldiers in every desert and jungle on the planet, he hadn’t seen this one coming. He never would’ve predicted that the greatest threat to the United States of America would be a pair of squirts too young to be trusted to chop onions. Heck, the runt with the glasses barely looked strong enough to hold an onion, much less chop it with any sort of skill or efficiency.

  The General had done it. He’d saved the nation and the world. He’d narrowed down the location of Gilded’s base to somewhere within a single square mile northeast of the city. Then he had a stealth helicopter containing a squad of his mechanized infantry on standby, ready to take off at a moment’s notice. When news stories started popping up about Gilded appearing in Nashville and Chicago and Denver, he thought for one terrifying minute that his target had sniffed him out and moved to a new location—maybe even a new city. The General had been so close, and yet it seemed his moment has passed him by again.

  But the General wouldn’t give up that easily. He’d worked too long and too hard. He ordered his surveillance teams to remain at their posts. He kept the helicopter fueled. And sure enough, last night Gilded returned.

  Delta Team had been first to call it in: The target had been spotted in the air near Jimmy Carter Boulevard. Within two minutes, the General and his mechanized infantry were in the air as well.

  The General had been coolly aware that the mission might be the end for him. The adversary he was en route to intercept was more formidable than anything any general had ever faced before. But it was his duty, and if he were to die in the pursuit of it, then he’d die with honor.

  Not one shot had been fired.

  General Breckenridge shook his head at the pure irony of it. All the time and resources he’d spent designing his mechanized infantry to take down the deadliest of threats, and Gilded had somehow taken himself down. Radar showed him crashing in the thunderstorm, leaving the General and his mechanized infantry with little to do but land the helicopter and pick up the pieces. He hadn’t even needed to call in the squads of additional mechanized units circling in the air overhead.

  Which brought his thoughts back to the children.

  As it turned out, the extraordinary technology that had bestowed tremendous abilities on Donald Plower was a golden cape. A cape that had allowed him to operate as Gilded for six long decades. But why had Plower placed such enormous destructive power in the hands of children? Allow children to play with matches and gasoline and they’ll burn themselves. Allow them to play with an extraterrestrial weapon and they’ll eventually burn everything. It was madness.

  Madness, or was it part of a larger plan?

  This wasn’t the first time a child had been brought to the General’s attention. The first, referred to as Subject One, he’d almost felt sorry for, a runaway scared and in hiding on the abandoned Plower farm.

  Now there were three of them. The preliminary assessments didn’t point to anything connecting Subject One to the two children he’d captured last night, but that didn’t mean a connection wasn’t there. Regardless, the General’s subbasement was beginning to look less like a top-secret detention center and more like after-school day care.

  The General supposed he needed to do something about the parents of his two new guests. People tended to notice when they’d misplaced their children, and they’d undoubtedly already begun calling neighbors, police, and anyone else who might help search for them. With Subject One, it hadn’t been a problem because no one seemed to want her around. With the two boys, he sensed things weren’t going to be as simple.

  The door opened, and Corporal Slapped-Cheeks stepped into the office. “General,” he puffed, short of breath, “I brought the doctor, like you ordered.”

  The General tightened his fingers in a white-knuckled clench.

  “General . . . ?”

  If only the corporal’s mind were as well rounded as his waistline. General Breckenridge darted his eyes at the open door.

  Corporal Slapped-Cheeks looked around curiously, like he was waiting for something to dawn on him. Eventually, it did. “Oh!” His cheeks turned redder as he hurried from the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

  The General’s office was silent for a military cadence: hup, two, three, four.

  knock knock

  “Enter!” the General ordered gruffly.

  The door opened again, and Corporal Slapped-Cheeks marched into the office. “General! I detained the doctor as ordered, sir!” He saluted, his posture ramrod straight.

  “At ease, Corporal.”

  Corporal Slapped-Cheeks deflated. “She’s waiting outside, General.”

  “Bring her in.”

  The corporal called cheerily over his shoulder, “You can come in now, Doctor!”

  Dr. Petri entered with a file folder held in one hand.

  “Dismissed, Corporal.”

  The corporal pivoted on his heels and exited the room.

  The General reached into the top drawer of his desk and took out a remote control. He pressed a button, and a panel slid back on the wall to reveal a large interactive TV screen behind it. He stood and touched the screen, and it came to life. It scrolled through data and reports concerning the two children who’d been brought in the night before: X-ray scans; magnetic imaging; blood and hair samples, DNA swabs, and fibers from their clothing. All taken while the prisoners were unconscious.

  Dr. Petri was stunned. “My research. How did you . . . ?”

  “Your research is my research. Everything that takes place in your lab is instantaneously synced with my system.”

  Dr. Petri frowned at the file folder, as if wondering why she’d bothered to bring it. “How long has that been the case?”

  “Since the day you arrived.” The General redirected Dr. Petri’s attention to the screen. “Reviewing the medical profiles on each of the new subjects, it appears you’ve found no presence of contagion.”

  “Not yet. But this is only the preliminary examination. It’s premature to interpret the data as conclusive. Remember, Subject One still exhibits no signs of contagion, but we can both agree she isn’t . . . normal.”

  “Yes or no, Doctor. In your expert opinion—limited as it may be at this time—do Subjects Two and Three pose a public health hazard from having been in the presence of the Gilded technology for the past year?”

  “No.”

  “Have they been escorted back to their sleeping quarters?”

  “Yes. They need time to recover from the sedatives. I don’t want to put any more stress on their systems than is necessary to confirm their general health.”

  The General returned to his chair. “Very well, Doctor. That will be all.”

  Instead of leaving, Dr. Petri stepped closer to the screen. “General, why are they all children? Subject One won’t tell us how old she is, but based on skull size and length of the tibia and fibula, I estimate her to be between twelve and fifteen years old. These two boys seem about the same age.” Dr. Petri scrutinized a scan of the runt. “This one could be a little younger,” she corrected.

  The General thumbed the re
mote, and the screen went dark. “That’s not your concern, Doctor. Notify me if your laboratory tests reveal anything abnormal about them. Leave the rest to me. You’re dismissed.”

  The General was perturbed to see that Dr. Petri wasn’t leaving. No one ever remained in his presence after the General dismissed them. Oh, how he disliked her.

  “Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character,” the General said. Fine words to part company on. He always found General Robert E. Lee to be good for the soul.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a man.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  Dr. Petri’s jaw tightened. If the General wasn’t careful, she was going to become a problem.

  “General, what’s going on here? What are you planning to do with these children?”

  The General walked around his desk and opened the door. The corporal was standing just outside. He snapped to attention. “Sir!”

  “Return the doctor to her lab, Corporal. Reprogram her access card. She’s no longer permitted to leave the research level without my authorization.”

  “You can’t do that!” Dr. Petri demanded.

  “It’s already done, Doctor. Enjoy your stay.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  MILES AWOKE SHIVERING ON A metal cot. He was feverish, cold and sweating at the same time, as if every cell in his body were alerting him that something was very wrong.

  He didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there. He didn’t know why the concrete cell he was in was so small, or why there was a thick, plate-glass wall across the front. He didn’t know why he was wearing a snug orange jumpsuit with what looked like ports for electrodes and devices he didn’t want to imagine.