“Collars are for dogs,” Mikky hisses.
As he approaches her, she twists and struggles in the grip of the guards. She gets an arm free and elbows one of them in the solar plexus, then flings her head back and smashes her skull into his nose. He grunts in agony.
Crack! Khan slaps her viciously across the cheek. Another guard presses his gun to her temple.
“You are important to the Hu-Bot cause, MikkyBo,” MosesKhan says quietly. “The rebels trust you. And that will be their downfall.”
She howls in rage as MosesKhan puts the cold metal collar around her neck and clasps it tight. “I’m not your slave!” she cries.
He shakes his head at her, disappointed. “You think you have a soul, don’t you? You think you’re human. You poor, deluded robot. You’re nothing but circuitry and a pretty face.”
“You’re the robot,” Mikky yells. “Mindlessly following orders of a psychotic dictator—a first-generation Hu-Bot that’s got more glitches than me.”
“Enough!” MosesKhan roars at her. Then his voice begins crooning again. “You know what happens now, don’t you?”
Out of the corner of his eye, MosesKhan can see the premier preparing to depart for his sanctuary in the Eastern Zone. “Everything will be taken care of, sir,” Khan reassures him.
The premier nods curtly as he departs.
Mikky tries to shrink from his touch, but there’s nowhere for her to go. Keeping his hands at her throat, MosesKhan connects to the collar’s interface.
He feels an electric jolt when he accesses Mikky’s neural network, a sudden flash of power running through him like fire. He can feel her life force—its clean, pure fury. He’s inside her mind, and the sensation is thrilling.
MosesKhan enters her encrypted memory files. Her programmed defenses are no match for his coding skills. Quickly, he introduces new information: Humans are responsible for all the world’s ills. They are murderous, filthy, vile.
Mikky’s eyes flutter back in her head. Her limbs spasm like she’s being shocked.
She’s still fighting him. Making it impossible for him to overwrite her data.
The commander curses softly. Focusing intently, he penetrates her system processors. He establishes a secure mind link. And then, though it’s against protocol, he initiates an extra upload, a highly personal one: he transmits his own thoughts into Mikky. He corrupts everything he can access in her cortex with his own beliefs. Humans are vermin; they must be crushed under our boots.
Mikky shudders. Her breath comes fast and shallow, and her brow is damp with sweat.
There must be an end to the human pestilence. Now and forever.
When MosesKhan disconnects, Mikky falls forward into his arms. For a moment, he holds her shaking body. Then her eyes fly open, and she pushes herself away from him.
She regains her balance. Corrects her posture. One hand flutters toward the collar at her neck. She blinks at him—seems not to recognize his face.
Then suddenly Mikky’s gaze comes into focus, her ice-blue eyes alert. Her hand snaps up in a crisp salute.
“Commander Khan,” she asserts. “Assignment confirmed. All the remaining human filth in the capital are to be exterminated immediately.”
MosesKhan feels an electric frisson of pleasure at her words. The hate in her voice is as real as his own. As he meant it to be.
“On your command, I will lead the purge,” she says, with a hint of the cold ambition that once made her Elite. “Until every last vermin has been destroyed.”
CHAPTER 82
MIKKY STANDS TALL, as proud as she can look in her dirty clothing. Her commander holds out his gun—his very own—and she humbly accepts it, bowing down in gratitude.
She has been forgiven.
She straightens and offers him a competent, merciless smile. “Sir,” she says briskly, “who shall I terminate first?”
A noise from the hall makes MosesKhan turn and look expectantly at the door.
A moment later, it bursts open, and a creature is dragged into the room. A spitting, hissing thing that seems like a cross between an adolescent girl and a jackal. It curses and flails, but the two Hu-Bot guards hold it steady, unperturbed by such feeble, animal attempts to escape.
“Get your fake-ass hands off of me, skin job,” it screams. “I’ll yank your circuits right out of your neck!” Then the figure looks up through its tangled hair and sees Mikky. Its eyes widen in shock and relief. “Mikky!” it cries. “Help me!”
Mikky goes rigid. She recognizes the human now: 68675409M, the Corvette thief. The one who caused her fall from grace. Her grip tightens on the gun.
MosesKhan steps forward, the hint of a smile playing about his lips. “You know what to do now, MikkyBo,” he says. He gestures toward the revolver in her hand. “Make it hurt,” he tells her, loud enough for the human to hear.
Mikky nods. Considers which extremity to hit first. Would the stomach hurt more than the knees, or would she die too quickly? She palms the gun, feeling its heft. A .44 Magnum cartridge, she guesses: powerful enough to shred the girl like a grenade.
At such close range, Mikky’s going to have to work hard not to kill the girl immediately. She licks her lips. Aims for a kneecap…
“Mikky, don’t do it,” the girl says desperately. “This isn’t you. They’ve done something to you.”
Mikky’s focus doesn’t waver. “Correct. They have repaired my problematic glitch,” she says tonelessly.
68675409M shakes her head. “No, Mikky, that’s not true. Don’t let them take control,” she says urgently, her sweaty desperation coming off her in pungent waves. “I know you. You’re not a robot—you’re a person.”
Person? Mikky thinks, nearly chuckling as she cocks her weapon. With an insult that hateful, the human is clearly begging to die.
CHAPTER 83
MIKKY STARES AT me with scorn and disgust—like I’m a pile of dog crap she just stepped in.
“I am a Hu-Bot,” she says. Her voice goes flat as she recites the Hu-Bot pledge. “It is my duty to preserve and protect my race. It is my pleasure to follow the orders of my comm—”
“Stop!” I cry, lunging forward against the guards’ grip. “You love ice cream, Mikky, and you hate scrambled eggs! You like your toast buttered on both sides, which I always told you was weird and crazy.” The guards yank me back again, twisting my arm behind me. “You’re afraid of spiders, and you think running up and down stairs is fun—which is even more weird and crazy!”
Mikky blinks at me. Her face is expressionless. Robotic. She has no idea what I’m talking about.
A guard slaps his hand over my mouth, but I pull my head away and keep talking. I’ve got to get through to her. It’s my only chance.
“Let her go,” Mikky says quietly.
The guards release me, and for a second, I feel a flare of hope that she’s realized she’s on my side. But, even as I stand before her, she lines up her shot, this time at my chest.
I don’t break contact with her unreal blue eyes. Keep trying to find the humanity I know is in there.
“We’ve been through so much together, Mikky. I’m not just another human to you—I’m Six. Your Sixie! Remember how I saved you from the river?” I can hear my voice crack. “Remember how you carried me up the mountain in your arms?” And suddenly I feel tears streaming down my face, hot and wet. My heart feels like it’s going to burst.
And maybe it’s because I’m about to die. Or maybe it’s because I’m finally saying what I was too afraid to say before now.
“Mikky, no one ever cared for me like that before,” I tell her. “And I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”
But it’s like pleading to a statue.
“Quiet!” Mikky commands.
I take a step forward, and the guards don’t pull me back this time. I guess they figure I’m as good as dead already.
“You believe in what’s right—you always have.” I’m not sure what I’m saying, if it’s
working, but I keep going. “You’re stubborn and ornery and beautiful and weird. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
I swallow down the huge lump in my throat. “I’m sorry I never told you this before. But…” I take a deep breath. It’s a lifetime since I said this to anyone, but I need to, even if she doesn’t care.
“I love you, Mikky. I don’t know how it happened, but I do.”
The gun trembles in Mikky’s hand. She quickly steadies it, and it’s still pointing at my chest. But that little waver gives me hope. I take another step toward her.
“I love you,” I say again, and I can’t believe how much I mean it, almost as if it’s a physical force pushing its way out of me. We’re inches away from each other now. I reach out to touch her perfect face. She flinches. “I love you,” I repeat—then I grasp her gleaming gold collar.
And rip the fucking thing right off her neck.
There’s a nanosecond of frozen silence before she realizes what I’ve done. Then—
The muzzle of the gun flashes a hot white, and there’s an ear-splitting boom.
I fall back onto the floor and wait for the pain.
Mikky stands before me, a look of shock on her face. Behind us, one of the Hu-Bot guards is down, sparks shooting from his shredded mechanical guts.
Mikky didn’t shoot me—she shot the guard!
Then she turns the gun on MosesKhan. His cold black eyes widen in shock. “Detective MikkyBo!” he yells. “Stand down!” He reaches for his weapon, raising his other hand like a shield.
But Mikky fires again. The bullet tears through his artificial hand and then his hardwired heart. She shoots another round, then another. And MosesKhan, the commander of the Hu-Bot army, falls to the floor, a jumbled mass of smoking wires where his head used to be.
I watch in disbelief.
Relief.
I want to run to Mikky and hug her. Thank her. Tell her I love her again. But then, through the tall windows, in the far distance, I see something.
J.J.’s rockets, streaking right for us.
It’s 1:00 a.m. Time’s up.
CHAPTER 84
THE CHANCES OF getting out of this building alive were always pretty much zero. That’s my first thought.
Three subsonic cruise missiles, launched from the hills above the City and loaded with God knows how many pounds of explosives, are heading right for us. J.J.’s final assault—and I’m at ground zero. I think of Dubs and how he always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. He would’ve appreciated this.
I’ve got, what, eight more seconds to live? My life doesn’t flash before my eyes or anything, which I appreciate. Ten long years of suck are too depressing to relive.
The guards panic and run for the door.
“Mikky, save yourself!” shouts an older Hu-Bot from where he’s lying on the floor, tied up. “The window! Go!”
She unfreezes, kneels by him. He whispers something to her, short and fast. She kisses his cheek, then comes running. To me.
The air fills with a whistling, roaring sound. I can’t move a muscle—I’m frozen, watching death spiral toward me. The sky’s lit by fire.
“Six!” Mikky screams, still coming at me, her blue eyes wide. I think she’s going to stop, but she doesn’t: her body slams into mine, knocking the wind out of me. We crash into the window, popping it out of its frame. And we keep on going.
Behind us, there’s a flash of light, and then a terrible boom that seems to shatter every bone in my body and drive ice picks into my eardrums.
There’s a moment of perfect weightlessness—and then we plummet toward the ground below the skyscraper. Mikky, her jacket on fire, looks like a comet falling down from the night sky. The wind roars in my ears, pulls at my clothes. Makes teardrops gather in my eyes, then whips them away. Tumbles me over and over like a broken toy.
I want to scream, but I can’t get enough air into my lungs. Panic rushes through me. This can’t be happening.
We’re spinning through the air, being dragged down by gravity’s terrible force. My teeth are clenched like a vise, waiting for the impact that’s going to slam into me, wipe my soul from the face of the earth. How long do I have?
But Mikky reaches out for me. Grabs my arm and pulls me toward her, on top of her. Holds me tight. I curl my arms around her so she can’t leave me.
At least I won’t die alone.
Above us, the Elite Tower explodes into a giant cloud of ash. Slabs of concrete come thundering down. The earth rushes up toward us, faster and faster. I’m screaming now, and so is Mikky.
This is it.
The last things I’ll ever see: the black awning of the Elite Tower entrance, below us. Mikky’s terrified blue eyes. My hand, held out like I could break my fall.
Boom.
CHAPTER 85
EVERYTHING’S PITCH-BLACK. MIKKY can’t move: she’s pinned under the rubble of the tower. She breathes in dirt and metal and smoke—and something much worse. Something that smells like burning flesh. How long has she been unconscious? Minutes? Hours? Days?
Her breath comes quicker. “Six?” she calls.
There’s no answer.
“Six!” she yells, her voice muffled by concrete. “SIX!”
She starts to hyperventilate. Dust from the rubble sears her lungs. She coughs, and the spasms feel like they’re splintering her ribs. “Six!”
Mikky hears a rumble, and then a heavy, thudding crash—the sound of the ruined building caving in. How long will the concrete above her hold? How long until she runs out of oxygen?
Her fingers claw at the debris, trying to loosen it. She feels the skin of her fingertips being torn away by the rough stone, but she doesn’t care. She manages to free her forearm, and so she reaches out into the cramped dark, searching for her friend.
Sixie, where are you? she thinks. I had you in my arms!
The building’s bearing down on her, pressing the air from her lungs. A chorus of pain sings in every single engineered nerve.
Then, finally, her fingers touch something soft. Mikky reaches farther. Raw fingertips snag cotton. She presses down. Feels, underneath the fabric, flesh.
“Six!” Mikky calls again. “Six, are you alive?”
When there’s no response, Mikky pinches Six’s arm.
Still: nothing.
Mikky is too devastated to cry. She’s lost her father and her best friend. A cold, aching emptiness spreads inside her. She knows she should try to work her way out, but she can’t summon the energy.
So much easier, she thinks, to expire. So much better.
She lays back, mentally running through all the scenarios, but the outcome is always the same.
Six is dead.
Six is dead.
The tough, infuriating, and extraordinary human girl she’s come to care about—gone. And no amount of J.J.’s expertise can save her.
Mikky reaches out for that square inch of human flesh. She pinches again. Harder. Grunting and sobbing with the effort, she does it again. And again.
Then comes a tiny sound—like a whisper. Mikky stops, holds her breath; even her heart feels like it stops beating.
“Mikky?”
That voice. It’s Six. She’s alive.
Relief floods Mikky’s system, overwhelming her. “Are you all right?”
“Quit fucking pinching me,” Six manages.
Mikky laughs. “Can you move?”
“No. I can barely breathe. I’m really claustrophobic—I can’t—Mikky—” Six’s voice gets choked off by panic.
“You have to stay calm,” Mikky insists, keeping a steady hand on Six’s arm.
“There’s something on my chest,” Six gasps. “I’m hot. I can’t feel my legs.”
Mikky can hear desperate, ragged breaths coming from Six’s mouth. “Calm down—everything’s going to be fine. They’re going to rescue us,” Mikky says firmly. She won’t think about other possibilities: that no one will come, or that when they do, they’ll be too late.
“Who’s going to rescue us?” Six coughs. “There’s a war going on.”
“Someone will come,” Mikky says with a confidence she doesn’t feel.
“I’m afraid,” Six whispers.
Mikky feels a burst of emotion she doesn’t know how to describe. She reaches and finds a lock of Six’s hair. Strokes it gently. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she says again. “Try to rest. Conserve your energy.” And your oxygen, she adds silently. “We’ll be okay.”
Six lets out a muffled sob.
Mikky closes her eyes. She’s scared and exhausted. But now that she knows Six is alive, she doesn’t want to expire anymore.
Too bad the choice isn’t hers to make.
She can barely hear Six’s thready whisper. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”
Mikky pinches her again. “I’m not.”
Six gives a raspy laugh, then quietly says, “No one’s going to find us.”
“Speak for yourself. We’re down here!” Mikky screams, the sound filling their cramped space.
Six starts yelling, too, and neither of them stops until their throats are raw. Until they can’t make another sound at all.
But their only answer is silence.
CHAPTER 86
THE ELITE TOWER is going to be my tomb. Dubs would not be pleased.
Panic like a knife in my chest. I’m panting so hard, I feel like I’m suffocating.
“Six,” Mikky says, “breathe with me.” She takes a long, slow inhale. “We should rest.”
Screw that—I start screaming again. I’m going to yell until my throat bleeds. Then Mikky starts hollering, too, and knocking against the rubble.
I stop. I know the debris hasn’t moved, but I feel a weight pressing down on me. Every drag of air I take feels heavy. I’m running out of oxygen.