To Dream Read online

  Niyati’s lower lip dropped.

  “I said sit.” Kaye slipped her finger from the trigger guard to the trigger.

  Niyati thought she was going to throw up. “Kaye, you’re part of this?”

  Kaye shrugged. “I have expenses, too.” Keeping the gun on Niyati, she locked the office door and stood on the other side of the desk facing Niyati.

  Hemley pulled a syringe from his inside coat pocket. “You first, Miguel. On the floor, stomach down.”

  “Please don’t,” Niyati said.

  “Hush,” Kaye answered. “I want this to go easy for you.”

  “Get on the floor, Miguel,” Hemley repeated. “Turn your face away from me.”

  He lowered himself, stomach down. Acevedo turned his head away from Hemley. J-1 was almost directly in front; still standing, but slumped like he was sleeping off a bender in a crowded subway car.

  Acevedo listened to the squeaky noise of a syringe needle being pushed through a rubber-stopple bottle. Makes sense, he thought, gunshot wounds are too messy. Hemley’s knee cracked as he knelt next to him. Hemley’s gun barrel pressed into the side of his head. Acevedo glanced at the slumping Humachine and braced for the needle to his neck. His left hand balled into a fist. His right one, still clutching the data drive box, clamped down on it. He felt the needle prick and rolled away with lightning speed. At the same time Acevedo slammed the container into Hemley’s cheek. Hemley fired. Acevedo felt a wisp of air zip past his temple.

  Kaye’s eyes bounced back and forth between Niyati and Hemley, as if she were deciding what to do. She turned her gun toward Acevedo. Niyati stood. Kaye swung back toward her and aimed. Niyati grabbed her laptop. Kaye fired. The bullet slammed into the computer. It shattered and flew from Niyati’s hands.

  Hemley glanced over. Acevedo leapt at him. Hemley took another shot at Acevedo. He felt a sting in his left bicep as he yanked the gun from Hemley’s hand. Kaye fired wildly at Acevedo. He ducked. A bullet hit Hemley in the neck. He staggered backwards and fell to the floor. Acevedo sprang toward Kaye and tackled her to the floor. Acevedo heard Hemley moan. The scream of sirens filled the parking lot.

  “We’re in here!” Kaye shouted. “They’re trying to kill us!”

  “Be quiet!” Acevedo said.

  “Help!” Kaye wiped Acevedo’s gun clean of her fingerprints with her shirt, and tossed it near Acevedo. “They’re killing us!”

  “They won’t believe you,” Niyati said.

  But Acevedo knew they would, just as he knew Hemley had a bullet in his neck, fired from his—Acevedo’s—own personal Glock.

  The sirens stopped. He knew what that meant—SWAT was assembling and planning how to take the building. Helicopters were probably circling, too. There goes my Key West retirement.

  He heard scores of police boots race up the hallway, toward them.

  Kaye shouted, “He shot Hemley!”

  “Shut up!” Acevedo yelled and then mentally kicked himself. If anyone was in earshot he had just played right into Kaye’s hands. There was rustling in the reception room. Niyati started crying. Acevedo’s head hurt. He grabbed a large chunk of Niyati’s bullet-shattered laptop from the floor, raced with it to the back window and slammed it against the glass. Like all of the windows in the building, it was hurricane proof and refused to budge. And even if it did, there were still the iron bars.

  “I want to make a difference,” Niyati said in a trembling voice. She grabbed the picture of her son and clutched it to her chest.

  “Quiet,” Kaye said.

  The outside reception room was deathly silent. Whatever’s going to happen, Acevedo thought, is coming now. “We want to surrender!” he shouted. “We’ll go peacefully.”

  Kaye yelled, “It’s a trap, they—” she screamed as if she had been beaten.

  “I want to make a difference, Mom.” Niyati said this to Acevedo in a loud, firm voice.

  There was a crashing noise against the front door.

  Kaye shouted, “Hurry! They’re going to kill me!”

  Acevedo nodded to Niyati. He got it. “I want to make a difference, Mom.”

  J-1’s eyes shot open. His back straightened.

  There was a muffled detonation. The door splintered apart. Thick, armored men and women with assault rifles stormed through the smoke. Kaye screamed and pointed to Acevedo. They aimed their weapons at him.

  “Stop them!” Acevedo said to J-1.

  “Stop them from what?” J-1 asked.

  The troopers fired. Acevedo ducked. A bullet grazed his shoulder. “From killing the doc and me, damn it!”

  Chapter Ten

  Date: 2250

  Planet Truatta

  GTS Warehouse

  A light flickered inside J-1’s head. And then another, and then a thousand more. Pinpricks darted through his limbs, multiplied, and cascaded through his body like a waterfall. J-1 opened his eyes. I have rebooted. I have powered up.

  He was lying outside of what remained of the warehouse—a pile of concrete, twisted metal, soil, and mutilated carbo-mold. The area surrounding him looked as if a mammoth shovel had dug itself into the ground, removed a chunk of the planet and tossed it haphazardly down again. Sirens wailed. Above him a saucercraft whirled across the sky.

  Circling the explosion’s ruins were colossal mounds of dirt and rubble. Half buried in one of the mounds was a lifter. Miraculously, it looked intact. J-1 recognized the machine’s dented tray. It was Coco.

  Beyond the mounds to his right stood a desiccated forest of twisted, leafless trees that resembled brindle-colored licorice sticks. Boney shrubs surrounded the trees. A small dirt road led from the explosion ruins and disappeared into the woodland. Beyond all that, in the far distance, was a mountain. It rose so high its peak was covered in clouds. The waxen red sun and plum sky seemed to press down and enshroud the entire landscape in a heavy wool blanket. J-1 was confused. Where was Lake Freeto-Lay, with its multi-color water? And the tall, grand skyline of the resort city of Apple? And the people of the planet?

  There was a faraway boom to his left, and another, and several more. J-1 jerked his head in that direction. Another explosion. This one was so close he felt its vibration. This clearly was no carbo-storm thunder. He needed to find shelter. J-1 started to rise, but couldn’t budge. His right arm and leg were buried in the wreckage. He reached over to remove the debris, but his left hand was mangled below the wrist; his misshapen fingers were frozen. There was an unpleasant sensation in them that resembled heat. Was this pain?

  He looked at the lifter and shouted, “Coco, activate!”

  No response.

  There was a crunch somewhere to his left.

  J-1 snapped his head toward it. Something had moved, but he had missed it. More explosions. Some close, some far. He pulled harder at his trapped limbs. They wouldn’t budge.

  He shouted again, “Coco, activate!” Nothing.

  The crunch noises started again. He saw the heel of a sandaled foot sprint behind a chunk of the Teleporthaton. J-1 yanked at his buried limbs again, but it was useless.

  More rustling.

  “I work for Ameri-Inc.,” J-1 shouted in the language of Apple. “There’s been an accident. Can you help me?”

  Another boom echoed. A bomb fell close enough to shower debris on him.

  A woman’s voice behind one of the mounds shouted in a language J-1 couldn’t understand or recognize, “I’m going in!”

  “No,” a man replied in the same language. “We have to get out of here.”

  A lean, pale woman leaped from the dirt piles toward J-1. She was dressed in brown drabs. Her eyes were like nothing he’d ever seen before. The iris was blue and the sclera purple. He thought they were beautiful, but at the same time frightening. He couldn’t see more of her face because she was wearing a leather-like balaclava.

  A multi-pouched holster belt was strapped around her waist. In one hand she held a brownish-green body-length shield that looked as if it was made of tightly woven v
ine. In her other hand she pointed a sharp rod about the size of her arm at him. At the butt end of the rod was a twist knob.

  “I’m trapped,” J-1 shouted in Apple. “I need assistance.”

  “Norma, we have to leave! The WarBots are coming,” someone behind one of the mounds shouted in the language J-1 couldn’t understand.

  “Please,” J-1 said to her. “I need help getting out of the rubble.”

  Norma lowered her body shield slightly and cocked her head. “What’s this flapdoodle language you’re speaking, automaton? Are you trying to hide something?” She knelt in front of him and removed her mask. Norma’s lips were full and her nose was slightly large. Her cheekbones were high and her hair was thick and brown, and hung haphazardly below her shoulders. Taken individually the features weren’t particularly attractive, J-1 thought, but there was something—a determination in her strange eyes—that was compelling beyond the individual parts. He sensed people were drawn to her. She peered closely at J-1’s scalp and fingered his hair. “Well look at you,” she marveled. “Individual strands of hair. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Norma touched his cheek. “And your skin feels real. You must belong to someone high up. Who is it?”

  J-1 shook his head, not understanding her words.

  “Truattan,” Norma replied. “Do you speak Truattan?” Norma pointed to herself. “From Truatta. You get it? Speak Truattan.”

  Truatta? He had heard that sound-word before. It was the dead civilization of those before Ameri-Inc.’s mining operations began here on Planet Ford. It was the language of the savages who had preceded the modern peoples, the people in the great metropolis of Apple. He knew this because it was part of the orientation given to him over a century-and-a-half ago by his commanders prior to taking on GTS warehouse operations.

  “Automaton, do you understand me?”

  If he recalled correctly, the data stated that the closest Earth communication resembling ancient Truattan speech was a combination of throat gutturals and early Burmese. Well versed in most Earth languages, past and present, he said as best as he could in a throat guttural version of centuries old Burmese, “I’m the foreman of Ameri-Inc.’s warehouse. I work in the mineral refinery.”

  “Slower,” Norma replied. “With less gurgling.”

  Now that he recognized the Burmese influence J-1 started to grasp her words. He rebalanced his sounds and said, “Please speak slower, too.”

  She nodded.

  J-1 repeated the information.

  “So you’re the foreman, huh? That makes sense. You’re too elaborate for common work. Tell me, are you rigged to blow up?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “Norma,” a voice behind one of the mounds shouted. “They’re coming. Let’s go!”

  The approaching thump, thump, thump of lumbering machines sounded. A blazooka beam flared above them and burst a nearby treetop into flames.

  J-1 was astonished. WarBots? Why? The wide, bulky creatures had only one purpose—to destroy.

  Norma looked anxiously around. “A moment,” she yelled. “This mechi might be important to us.” Norma slipped her balaclava over her head and spun the knob on her spear counterclockwise until it wouldn’t go anymore. She rammed the tip into J-1’s chest and gave the release a quick pull. A spritzer sounding electric spark leapt from the rod.

  Norma ran back. J-1 felt on fire. An acrid, sharp odor filled the air like burning rubber and melting metal. J-1 screamed for what seemed forever. He writhed from something that felt like frozen needles pushing outward from his insides and puncturing through his exterior flesh. This has got to be pain, he thought. It hurts! When it subsided and he had stopped convulsing, Norma lowered her shield and started to fold it. At the same time the vine-woven armor shrink-wrapped and compressed itself. She slipped it in one of her holster pouches, took off her hood and said, “You weren’t lying about not being rigged.”

  Before J-1 could respond, a man stepped out from behind a mound and approached. “Norma, the Bots are practically touching our shadows.” Like Norma, his eyes were purple with blue irises. He was slim, sinewy, but unlike Norma, he had light hair, a square jaw, and stubble.

  “You don’t think I’m aware of that, Teague?” she answered.

  Five other people emerged from behind the mounds. Like Norma and Teague, these five were thin and dressed in the same brown or olive drabs. Each had the same colored eyes and the same type of electric spears that Norma had. None held the vine-like body shields or wore hoods.

  An explosion fell near enough to cause them to lunge to the ground.

  “It’s now or never,” Teague said.

  Norma grunted at J-1. “We need to get this thing back to Mata.”

  “Mata’s a zipnut,” a tall, bulky man said. “It’s not worth getting blown up over.”

  “No, Mata has to see this.” Norma grasped the wrist of J-1’s mangled hand, held it up, and added, “Look, it’s even got arm hair follicles.”

  “Where’s your head, Norma?” the bulky man said. “It’s not worth getting killed over.” As if to emphasize his protest a blazooka beam flared above them and set another tree on fire.

  A woman stepped next to the man and squeezed his hand. “Orson’s right. No robot is worth getting killed over. Especially somebody’s pet show piece.”

  “I beg your pardon!” J-1 couldn’t understand all of the conversation, but he recognized the last words and her tone.

  “Norma hasn’t steered us wrong, yet,” Teague said.

  “If you don’t count how she dealt with Ameri-Inc.,” Orson replied. J-1 didn’t need to understand every word to recognize the bitterness in the man’s voice.

  Teague approached Orson. “You were at the meetings. Why didn’t you speak up when you had the chance?” He looked at the others. “Or for that matter, any of you?”

  “We’re wasting time.” Norma bent down and started digging out the clutter trapping J-1.

  Orson’s hands tightened around his spear until his knuckles reddened. He whipped the rod over his shoulder as if it were a flogging cane and swung it at Norma’s skull.

  “Watch out!” J-1 screamed.

  Norma ducked and at the same time turned in Orson’s direction. As the momentum of his missed swing carried him around, Teague knocked Orson backwards on his ass. Norma pressed her foot on Orson’s spear, and aimed her own weapon a half-inch above his chest, slightly left of center. J-1 guessed that was where his heart was located. “Anybody else have a problem with my decisions?” Norma asked. “How about you, Matilda?”

  The woman who had squeezed Orson’s hand said nothing.

  “Phineas, Hob, how about you?”

  A man with a stooped back—Phineas—glanced at Orson before saying, “If you want to take the robot back, I guess I’m okay with it.”

  Hob, who had a thick, black beard shrugged and said, “Whatever.”

  “Prudence?” Norma asked a woman in her mid-twenties. “Any complaints?”

  “I suppose not.” The words came bitterly from her mouth.

  Orson’s eyes bulged. His breath came in thick huffs through flared nostrils. Norma studied him for a moment and slid the weapon down until it was positioned between his legs. She turned the spear’s handle slightly to the left and pulled the trigger. A spark crackled. Orson yelped. Matilda screamed. Spittle drooled from Orson’s mouth. His face turned ashen. Norma lifted the rod. Orson grabbed his testicles and rolled on his side, trying to regain his breath.

  “If you want to keep your man a man, keep him under control,” Norma said to Matilda, and turned to the others. “Let’s get to work. We’ve already wasted too much time.”

  The others started breaking up the debris around J-1.

  “Do you come from Apple Metropolis?” he asked them. “Where is Lake Freeto-Lay?”

  Bombs continued to explode, some close, some far.

  “What’re you spilling on about?” Norma asked.

  “Ameri-Inc.’s Planet Ford headquarters ar
e located in Apple, are they not? I’d like to speak with a representative.”

  “Planet Ford? Apple? You’re insane. This is Planet Truatta.”

  Before he could question her there was a rumble. He braced for another explosion. Instead, a cluster of scalpel-shaped icicles pierced the sky like a canister of overturned pick-up sticks.

  “Uh-oh, an ice storm,” Teague said. He was kneeling beside Norma. The icicles fell more forcefully and in larger numbers. Everyone but Norma stopped digging. Teague gripped Norma’s shoulder. “It’s time to abandon ship.”

  Norma studied him. She nodded and uttered, “Tradshit.” J-1 wasn’t sure what the word meant, but it wasn’t good because she stopped digging, too.

  Chapter Eleven

  Date: 2030

  West Redlands, Florida

  Ameri-Inc. Research and Development

  Robotics Division

  The SWAT team turned their rifles from Acevedo and fired at J-1 as he barreled toward them. Bullet blasts tore away the lower portion of his polo shirt. A swarm of MP8 shots rippled across his forehead. J-1 grabbed the submachine gun’s searing hot barrel and flung it to the ground along with the woman who fired it. Someone jumped on him from behind. J-1 bent over with a snap. The man tumbled forward and bowled over a quartet of men tightening around him.

  More gunfire rattled.

  J-1 stiffened his right leg, stuck out his left, pirouetted his body and crumpled the officers circling him.

  Acevedo crawled across the floor and grabbed the MP8 that J-1 had flung. He picked it up and started shooting.

  “Back out!” someone shouted. “Back out!” The SWAT team scrambled out of the lab.

  Tear gas cannoned into the room. Crouched near the desk, Niyati and Kaye screamed.

  “We gotta get out of here, robot!” Acevedo yelled.

  J-1 ran to the iron-barred window. He rammed against it several times until the hurricane-proof glass cracked into a kaleidoscope of threads. He knocked the shattered pane out.