Beyond the Rim

After landing in a discreet place in the valley, we hiked up the hill toward the compound. The battlebots floated along beside me, shadowing my every move. Stace crept up next to me, clutching her gun.

Stace kept trying to take the lead; I had enough to deal with without getting her caught in the crossfire. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring her along. The status between us was rather strange; she wasn’t my master anymore, but there was still this residual relationship that neither of us had yet given up.

We had to move fast while avoiding detection. Dagan would have been much better at this. Stace thought she was good, but she had no more training than I did and for all I knew they had already discovered us and were just waiting to trap us.

Pine needles crunched beneath my boots. I stepped on a pinecone and it exploded into the silence, its shrapnel snapping into Stace’s heel.

“Ow!” she said. “Those things are nasty.”

The whole place must’ve heard us by now. The bots had put a force shield over us that inhibited sensors, but it wasn’t soundproof.

We climbed till I heard the roar of the waterfall in the distance. I avoided the cliff that jutted out over the waterfall, and found a place that was a little less steep than last time. There were a lot of loose rocks, but I didn’t want to waste time trying to find another way.

“I’ll lift you up,” I said.

“No, you go up first,” said Stace. She knelt, bracing her hands over her thigh for me to step on.

“Stace—”

“Come on! We don’t have a lot of time.”

She lifted me up without a problem. The bots floated up after me, and I grabbed Stace’s hands. I pulled, grasping her upper arm.

Her boots slipped. Rocks cascaded into the ravine below. One of her hands slipped out of my grasp.

“Stace!”

She glanced below, then swung her other hand up, gripping my wrist, and I yanked her up with all my strength. She tumbled over me, collapsing on the ground.

We lay there for a moment, my heart pounding with the realization I’d almost lost her. She looked at me and smiled; I reached over and brushed a smudge of dust off of her cheek.

“Thanks,” she said. I was trembling; she seemed less shaken than I did about what had just happened.

We crept through the woods, avoiding the exploding pinecones, though the needles were loud enough as it was. At least the ground had leveled off.

“I think it’s this way,” I said, turning east.

“I thought I saw something through the trees that way.” She pointed north.

“It can’t be that close yet.”

“Are you sure?”

I wanted to say I was, but I shook my head.

“Then why don’t we try my way? I’m probably right, like usual.” She smiled.

I looked at my watch. We only had an hour left. Panic seized me.

“Okay,” I said, surrendering.

I followed Stace, and the bots followed me. The pine trees grew taller the further we went, with fewer branches to conceal us, nothing but trunks between us and anyone watching.

I glimpsed a snatch of gray up ahead. At first I thought it was a pile of rocks, but as we got closer, I realized we’d made it to the compound. I ducked behind a large trunk and pulled Stace with me.

“I really don’t have a plan except to get in and get out,” I said, “hopefully still alive. Bot—whoever you are—” I poked the tyranium chest of the one on the left—“why don’t you stay here and guard Stace.”

“I want to come with you,” she said.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“I can help! That’s what I came for.”

“I need you to stay out here in case something goes wrong.”

“But Devlin—“

“Stay here.”

I dashed off, darting from one tree to the next; the bot must have restrained her, because she didn’t come tearing after me.

Near the compound, I stopped and pressed back against a tree. A guard was just turning the corner to pace back toward me. As he got closer, I lifted my pistol, set on low, and shot him. He collapsed onto the bed of pine needles.

I raced to the door and dragged the guard toward the ID pad, hoping it would still read his hand if he was knocked out. I lifted his hand to the scan, and the door opened.

I walked into the sweet, humid air of an empty room. The bot floated forward on high alert mode, its head swiveling back and forth, gun-arm raised. We took the lift to the upper level. I gripped my pistol, my heart drumming hard against my chest.

The lift doors opened on a dim, empty room, the only sound the trickle of water from the pools on either side. As my eyes adjusted, I could just make out Ranior’s throne.

Then, a deep familiar voice. “Stop.”

Rock appeared, two guards flanking him.

“Drop your weapon.”

I froze but didn’t surrender the gun.

Rock motioned, and a third man stepped from the partition behind the throne. It was Seethe, holding Stace unconscious in his arms.

My gun clattered to the floor.

“Now, tell the bot to stand down.”

The bot hovered at my side, its gun raised toward Rock.

I’d come here to save him, not kill him. “Stand down,” I told the bot, and it lowered its gun-arm.

The lights flickered on. In Rock’s dark blue eyes was not a glimmer of recognition. He shoved his pistol into my chest. “Kneel,” he said.

“Rock, it’s me. We spend two years in the same tiny room, remember?”

He slammed his pistol into my jaw, and I collapsed to my knees. Blood flooded over my tongue. He grabbed my arms and shoved handcuffs onto my wrists.

Then he hoisted me to my feet.

“Let’s go,” he said, and he pushed me into the elevator, Seethe carrying Stace. In the absence of orders, the battlebot followed me, and the others ignored it.

My lip stung, and blood trickled down my chin. Rock kept an iron grip on my forearm.

We reached the ground floor, and stepped out into the shifting shadows and sunlight of the forest.

“Where are you taking us?” I said. But Rock didn’t answer.