Crisped + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 2) (29 page)

“Yes,” SIRS said with great anger.

“Bring me the boy. Let nothing stand in your way.”

Cavalo took a step back from the door.

The monitors in the room went dark.

Cavalo took another step back.

“Don’t make me do this,” he said quietly as he raised the rifle. Maybe half a clip left.

Something shifted inside the office. He knew the robot had turned toward the door when a bright flash of red shone from the room. The robot’s eyes. Like before.

“Please,” Cavalo said.

Lucas drew his knife.

Bad Dog crouched at his side, tail flicking dangerously.

And from behind the metal door, came the grind of gears, the breaking of coils, the warning beeps of algorithms failing. These metallic sounds carried with them the whispers of apologies, the pain of regrets.

Before Cavalo could scream at the others to
move
, there was a groan of metal as the door was ripped from its hinges. It flew out onto the floor, dust billowing up in a mushroom cloud. The robot bent over to walk through the doorway, his arms scraping against the entrance, causing stone and plaster to crack. The thin line stretched out farther down the wall, reaching the window. As he struggled through without any of his usual economic grace, the doorway split and groaned, and the bulletproof glass shuddered in its frame. A thin sliver appeared in the glass as it bent. Cavalo told himself to
fire
, to fire
now,
but his finger hesitated on the trigger even as the bloodred eyes of the robot landed on him. This was the robot that held him up in the air and broke his fingers when Patrick told him to. This was the robot that no longer had free will.

That’s what he told himself. That’s what he screamed in the bees to make himself fire.

His finger put pressure on the trigger, and he aimed for the robot’s head.

But the robot was fast, faster than Cavalo had ever seen him move before. One moment he was pulling himself through the crumbling doorway and the next he was running forward, body crouched low as he scooped up the metal door right when Cavalo fired the Bakalov. The robot held the door in front of him, acting as a shield. Bullets smashed into the door and flew off into the ceiling. The floor. The walls. Little puffs of dust and cement as they embedded themselves into the rock.

Cavalo knew then, with utmost certainty, that this wasn’t going to end well.

The Bakalov began to click dryly in his hands.

The robot stood slowly.

“Don’t do this,” Cavalo said.

“We are nothing but quarks and stardust,” the robot replied, eyes flashing dangerously. “Give me Lucas.”

“No.” He stepped in front of Lucas. Crowded him back. For a moment he thought Lucas would stab him in the back for acting as he did. Instead he felt Lucas bow his head until his forehead pressed against Cavalo’s neck. Until his breath ran against Cavalo’s skin. His hand touched the small of Cavalo’s back and he couldn’t believe he’d almost murdered Lucas. He couldn’t
believe
it’d almost come to that.

And then Lucas slipped the knife into his hand, and Cavalo knew what he was asking for. Asking
of
him again.

Lucas must die before the robot could take him.

“Don’t,” he said, but he didn’t know to whom.

“You and I,” the robot said. He took a shuddering step forward, dragging the door at his side. “It’s… not like… I thought it’d be.” The words sounded as if they were coming at great cost. Deep inside SIRS came the smell of burning.

“It’s more,” Cavalo said, gripping the knife and telling himself to turn, to bring the knife up and into the bottom of Lucas’s jaw and shove up to his brain. It’d be over quickly. The body would die and would start to break down, hopefully before Patrick could use it. It was their last play, and he just had to
do it
.

The light in the robot’s eyes faded back to orange, and for a moment, Cavalo had hope. Irrational, beautiful hope, and SIRS said in a small voice, “It hurts, Cavalo.”

Cavalo knew it did. Could feel it in his bones.

But then the eyes went red again, and the pained voice was gone. “Give me the boy, Cavalo.”

Now. Now. Now.

No. No. No.

He whirled around, spinning on his heels. He swung the knife up, and for a split second, his eyes locked with Lucas’s and he thought,
I’ll see you soon
, and the knife—

The knife fell from his hand as the robot twisted his wrist viciously. Gray waves of pain rolled over his body, oily and hot as he heard bones snap. He had no further time to process anything else when he was flung across the room, back crashing into the far wall.

In his haze of red and gold, Cavalo heard people screaming. He managed to raise his head, blood trickling from his nose and mouth. It took everything he had to look up. As his vision began to fail and unconsciousness pulled him into the dark, he saw what was meant to be an ending:

Bad Dog, lying on the floor, whining softly, taking shallow breaths.

People pushing and screaming, trampling those who couldn’t move fast enough.

Aubrey, eyes wide and wet.

Hank, yelling words that Cavalo couldn’t quite make out.

Alma, struggling to stand against the tide of bodies flowing against her.

And last, he saw SIRS and Lucas. SIRS, standing as tall as he’d ever been. Eyes red, arm outstretched. Those spider hands were wrapped around Lucas’s throat, holding him three feet off the ground. Lucas’s feet kicked, his hands scrabbled against the metal arm.

Almost quicker than Cavalo could follow, the robot turned and smashed through the far wall, stone and plaster falling to the floor. The snow swirled as he ran, Lucas still in his hand. Before he leapt over the electrified fence and disappeared, Lucas reached out once toward Cavalo.

Then they were gone.

And Cavalo fell into the dark.

surprise

JAMIE AND
Cavalo walked through a forest hand in hand. It was dark. The trees were big. Things moved on either side of them, hidden by the shadows. Sometimes Cavalo saw the flash of red eyes amongst the leaves and branches and thought to himself how clever monsters and cannibals were.

He knew there was something he was forgetting. It buzzed at the frayed edges of his mind, but he couldn’t quite grasp hold before it flitted away. No matter. If it came, it came.

He chuckled to himself.

“What’s so funny, Daddy?” Jamie asked him.

“I don’t know,” Cavalo said. Why were they out this late? Jamie needed to go to bed. They had an early day tomorrow. They were going to… well. He didn’t remember what
exactly
they were going to do, but it didn’t explain why they were in a forest in the middle of the night. His son was young. He needed sleep.

She was going to be mad at him. Claire. His wife. Sometimes she danced, but she could get mad too.

“No,” Jamie said, swinging Mr. Fluff in his other hand. “She won’t be.”

“How do you know?” Cavalo asked, wondering if he’d spoken about Claire aloud. He must have. It would’ve been the only way Jamie could have heard him.

Jamie shrugged. “When is a tree not a tree?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“When it’s dead.” And then he laughed like it was the greatest joke he’d ever heard. Cavalo didn’t get it, but his son had this high-pitched laugh that was always contagious, and he grinned along with him.

And then his son started screaming because, really, he was dead. He had died years ago, and Cavalo could only remember it now.

Jamie handed him Mr. Fluff and walked backward into the shadows of the forest, mouth open and screaming, head jerking side to side.

He disappeared into the dark.

It grew quiet.

“Jamie?” Cavalo called out, but there was no response.

He looked down at Mr. Fluff.

The rabbit had a note pinned to one of his paws. Cavalo took the pin out. Mr. Fluff jerked in his hands and began to bleed white stuffing. He dropped the rabbit, and it ran away into the trees. He didn’t know Mr. Fluff could run. It scared him.

He unrolled the note. It said:

HE IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS.

NONE OF THIS IS.

LOSE SOMETHING, CHARLIE?

James Cavalo was not a stupid man. Yes, he’d made stupid decisions in his life, decisions that had caused people to die, but he was not a stupid man.

His son was dead.

Claire was dead, because when was a tree not a tree?

But there were others.

A robot.

A dog.

A clever monster, a clever cannibal.

He dropped the note.

He looked toward the night sky.

A tornado of bees spun above him. He opened his mouth, and they flew down, fighting and crawling down his throat, and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t
breathe, he couldn’t—

He shot up, gasping for air. “Easy,” he heard a voice say near his ear.

He opened his eyes.

He was in the prison. The cot in the cell.

He groaned softly at the pain in his back. His head. His wrist. Everything hit at once, and he felt nauseated. He closed his eyes again and waited for the room to stop shaking.

“Is it bad?” a gruff voice asked from beside the cot. “The pain.”

“Not the worst I’ve felt,” Cavalo said through gritted teeth.

“Set your wrist as best we could. A splint of sorts. Break isn’t bad. Considering.”

“Considering?”

Hank sighed. “Considering who it was doing the breaking. He could have done much worse. I think he was holding back.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

He opened his eyes at the sound of Hank’s laughter. It was bitter but unexpected all the same. “I suppose it doesn’t. But at least you still have a hand. And are alive.”

Cavalo flexed his wrist carefully. Flares of pain in all directions. But it was Hank’s words that hit him the most. “And how is it that we’re alive?”

“They left.”

“All of them?”

Hank nodded.

“Why?”

“Should they not have? They got what they came for.”

Lucas
, Cavalo thought, and it threatened to send him spiraling into the cold. He held himself above the surface. Barely.

He frowned as he pushed himself up. “He could have told SIRS to turn off the outer defenses. Taken us that way. But instead, he—”

“Took the one thing he needed most,” Hank finished for him. “Without risking any more of his people. You should have told him.”

“Told who?”

“Bill. About the audio. He’s beside himself.”

“He’s lucky I haven’t ripped his fucking head off,” Cavalo snarled.

Hank stared at him hard. “Because he was supposed to know? Any of us were? Tell me, Cavalo. Did you know Patrick had control over SIRS? You must have if the audio had been cut.”

He was so close to slipping under. The bees demanded it. “He shouldn’t have been touching a goddamn thing here. None of you should be. You shouldn’t even be here.” His voice was cold. He didn’t do anything to stop it.

“Cavalo—”

“No,” he retorted. “I never wanted this. I never asked for any of this. All I wanted to do was be left alone until the time came when I could no longer move, and that would be the end. I didn’t
ask
to have you people come here. I didn’t
ask
to be your goddamn savior. I didn’t
ask
—”

“To care about him as much as you do,” Hank said quietly. He didn’t look away. “To care about us, even if we didn’t deserve it. I know you never asked for any of this, Cavalo. But somehow, it was given to you anyway.”

He slipped into the cold. There was rage in his heart and murder in his voice. “I never cared about any of you. Leave before I decide you’re all more of a liability than you’ve already been.”

“You lie,” Hank said simply.

“Do you want to test that, Hank?” His voice was low and dangerous. His thoughts were stark and staccato short.
Fist to nose. Fingers to eyes. Snap the neck.

“Cavalo.”

“Hank,” Cavalo growled.

“I lost my son yesterday.”

Cavalo breached the surface and gasped a shuddering breath.

“Do you want to know what I thought when I watched Deke get his head blown off?”

Cavalo shook his head. He’d never wanted to know anything less in his life.

But Hank didn’t care, because Hank said, “I thought about how funny his face looked.”

Cavalo took a breath. It hitched in his chest.

“His face looked funny,” Hank said, “because of the look of surprise he had. Like he couldn’t believe a bullet had just gone through his head and out the back. How
shocked
he was that a little piece of metal the size of a coin had broken apart his skull plate, sped through a mass of tissue that held every memory he’d ever had. He hated surprises.
Hated
them. Even when he was a little kid, he despised being surprised, even if it was supposed to be for a good thing. It made him nervous. It made him edgy. The wait. The anticipation. But even if we hid it from him, he still hated when we
sprang
it on him. It made him feel out of control. He didn’t like not knowing what was ahead. What was coming. Everything had to be planned out to the last detail and had to go
exactly
as planned.

“So he must not have thought he could have died. Even though you told us we would. Even though deep down we
knew
we would. But there’s a difference between being young and told you’re going to die and being old and hearing the same. When you’re older, you know it’s inevitable. When you’re younger, you know it’s a fallacy. Delusion. Because you
can’t
die when you’re so young. You
can’t
die by surprise. But he did. And that was the thing I thought when he was falling to the ground, that he must have just
hated
it. Not the fact that he
had
died, but the surprise behind it.” Hank stopped. His breath was ragged in his chest. He closed his eyes.

“Hank—”

Eyes flashed open, and Cavalo could see the warrior underneath the dark grief. “Are we going to get him back? Lucas.”