Cryo-Man (Cryo-Man series, #1) (31 page)

             
“No time to explain,” I snap at her. “Now start to kick.”

             
“Me?” the girl asks.

             
I don’t answer before my left leg slowly raises off the floor and suddenly shoots out, smashing through sheet-rock, insulation and wood with ease. Several more kicks enlarge the hole enough so the wall is on the verge of collapse. Outside is a thirty-foot drop to the ground.

             
“We have to jump,” I say.

             
“What?” the princess asks. “That’s crazy.”

             
“Are you sure?” Mom asks within my ear.

             
The sound of nearby gunshots answers that question. I suddenly leap and the princess goes silent with fear. Up so high, I see the blinking red light above the trees, though this time I see what it’s attached to. In that split second before I plunge toward the ground, I know what
else
must be done.

             
We land hard. The princess grunts in my arms.

             
“Are you okay?” I ask.

             
“Yeah,” she groans, barely able to force out the answer as she gasps for breath.

             
Inside my ear, I hear Nej telling Mom to get us out of here. She does as he says and I soon find myself rushing toward the front of the house again, heading toward the shortest route back to freedom. But we barely round the corner when Mom stops me in front of a line of humans and robots.

             
The loudest of 37’s sons stands in the center. I hope he’ll step aside – I hope Nej was wrong – but that’s not meant to be.

             
“You killed my father,” the man yells. “And now you’re trying to steal my future wife?”

“I’m
nobody’s
future wife!” the princess yells.

“Destroy the man-bot!” the man yells.

              Mom spins me around and I dive behind the house as the first bullets zip toward us. I get to my feet and tear across the backyard, destroying the perfect landscaping as I run.

             
“Circle him back around the woods,” Nej tells Mom. “He can outrun them.”

             
“No,” I say.

             
“What do you mean
no
?” Mom says.

             
I know I can move faster than the humans and robots and I want nothing more than to get back to safety
and
freedom. But it’s clear that Nej was right about the cruelty of his brothers. I can’t let them continue 37’s reign of terror; I can’t let more humans die if there’s a way to stop it.

             
“Keep me going straight ahead,” I tell her. “Tell Nej I want to go to the tower. We’re going to shut off the override signal.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“But I was never given access to the control room,” I hear Nej say. “I don’t know how to turn off the signal. My father was very secretive with that kind of stuff.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I say. “We have to.”

I hear the sounds of yelling and footsteps in the forest behind me. An occasional gunshot echoes in the distance but nothing close enough to seriously concern me, at least for now. We have a good lead on our enemies but I know that won’t last more than a minute or two once we reach the tower.

“We’ll figure
what
out?” the princess asks. “Will you
please
tell me who you’re talking to? You aren’t crazy, are you?”

“The person controlling my movements,” I say.

“But you said the old man was dead,” she says in a panic.

“It’s not him, it’s a friend waiting outside the danger zone,” I tell her.

“Then why are we going
this
way? We need to head in the other direction,” she says.

The tower looms just ahead, the flashing red light high above leading us toward it. Criss-crossed metallic beams climb the length of the thin structure, which tapers off as it nears the top. I don’t know for what purpose the tower was originally constructed but it certainly doesn’t look imposing enough for all the terror it’s created during 37’s reign.

“That tower emits a signal that gives these humans control over robots,” I tell the princess. “If we can stop it, the same thing that happened to your father and brother won’t happen to other humans that stumble into these lands.”

The princess nods and doesn’t say another word about where we’re going. My feet suddenly clatter atop a chain-link fence long since fallen. I reach the tower but don’t have the faintest idea how to stop the signal. The bottom of the tall structure is severely rusted but I doubt I’m strong enough to knock the tower over.

“Around the other side,” Nej says.

Mom circles me around the tower’s base. Thick strands of ivy climb the other side of the tower, ending at a large clump at ground level.

“That’s it,” Nej says. “Beneath the vines.”

“I think you can put me down now,” the princess says.

Mom loosens my arm and the princess jumps down. I get to work yanking at the vines until I uncover a door. A heavy chain is draped across the door.

“I don’t know where the key is,” Nej tells Mom.

“Don’t need one,” she says.

My hand grabs the chain and yanks, snapping it in half, nearly knocking the door off its hinge in the process. The room inside is small and dark. A buzzing sound emanates from several large consoles that are covered with buttons glowing different colors. The princess and I walk inside, closing the door behind us.

“Which one controls the signal?” I ask.

Mom repeats the question to Nej, who doesn’t have the answer. I try to read words on the buttons but they’re all abbreviations and I don’t know what they mean.

“Just have me start pushing all of them,” I say.

Though running and fighting were easy for Mom to master, the more delicate movement of pushing buttons is trickier, especially in the dark. My fingers are suddenly clumsy, missing some buttons while not pushing others hard enough. I already begin to hear the echo of approaching footsteps and yelling voices. Our small lead on the robots is nearly gone.

“Let me do this,” the princess says. She sweeps past me and begins pushing buttons, her fingers moving much faster than mine. In less than a minute, every button has been pushed. Several lights have turned off but I feel no difference in myself. “Now what?”

The busted door no longer closes all the way and I look through the crack to see movement outside. I tell the princess to move out of sight, not that there are many hiding places in the small control room.

“We know you’re in there,” yells the voice of 37’s son, apparently the new leader. “We don’t want any trouble, robot-man. Hand over the girl and we won’t destroy you.”

Princess Regina ignores my warnings to hide and pushes the buttons again, her fingers moving even faster. The humans don’t give me long to mull their offer, not that I’d consider accepting.

“Attack!”

I expect a hail of bullets to explode into the small room but the men can’t risk damaging the equipment. Besides, I have a feeling they’ll have a lot more fun with the princess if she survives. The simultaneous pounding of a dozen robotic feet approach. The first robot opens the door but I’m quick to attack, ripping out its core and pushing it back outside. Hopefully that gives the rest of them pause as I slam the door shut.
Banging erupts from the other side of the room and within seconds it sounds like the robots are trying to tear apart the small building.

“Please don’t let them get me,” the princess says. “Kill me before they take me again.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I say, though I doubt she believes my false confidence. “Start smashing stuff in here.”

I mean that as an order to Mom but the princess begins to pound the buttons with her fists.

“Are you sure that’ll work?” the old woman asks in my ear.

“No other choice!”

The first section of building begins to crumble. Daylight streams through the ivy and cracked wall. We probably don’t have more than a minute. I yell for the princess to get out of my way as Mom swings my arms wildly, smashing everything in sight. Sparks fly. I could be electrocuted at any moment – my metal hull won’t help with that – but more of the building crumbles and the robots start reaching in for us.

The princess screams when the first robotic hand grabs her.

“Turn and swing!”

Mom does as I say. Princess Regina ducks at the last second and my hand slams into a robot’s arm, severing it from its body. The princess takes cover by my feet but that will only save her a few seconds. The consoles are absolutely trashed and still nothing has happened.

“What about that box on the wall?” the princess yells.

My arm swings and strikes an electrical box. An explosion of sparks bursts around me. A jolt rushes through my body and throws me back as if the hand of God suddenly struck me. My vision and hearing blink off for a moment. When they come back on, I’m on the floor, half-buried by debris.

“I’m okay,” I say, as much to test my hearing as to let Mom know that I somehow survived. But the old woman doesn’t answer. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

Still no response. I don’t hear the soft hum of white noise that tells me the connection is open. I don’t know what other damage the spark caused but my link to Mom has been broken. Everything around me is suddenly quiet, no more banging walls, no more buzzing from the consoles, no more pounding footsteps. I’m starting to think my hearing is busted again but then the princess screams.

I leap to my feet and hurry toward the sound. It’s not until I reach the princess that I realize I’m controlling myself. I smash the robot that grabbed hold of her but the others seem to be backing away. I put my hand softly over her mouth and she quiets. I peer through the cracked walls to see the line of robots retreating from the battered building.

“Why did you idiots stop? Go inside and destroy them!” yells the new human leader.

              I pull the princess closer to me, shielding her with my own body. I expect the assault to continue but the footsteps head in the opposite direction.

             
“No, the
other
way!” another man orders the robots. When he speaks again, his voice doesn’t carry the same commanding tone. In fact, he sounds downright scared. “Why are they coming toward
us
?”

             
I turn away from the princess long enough to peek through one of many holes in the wall. The line of 37’s sons tenses as the robots slowly walk in their direction. The humans raise their guns.

             
“Stay back now, that’s an
order
,” the human leader says. “
I
am in charge of you, do what I say!”

             
But the robots continue forward. I don’t think the man’s words register in the robots’ minds. I glance at the destroyed consoles in the control room and don’t see a single button alight. I’d be willing to bet that the tower’s red light is also off, though it doesn’t sound like the men outside realize that yet. The fools probably never saw how a robot acts when not controlled by the override signal.

             
“Be quiet,” I whisper to the princess. “The robots won’t hurt me but you’re still a human, which makes you a target.”

             
The girl nods and together we watch the impending disaster. Even though 37’s sons are cruel, a part of me wants to warn them, to tell them to run away. But doing so would not only jeopardize myself but also the princess. I can’t let that happen. The first robot reaches the new leader, though I have a bad feeling his reign will be far shorter than his father’s.

             
“If you don’t walk back over and retrieve the princess, I’ll make an example out of you,” the man screams, as if a robot would actually respond to a threat.

             
The man fires at the nearest robot and the others join him. They take down one metallic monster but the other robots converge on 37’s oldest son and begin to bludgeon him. I doubt the man could’ve survived one strike let alone the barrage that takes him down in a bloody heap.

             
A chorus of screaming erupts from the other brothers and a gunfight ensues. In the first few seconds, several robots and nearly half the men are wiped out. I try to shield the princess from watching the carnage but she pushes my hand away from her eyes.

             
“I want to see this,” she whispers. “For my father and brother. Those men deserve every punishment they get.”

             
I have to remind myself – probably for the millionth time – that this is a different world I live in now. A bullet suddenly pings off the wall a few feet from where we stand.

             
“Time to go,” I say.

             
I don’t give the princess a choice, grabbing her around the waist and carrying her to the back of the destroyed room. I kick out a portion of the back wall and take off, running beneath the tower, still holding her in my arms. I glance up to see the red light no longer blinking. Instead, red is on the ground behind us, the grass soaked with blood and covered with bodies, the result of a massacre those men never saw coming. But I’m far more interested in what lies in front of us.

             
Not a single shot is fired our way, not a single robot follows. For the first time, I run through these woods under my own volition. It’s strange how well I know this land yet I feel such a need to concentrate now that I control where I run. The princess tries to talk to me but I don’t pay attention to a word she says. Every time I round a grove of trees, I expect robots or humans to show up and block our path. But there’s not a single sign of life in these woods – mechanical or otherwise – and we reach the clearing without incident.

             
“Where are you taking me?” the princess asks.

             
I finally put her down as we walk through the field of wildflowers. I look toward the trees on the other side but see no sign of Nej or Mom. My insides fill with dread.

“To see friends,” I say.

But the area where I left them is empty, not so much as a single footprint to show that they’d ever been there. I spin around, looking among the trees, but find nothing. Even though it’s ridiculous, I glance toward the boulder across the field. If there’s one person evil enough to rise from the dead, it’s 37. But his feet still stick out from the bottom of the massive rock, a big relief.

I hear a snap from above and a robot plunges straight down, landing in front of me. Mom takes a swing but I easily block the blow. When she realizes it’s me, her glare doesn’t soften nor does she apologize. In fact, it looks like she may attack again. I keep my hands up.

“Where’s Nej?”

Mom points up. Nej waves from his perch high above but he seems less interested in me and more interested in my traveling companion.

“I’m glad to see you’re okay, Princess,” Nej calls out as he climbs down. He’s still weak but tries not to show it in front of the girl. The princess looks at them skeptically and takes a few steps closer to me.

“Wasn’t he one of
them
?” she whispers to me.

I shake my head.

“Princess,” Mom says, bowing slightly. “I met a few of your men who traveled that way yesterday.”

She points in the opposite direction of 37’s former territory.

“There were survivors?” Princess Regina asks hopefully.

“You never told me you spoke to them at length,” I say.

Mom doesn’t look at me.

“I didn’t have the opportunity. I also didn’t tell you how much I spoke to the other young woman, the old man’s daughter, just after you two expelled her from her home. I steered her toward River City as well. Doubt that one will make it,” she says. When Mom finally calms enough to look at me, some of the fire has gone out of her eyes. She’s still trying to look mad but I can tell how worried she’s been. “When we lost contact, I thought that you… I didn’t know what to think.”