Boy Robot Read online

  She grins. “Well, most people who’ve been here a while don’t just walk into training sessions and sit with their mouths open in awe. Especially not at a bunch of inexperienced telekinetics pushing balls around a room.”

  The others laugh, and I smile. “Guess I wasn’t being very discreet.”

  “It’s okay. I’m the one who should be embarrassed. You saw me almost burn out trying to lift a few pathetic exercise balls.”

  “It looked pretty impressive to me.”

  Everyone chuckles.

  “Ivan over here,” says another girl, sitting across from me next to Erica, “he lifted three SUVs full of Sheriffs and tipped them over an overpass in Indiana before he got here.”

  I look down the table at a thin guy with tanned skin and jet-black hair. He smiles bashfully and looks down at his food. I get the sense that he isn’t proud of what he’s done.

  “That must’ve been really difficult,” I say.

  He picks at the food in front of him but doesn’t look up. “Yeah. Everyone always seems to be pretty impressed.”

  “I mean emotionally. That must’ve been hard.”

  He looks up at me and pauses. “Thank you,” he says as he gives me a genuine smile.

  “This is Brooke, by the way,” Erica says, interrupting the moment and gesturing to the girl who spoke before. “That’s Ivan, obviously. This is Bryan, Dustin, and Jessica.” She points to each person as she introduces them, and we all smile and wave dorkishly at one another. Everyone keeps laughing. Thank God. I needed this.

  “So what’s your ability, then?” Dustin—a tall boy with sandy-blond hair, asks through a mouthful of chips.

  “I don’t know yet. I just got tested this morning.”

  “You got tested and they didn’t tell you right then and there?” Brooke asks.

  They all look to me in surprise.

  “No. They said they needed more time to deliberate. I probably won’t find anything out until tomorrow.”

  “Whoa.” Erica looks to the others. “Pretty much everyone knows what he can do the moment he unlinks from them. Mine only took a few seconds. I don’t think I even got to introduce myself to anyone beside Malek and Arielle before I was back on the elevator with my training assignment.”

  “That’s the usual story,” Dustin says.

  “Somebody must be special,” the girl at the far end says. Jessica. She has curly black hair and a crooked, mischievous smile.

  Everyone makes sarcastic “oohs” like schoolchildren, and I roll my eyes.

  “No, it’s not like that. It’s just”—I look around to the others; these are people who can understand what I’ve gone through—“confusing.”

  They all stop laughing and grinning and nod their heads. They get it, and I’m so glad they do.

  “Well, freak, you’ll be happy to know that you are no longer alone in this world. You have now officially joined the greatest freak show on Earth.” Erica’s voice gets loud and animated at the end, like a cartoon ringleader at a circus.

  Everyone starts laughing again, and I do too.

  • • •

  Dinner is a lonelier affair. After falling asleep on an especially lumpy couch in the rec room, I almost miss it altogether. Most of the hot dishes have been packed up and put away, but I’m still able to get some mashed potatoes and green beans. I grab a few hard-boiled eggs from the market section and call it a meal.

  I eat at a table by myself as more and more people flood into the rec room. Training sessions, and whatever else these guys do throughout the day, must all be coming to an end. I clean my plate and put the tray in the rack of dirty dishes, wishing I hadn’t taken that nap. Now I’m fully awake and have no idea where to go or what to do with myself.

  I make my way up to the dorms and try not to think about what it means that they still haven’t called me back down to the basement.

  • • •

  Sometime later I hear a knock at my door. I don’t know what time it is, but it feels late. I haven’t heard anyone walking around in the hallway outside in at least an hour.

  Maybe they’re finally bringing me down.

  I get up and open the door to find JB on the other side. His face lights up with a smile when he sees me.

  “Hey, kid.”

  I hate it when he calls me that. I also hate how good it feels to hear him say it. He waits for me to say something in response, but I fold my arms across my chest and keep my silence.

  “Put your shoes on. I want to show you something,” he says finally.

  “It’s okay. I think I’m in for the night.”

  “Just trust me.”

  I pause and look into his eyes. He’s giving me the same look he gave me the other night when we watched the sunset from the cliff in New Mexico. I’m not going to fall for this again.

  “Isn’t Malek going to wonder where you’ve gone?”

  He wets his lips and looks back down the hallway behind him. “First off, they’re going to be down there all night. Second”—he looks right at me once again—“things are a little more complicated than they seem.”

  This doesn’t seem like a lie, but I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten anything truthful from him at all. I have nothing to compare it to. Seeing him here though, with his wavy black hair, crystal-blue eyes, broad shoulders leaning against the doorframe, and a smile so perfect it makes me want to punch him, I have no choice but to give in.

  “Fine.”

  • • •

  Quietly, he takes me down a series of hallways until we get to a dead end. The walls here are paneled in white tiles instead of bare concrete. We pass the last door, and I look at him, confused, as nothing remains besides a fire extinguisher in a glass case. He glances behind us, then looks at me and grins.

  He reaches out for the handle on the fire extinguisher’s case and pulls. A portion of the wall opens, revealing a dark, closet-like room. He ushers me inside, then closes the heavy door behind us. A single red light illuminates the rungs of a ladder built into the wall. We must be in a service chute of some kind. He smiles at me again in the dim glow and nods for me to go up.

  I take a rung and start up without a second thought. It occurs to me that he will have a prime view of my ass, and even after I convince myself that I don’t care, I add a subtle flex to my climb here and there, just in case. After almost a minute of climbing in the dark, a second, more ominous thought arrives:

  Maybe I shouldn’t sneak out of the secret base it took me a week of running from deadly military killers and nearly cost me my life several times to get to?

  I think about JB looking at my ass again and continue climbing.

  After another minute I see a grate above me. Without waiting for JB’s instruction, I push up on the grate and climb up and out of the chute into yet another dimly lit service room. There are pipes all around, and the sound of flowing water fills the room.

  JB climbs out after me and leans in to my ear. “Get excited.” He steps around me and walks beyond a series of pipes toward a door. He pulls a lever, pushes with his shoulder, and opens it. I follow him over and step through.

  It takes me a moment to fully realize that I’ve just walked out into the open night air. Stars dot the inky sky, and the scent of flowers overwhelms me. I hop up a few concrete steps as my eyes adjust and then turn to fully take in my surroundings.

  I’m standing in one of the center rings of a large, recessed, circular garden. Concentric circles of flower-lined pathways surround a large pool or fountain—I can’t tell exactly which—with a waterfall and what looks like a small hedge maze decorating the basin.

  A hand gently grazes the small of my back from behind.

  “Isn’t this incredible?” JB’s mouth comes dangerously close to my ear as he brushes past me. “Come.” He continues down the circular path, and I follow.

  We wind around through the flowers until we reach a ramp that crisscrosses the circular pathways. The service room we emerged from must be hidden dow
n on the innermost ring, behind the waterfall.

  We go up the ramp and wind back around to the other side, this time on the highest level of the ring garden. Now that we are above it, I can see that we are high up on a hill, with bits of the city visible below us. Several large, blockish white buildings stand tall on the hill behind us.

  JB takes a set of stairs near some ornate, flowering topiaries. My shoes echo on the first step and I realize that all of the buildings around us are made out of white marble. Under the light of an exceptionally bright moon, I watch as our shadows creep up the gleaming stone. At the top, we step out onto a long promenade, lined with various pools and fountains and dotted with trees. I’ve never seen anything like it. He takes me toward one of the pools and over a series of large, square stepping-stones across the water.

  We take a right down the promenade between two of the large buildings and take another set of stairs down to a long, thin path of white marble that lead to a patio overlooking a circular cactus garden, and all of Los Angeles.

  The view takes my breath away. I’ve never seen anything like it. An ocean of flickering city lights lies sprawled out over an endless span before me. Stars move through the sky in rows, and I realize that they’re not stars, but in fact planes, funneling in and out of the city at a constant stream. Mist rolls up against mountains to our left, and I can make out skyscrapers dotting several different parts of the city. I can’t even tell which cluster is downtown.

  “Isn’t this incredible?”

  I don’t look back at him. I can’t take my eyes off of this view. “Amazing.”

  A glowing red and white snake of traffic winds next to the hill we’re on, but everything around is perfectly silent and still, an island of tranquility in a sea of chaos. We stand silently for several minutes and absorb the sights. I think about my view back in Pacific—how it paled in comparison to this—and take a moment of gratitude. After everything I’ve gone through in the past week, I feel lucky to be able to see this.

  “Come on,” JB says, breaking the meditative silence. “There’s something else I want to show you.”

  I tear myself away from the majestic view and follow JB back up the path, through a gate that reads EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY and around the building. We go through another gate that looks like something we shouldn’t be messing with, and out onto an access road.

  After a ten-minute walk down a steep hill that leaves my calves warm and my forehead sweaty, we come to another large gate. I hear cars zooming by on the other side and realize we must be by the road we saw from the top of the hill. JB looks at a security card kiosk that stands before the gate at the end of the access road and nods.

  “If you would, kind sir,” he says in an affected British accent.

  I bow to him sarcastically and place my hand on the kiosk. A tingling sensation runs up my arm, and a series of prickling signals flow into me. I try to clear my mind and hope that I can figure out what I’m doing before I blow anything up and get us caught. I focus on the gate and what I want it to do, and a small light turns green near the card scanner. The gate begins to open.

  “Nice work, kid.”

  He should be glad I don’t have one of the KDPR sticks on me now.

  We make it out to the sidewalk outside of the gates, and I look to a sign above us.

  THE GETTY CENTER

  When I look back to JB, he is tapping on the screen of a phone.

  “What are you doing?” Panic begins to rise in my throat, remembering what Azure said about Robots and phones and what happened in Albuquerque after I touched JB’s.

  “It’s okay. I told you to trust me.”

  I bite my lip and stare at the road in front of us in silence. After a few minutes a small, oddly orbicular car pulls up to us. It looks like a friendly marshmallow with wheels.

  JB hands me pair of black leather gloves. “Best if you don’t touch anything.” I slip them on as he smiles and opens the door for me. “After you, monsieur.”

  I hesitate for a brief moment and get in.

  It’s only when JB gets in beside me and closes the door that I realize the car has no driver. I’d heard about the new automated car services before and seen videos, but they were still only available in the bigger cities. There was definitely nothing like this in Pacific, Missouri.

  “Have you been in one of these before?”

  I shake my head as the dome lights dim and a melodic voice chimes in over the speakers.

  “Please fasten your seat belts.”

  I fumble for mine and click it into place.

  “Thank you. Enjoy your ride.”

  The car glides forward and we are off, into the traffic.

  • • •

  I smell salt in the air as we step out of the car and onto the sidewalk. The sound of crashing waves comes to me over the grass to my right as the car glides silently away.

  “This way.” JB walks down the sidewalk and I follow. A little farther down, he takes a right at a stoplight and we pass under a large illuminated sign.

  SANTA MONICA

  *YACHT HARBOR*

  SPORT FISHING—BOATING—CAFÉS

  The sidewalk slopes rapidly downward, arching over a busy road, and spills out onto a sprawling wooden pier. Up ahead carnival rides and a massive Ferris wheel light up the night in kaleidoscopic, flickering rainbow lights. It’s not as busy as I’d assume a place like this would normally be. The air has a chill that I think must be keeping most of the tourists away tonight. I wish I’d brought a jacket myself.

  We take a set of stairs down toward the beach. At the bottom, JB walks ahead of me off of the sidewalk, but I pause to remove the gloves and my shoes. I step, for the first time, into cool, soft sand. Goose bumps race over my skin and I walk out to catch up to JB.

  He takes a seat in the sand just before it slopes down toward the ebbing tide, and I sit next to him. Swirling mist brings the moon in and out of vision, but I can still make out the waves. I look out and take in the vast, endless black of the ocean. My eyes close and I inhale deeply.

  “Now you don’t have to imagine what standing at the edge of the ocean is like anymore.”

  I open my eyes and look at him. The lights from the buildings behind us illuminate half his face, the other half swathed in dim, misty moonlight. His eyes still sparkle at me, and all of the facade, all of the grinning, all of the endless layers seem to peel away. He feels totally bare before me.

  “We’re not standing,” I say. I can feel myself getting sucked in.

  “No. We’re not.”

  He reaches up and gently, firmly takes the back of my neck and leans in to kiss me. Just as his lips are about to connect with mine, I pull away. “What are you doing?”

  He drops his hand and looks at me, confused.

  “Aren’t you with someone? Does he know you’re doing this right now?”

  He looks back out toward the water and remains silent.

  I feel my blood start to boil. I feel like such an idiot. He’s with Malek, and it seems serious, from what I’ve gathered. I can’t believe I even followed him out of my room.

  What was I thinking?

  I stand and start to walk away, but stop and turn back to him.

  “You—” I bite my tongue and look back out to the water before I say something I know I’ll regret. “You know, you haven’t even asked how my testing went, how I’m feeling, if I’m okay—anything.”

  An exceptionally large wave crashes to thunderous effect.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I’m finished.”

  The water from the wave laps up to the edge of my toes.

  “Please call a car.”

  I turn and trudge through the sand.

  • • •

  I’m halfway down the ladder by the time I hear JB set the metal grate back into place above us. After another minute I see the concrete floor below me in the darkness and drop down the last few feet. I wait for JB to catch up before I turn to go, but he grabs my wri
st.

  “Please. I—” He stops. I can tell he’s not used to being at a loss for words. “I know you think I’m some cheating asshole, but things are . . . complicated with me and Malek.” He pauses and waits for me to look up into his eyes. “I care about you, Isaak.”

  At any other point in my life, hearing someone like him say something like that would’ve made me blush uncontrollably. Now I take the words for what they are—words—and turn to leave. I push the heavy hidden door open and step out into the white-tiled hallway—

  And almost run smack into Malek.

  I stumble out as JB calls out after me.

  “Isaak—” He follows me out and sees Malek.

  Malek’s eyes are cold steel, his jaw clenched.

  The door closes on its own behind JB and seals shut.

  We stand there, the three of us, in a moment of crushing, endless silence. I’m humiliated, embarrassed, and know that nothing I could ever say to Malek will convince him that nothing actually happened while we were out.

  I am so fucking dumb.

  “You guys have a good time?” he asks. I can see the breath rising in his chest.

  JB squeezes the bridge of his nose between his fingers before he speaks. “Malek, it wasn’t like—”

  “Do you even know what he is? What his presence here means for all of us?” Malek’s eyes cut into JB like daggers. He doesn’t even spare me a glance.

  “What are you talking about?” JB looks genuinely confused. Malek shakes his head and finally looks at me. His eyes are cold, emotionless.

  “Get to your room and stay there. Any other little trips like this will result in you being placed in secure confinement. Is that clear?”

  Confusion, frustration, and anger churn inside me. I am not a child and refuse to be treated like one. But before I can say anything rash, I nod to Malek and brush past them both. I refuse to look back as I walk down the hallway. I feel tears welling up in my eyes, but they’re not tears of sadness. I’m so fucking sick and tired of everyone talking around me in riddles, speaking about me in codes and neglecting to clue me in. I am trapped, quite literally, in a secret bunker, under a museum, in a mountain, and every step I take toward learning something about myself only leads me deeper under the mountain that’s building in my head. I refuse to let these people make me cry. I’ve felt what I can do. I know what I can do. I am free and can do whatever the fuck I want. I dare any of these assholes to try to stop me.