Day Zero - C. Robert Cargill Page 0,77

at these as fellow intelligences was over. It was us and them now.

The other two bots across the depot snapped to attention. I could hear the sound of their rousing and readying their weapons.

Then the crack of a sniper rifle brought with it the hollow thwong of metal against metal. I could hear the now all-too-familiar sound of a crumpling bot toppling lifelessly to the ground.

But no second shot rang out.

No sound of scuttling feet.

The fourth bot had taken cover before Ziggy could line up another shot.

That meant it was this bot and me fighting in a maze of buses, with a wide-open lower portion ripe for taking each other out at the knees.

I dropped to the ground and scanned for movement. Whoever it was, was hidden somewhere behind a tire out of my line of sight. Fortunately, that meant I was out of its line of sight as well. At least for the time being.

The front door on the depot operations building burst open and two bots with shotguns rushed out, firing wildly.

Then a shot rang out, Ziggy’s bullet smashing out the windshield of a bus several rows over, dropping one of the depot building bots. The other bot dove for cover, while the bot I was tracking scrambled for a different piece of cover.

Another shot from Ziggy tore through the second depot building bot, a bot that had clearly misjudged where the shots were coming from. These weren’t facets. They were Red Masks. Rebels. Murderers.

The final domestic rounded a corner, running right into my line of sight.

She stopped.

“Pounce?” she asked, as I leveled my rifle at her.

It was Maggie.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I called out.

She hesitated. “I . . . I didn’t have a choice—”

My plasma rifle hissed as I put a shot right into her torso, evaporating every last thing about her that I knew, from memory to chips.

We all had a fucking choice. She chose, even if out of fear.

“Clear!” I called out.

“Looks good from up here,” said Ziggy.

I nodded to him, knowing full well he had his scope on me. “Keep on overwatch. I’ll get us a ride.”

I looked down at Maggie’s lifeless wreck. What a waste.

“You should have come with us, Maggie,” I said. I didn’t say it for her.

What a waste.

Once, I was a bot filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world, wanting nothing more than to share it with Ezra, introducing him to all the beauty and joy it had to offer. But today, I killed my friend. Because that’s how the world was now.

And I was fine with that.

Time to reconfigure a bus.

Chapter 11100

Road Trip

We were on the road in short order. Taking manual control of the bus was easy, but the Red Masks had in fact sabotaged all the buses. Of course, they did so rudimentarily, removing basic chips from the ignition box, and it took three guesses as to where they had hidden the removed components. I had the bus started inside of seven minutes, and we hauled ass back down through the route we’d cleared. I drove via Wi-Fi while Ziggy rode shotgun with my plasma rifle. If there was trouble, we’d be ready.

But there wasn’t. Not at all. The road was clear and disturbingly quiet.

I worried that we were being tracked, that CISSUS might be following the bus’s every movement to lead it to the group. I was probably being paranoid, but we had to be careful. I mentally ran through every available route back to the kids and decided on one that would make it look like we were headed somewhere else. Loading the bus would seem like a momentary stop along the way.

As I course-corrected to my new route, Ziggy gave me a disapproving look.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Making it look like we’re headed into town rather than out.”

“So we’re picking the kids up coming in from the west rather than the east?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Smart. Good thinking.”

I beamed inside. It was an odd feeling, pride. I often felt it when I looked at Ezra growing up, learning a new skill or doing something downright awesome, but never for myself. For all I’d done for Ezra, I never felt proud of doing it. But having another Mama Bear compliment me, well, it made me feel like I belonged. Like I had done something special, something that wasn’t expected of me. I wasn’t going to let them down.

“Stay sharp. I haven’t cleared this area.”

Ziggy nodded and moved toward the front bus entry. “Open her up.”

I