Chapter Six

 

 

"Blake and I were planning to knock him out and restrain him," Matt said several minutes later, as the nanobots moved on to building the legs of our new walker. He leaned against the wall, looking down in shame.

I wasn't upset about Calvin stealing the other walker. I was furious that he had taken the final piece I had of my mother, and of course the Grounder Secret. He had stolen the last footage taken of her, fighting Mr. Skeleton and firing that gun.

We all now stood outside, begging the nanobots to hurry.

"Why didn't you?" Lin asked.

"Calvin wouldn't take his eyes off us the entire time we were trying to loot abandoned houses," Matt said. "The two of us figured we needed to get him to relax around us and trust us before we tried anything. I found some rotten yellow rope in the shed with the seeds, but Calvin wouldn't let me step anywhere near it. You don't realize how athletic the guy is. Now that we don't have the electric baton, he's a lot harder to take down. Blake and I are both suffering from being in less gravity for so long."

"There are five of us down here," I said. "We could have stopped him together."

"I didn't want him to hurt any of you girls," Blake said.

Matt glared at him for a split second. Tension still ruled here, all right. I wanted the walker to finish just to get away from it. If I were lucky, Matt and I would pilot our own again.

"And I wanted to get him away from you," Matt said. "He sliced you with the knife before. I wasn't sure that he wasn't armed."

The tension level in the crater escalated. Even the nanobots seemed to move faster as if they wanted to get away from the impending clash of man pride. "Well, we're out of that Grounder Secret folder," I said, trying to change the subject.

"Wait," Lin said. "I have an idea. Maybe Calvin will be dumb enough to go online so he can crack it. He wants to be the hero. He'll want to be the one to discover the Grounder Secret."

"Maybe," I said. I knew that going online to download a program for that would tell every Grounder on the planet where I was. Calvin would get himself killed sooner or later. A bit of hope rose inside of me, and this new topic would distract Matt and Blake from hating each other. "That's if Calvin ever stops and takes the time to look through the tablet."

"I think he will," Matt said. "He heard us talking about it. We might just need to follow him, as risky as that would be. The Grounders will know where he is soon enough."

I scanned the surrounding area for any sign of Calvin. He might be marching to Landin right now, to the city that housed the Grounder HQ. He knew the way there--across the lake, rather than through the dense city, to the Great Council. In fact, he had even told us the most tactical way to go. Though he was trying to work against us, he might help us. Calvin might have to be the first wave, the guy who got sacrificed so the rest of the plan could work. If we could find him again, we could see if he had cracked that folder open. It was my only hope of getting into it.

I felt worse than dirt about it, but Calvin was making his own decisions.

"Okay. Maybe this is a slightly good thing for us," I said. "If Calvin cracks that folder and we find him again, we might discover something that will stop the Grounders." I couldn't imagine what the Grounder Secret could be. It could just be the truth about their origins on ancient Earth, which was a secret that most people left here didn't know. But if that were the case, then why lock the folder?

Mom was the daughter of Luis Volker, after all, founder of the Earther Party.

"I think he's stupid enough to do that," Matt said. He winked.

"That's why I stopped Blake from climbing the ladder."

"Good idea," I said. "Let's pray that Calvin does it before he reaches the Great Council because the Grounders sure won't let us have that tablet back."

 

* * * * *

 

Things had gotten more desperate. I tapped my foot, waiting. It took about another two hours before the swarm of nanobots finished the new walker. It stood there in the noon light, shining in the pale sun that struggled to shine through the smog. Thankfully, as the mining bot worked the sides of the pit, the nanobots used the materials to make more copies of themselves, which made the work go faster and faster as it went on. That meant that building the second walker wouldn't take nearly as much time as the first.

And it didn't. Matt struggled with how to tell them to get to work making the second one, but it turned out that he didn't have to. The nanobots seemed to detect that there were now five of us versus two, and they got working on their own, making new streams as if they were marching ants in a rainforest. Of course, rainforests no longer existed, unless this red vegetation formed some new ones down in what had once been more tropical regions.

While we were waiting, Winnie and I got the farming nanobots going. I figured it was a good distraction for her, and she smiled as the little living dust specks gathered around the seeds that we poured on the floor of the cylinder. While we waited, Matt and Blake remained outside, probably sizing each other up. Lin skipped around the ship, watching and waiting for the second walker to complete. I wanted to thank Fiona for programming them so well for our needs. It might be a bare-bones mission, but it was an intelligent one.

I hope Fiona found a way to send someone besides more Mars Identity people. Sure, they would help us stop the Grounders from unleashing their disease, but they wouldn't help us take back Earth.

Should they?

I tried not to think about the whole thing because it was maddening.

Winnie and I watched the old seeds, including the sprouted one, get carried outside by the tiny robots. It was very much like watching ants.

"They're cute," Winnie said.

"I agree," I said. Outside, Matt and Blake were staying silent. Lin let out a holler as she continued to skip around. I was glad to be back with my friends, even if there was another war brewing.

"Does Matt like you?" Winnie asked out of the blue.

I blushed, but I was glad she could talk about something that didn't revolve around certain death. I missed that.

"He does," she said. "I can tell by the way he and Blake are ready to kill each other."

"We've had problems," I said, thinking of the kiss we had shared when we thought we were going to die. I thought of the way he had tried pushing me away because he feared that I'd get angry at him when the truth came out. He'd been right to worry, of course, and I should stay mad at him for leaving that part of the story out. I could crush him right now in return if I wanted. Blake was here.

But I couldn't. I felt like I was still drawn to Matt somehow, and I couldn't pin down why.

"Isn't that true of any relationship?" Winnie asked.

"This isn't a normal one."

"Well, I guess you could say that," she said and smiled.

I hadn't seen her do that in forever. It was refreshing. With my friends here, it felt like we might survive this.

Matt stepped back into the cylinder right when the last of the farming nanobots exited. "They're almost done making the second machine," he said. "And no, we don't need anyone to stay behind. We should have Tess and me in one, and the three of you in the other. I'll tell you how everything works." Then he turned his head and faced the sky. "We have another cylinder coming down."

A faint boom sounded, and I jumped. Already, Fiona had sent us more reinforcements.

"It must be the sixth one," I said. "There are four more coming."

"And I'm feeling better about that, even if it is Identity people," Matt said. "If we move fast enough, Calvin will distract the Grounders from us. We all know he's going to charge in, thinking he's invulnerable."

"How far away did it land?" I asked.

"Maybe a few kilometers away. Closer to the city. Well, I think. We might pass them on the way there, and they might back us up."

I wondered how things would go for us if we survived. Survival was first, but the Identity people still believed in fairness. Maybe the best we could hope for, if we didn't wipe out the Grounders, was to strike a new deal with them, but they couldn't think in any shade of gray. Fair was fair, according to them, even if it wasn't. Or was it?

With the Identity here, the best we could get was a better plan for allowing people to live on Mars. I wanted nothing to do with that place. I couldn't think of it without shuddering.

But it was better than nothing. Winnie and I walked outside, to where Lin and Blake stood, eyeing the twin walkers that towered over us, gleaming and waiting to kill.

Matt said we had to own this alien invasion thing if we were going to survive. I wasn't sure. I gulped and began to climb the ladder of the first.