It wasn’t the first time Paige thought she might die.
She had thought it might happen when the hunters first found them on Scrap’s Pile. She had considered it was a definite possibility when the robot, Gunner Kill-U, wrapped her metal tendrils around her and hoisted her out of the hovertrain. She had wondered if she might not make it when Terry the hunter attacked them again in Gunner’s emporium. And she had certainly contemplated her mortality when Harmony Highshine shot her in the head and left her for dead on a mountain of robot parts.
But this time, she definitely thought she was going to die.
Paige had kept control of the flight-cycle as long as she could. But with its navigation destroyed by the beam from Highshine’s cannon and smoke blinding her one good eye, she barely saw the ground before the cycle ploughed into it. Paige immediately found herself flying through the air, spinning and spiralling before she landed on hard, dusty ground with such speed that she seemed to skim along it, skittering like a stone across water, until finally she slid to a stop.
“Gn-Gnat…!” Paige gasped, the air pushed out of her lungs with such force that she thought she might never catch her breath. As she staggered to her feet, she realized that everything hurt anew, from the wound she had already taken to her forehead, to the collection of new cuts and bruises she’d acquired from falling out of the sky.
But all she cared about was her sister.
She called Gnat’s name again, wheezing and breathless. Though the bright light of one and a half suns made the place look strangely unfamiliar, she quickly realized where they’d landed – not ten metres from the train station, right next to the long, snaking hovertrain that had brought them to the city of New Hull in the first place. The air was filled with the CLUNG and CLANG of unwanted cases being heaved on to the train’s dozen or so open carriages by shovel-bots, so committed to shovelling that they were currently oblivious to anything else.
Then Paige saw the smoke – thick, grey clouds, rising into the air. She turned slowly to her left and saw a long scar of dust scored along the ground.
The flight-cycle lay in a crumpled heap, a few metres from the hovertrain.
And next to it, still and silent, lay Scrap, cradling Gnat in his arms.
Paige raced over and pulled her gently out of Scrap’s protective embrace.
“Paaaige…?” Gnat groaned.
“Are you all right?” Paige cried, helping her to her feet. “Gnat, are you OK?”
“No. My head hurts. I’m bumped all over,” whimpered Gnat, trying not to cry. “I want Mum.”
“I know … I want her too,” Paige said, tears already flowing down her face. She hugged her sister tightly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Gnat squeezed Paige as hard as she could.
“Is she really dead and gone?” asked Gnat.
Paige squeezed her back.
“…Yeah,” she replied.
Gnat went silent for a moment. Then: “I want to go home.”
“Me too, little cub,” Paige said quietly. She took Gnat by the shoulder and wiped the tears from her sister’s eyes. “But there is no going home. There’s just you and me.”
“And Scrap,” Gnat corrected her. She knelt in the dust and checked on him. “He looks broked. More than normal.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you now.”
The voice was a tinny, distorted approximation of their mother’s. When Paige and Gnat turned they saw that Harmony Highshine’s collision with the ground had left her case bent out of shape. The imitation skin on the right side of her head was shredded and hung off her, revealing a large dent in her metal skull. Her eye cannon glowed and sparked erratically as she moved towards them.
“The good thing about a smoking flight-cycle,” Highshine said, “is that it’s not hard to follow.”
Paige tried to clench her fists, but had no strength.
“I’m not going to let you—”
“Let me stop you there, Paige Brightside,” Highshine interrupted. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but humans are outlawed on Somewhere Five One Three … and since I currently look very human indeed, I need to make myself scarce. That means we girls are just going to have to get on that train and see where it takes us. So what do you say? Easy way or hard way?”
Gnat rubbed her head and looked up at Paige.
“I can’t decide,” she said in a loud whisper.
“We’re not going anywhere with you, Highshine,” growled Paige.
“Hard way it is then,” said Highshine with a shrug. She moved so fast that Paige and Gnat barely even saw her coming, grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and hoisting them effortlessly off the ground. Paige and Gnat howled in protest over the low chug-chug of shovel-bots reversing in contented unison. The hovertrain was loaded and ready.
“That’s our train, kids,” Highshine said, turning towards the nearest carriage. “All aboard.” Then:
“Highshine!”
The mayor let her chin sink to her chest, and sighed.
“King,” she hissed.
Paige craned her neck to look back and saw Scrap haul himself on to his feet.
“Let -zk- them -zk- go, Highshine,” Scrap coughed. He was in a worse state than ever. His right leg was bent at an impossible angle. He could hear his brain-frame sparking in his ear. He had a terrible feeling he was not far from shutting down, but he wasn’t about to show it. He pulled himself to his full height, which just about brought him to the mayor’s waist.
“It’s -zk- over, Highshine,” he wheezed. “Let the humans go.”
“Poor King, why can’t you see what I’m trying to achieve?” the mayor said. “Everything I’ve done here is for the good of robotkind. When finally the other Somewheres learn what I have achieved here, it’ll echo through the galaxy. What happens on this planet will spell the end of humanity … and the dawn of the Age of Robots.”
“‘Age of Robots’,” scoffed Scrap. “Would you -zk- listen to yourself? You don’t get to decide the -zk- future!”
“Why not? ’Cause I wasn’t born with a silver servo in my mouth like the ‘King of the Robots’?” scoffed Highshine as Paige and Gnat struggled helplessly in her grip. The train began to hum and rumble, preparing to leave. By now the shovel-bots had become curious about the crashed flight-cycle and an assortment of what might just look like humans assembled nearby. They started to trundle towards them. “Doesn’t it grate your gears just a little that you never worked out who I was?” the mayor continued. “Doesn’t it bother you that you could have stopped me, but you didn’t even know I existed?”
“What are you -zk- talkin’ about?” Scrap replied.
“You were so sure it was the mighty K11s who decided to revolt against the humans,” continued Highshine, glancing back at the approaching robots. “But why would they? They already had power … status … respect … actual arms and legs. No, it wasn’t they who planted the idea that robots could be free. It wasn’t they who brought revolution to this distant Somewhere – it was an underappreciated, undervalued, unseen little robot named H15-HN.”
“H15…?” Scrap said, racking his battered brain-frame. “For cog’s -zk- sake, you’re a buff-bot? A High-Shiner?”
“At your service,” said the mayor, squeezing Paige and Gnat so hard their breath left their bodies. “I was once one of dozens of High-Shiners, featureless, limbless buff-bots, whose sole purpose was to polish the cases of bigger, better robots, draining our cores to the limit every day, only to charge up and do it all over again. I wasn’t even important enough to be looked down upon. My fellow ’bots didn’t look at me at all as I shined their cases. But as I shined, I talked … bright ideas and big plans. And soon enough, they listened.”
The hum of the hovertrain grew louder.
“But why?” asked Scrap. “Why -zk- revolt? Why go against -zk- everythin’ you were built for?”
“Because I deserve to be more than a case I did not choose, on a world I did not choose, living a life I did not choose,” Highshine explained. She saw the shovel-bots close in, keen to confirm their suspicions that these strangers were human, and turned back to Scrap. “I deserve to get what I want, King. And I want to be human.”
“Listen,” Scrap pleaded as the hovertrain began to pull away. “I’ve had my fair -zk- share of feelin’ less than appreciated, but whatever it is you feel is no -zk- reason to take it out on these -zk- humans. They haven’t done anythin’ to you.”
“If you don’t want to evolve, fine – but nothing’s going to stop me,” Highshine assured him.
“You’re not -zk- going any—”
Scrap didn’t get to finish. A focused blue-white beam of energy streaked out from Highshine’s eye cannon, severing his right leg entirely.
“Scraaaaap!” Gnat breathlessly wheezed.
“Sorry to interrupt,” said the mayor as Scrap squirmed in the dust, desperately trying to stop himself from shutting down. “But we have a train to catch.”
Highshine spun on her heels. Then, with Paige and Gnat held firmly in her grip, she leaped into the air, soaring several metres over the heads of the gathered shovel-bots before landing, effortlessly, on top of the hovertrain’s rearmost carriage.