Chapter 5

Onder jumped forward and rolled, the craggy surface jutting into his back, his heart pulsing in his neck.

A bolt of fire flashed from the arm of the injured robot. WAAAZZZ-PAAAA. The flap of silicon skin under its eye jumped as it surveyed the small cloud of rock and dust that hung in the air where Onder had been.

Onder crawled behind a low, black outcropping, turned himself around and surveyed the damage.

WAAAZZZ-PAAAA. Another blast landed in the same spot as the first and a sharp pop sounded. A long fissure opened in the ground. The cliff edge arced forward then stopped, stuck on something.

The robot strode out of its hiding spot and fired three times in a tight burst. Onder rolled and closed his eyes but the robot’s beams of fire moved faster than his own eyes could see them.

The shots impacted centimeters from the frazzled boy’s face. Knife-like bits of dirt and rock scraped his nose, cheeks and forehead. The flash remained. Onder forced his eyelids open and rolled his eyes in all directions but it was no use.

He was blind now.

Onder scampered backwards, got to his feet and sprinted. His instincts told him to stop, or at least slow down, but he pushed through. He hoped he was actually running in the right direction. Behind him was the unstable cliff, the rough surf and the hungry sharks. To his left and right were more ocean, just farther away. Ahead was his ancestral land.

It was harsh land, arid with little game even now that the Gaians had tried to restock it. But it was where he must go.

Onder’s imagination wandered to vivid images of his father hunting, the warm blood of an antelope–

Onder tripped and flew head first into something hard. He felt no pain and knew that was the worst sign. He reached up and felt. A rock, a big one. He touched his head. Wet, slippery, hot.

This was bad. But Onder got to his feet and walked into the rock again. He let himself fall over it, then huddled behind it.

Onder listened hard for the clomping feet of the Gaian robot. There was no sound, no vibration.

Onder tensed. It should be chasing him. It had the advantage. Why would it stop now?

A hot breeze burned Onder’s eyes. Cold slivers of metal pushed on the boy’s chest. His shoulder blades dug into the rock and his breath did not come.

“Thought you could run away from me, human?” The compassionless voice echoed inside its metal skull.

Onder nodded.

It pushed harder. It brought its other hand up and rubbed it into the gash on Onder’s head.

Onder screamed. The pain sparked desperation in him and he tried to breathe.

Nothing came.

The robot moved the hand from Onder’s neck to his chest and pushed. His sternum cracked and he took breath.

“Your leaders will want me alive,” Onder croaked. “I know things.”

The robot removed its now bloody hand from Onder’s head and moved it to his neck.

“You are to be terminated, as are all humans outside of Unity.”

“What…” Onder struggled to speak. He moved his neck and found the robot’s hand slipped from side to side. “… my people.”

“Your people are gone. And now you will be as well.”

A cone of light materialized at the center of Onder’s vision. The robot’s scraped and slit eye stared at him. Onder leaned right. Ten meters ahead, a robot scooter hummed, water droplets leaking from its tailpipe.

His vision darkened. He struggled for breath. The robot pressed harder on his chest and something snapped. Onder’s back arched involuntarily. He wanted to scream but nothing came.

Onder reached up to his forehead and mopped blood with his hands. He grabbed the metal fingers that pinched his neck and spread his blood over them.

Onder kicked his right leg up and into the robot’s side. It twisted away. The pressure lessened on Onder’s throat. He breathed deep and slipped his bloody neck out of the robot’s grasp, his own blood serving as lubricant.

Onder hung there between sitting and standing, his eyes on the robot’s unyielding face, watching for the hand to strike out again.

It didn’t.

Onder ran forward, tripping, falling, his knee impacting a rock, the pain screaming up his leg. He limped forward, found the scooter and got on.

The clomp-clomp of the robot sounded behind him. Onder’s spine tingled with the fear that the robot hand would land on his shoulder. That would be it. The boy had no more tricks.

The scooter control panel was a simple thing. There was a red switch in between the steering handles and foot pedals to increase or decrease acceleration.

Onder pushed the bottom of the red switch. It clicked but nothing happened. He flexed his ankles to push the pedals forward and down. The engine screamed but the scooter refused to budge even a centimeter.

The clomp-clomp of the robot grew louder and more frequent. Onder turned. The robot stretched out its hands, its finger grabbing.

The scooter vibrated under him. Onder pushed his feet forward and it took off. Relief flooded over him. The Gaian robot could run but not as fast as the scooter could fly.

Too fast. He lost his grip on the handles, slipped backwards and fell off the back of the scooter. The vehicle slowed and drifted.

The clomp-clomp of the robot grew closer. Onder picked himself up again, his chest aching, his knee not responding, threw himself onto the scooter and took off once more, this time his hands firmly gripping the overly wide handles.

A storm whipped up the sand and rock around him, it cut into his face, his eyes narrowed against it as he flew. After an eternity, he turned his head back.

The robot was gone, nowhere to be seen.

Onder kicked the accelerator up higher and pushed into the approaching storm, the pores of his facing burning, sand clogging his throat but free and safe, for the moment, from the Gaian System.