Fate of Devotion (Finding Paradise Book 2) Read online

  “We got weapons. We’ll make it.”

  “Save the others,” Roe panted, limping.

  Ryker bent and grabbed him around the middle. He flung Roe over his wide shoulder before resuming his run. “Holy strike me, you need to go on a diet, fat man,” Ryker said.

  “Put me down, you idiot!”

  They made it to the stairwell doorway, where the rest of the crew waited with fear or expectation covering their faces. Zanda screamed and pointed.

  Millicent looked over her shoulder. A line of large, gleaming robots ran at them, faster than the other spiders—and sleeker. They moved gracefully, as though oiled and cared for instead of rusted. They were larger, too, with shining claws at the end of each of their legs.

  “Go!” Millicent screamed, shoving one of the clones. “Go through the door. Kill any robot you see. The word is out.”

  “These probably aren’t as easy to kill—oh shit . . .” Ryker’s words died away.

  As everyone jammed into the doorway, Millicent turned and ripped out her gun again. That’s when she saw what Ryker saw. A sort of animal, like a panther on Paradise, but more robust. Long and glittering claws clicked at the end of mechanical paws. Its head, more of a block than an animal head, had spikes for teeth in a mouth that was perpetually open. On its back was a sleek metal sphere.

  “We should’ve blown the shit out of that warehouse when we passed through it the last time we were on Earth,” Ryker said in a dangerous tone.

  “That thing is just for killing.” Millicent backed into someone.

  “It’s for catching people. It’ll be fast. I bet it jumps high, too. Like a watchdog on Paradise.”

  “That is not at all like a watchdog on Paradise.” Millicent brought up her gun and gritted her teeth. “It doesn’t have hands. We just need to get through this door. Everyone needs to move faster!”

  “Here we go, sir,” Dagger said.

  Millicent backed through the door as the panther robot took a running leap. The spiders skittered forward.

  “Hurry!” Millicent yelled, diving to the side.

  Dagger kicked a spider. His foot made a solid thunk as it sent the robot thumping back. It didn’t curl up. The panther sailed through the air at Ryker, who knocked Dagger through the door and ran after him, yanking the door shut behind them. The door bowed in as the robot slammed into it. Scratches, visible through the wood, slid down to the bottom. Something slammed into the door again. The dents increased.

  “We need to go,” Ryker said, shoving everyone downward. “Fast!”

  “I’ll take front.” Dagger squeezed along the sides so he could get in front of everyone. “Those spiders are going to take more than a kick to kill.”

  “Spiders two-point-o,” Roe said, looking back at the door they’d come through. “Let’s hope they respond to Millicent’s weapons.”

  “Yes,” Millicent said. “Let’s hope.”

  “Mommy!”

  Breathing heavily, Millicent unmuted her comm. “Yes, baby.”

  “I think I know how they’re tracking their robots. It’s like tracking staffers. Like how you can find people by their implant? These have a little chip, I think, that emits a sort of communication frequency—like a walkie-talkie on Paradise. If I search for that, they’re all over the place. The building is alive with them. Except on the upper-middle floors, which have these other chips. Like . . . blue versus red, kinda. The top of the building has nothing but the red ones, though.”

  Millicent shook her head, thrown by the influx of information. Dagger shouted. Ryker ripped out his gun as something metallic made a donk sound. And then a lot more donk sounds, like a heavy piece of machinery falling down the stairs.

  “Kick their brains off,” Dagger yelled.

  Made sense.

  “Okay, send that information to me,” Millicent told Marie. She remembered what Trent had told them regarding the number of robots in this building, but hoped he was mistaken.

  A moment later, she sucked in a breath. Marie was most likely right, and a horde of those robots, which Marie had colored with red dots, were pouring from the top of the building, down the side and middle. Heading right for them.

  “We need to get going and barricade ourselves in somewhere,” Millicent said through a numb face. “Preferably where the hard port is.”

  “Should we release the viruses now, Mommy?” Marie asked.

  “No, sweetie. Not yet. We’re not ready yet.” Millicent stumbled down the stairs, trying to run and look at her wrist screen at the same time. “Stay off the line for now, Marie. Help headquarters.”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  “Got another one,” Dagger yelled up.

  Millicent checked her screen, returning her focus to their surroundings. Red dots were running upward toward them, and those they’d left behind were headed back the way they’d come. Four floors down, however, there was nothing. An absence of red or blue dots. That was the sugar pot, it had to be.

  “Almost there,” she said, ignoring the burn in her legs.

  “I can do it,” a child yelled. It sounded like Suzi.

  A crash sounded. A dull metallic dong, followed by the sound of something metallic raining down on cement. A moment later, Millicent saw why. Suzi must’ve picked it up with her power and slammed it against the wall harder than even Ryker could’ve done. The brain had come off and the machinery had burst apart.

  “If only I had been born a generation later,” Ryker said as they jogged past the ruined remains of the bot.

  “No kidding,” Millicent said. Two more robots were running up to them from the next floor down. Millicent could just see them both lift into the air, their legs spasming wildly, and then slam into each other. Their bodies mushed against each other before being thrown to the ground by invisible hands. The metal clunked down the steps before them.

  By the time they reached the intended floor, another eight bots had met the same fate.

  “Does she get tired?” Trent was asking when Millicent pushed her way through the bodies to get to the door.

  “She is tired,” Terik said. “We’re all tired. But we want to live, so . . .”

  “Got it.” Trent turned Terik and dug through the pack on his back. “Then eat a pouch. Keep your strength up.”

  Millicent hovered in front of the stairwell door. There was no handle. Her skin prickled. Her wrist screen glowed with incoming red dots. The blue dots were the ones that jarred her, though. She didn’t know what kind of sentient beings they were, or even if they were human, but her crew would be meeting them soon. Millicent had a team of the very best the planet had to offer, and she intended to extend a very warm welcome, equipped with as much firepower as she could muster.

  “I have no idea what is behind this door.” Millicent slid her hand along the smooth surface.

  “I will go.” One of the clones stepped forward. “I am not afraid to die.”

  “Oh. He speaks.” Roe hooked his thumbs in his utility belt with raised eyebrows. “And now we know.”

  Ryker nodded as he pulled an instrument from his utility belt. It elongated in his hand, probably the result of a mental command. The end turned into a flat surface, and he stuck the tip into the door crack and pulled. Muscles flared along his powerful frame, but the door didn’t budge.

  “Here. Stop! Here.” Danissa put her hand on his arm in a shoving position. Millicent recognized the irritation that crossed her expression. Ryker didn’t move unless he wanted to.

  “Let her try, Ryker,” Millicent said. He took a step away. “Hurry, Danissa. We don’t have much time.”

  Danissa put the instrument into the crack again and then motioned for him to hold it. She touched the end with a small device from her utility belt. “I designed this a while back, and it has saved my life more than a few times.” Her expression turned troubled, probably remembering the lives she hadn’t saved.

  The door clicked. Danissa adjusted the device. The door clicked again. Something sputtered, a
nd the size of the crack increased.

  “Okay, shove,” Danissa said to Ryker, stepping back.

  “Need a hand, sir?” Dagger said.

  Ryker yanked on the instrument. The door squealed as it was forced open. Apparently that was a no.

  Ryker motioned everyone away and stepped to the side. His gaze fell on the male clone with the hard face. “You sure?”

  “My sole purpose in life is to save someone. Here I will be honored as the saver of a world.” The clone stepped toward the crack in the door.

  “That’s a lovely way to look at it,” Trent said.

  “Might as well stay positive if that’s all you got,” Roe growled.

  “So if you have a lot to live for, like yourself, you should be negative all the time?” Trent asked Roe.

  “Keeps me honest.” Roe shifted to nod at the clone. “Good man.”

  The clone pushed the door open and rushed through, clearly prepared to meet danger head-on. Everyone held their breath.

  Nothing happened.

  “It can’t be that easy,” Millicent whispered, watching her wrist screen.

  Ryker peered through the door. After a moment, he pushed it open a little more.

  The clone stood in the middle of an empty room. The walls looked like patches of light-cream fabric. White tiles covered the floor, so clean they reflected the clone’s image. A door at the other end had a panel with a blinking green light. Only one.

  “It’s a smart room,” Millicent said into the hush, looking around the walls. “My wrist screen is flickering from being this close. It’ll probably cut out if I step in. I’d bet anything it’s a sterile zone. No wireless.”

  “Nothing is happening to him. Did we throw it off by breaking in?” Ryker asked in a low voice.

  “We got company!” Dagger shouted.

  “Too many,” Suzi yelled. “That’s too many. I can’t handle this many.”

  “Need to make a decision, princess,” Ryker said.

  “Marie?” Millicent said, touching her implant unconsciously.

  “Hi, Mommy.”

  “Hi, baby. We’re about to be cut off from the internet, but—”

  “Hurry up, bossy lady. These things are out for blood!”

  “—we’ll still need help. I’m sending you our coordinates. Try to find a system that is running down here as soon as we cut off, okay? And if it is running, try to stop it.”

  “Do I use the EMP?” Dagger asked. He grunted. “Trekking things are heavy as a metal craft turd.”

  “What does that even mean?” Danissa asked, tinkering with her device.

  “They’re hard as shit to kill, that’s what it means!” Something metallic rammed against the wall.

  “Okay, Mommy,” Marie said. “Sinner says to tell you that the first line of defense has been breached at the headquarters. They are showing up in larger numbers. We’re going to roll out the bigger guns. Oh sorry—big guns.”

  “Tell Sinner to stick to the plan. Okay? If he tries to take you away, you go. You go, baby, okay? And I’ll see you back on Paradise.”

  “Will I get to meet the kids?” she asked.

  Millicent bounced in place, hearing the scrape of claws on the ground. This was a smaller group of red than the one that was coming down through the building, but it was still plenty big. “Yes, baby. You’ll get to meet the other kids. Okay, baby, I have to go. Bye-bye.”

  “Okay, Mommy. Bye.”

  Millicent stifled a biological need to sob uncontrollably as she clicked off, knowing that it might be the last time she ever heard her daughter’s voice.

  Knowing what was likely about to happen, she stepped forward anyway. Into the heart of the smart room.

  Chapter 19

  Danissa hurried after the others, crowding into the strange white room. Dagger pushed the door shut behind them, leaning against it heavily. “We need to find a way to lock this thing—”

  The door clicked as a lock engaged. Across the room, another lock engaged.

  “Danissa, did you do that?” Dagger asked softly. Everyone turned to look at her.

  “No. Millicent?” she asked in a quavering voice.

  “No. This room is intelligent. It traps its victims. Now the fun begins.” Millicent looked up at the ceiling before turning in a circle to survey the blank white walls.

  “We’ll make it through this,” Dagger said softly as he put a reassuring hand on Danissa’s arm. “Ryker and I can handle it.”

  Danissa laughed, a hysterical sound that she needed to tamp down. Her screen flickered and went out. No wireless of any kind was accessible in this room. The room had shut off their eyes and ears. So what came next?

  As if in answer to her question, a strange whirr sounded deep within the walls.

  “Getting that other door open is probably step one,” Gunner said, eying the walls.

  Millicent reacted first, grabbing Gunner’s prying instrument and running toward the far door. Once there, she looked back for Danissa, probably wanting the device Danissa had engineered on the run a year or so ago.

  “We don’t know what’s beyond this room,” Danissa said as she ran over. “Maybe this is the lesser of two evils.”

  “I doubt that,” Millicent murmured as she took Danissa’s device. “Is this self-explanatory?”

  “For you it will be.” Danissa thought back to all her narrow escapes. No immediate memories surfaced that would help. She went deeper, trying to recall any important details from all the run-ins she’d had with Toton. With her photographic memory, which extended to any and all visual images, she had a wealth of information to pull from.

  Screaming erupted in the room. Those without implants grabbed their heads, unable to use the protective programing to beat Toton’s mental weaponry. Every one of them sank slowly to their knees, their screams rising in pitch until they hit the ground, writhing. At once, the sound cut off and the figures went limp.

  “I am sure glad I let you talk me into another implant,” Roe said in a gruff voice, bending down to check Mira’s pulse. “Still alive, though her heart is beating fast. Whatever’s going to happen, is going to happen now-ish.”

  “Yes, extremely helpful,” Millicent muttered.

  Trent bent to the children as well, checking the others and straightening them out. “Thank Holy we didn’t bring Marie.”

  “It’s a shame we brought any of them,” Gunner said.

  “They’ve saved our asses a couple times.” Roe ran a finger along the fabric-covered wall. “I’m happy they’ve been along. We just need to make sure they make it.”

  “Is that your thing?” Dagger asked, his eyes scanning like Gunner’s. “You announce the obvious like some oracle?”

  “Yeah. I think it’s working for me, too.” A mechanical sound filled the room, like a low groan deep within the walls. “Here we go.”

  “I could sure use your help, Danissa,” Millicent said.

  Danissa didn’t move. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought. That sound was familiar.

  Past experiences flashed through her mind’s eye. She compared each one to that sound in a flash, trying to find one that fit.

  “Are those fire poles?” Trent asked from across the room.

  Danissa shook her head. Fire poles had a different hum. Guns made a different groan. What was that—

  Like lightning, it hit her.

  A stained and brown-smeared room crystalized right behind her eyes. Flickering, pale light from worn-out bulbs had made shadows jump along the walls. One door had latched, and one had made that familiar clicking sound without engaging.

  Her craft had made an emergency landing. She’d run through that room to escape the spiders. Trying to get out of the strange building with the odd mechanical equipment and empty warehouse shelves.

  “Mechanical arms,” she said, rushing toward the opposite side of the door. Dingy material peeling away from the wall flickered over reality, her memory overriding what she was actually seeing for a moment. “Ar
ms with surgical equipment will extend from the walls. They don’t have much movement. I remember wondering what the point of them was. They’re easy to dodge. Slow moving.”

  “Not if you’re lying on the ground, passed out,” Roe said.

  “There you go again.” Dagger stalked toward a metal object extending from the wall.

  “Not everyone is as smart as you. They might need a commentator.” A pole protruded from Roe’s sleeve. “A sledgehammer might’ve worked better than a freaking pole, Millicent. Some weapons designer . . .”

  “How about this?” Dagger grabbed something out of the fallen trooper’s utility belt. “Cut it.”

  “Why don’t I have one of those?” Roe looked closely at what resembled a small saw.

  “You didn’t grab one off the shelves when you filled your utility belt.”

  “Now who’s stating the obvious?” Millicent muttered. She shook her head. “I can’t find the right code.”

  “Sometimes it takes a while. Keep trying.” Danissa hacked at the material of the wall with her small knife. “I need a bigger knife over here!”

  Dagger jogged over, his eyes constantly moving. He reached behind him and extracted a large serrated knife from his belt. “Will that work?”

  “Thanks.” She jabbed it into the fabric and raked it downward. A small line of tiny holes opened up. “Actually, you do it. This will take me forever.”

  The mechanical whirr turned into a whine. Poles elongated from the walls until the arms’ joints came through. The bottom sections swung to the side as more poles emerged.

  “Dodge them for now,” Gunner said, letting the pole drift over his head. “I want to see what they do before I interrupt their programming. This looks surgical, but who knows what sort of defensive maneuvers this room has.”

  “Instead of smashing this, I bet I could just hang on it and break it,” Roe said, looking at the pole above him. “They’re fragile-looking.”

  “Again . . . surgical.” Gunner leaned toward the end of a pole where something extended. A gleaming blade with what looked like a razor-sharp edge cut into Danissa’s memory of a dull knife with rust stains. This room appeared to be kept up, unlike the one she’d traveled through.