Maverick Stand

As Ophelia took a public tram, her other siblings took the apartment lift to the seventh, fifteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth floors. On each of those floors, tunnels branched out to different nearby skyscrapers. Groups of two or three traveled down each, spaced out so no one would suspect they belonged together. Some made their way to the rooftop garden, a thriving display of weeds, and took the public tram from there. No group larger than three, each student carrying a backpack. As Ophelia’s tram pulled into the air, a drone landed on the broken camera near the apartment. Surveillance in this part of town was spotty, and the few working cameras had “accidentally” broken a few weeks ago. Of course, Teacher and his school were the culprits. A work order had been put in the system for repairs, but this area wasn’t exactly high priority. So when IAS had requested surveillance on the area, they’d received only a few smudged videos from inside shops and some hologram recordings from surrounding areas. Nothing useful. The drone, a simple ball with sticks for legs, floated down the side of the neighboring apartment and ducked into the shadows from the jutting architecture. It rounded the corner and slipped into the darkness of the alleyway between buildings. Knox, stationed behind the neighboring building, leaned against the crumbling wall and watched his opened digiscroll. Around him, shops signs flickered ads and logos, projecting from the first and second floors of the nearby skyscrapers. Stores always rented the bottom two floors, because no one would visit a*****e higher than that unless the entire building was a mall. And this community couldn’t support a high-rise mall. Several of the stores that did exist looked abandoned as it was, with chipped glass and broken epoxycrete walkways. No streets existed planetside, since hovercars all flew. Only pedestrian traffic and a few hoverbikes used the paved walkways between tightly packed buildings. Alex flicked Knox’s arm and raised his eyebrows as if to say, Are you really going to keep me from seeing the display? Knox grunted in admission of his guilt. In the past, Knox had been the one to assess the situation, and Alex the one to respectfully listen. But that dynamic needed to change now, didn’t it? Knox held the digiscroll between them as the drone’s video scanned the wall, searching for an entry point. Are you really going to keep me from seeing the display?“Our drone is better,” Alex said. “Your wasp doesn’t have infrared and gas chromatograph tech.” “I wasn’t talking about that one.” The camera drone turned its exterior black as it scanned the apartment to find an entry point. “What? The Frankenbug?” The wasp was one of Alex and Ximena‘s inventions, a drone that looked exactly like, that’s right, a wasp. But it didn’t have near the tech of their Frankenbug, a drone that looked like the unholy spawn between a praying mantis and a daddy longlegs spider that had then been eaten and regurgitated by a bullfrog. When it got near one of the big, hired hands on the station, they would let fly a high pitched squeal. Alex got a kick out of stretching its wings—if they could be called that—as an excuse to get the biggest guy he could find to scream. It had taken a lot of hits and as a result, flew lopsided. On Knox’s digiscroll, the black drone located a bathroom vent. It tucked its stick landing gear under its belly and floated close. A quick flash of plasma and the vent’s grate disintegrated. The drone floated down the pipe into the men’s bathroom. “Why are guy’s bathrooms always so damp?” Alex asked. “Because men are slobs,” Knox said. “You’re not a slob.” “Exception that proves the rule.” “I’m not a slob.” “Shut up.” Alex smirked, and his dimple creased his scruffy cheek. He leaned close to see the screen and his loose curl brushed Knox’s cheek. The kid—not a kid!—still smelled of his infatuation for TrysKa. Alex had tucked his feelings for her down deep. Their age difference, a full ten years, wasn’t exactly conducive to an easy relationship. That and TrysKa, while perhaps aware of Alex’s crush, still hadn’t quite adjusted to him being an adult either. not a kid!But Alex kept filling the ship with the stench of his hormonal frustrations, detectable only by Knox’s sensitive nose. It was not helping with concentration one bit. The drone finally approached the basement. Its signal blipped out as it passed through the scatter field. “How is it controlled in there?” Alex asked. “We can’t get a signal through there.” “It has its own simple AI.” “Not as cool as our Liam.” Knox granted his agreement. Ximena had reprogrammed Maverick’s AI with Knox’s late dad’s voice and personality. Or as close as a program could get anyway. Maverick“Oh s**t,” Alex whispered. The drone shot back into the bathroom. Empty. The basement was completely empty. They were too late. “Double s**t!” Alex bolted from Knox’s side to the alleyway. The drone had just transmitted its real reason for the speedy return: blaster packs running down all the weightbearing posts. Knox grabbed Alex’s arm hard. “You can see on the digiscroll.” Good to keep a building between themselves and the explosives. Alex glared but stood back by Knox. He was a good kid after all. Adult. Not kid. Adult. Not kid.Words formed across the digiscrolls parchment from Perez. IAS has notified the city dome of the explosives. Evacuations have begun. IAS has notified the city dome of the explosives. Evacuations have begun.No sooner had the words formed than the energy dome overhead made a crackling whoosh. The wind picked up in a powerful swirl, clawing at Knox’s jacket. Alex leaned his head back, putting his hand up to block the sun from his eyes. Wisps of hair were yanked from his ponytail and whipped across his face and into his mouth. “I’ve never actually seen this in real life before,” Alex said. “Wish this was my first.” The city dome’s ceiling was high enough to be undetectable by the human eye. Clouds rolled within the dome and rain fell within its walls. Even now, birds within the dome’s cover fled the crackling shield, suddenly alive. A blue circle formed above the skyscraper, like a god drawing in the sky. Slowly a new shield descended, surrounding the building, until it met the ground. This shield was thicker and stronger than the gates inside of space stations. Its shimmer and distortion had a weight to it. Now that the barrier fully surrounded the skyscraper, Knox and Alex could safely approach it without fear of explosives or flying shrapnel. “Holovids don’t do this justice,” Alex whispered. The energy gates in the space station would give an unpleasant zap if accidentally touched. Knox’s body hair always stood on end for hours afterward. Made him look like a stupid ape. But this dome barrier would kill. The whistles of a dozen public trams screamed overhead. Alex covered his sensitive ears until his earbuds filtered out the screech. The white pods passed through the newly formed shield, sparks flicking off their surfaces. They flew up to the building as apartment windows popped opened. People loaded into the two and three-man pods. The clear tunnels that connected buildings were packed with residents fleeing, tripping, picking up crying children, and almost trampling the elderly. “TrysKa, no!” Alex yelled and stuffed his hand in his pocket. Alex and TrysKa had these little clickers in their pockets that they used to talk to each other. Knox guessed exactly what TrysKa had told Alex. Sure enough, Maverick dropped from the sky, right down the mammoth tunnel, and landed on the rooftop. MaverickThe small two- and three-man pods had arrived first since they were easiest to empty. Now the large twenty-person hoverbuses dodged buildings as they approached, their engines thrumming. Those pods had forced their earlier passengers off, probably with much grumbling, for this emergency. The long sleek buses pulled up with their side to an entire floor. More windows flew open as families poured out of the building into the trams. On the ground in front of Knox, the pods landed, opened their doors, and practically dumped people out before flying back through the shield to the building. “Do not touch the shield!” loud speakers boomed at the crowd in multiple languages. Over a hundred had gathered on the ground still trapped inside the cracking tunnel of electromagnetic energy. A large hovertram landed so it straddled the shield. It opened all the doors lining both of its sides. People rushed forward, packing into one side and then spewing out the other, now on the safe side of the shield. “f**k,” Knox said running forward. After people got on the safe side of the shield, they stopped. After all, now that they were safe, what was the rush? Some people casually smoothed their clothes. Others bent down to comfort and calm children. But the crowd from behind pressed into them, threatening to crush. Knox ran up and grabbed two boys as several big guys built like construction workers almost barreled into them. “Keep moving,” Knox roared over his shoulder. “Hey,” their young mom yelled at Knox, then at the men. “Stop pushing!” The men, not as concerned with kindness as Knox, tossed her aside. Alex ran to pick her up only to get slapped. He blinked for a second, then regathered himself and went to help an elderly woman who looked terribly confused and lost. Knox’s yell flipped a switch for the rest of the group. Their feet restarted, almost instinctively, running forward to avoid the panicked mob behind them. Knox and Alex ran back to pull a few more people who had frozen, mostly because of shock. Human brains don’t work right in emergencies. “We’re pulling out,” Ximena told Knox over his earbuds. “Maverick is safe!” Alex yelled at Knox over the crowd. MaverickTrysKa must have clicked to Alex. Knox held a thumbs up. “What the hell?” Someone yelled behind Knox as the hovertram on the ground suddenly pulled away from the shield, knocking two people flat. Knox turned. No one was left trapped inside the shield. As if on cue, all the pods, from the smaller spheres to the largest loafs, scattered from the skyscraper like bees after a rock hits their hive. The strong shield cut through the tunnels that connected to other buildings. The skyscraper was isolated. “Oh sh—” The foundation blew. One deafening roar and a percussive wave hit Knox square in the chest. Then silence. Out of his periphery, Alex hit the ground, his hands over his ears, his mouth opened in a scream. Blinding fire blew straight up the tunnel like a tornado, but no heat escaped the shield barrier. Fragments of metal beams the thickness of tree trunks slammed the shield and bounced back. Several in the crowd ducked, even though nothing could penetrate that barrier. The rest stood in shock with jaws open. Walls made of foam hit the barrier and bubbled with crackling and hissing, leaving a gooey smear down the inside. Then the Goliath building began its crumble. It leaned to Knox’s left letting loose a moan Knox felt in his bones. It hit the shield. Bounced and rolled in his direction. The group around him backed and yelled; some ran. A survival instinct that didn’t listen to the voice of reason pointing out that the shield would keep everyone safe. The high rise hit the shield again and slid down it like a drunk down a wall. Loud creaks and groans reverberated off Knox’s chest, but the sound was all far away like his ears were stuffed with cotton. With one last mighty wail, the structure collapsed into a heap, but the shields stayed up. A ten-story high mountain of rubble piled against the barrier’s wall. If the shield lowered, tons of metal, epoxycrete, and foam would bury the gathered onlookers, mostly still incapable of processing. Several people started shaking. A few just collapsed. Knox wove his way through the bodies to Alex. The whole street reeked of fight-or-flight adrenaline. “How are you?” Knox asked, his own voice loud compared to the low hum that filled his ears. Instead of answering, Alex smirked. He hadn’t heard a word Knox had said. He wrinkled nose and pulled his hands out of his pockets. Small spots of blood on both palms. Sure enough, Alex’s earlobes were smeared red. Knox felt his own ears and drew his fingers back from the warm dribble. Burst eardrums. Well TrysKa had drops for healing along with a supply of medical nanobots. Knox patted Alex on the shoulder, when the woman next to them suddenly screamed at the building, her face completely red. Her young teenage daughter had tears streaking her cheeks. She looked up at Knox, and even though they were strangers, he knew she needed to tell him something. Sometimes things need to be spoken for them to sink in. Knox knelt next to the girl, though he didn’t know how she would tell him anything. He couldn’t hear a thing. She pulled out her digiscroll and spoke to it. Her lips moved, but Knox couldn’t read them. She didn’t speak English. She turned her digiscroll to him, and Alex beside him backed up and lowered his head. Below her sentence, which she’d written in Romanian, hovered the English translation. Dad didn’t want to miss the last two minutes of the game for a fire drill. Dad didn’t want to miss the last two minutes of the game for a fire drill.Knox wasn’t a hugger, but when that girl threw her arms around his neck, he held her close. What he wouldn’t give for his strategy and strength adaptation to fix this. But all Knox could do was hurt with her. She stepped back and wiped her tears. Knox pulled out his digiscroll. What’s your name? What’s your name?It translated into Romanian. She spoke. Elena. Elena.I’ll pray for you. I’ll pray for you.Thank you. Thank you.Knox stood and walked away. On his digiscroll he saved her name and face. With that information, Knox could sponsor her through Children Galactic. The charity would make certain this girl got an education, regular meals, and medical checkups. Children GalacticKnox found Alex grimacing at his digiscroll and shaking his head. What? Knox mouthed. What?Alex handed over the digiscroll with a message from TG. Teacher’s family just left their basement. It’s armed with explosives. Teacher’s family just left their basement. It’s armed with explosives.Knox had just finished reading when new words floated underneath that. Oh s**t, it just blew. Guess you already knew that then. Oh s**t, it just blew. Guess you already knew that then.