The Extinction Trials(75)

Cara spoke over the radio for the first time. “You’re not from The Colony?”

“No. The Colony is controlled by The Union. If you go there, they’ll implement The Change on you.”

“We need to go,” Alister growled over the radio. “They’re lying. These people are going to kill us when they reach us.”

Owen was surprised at the voice he heard next over the radio: Will. The android was still lying on the rubble heap, mouth shut, body motionless, yet his voice was clear over the speaker—apparently it was a completely digital transmission. “Alister is right. Go to The Colony. Please.”

The spiders arrayed around Will’s body fired at close range, each unloading round after round. When they were done, they stomped toward him and began using their sharp pincer feet to rip away his synthetic skin and dismantle what was left of him.

“We should join them,” Cara said over the radio. “They’re the government.”

“They’re using a robot army to hunt people,” Alister said. “We need to go. Right now.”

In the city below, a second suited figure joined the other one. The new arrival held a tablet, and they seemed to have said something over a private radio channel to the other person because both figures suddenly shifted and gazed up towards where Owen and the others were standing.

It was clear they had figured out where the group was—perhaps from the suit radio broadcasts.

Owen turned and jogged deeper into the woods, holding the GPS, glancing back to make sure the others were following. Even Cara was moving away from the city, despite her insistence that they join The Alliance. But she wasn’t giving up that easy.

“Can we talk about this?” she asked.

“Yes,” the Allied man’s voice said over the radio. “Let’s talk about this. Just stop and wait for a moment.”

With his hands, Owen motioned for the others to keep going in the woods. He turned back and trekked toward the city, careful to hide himself behind a tree as he gazed down at the city. Very quickly, he saw the answer he was looking for: the robots were marching out of the city, toward the forest—directly for them.

Over the radio, Owen said, “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?” the man asked.

“Your robots—which just killed our proctor—are now moving towards us. If you just want to talk, you wouldn’t be hunting us.”

“You don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“I’m all ears. You talk, and if you really are telling the truth, tell your robots to stand down.”

Owen watched as the robots indeed stopped at the edge of the city.

Over the radio, the man began talking. It was what Owen was expecting: words without answers, ambiguities that a more na?ve version of himself would have listened to.

But Owen wasn’t listening. He had turned and was dashing through the woods, racing to catch up with the others. When he had, he led them deeper into the woods, charging as fast as he could toward The Colony.

Over the radio, the man stopped talking for a long moment. “Did you hear what I said?”

Owen held a finger straight at the helmet where his lips were, silently indicating for no one to reply. He wasn’t a technology expert, but he assumed they could somehow track the radio transmissions to locate the group.

“Even if you aren’t convinced,” the man said over the radio, “at least reply so that I know you’re okay. So that we can continue this conversation.”

Using the panel on his forearm, Owen turned his radio off. The others followed suit, and they hiked in silence then, through the woods, making the best time they could. The wind and rain had reached the hills, swaying the trees now and causing them to shed leaves and tiny limbs, as though the forests were being shelled with heavy artillery.

Owen glanced over his shoulder several times, making sure the people from the city weren’t following them, but each time, there was nothing but the dark forest, growing fog, and falling leaves.

Periodically, Owen glanced down at the GPS, watching the readout counting down the numbers, and the distance to their destination shrunk.

When the count reached zero, the GPS flashed a green message that read:

DESTINATION REACHED





Owen looked around, watching the fog move in waves. They were in trouble.





Chapter Fifty-Nine





For a while, the group stood in the forest and surveyed their surroundings, hoping to spot some clue about where to go next.

The Colony should have been exactly where they were standing.

But it wasn’t.

Maya wished they could use the radio to discuss. If not their short-range broadcast radios, at least the suit speakers and microphones. But the noise from the suit speakers was a risk, just like broadcasting. The others—who claimed to be Allied operatives—were likely in these woods looking for them already. Time was running out.

And that wasn’t the only threat closing in.

On the panel on the forearm of her suit, she checked her oxygen level.

68%.

They had that long to find shelter from the storm, either at The Colony or elsewhere.

Around her, the forest seemed to be disintegrating. Parts of the trees were falling, and the sky was growing darker overhead as the storm moved in.