Panic gripped her. She wanted to continue talking. She had wanted this very thing. But the more she stayed, the more could happen to Blip. She was certain she would say something wrong. She didn’t know how to talk to anyone but Blip. She wished Blip was there, counting down to calm her. She had seen countless films and thought she understood how meeting others would be, but she just didn’t. And now the one she had met was saying things that she didn’t understand. Things that frightened her.
Now, more than before, she felt the urge to leap to her feet and flee. The anxiety was throbbing in her gut, and her thoughts tumbled over each other. This bot frightened her. She didn’t know what awaited her out there. Did they all think like Arquella?
“I need to leave.” The words just came out, fast and angry.
“I told you my story. You owe me yours.” The bot moved closer.
Syn was unsure where to start, how to start. Everything she said would be a distortion. The more she talked, the more holes Arquella might find. And who knows what might tip her off and give her reason to kill Syn and deliver her into a personal afterlife?
“Where’s my spear?” Again, she retracted from the bluntness of her own question. Why was she so direct? This bot was off-kilter and potentially dangerous. But no, she hadn’t seen violence. Just a weird view of what was happening. It was the Barlgharel that had saved her. “I’ll tell my story, but I want my spear.”
“You promised. Stop changing the promise.”
“Please. I made it. It’s mine. I want it back.” Everything that was important, save Eku, had been taken from her. Blip. Her spear. Her world. “I want them back!”
Arquella floated, allowing the purr of the fans in the house to fill the silence.
Syn lowered her head and closed her eyes. “I came from the Sun. I was sent here to find out what happened to the world. Me and my companion. But we were attacked by Bur… by phants.”
“Where were you before that? Who sent you?”
What had Arquella said earlier? God?
“God sent me.”
Arquella bobbed in agreement. “You are the Expected.”
“We were separated. They took my friend. And then I met the Barlgharel. He saved me when we were attacked again. Then I woke up here.”
Arquella moved close. “Where’d you get that?”
Syn lifted the orange tiger pendant and the butterfly next to it. “These?”
Arquella bobbed her head.
“I’ll tell you when I get my spear.”
The chrome bot didn’t move for a moment, then it zipped out of the room. A moment later, Arquella returned to the room. Behind her, a small copper-colored square bot moved on two wheels. Out of its side, a thin metallic tentacle extended and was wrapped around Syn’s spear. Arquella paused before Syn and nodded at the copper bot behind her. The bot dropped the carbon-fiber stick at Syn’s feet, and the tentacle retracted back into the square as it reversed back out of the room.
Syn leaned down to pick up her spear and halted. Most of the adornments had been stripped off. Only a thin orange thread dangled from the end. It was the charcoal gray of carbon-fiber, scuffed and dirtied.
Syn carefully reached out and gripped her spear, each finger instinctively resting into a grip. A wave of relief washed through her, and she relaxed, her shoulders dropping. It had only been a few hours without it, but she had missed it. She smiled and stood up straight. It had saved her life more times than she could remember. Stupid burlys!
Arquella bobbed over the bed and rested down onto the large, pink-flowered comforter. “Now?” spoke the bot.
At that Syn leaped to her feet. A jolt of pain stabbed through her leg, but she ignored it. She had seconds to get out of the room. She flew through the door, pulling it hard shut behind her. The door slammed with a brash crack.
Down or up? Below, she heard the murmurs of voices. Up.
And she flew, darting up the stairs, around the landing.
The door to Arquella’s room opened, and the girl-bot shouted, “Stop! You’re confused. Stay with us! I’m sorry!” Then after a pause, “You promised.”
She had, but what did it matter? She had to save Blip. She didn’t have time to sit and play dollies.
She saw a shadow behind her, and Arquella’s voice was nearer—only a meter behind, and coming up fast. “It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you.”
Ahead of her, down the hallway, was the master bedroom on the fourth floor. The access to the attic and the exit out of this house would be there. She had to get out of here—she had to get to Blip.
She stopped hard and spun. Arquella wasn’t as quick in response and didn’t stop as fast. Her momentum brought her close to Syn and Syn’s spear. Syn jabbed the spear straight at Arquella and dented the chrome exterior with a loud clang.
Arquella wheeled back, slamming back into the wall, denting it. She twisted and wailed. Below, at the base of the stairs, several more voices sounded. “Are you okay?” was the general statement followed with, “What’s happening? Are you okay?” Another bot added, “Did it hurt you?”
Did they think I was a wild animal? Syn thought.
Arquella shouted, “We’re not going to hurt you. Stay here.” And then, at the top of her lungs, perhaps aimed at the other bots in the house, “She’s Expected! She healed me! She healed me! She’s the one!”
Blast, Syn thought. She echoed the curse again, aloud, “Blast it!” There wasn’t time to consider, though or argue. She dashed down the hall, through the door into the master bedroom and slammed the door hard shut. A bookcase stood nearly empty to the right of the door. Syn moved around and pushed her back against it, tipping it over until it fell with a crash, blocking the door. She looked up and cursed again. There was no rope for the attic access. There was no ceiling hatch. There was just a closed room with four walls and a closet whose door was open. “No! No! No!”
The door to the bedroom buckled as something huge slammed into it from the other side. The hinges pulled from the frame. Another hit and the door would be off the frame. And the bots would be in here.
Arquella shouted, “Where are you going?”
Syn shouted back, “I have to get to Blip! I’m not staying here one more minute.” She jumped across the bed to the open closet door in the far corner. Anything to put distance and walls between her and the chrome bot.
The yelling stopped. The closet was dark except for a thin shaft a light from under the door. Syn began to feel around the closet, hoping for something anything. Perhaps the attic entrance was above her? Batting around above her head produced no chain, and she could see no changes in the flat surface of the ceiling that designated a door.
Outside, in the bedroom, the hinges snapped with a crack and splinters sprayed across the room. There was a grunt and the sound of wood scraping against wood. The bot started pushing the shattered door against the bookcase, trying to force her way in. She’d be in and at the closet in moments.
The closet was filled with more boxes and hangers than clothes. These had been scavenged by others—it was mostly bare, but she pressed past the few articles of clothing and pushed against the walls, hoping for something that would give. Her mind conjured images from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and she imagined Lucy searching the wardrobe and hoping the visitors in the grand home of the Professor wouldn’t find her. Syn imagined the brush of snow against her barefoot, but there was no snow. In truth, Syn had never felt snow and so, she wondered, would she know what it actually felt like by touch alone? If this were the wardrobe, it came without loud-speaking visitors to a saintly Professor and without a late game of hide-and-seek with annoying but loving siblings. Instead, Syn had a weird bot that was convinced she was the reincarnation or resurrection of a little girl, and that bot was now out to get her to be her best friend. This is not the time for slumber parties.