Transcendent (9781311909442) Read Free

first one had
already run past.
    A crash made him jerk and shift so he could
see the massive robot painted with brown and green splotches
parting trees and knocking them over. Krys fell back from the tree
and stared at it, stunned by the size of the metal behemoth that
was crushing trees like toothpicks.
    He scrambled to his feet and staggered into
a sharp-needled tree before he gathered himself and took off at a
run. He went the same way his friends had, running to the east. If
he could find them, they could at least know one another were safe
and make their way back. Krys heard a crash ahead of him and
stopped. Another robot?
    He spun to his left when he heard a gasp. He
rushed over to a tree that had fallen without the assistance of any
massive robots and ducked under the thick trunk. He almost called
out when he saw Devon and Lily, but stopped himself in time to keep
the soldiers from noticing him.
    Seconds passed like hours as two of the
soldiers raised their guns. Krys didn’t hear a thing but both of
his friends collapsed and hit the ground, writhing. They stopped
jerking after a moment and lay still. Perfectly, deathly still.
    Krys whimpered and fell back. Had they been
killed? Was Lily gone? He’d kissed her—well, she’d kissed him,
really—and that was it? She was dead. He started to pick himself up
but stopped. He needed to see them. Or did he? Did he even want to?
Would it be better to just go home?
    Home? That’s where they were headed: his
home! If he waited, they wouldn’t have any warning. His parents and
his friends’ parents would be wiped out. Just like Lily and Devon
had been. Where was Pita? Had she escaped or did they shoot her
first?
    Krys shook his head and started to crawl
away. He had to get going! He planted one foot and looked up just
as a soldier leapt over the log and landed in front of him. The
soldier stared at him from behind a darkened faceplate. His—or her,
Krys had no way of knowing—armor had a dull gray chest plate and
brown and green patterns on the rest of it. He or she held a big
gun that was pointed at him. The only other thing of interest was
the small pink bunny head and ears painted on the side of the
helmet. If the bunny wasn’t strange enough on its own, its eyes
were X’ s and it looked like it was sticking its tongue
out.
    “Another kid? What is this place, run by
children?” a filtered voice muttered. Krys thought it sounded
female, even if it was rough and robotic.
    He raised his hands slowly. “Please don’t
hurt me!” he begged.
    The soldier looked around and then turned
and pointed their gun at the tree. One of the soldier’s hands slid
forward and twisted something, and then Krys jumped as the ground
exploded where he’d been hiding a few moments ago.
    The soldier grabbed him, startling him out
of his stupor. He was thrust under the tree and into the crater the
explosion had created. He stared out, looking up at the soldier,
and then cowered with his arms in front of his face as the soldier
kicked the tree and knocked it off the stump and down towards
him.
    He realized a few seconds later that he was
still alive. The tree hadn’t crushed him! He shifted and looked
out, only to see the soldier’s armored foot. “Stay hidden. You
don’t want a part of this, kid.”
    Krys watched as the foot disappeared. He
shivered and turned, wondering what was going to happen next as he
heard another crash that sounded nearby. The ground went from
trembling in rhythmic thumps to a steadier vibration. He caught a
glimpse of a vehicle that drove by on tracks; some kind of massive
tank passed by. Soldiers climbed over the log he was on and one of
the robots pounded the ground with a foot less than five meters
from him.
    Krys curled up in a ball in his tiny hollow
and let the tears fall. He had no idea why, but something terrible
was happening. His friends were dead and for all he knew, his mom
and dad were next. And he was trapped beneath a fallen tree in the
woods.