Kevin’s eyes widened. His throat closed and mouth went dry.
The black shape with glowing red optical sensors staring straight at him. Flying so fast. Weapons on each side of its angular body, with multiple arms, each with a different function. Dangerous functions, and ones he wanted nothing to do with.
A Vordac robot, getting far too close and personal.
“It’s coming,” came Christy’s strangled whisper at the dark menacing shape holding their doom.
He returned his full attention to the console, their time now up. The manual controls! Where were they? He rose on his knees, no longer needing to hide under the console while waiting for a safe time to poke his head up. No need to hide now.
It must be here! Somewhere!
An alternating yellow and green light on the console flashed at him. A warning not to use except in case of emergency. Kevin jammed a thumb down on it, sending a jarring pain through his finger and hand.
Two round indents on the bottom edge of the console flipped open. White shapes moved out. One turned into a simple joystick, while the other became a rolling throttle lever atop a ball-joint. The one of the right hit his head before he could get out of the way.
“Manual controls deployed,” a female computer voice said from the console. For the first time, he felt a bit of hope. He now has the controls. All he had to do now was figure out how they worked.
“Kevin?”
“Stay down and hold on.” He put an arm on the seat to get enough room to use them, when his shoulder hit the throttle lever on the right. It moved forward in a smooth arc.
The hovercar shot forward in response.
Kevin fell backwards, his middle going over the bottom of the driver’s seat. Christy cried out her protest at the sudden movement. Something hard impacted on the roof, and then was gone. Another thump came from against the front of the vehicle.
The throttle lever moved on its own back to a neutral position. The hovercar slid to a rest, now inside the park instead of in the parking lot. Kevin struggled to pull himself out of the footwell and into the space between the two front seats.
Christy poked her head forward. “It worked?”
“Sorta. Stay there.” Sorta. The controls worked. They must have hit the robot as they flew forward. It knew beyond a doubt that they were there now. It would recover and come back. They needed to not be there when it did.
Now he just had to find a way to get the controls to do what he wanted. If only the Nanny-Bot was awake. She would know how to fly it manually. Only, they didn’t have her. Which meant it was up to him.
Kevin reached for one of the passenger doors and slammed it shut. Blocking out the danger outside.
“I’ll get the other one. Fly!” Christy whispered, crawling forward.
Right. Fly. Get them out of there. Get them to safety.
Wait, a hum?
Kevin turned on a knee, ignoring how the end of a safety belt dug into it. A metal arm snaked forward, wrapping twice around Christy’s middle where she was on her knees reaching up to shut the remaining open hovercar door.
She screamed as the arm jerked out of the vehicle. Boo dropped to the floor and rolled under one of the seats.
Where once his sister was, now there was nothing. Only her screams fading as the Vordac robot pulled her away.
TO BE CONTINUED…
YOU ARE READING
Summer Crash (Zerralon 1.1)
Science FictionSummer comes to a crashing end… Ten-year-old Kevin Taggert prefers to stay home with his video games, but his parents insist he join a summer sports program. Exactly on the day the Vordac raid Earth. With his little sister depending on him for prote...
