The Receiver

3 1 - R E S E T

When Milo and I slip past the mesh of laserlight and descend below the simulation line into Lower everything goes green: his suit, my skin, every surface inside the helipod. But it only lasts for a split-second. From the windows in the helipod, I gaze a few blocks downcity where every human in and out of a techsuit is corralling the sweepers toward the foot of the vacant bridge.

It's a task easier said than done.

Their mission doesn't halt the sweepers from fighting, not in the slightest. The bots are still taking down humans every chance they get, but in true bottomfeeder style the humans push back.

It seems the uppercrusters flying droids have found a way to help the Scrappers who are almost too small to do much of anything. The machines that have extra limbs like the legs on a spider or the tentacles on an octopus fly over the thickest part of the pack, swoop down low, and wrap their animal-like claws around the bots, picking them up, carrying them high into the air, and then dropping them so that they land with a staccato splat on the cement below. The sweepers lucky enough to survive the impact are either ganged up on and beaten by the littlest children or left to crawl along the ground with their remaining appendages in a slow, sad attempt to complete their mission.

The sweepers following peacefully, almost mindlessly, behind Lady Death must have been warned about her because they don't run or chase after her like some of the other bots do to the other bottomfeeders, they simply follow, amassing more and more numbers the farther they go, probably preparing to attack when they know they're strong enough to go up against the baddest bitch who lives south of the waterline.

La Señora only stops and turns to face the neatly lined horde when she reaches the other end. The line trails behind her, stretching nearly from end to end. My eyes follow the bots all the way to the back of the line where Zander stands, herding them across. I don't realize it until I see him with my own eyes, but I can feel that he's not as afraid anymore.

Good for you Zan, I think. Because I'm still terrified.

Their target stops and the bots freeze in place.

Then, like a plague of armored beetles unearthing themselves, more bottomfeeders crawl out from underneath both ends of the bridge. From my bird's eye view, it really does look like an intrusion of roaches scuttling out from their hiding spot. They fall into place quickly, forming a human wall stretching across each end of the bridge with La Señora at the center on the Brooklyn side and Zander on the Manhattan side.

It soon becomes obvious that the sweepers' only options of escape are either to plow through the thicket of human weeds or plunge into the algae-infested water. Of course, the bots are waterproof, and they know it, but the bots also know when their backs are against a wall. They may not be able to feel cowardice, but they understand the importance of fight versus flight.

"How do you know how to fly anyway?" I ask.

"Frank's been insisting I practice flight simulators for the past couple of weeks," Milo shrugs as best he can in the suit. "He thought the skill might come in handy someday. Looks like he was right."

I'm struck silent, in awe of Frank's foresight. That bot deserves a top-of-the-line software upgrade. In the window I watch him and Zoa. Her fingers twiggle away like a spider's legs on her web, working on her own set of codes.

Then I watch as Frank's hands rise into the air, open palms facing opposite walls. The screens directly in front of and behind him fade to black as he slowly brings his hands together, motioning for the two stands of code to join as one. Both he and Zoa look up at the screen and every digit of the new code turns green.