Autonoma- Gate 13 Read online

  The two pods alongside launched forward with little hesitation. As they drew away, I saw four more racers on the field.

  “Er?” Michael buzzed down my earpiece, “That means you have to go too.”

  “Go too?” I replied, bewildered.

  “Yeah. Go. You know? Race. Like the other PodSleds.”

  “Michael,” I barked, “I’m in a stupid bobsled that’s trying to kill me. I am not in a pod racer, and I do not possess the ability to go. And another thing--”

  A blue button pulsated next to the dials. With nothing to lose, I pressed it. A single pedal descended from the nose.

  “I’m guessing that’s not a brake,” I muttered to myself, applying a little pressure to the metal plate.

  I was thrown backward with a jerk. My earlier conversation with Henri replayed in my mind. Perhaps letting someone else drive while I held on wasn’t such a bad deal after all?

  “Come on, Alex,” my little brother griped.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I replied, repositioning myself in the seat.

  I couldn’t stop, even if I wanted to, and at the very least, a race always had a finish line. Perhaps the sooner I got there, the sooner I could get out of this thing?

  Focus turned to the pods disappearing into the distance as I squeezed the pedal with the lightest touch I could manage. We picked up speed, and the number on the display climbed.

  The racers ahead pulled away, as the display settled on 199.

  “Go faster,” Michael insisted.

  “I’m maxed out. I think.”

  “You’re losing.”

  “You’re not helping,” I remarked. “Where are you anyway?”

  “Over here,” he replied with a joyous tone.

  I scanned the series of neon-lit buildings lining the track, spotting Michael waving from another control tower; his info bubble bobbing up and down with every excited leap.

  “I can probably finish this in one piece,” I declared, trying to make eye contact, “just please, whatever you do, please do not press anymore buttons.”

  “But the objective?” he protested.

  “The objective? Is the objective to kill Alex? Because that’s what you’re going to do if you--”

  “Course deviation request accepted,” the computerized voice chimed.

  “What did you do?” I demanded. “What did I just say?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t press nothing,” my little brother insisted.

  “That means you pressed something,” I screamed into the mouthpiece as the bobsled’s weight lunged to the side. “You’re going to get me killed.”

  “It wasn’t me,” he protested.

  With the bobsled pointed at a neon-lit grandstand, and the steering hoops in my hands no longer able to control the doomed bath tub, there was nothing I could do but explain what I was going to do to my little brother once I got my hands on him, assuming I got off the thing alive.

  The nose of the bobsled tore through the grandstand like a knife through tissue paper and tipped onto its side. Dust and fiberglass scattered into the air as it scraped along the concrete floor. I ducked inside the shell, as it collided with a concrete pillar, spinning the bobsled like a bottle top, slamming against the concrete wall.

  Around me was total darkness. I couldn’t see which way was up, and my visor was blank apart from the cursor blinking as though it was waiting to tell me something.

  ‘COMPROMISE DETECTED’, it typed.

  “Yeah, it’s called Michael,” I jested, clutching my sore ribs. Daylight filled my visor, and light returned.

  With the top of the bobsled resting against the wall, I crawled out through the narrow gap at the rear, rolling out, and splaying like a star fish on the ground. A light flickered above the words ‘it wasn’t an accident’, smeared across the wall in red ink. “That’s not red ink, is it?” I muttered, trying to make sense of the markings and why they were here.

  “Where did you go?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah, I’m not dead. Thanks for asking,” I replied with heavy sarcasm.

  I glanced back to the hole we tore in what looked like a large projector screen, as the pod racers completed another lap. It was like staring into another universe through a tear in space and time. Here I was in a disused, dusty concrete room, abandoned and devoid of any other lifeform, while there was a race going on with neon lights, thrusters, and dance music on the other side.

  I dusted off my jeans as I stood, taking off my jacket and shaking more from the pockets. A green arrow illuminated on the floor.

  “Yeah I’m fine!” I shouted toward the ceiling.

  Outside, Henri was nowhere to be seen, and I’d no idea how to get to Michael. I cleared some snow from a boulder jutting out of the ground and tried to make myself comfy, rubbing the aches and pains in my ribs and back.

  The cold bit, and I grasped the lapels of my jacket, pulling it in tighter, as a gentle snow flurry dusted over the tracks left by the launch of the bobsled. A small blob further down came into focus, and I realized it was the old hoverbot. On occasion he paused, spun on the spot, and resumed his way back toward me. I was starting to think perhaps his circuits weren’t quite all there.

  “Oh,” he remarked as he drew so close, I could smell the stench of burning oil, “I was not expecting you back so soon, Guest.”

  “Yeah, a bit of a deviation in the plan, Old Chap,” I remarked, mocking the bot’s English accent.

  The painted eyes on his casing glared at me, but he said nothing.

  “I,” I paused, unsure if the bot would understand my objections and whether more attempts to sway things in my favor would in fact result in more attempts on my life.

  “Yes, Guest?”

  “Can we try something a little more,” I hesitated, thinking of the right words, “something a little more controlled, next time?”

  “As you wish, Guest.”

  I wasn’t sure how Henri would interpret my request this time, but if the last attempt was anything to go by, I didn’t think it wise to get my hopes up.

  “Simulation complete. Welcome to the Autonoma Resort,” the computerized voice chirped, as Michael came skipping along toward us.

  “Have fun?” I asked, sarcasm and interest intertwining.

  “Yeah,” he replied with a sigh, “it was OK.”

  He tried to wipe the smile from his face, but I did wonder if he enjoyed seeing me thrown about and almost killed.

  “What’s next?” he asked the old hoverbot.

  Chapter 5

  Prepare for Lunch

  My little brother, reduced from a run to a gentle skip, pursued the flying yellow tin can back toward the lobby as my mind replayed the last few moments of the previous simulation.

  “Michael, did you see anything back there?”

  “I saw lots of things, like pod racers, and bikes, and the neon stuff, and more robots,” he replied, his tone upbeat and undeterred by my question.

  “No, I mean,” I paused, unsure of the words to describe something I didn’t understand, “something that wasn’t meant to be there?”

  “Like a robot, or a spaceship, or a husky dog?”

  “No. I,” again, the words escaping me, as I came to a stop, looking back. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Whatever,” he responded, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Please keep up, Guest,” Henri requested.

  I turned to face forward to be greeted by nothing more than the hoverbot’s painted-on eyes an inch from my own face.

  Henri returned forward, his protruding compass brushing past my nose, the smell of old engine oil and grease filling my nostrils.

  “You’ll find everything here to your taste,” the bot rambled on, resuming the lead. “Welcome to the Food Hall, Guest.”

  Inside a large room, guests, filled with joyous laughter and broad smiles, watched with intrigue as the glasses on the tables filled with fluid through their bases. Children played with the 3D holograms in front of them as the bots attempt to deli
ver their food without it being knocked from their grasps by the excited swings of their young patron’s arms.

  “Due to Health and Safety requirements, all guests will find the experiences here in the Food Hall to be rendered exactly the same, regardless of their own preferences,” Henri remarked.

  What an odd thing to say, but I guessed it made sense.

  Michael and I followed Henri to our designated table. I shuffled up to the corner spot, while my little brother took up the aisle seat.

  “Whatever you wish, whatever your desire, we can make anything you can imagine,” Henri chimed.

  “Anything?” I asked, with a hint of skepticism.

  “Anything, Guest.”

  I narrowed my eyes as a growl of displeasure escaped my lips. “Alex.”

  “Fish fingers,” Michael blurted.

  “You have that nearly every day. You can have anything you want here. Can you really not think of something else other than fish fingers?”

  “I like fish fingers.”

  I shook my head, rolling my eyes.

  “And mash, and beans,” he concluded.

  “As you wish, Guest.”

  “Does it have to be something that exists?” I asked, my attention returning to Henri.

  “Please explain,” the bot replied.

  “Like, do I have to ask for something that actually exists, or could I make something up? Could I even ask for something inedible? Can I ask for a poison or something I know I’m allergic to? Would you have to serve it?”

  Henri hovered in silence, his painted eyes pointed toward the wall behind me, as both Michael and I sat in silence, watching him.

  “You broke him,” my younger brother declared after a while, scowling at me.

  “I think he is thinking.”

  “You made him crash with your stupid questions.”

  “My questions aren’t stupid.”

  Michael mocked me, copying my words in a childish tone, pulling a stupid face.

  Still, he might have been right. The bot had been frozen for a moment or two now.

  “Henri?” I asked.

  The yellow tin can dropped to face me directly, as though it recognized it was spoken to but remained unable to respond.

  I stared at him with growing concern. “I didn’t mean to break it. I just wanted to know.”

  “That’s your problem. You always just want to know. Can’t ever accept things as they are. Got to know why or how, or how you can break it; until it breaks, then you blame me.”

  “That’s not true,” I responded, glaring at my little brother. “Anyway, it was probably your fault with your fish fingers and mash. Perhaps he doesn’t know what beans are?”

  “See, there you go again,” Michael grumbled, swatting at the hologram in front of him, spinning the cube around and batting it back the other way.

  “Whatever you wish,” Henri stuttered, “whatever you wish, whatever your desire, we can make anything you can imagine.”

  “Please don’t break him again,” Michael muttered, releasing a loud sigh.

  “OK,” I replied with a calm tone to try and reassure them both I wasn’t actually there to break anything. “If I can have anything, there is one thing I miss and would really like. Mom used to make it, and she would sing when she made it. I’d like that. I’d like to remember when we were happy. I’d like to remember when mom loved to cook and bake. I’d like to remember what it was like before the accident, before dad,” I stopped, as my eyes wondered to Michael listening to every word.

  “Of course, Guest, anything you wish,” Henri declared.

  “Cheese and tater pie with bacon and beans,” I explained, turning to face the hoverbot.

  “And to drink?”

  “Cola and lemonade,” Michael blurted.

  “You’re not allowed cola, you know that.”

  “Fine,” he replied with a huff. “Lemonade.”

  “Yeah, lemonade sounds fine for me too,” I replied, my mind wondering back to home and sitting at the kitchen table. Watching mom shutting the oven with her foot, putting the plate down on the kitchen table as Dad came in from work; the silk rose pinned in her hair. The red, checkered tablecloth, the green refrigerator with the sleek metal handle you had to twist to open, it all seemed so long ago.

  “Your lemonade,” Henri chimed, breaking my focus. Two glasses ascended through a hatch in the center of the table, filling from their bases with a bubbly, clear drink.

  “I will return with your food,” the bot remarked, turning to leave, colliding into one of the white orbs.

  Food, plates and a tray clattered against the floor. Chatter and light-hearted laughter ceased. The Food Hall fell silent.

  Henri reversed, almost striking me in the face. The smell of old engine oil induced a sensation in my stomach.

  “Oh my,” Henri chimed.

  The white orb snapped around to face him, its lit eyes turning amber.

  “Quite unfortunate,” Henri declared, as though he was responding to the orb’s words, which remained inaudible to me. “I am not obsolete. I am a Human Emotional and Neurological Response Interface unit,” he snapped, the white orb’s eyes remaining fixed on Henri as it shook and wobbled like a furious child.

  “You’re being quite ridiculous,” the yellow hoverbot declared, scooting forward, much to my relief. “I have guests to attend to, you will have to clean up your own mess,” he insisted, scuttling off.

  The white orb watched him leave and stared at the floor, its eyes flashing from the bright amber to a peaceful green, as it turned to the guests sat at the next table. They nodded in agreement, and the white orb flew off with haste, slotting in place in the busy line of white orbs, flying at great speed across the ceiling of the Food Hall.

  Henri returned with two plates held aloft on a yellow arm protruding from a small hatch in his body. Like the extendable ladders you see on toy fire engines, all be it with a rusty stained yellow finish, his arm consisted of two sliding pieces, with a hinge at the elbow, finished with a black pincer at the end.

  Where did they dig this bot up from? Do the people at the museum know he escaped?

  “Your food, Guests.”

  “Thank you, Robot,” I mocked, unappreciative of Henri’s inability to refer to me by my name.

  The hoverbot plopped the plates down in of front us, dislodging and disturbing the mound of rice in the center.

  Rice?

  “Er, Henri? What is this?” I asked, examining the meal.

  “Your order, Guest.”

  “Er? No, it isn’t.”

  “I wanted fish fingers,” Michael pouted. “I don’t like rice.”

  “You do like rice,” I remarked, returning my attention to the bot. “This isn’t what we asked for Henri.”

  The flying yellow tin can froze.

  I put my elbow on the table and rested my chin on my fist, as Michael poked at the food with his index finger.

  “Is it spicy?” he asked.

  “How would I know?”

  “Apologies,” Henri remarked, twitching back into operation, “I must go and recharge.”

  Without so much as an explanation, the confused old hoverbot backed away across the table next to us.

  As the people sat there sprung upright to avoid the oblivious bot from backing into them, I swore I could see embarrassment in those painted on eyes of his.

  Henri turned, ascending to the ceiling with the other bots. The flow parted, like race cars avoiding a back-marker stranded in the middle of the track, as the yellow hoverbot made his way out of the Food Hall.

  I looked back to Michael, who had already run his index finger through the thick sauce and was about to stick it in his gob. He snapped his lips shut, withdrawing his finger. He winced, shuddered, and gasped.

  “So,” I asked, curious, “is it spicy?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “You’ve only tried a bit, try a bit more. Besides, I don’t think Henri’s coming back with anything els
e, so you’d probably better eat what you’ve got.”

  Michael dipped his finger into the sauce again, dragging out the tasting of it once more.

  I looked down at my own plate and picked up the fork, collecting a small dab of the sauce. It hit my tongue with a tangy sensation, and I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not.

  After Michael and I had picked our way through, whatever it was, I turned my attention to the two wrappers in the center of the table, picking one up to examine it. Inside, there was a biscuit or a pastry, I couldn’t tell. I flipped it over, reading the writing on the base.

  “Fortune cookie? Doesn’t look like a cookie,” I remarked, as Michael examined his and handed it toward me. “What am I going to do with it?”

  Spotting Michael’s dino backpack, and rather than risk hurting Henri’s feelings any further, I dropped the two packets inside.

  “Can I have one of the sandwiches?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah, alright,” I responded, looking at the meal Michael’s had a good go at re-arranging with his finger. “But hurry up, I don’t think Henri will be happy if he sees us eating Mom’s sandwiches instead of this, whatever it is,” I explained, pulling the paper bags out the backpack.

  We snuffled the cheese sandwiches and gulped down the lemonade. I piled my leftover meal into a tall thin pile, and Michael followed suit.

  My little brother reached for his refilling glass and yanked it from the table.

  “Slow down,” I advised, “I haven’t seen any mention of a toilet around here yet.”

  He took a sip and crossed his arms, pouting.

  “What the hell is this?” a loud voice thundered across the room.

  I turned to see a man standing at his table, his face pressed toward a white orb, so close his furrowed brow touched the sleek white surface. Beside him, a woman held her head in her hands, her sobs echoing from the walls as the man challenged the bot for an explanation.

  A scream charged from the far side as a girl jumped up onto the seat, her face filled with horror and disgust.

  “This is outrageous,” another voice cried out, concerns of more guests charging the air.

  “Apologies, we must leave immediately, Guest,” Henri chimed, hovering through the entrance with more haste than I’d seen the old hoverbot possess all day.