LITMIR.BIZ

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anymore. Of course they wouldn’t make us kill a civilian.”

      “Three minutes remain in this level of Countdown.”

      Bernard’s fake smile slipped back to reveal more of his bright white teeth. “Rogan Ellis, a murderer scheduled to be transferred to Saradone Maximum Security Prison in three days, could not bring himself to kill an Ellipsis Cyber Drone. For that, both of you shall be eliminated from the game.”

      A cold line of perspiration slid down my spine.

      The robot smirked, and suddenly I could see what he truly was. Before I’d been too much in shock to see that this guy didn’t look human after all. He was too shiny, too seamless. His eyes reflected no inner personality. His voice had a slight metallic tininess to it that reminded me of the computer countdown in my head.

      “Rogan Ellis, willing to risk his life to compete on Countdown rather than go to prison. Did you fear it? Did you have nightmares of what might happen to you there? My database tells me that the scar on your face is from a fight with two of your roommates at St. Augustine’s. They wanted to kill you. Instead, you killed one of them with your bare hands. You are a killer.”

      “You’re right,” Rogan growled, before flicking a look at me. “I am a killer. Don’t doubt it. And I’d kill that son of a bitch again if I got the chance.”

      “Self-defense,” I whispered, my throat tight. “It’s different.”

      “Didn’t feel different to me.”

      “There are two minutes remaining in this level of Countdown.”

      “You know what, robot?” Rogan said with zero emotion in his voice. “I still have two minutes left to reduce you to a pile of tin cans. You can’t kill us until after the level’s done, right? So, we still have time.”

      The robot nodded with a firm jerk of his head. “This is true. I cannot kill you yet.”

      He lowered the gun and pulled the trigger.

      I fell to the ground, screaming and clutching my leg where the bullet had ripped into my upper right thigh.

      “Kira!” Rogan roared.

      “However,” the robot continued. “I can still entertain the Subscribers as we wait for the level to come to its conclusion.” He chambered another round. “Rogan Ellis, I would have believed that you would appreciate watching another young girl writhing around in agony before her inevitable death. Why do you look so unhappy?”

      I could barely hear him. My leg was on fire, and it was all I could do to wrestle through the pain. For a moment, my vision went completely white. I couldn’t hear anything except the countdown, now at one minute.

      One minute until there would be no more pain.

      “59...58...57...”

      Rogan rushed Bernard and grabbed his arms, wrestling him to the ground. The gun skittered across the pavement, coming to rest an arm’s reach away from me.

      “Son of a bitch!” Rogan snarled as he pounded his fist into the robot’s face. Through my blurred vision I saw a glimmer of metal show beneath the artificial skin.

      With a metallic roar, Bernard flipped Rogan onto his back, effortlessly pinning him to the ground. A viselike metal grip fastened around his neck.

      “Do not fear, Rogan,” the robot said in an eerily calm voice. “It will all be over soon. You failed. You failed Kira Jordan and you failed yourself.”

      “30...29...28...”

      I reached out and wrapped my hand around the gun, and then staggered up on my left leg, doing my best to ignore the searing pain in my right leg. Nausea nearly forced me back down to the ground. Swaying unsteadily, I somehow managed to stay upright. Bernard looked up at me from where he had Rogan pressed against the hard ground. I could see the robot underneath the skin. Just multicolored wires and smooth silver metal like the cameras that spun around the area taking in every angle of the scene. His skin must have been plastic. Just plastic.

      All of it was fake.

      I’d been ready to die to protect somebody who didn’t even exist.

      “10...9...8...”

      I raised the gun and pulled the trigger over and over until it was empty. I hoped it would be enough.

      It was. It blew Bernard’s robot head clean off his body.

      I dropped the gun, collapsed back to the ground, and let the pain wash over me. Rogan crawled to my side.

      “Kira.” There was a red mark around his neck where the robot had almost choked him to death. “Are you okay?”

      His hand clamped down on my thigh, attempting to slow the bleeding.

      I tried to speak but found that I couldn’t form any words.

      What I wanted to say was: Okay? Do I look okay to you?

      Just before I passed out, I heard the voice in my head:

      “Congratulations, Rogan and Kira, on successfully completing level three of Countdown.”

      Chapter 7

      IT WAS DARK that night. So dark.

      “Mom?...Dad?” I said, too softly for anyone to actually hear me. I’d gone to bed early, mad that I couldn’t get something—new jeans, a new purse...didn’t matter anymore. Didn’t matter then.

      My bedroom door was closed. Locked. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Not even my friends who were sending me text messages. I ignored the soft vibrating sound my new phone made every few minutes.

      It was after midnight on a school night. I remember I had a big test the next day that I hadn’t studied for. Math, I think. Or Neo-Geography. I didn’t care what happened—if I passed or failed. I actually couldn’t think of one thing in this stupid, boring city I really cared about.

      The creaking sound in the hallway of somebody moving around startled me. I heard heavy boots and the scrape of something metallic, which immediately told me—through both my gut instinct and my actual senses—it wasn’t either of my parents. It also wasn’t my older sister returning from a late date and sneaking back in the house so she wouldn’t get in trouble for breaking the new citywide curfew of eleven o’clock. She’d gotten back from the movie theater hours earlier.

      It was somebody else.

      Somebody bad.

      For a moment I thought it might just be my imagination. My overwrought, overworked brain always came up with the worst-case scenario. My mom said I should be a writer since I always made up such crazy, overly dramatic stories.

      All I knew for sure, as I lay in my bed that night with the sheets pulled up to my nose, listening to the footsteps outside my door, was that I had this sense. A sense of impending doom.

      Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

      I could hear my father’s footsteps as he moved into the hallway to investigate the noises. I heard shouting.

      There were gunshots—two gunshots—and then a heavy thump as my father’s body hit the floor.

      Then I heard the screams as my mother...and then my sister—oh, God, both of them—as they were confronted by the intruder. More shots rang out. My whole body shook as I tumbled off the side of my bed and crawled underneath it, tears streaming down my cheeks. My whole world narrowed in on that moment. Those three minutes felt like three years.

      When all was silent, when my family was dead, I heard my door rattle as the murderer tried to get into my room. My door was locked, but he would have had no problem busting it open.

      I’m going to die, was all I could think. And I was afraid. So afraid.

      But suddenly there came the sound of police sirens, and the intruder

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