Bad Unicorn Read online

  “Did you actually think I wouldn’t be prepared for such an eventuality? Of course I have a plan, my pessimistic old wizard.”

  Magar wasn’t exactly surprised. Princess had several lifetimes of experience to guide her. “Then what do you intend?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve changed things up a bit. Humans are always undone by their emotions, so I’m going to exploit that. It will give me what I need to avenge the fallen and become so popular that my transition to leader will be assured.”

  “And why do you desire this new government job, exactly?” Magar asked.

  “Because I’ve entertained the machines, but now I wish to rule them. Empress Princess has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  Purple came floating in, its processor getting real-time data about the viewer numbers. “Word’s spreading around the city—more and more machines are tuning in. The deaths of Robotouille and Wall-up were tragic, but the ratings are going through the roof! If we’d known this we might have had hunters die more often.”

  “Everything’s happening at the right time, and exactly as I said it would,” Robo-Princess said, her smugness chip working perfectly.

  “There’s just some concern, well, that the humans might actually win. There’s real fear out there. Some of the executives are wondering if we’re pushing it a bit too far—if you really have control over the situation?”

  “Being afraid is what being entertained is all about,” Robo-Princess replied, trying not to sound irritated. “If you want ratings like this you have to live on the edge. But don’t worry, I was just telling Magar that I’ve decided to change things up for the third act—a little surprise to exploit their weakness.”

  Purple blinked several times as it communicated with the executive team. “They’re pleased you seem to have a plan,” it reported back.

  “Good. Now run along so I can finish getting ready. We have the finale to prepare for.”

  Purple floated off as Robo-Princess preened in front of a floating mirror one of the servos had unveiled.

  “I find myself thinking about the Kraken,” Robo-Magar said.

  “The Kraken? Now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in ages.”

  “It occurred to me that the only foes that have been problematic for you have been humans when endowed with magic. Remember the time in the Mesoshire when that boy took your horn? That had to have been a first.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it. Magrus humans can be so predictable. It took me awhile to understand that the Techrus humans were more capricious. The boy simply caught me by surprise.”

  “Which again,” Robo-Magar continued, “is my point. What you face now is not some cattle-like human. You say you have a plan, but I believe you are still underestimating him, just as you did with the Kraken. You should be wary they don’t end you as they have the others.”

  Robo-Princess whirled, feeling true anger for the first time in a long time.

  “You’re growing insolent, Magar. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were rooting for the humans.”

  Robo-Magar floated closer to the metallic unicorn. “Yes, I am rooting for the humans. I have always been rooting for them, or the frobbits, or faeries, or whatever other weak and hapless creature you had to destroy to serve your appetites. I tolerated you out of fear, but mostly I despised you—loathed you, for your weakness. You were born a magical creature with immense power, but you have always been just a frightened little girl, spoiled and forever indulging in a world that you think exists to serve you. But the humans will destroy you. And they will do so on this very night and in front of the millions of machines you believe are your fans. And in the end, when you’re gone, you’ll not be worshipped or even loved, simply despised as the monster you are.”

  The anger came so swiftly, the command so automatically, that when the lightning bolt erupted from Princess’s horn and struck the floating metallic head, she had to rewind the playback to make sure she had actually done it. The power behind the strike was several times greater than that necessary to fuse the electronics and melt the processor into a puddle of silicon.

  The head dropped to the floor, rolling just once so it stopped, looking up at Robo-Princess one final time. Robo-Magar’s last thought was one of victory—for too long he had been a prisoner, and now he was finally free. And if such a victory could be snatched by one as lowly and powerless as he, then perhaps there was hope for the humans after all. It was a pleasant last thought, he decided.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  SUDDEN DEATH

  (THE TECHRUS—FUTURE)

  MAX SLOWLY OPENED HIS EYES, FEELING GROGGY. HE SHIFTED HIS weight, stirring against a blur of strange lights. But as he tried to move, the ground under him suddenly shifted and swayed. The sensation of falling shocked his system awake, and as he flailed out with his hands he encountered a hard surface. Fighting the first few moments of motion sickness, Max remained on his back and took several deep breaths. He sat up slowly, looked around, and realized that he was inside some kind of large, transparent cube—about eight feet square. A heavy chain connected to it at the top and ran upward into the darkness. Max rose carefully to his feet, finding his balance. The sensation reminded him of his first attempt to ride a skateboard (it didn’t turn out well). He tried to move toward one of the walls but the cage tilted violently—forcing him to inch back to the center.

  Max wasn’t the only person held captive. All around him similar cubes hung on chains, filled with either frobbits or faeries. Each cube was lit by a single beam of light shining from above. Remembering Glenn, Max reached for his belt and felt the magical dagger.

  “Hey, watch the eye-holes,” Glenn announced. “I’m a powerful magical dagger, you know.”

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Ah, the great question. From the lowliest peasant to the greatest king, sooner or later everyone wonders just why we’re here? What’s our purpose? What’s this thing called life all about?”

  “No, not that!” Max hissed under his breath. “I mean, why are we being held like this?”

  “Oh, that. I really wasn’t paying attention.”

  “You weren’t paying attention? You mean as I was knocked out and put into a giant see-through cube?”

  “Not that important in the grand scheme of things. But I did realize that if you want to love what you do, you need to do what you love. Now that’s the kind of thinking that can get you out of the box—well, the metaphorical one. This one, probably not so much.”

  Max remembered the Codex and looked around frantically—it was nowhere to be seen.

  “What about the Codex?” Max asked, nearly falling over when he tried to look behind him. “Have you seen it?”

  “Why? Have you forgotten what it looks like?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten what it looks like! I just thought having it before we fight Robo-Princess might be a good idea.”

  “Oh yeah, definitely a good idea. You should totally do that.”

  An amplified voice suddenly filled the air. “Machines, what we’ve seen today is unprecedented. Two of our glorious hunters have fallen, and so we must ask, why? Have we grown complacent? Is this a failure of those at the very highest levels? How can we protect ourselves when our best are defeated before our optical sensors?”

  The lights clicked on and Max saw that he was in an impossibly large room. White columns rose from the marbled floor and a number of statues lined the edges. They looked like various warriors from history, and Max recognized them from the different civilization games he played on his computer. There was a Spartan, Roman, samurai, Zulu, American Indian, musketeer, and other more modern-looking soldiers. But most important, in the center of the floor were three metallic posts where Sarah, Dirk, and Dwight were bound.

  “Sarah!” Max called out. It might have sounded heroic if his voice hadn’t squeaked.

  Sarah looked up at Max to see him hanging some twenty feet overhead. She started to call out but froze when a m
etallic monster stepped into the light; it was Robo-Princess. And at her side was the heavily armored, shield-carrying, shoulder-gun-toting death machine known as the Frobinator.

  “So as impressive as their victories were,” Robo-Princess continued, “it’s time for the question of magic or machine to finally be settled. And it’s time for vengeance for our comrades who were slain.” Beyond the darkness thousands of multicolored lights began blinking off and on in response. “But first, you will choose a contestant to move on. That’s right, we’ve decided to give you the power to pluck one of the competitors from the field of battle and advance them to the final round. Will it be the dwarf, a wild card taken from the game before it even began?” A light clicked on, illuminating Dwight.

  “Go choke on a punch card!” Dwight yelled.

  “Or will you vote for the upstart religious leader?” Robo-Princess continued. A second light came on over Dirk, who was struggling to pull himself free.

  “Or perhaps the girl, a warrior schooled in the ancient art of human warfare?” The final light appeared over Sarah who was standing tall despite being bound to the pole. “Vote now—which one do you want to see in the finale?” Princess had learned much about the humans she’d been hunting.

  Max noticed that the frequency of the blinking lights increased. As he looked down from his clear cage, seeing his friends bound and the rest of his army trapped and hanging from the ceiling, he began to feel sick. It was his fault, after all—all of it. From the decision to take the Codex to school, to reading it at the Dragon’s Den, to not listening to Sarah.

  “At times like this,” Glenn suggested, “with a ticking clock, limited options, and the lives of your friends hanging in the balance, it’s important to do the right thing.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what if I don’t know what the right thing is?”

  “Figure out the wrong thing and do the opposite.”

  Below, Robo-Princess trotted over to Max’s friends. “So, dwarf,” she said, holding a microphone in front of Dwight. “Would you like to tell our viewing audience why they should vote for you?”

  “Sure,” Dwight grumbled. “Back where I come from we use mules to drag rocks from the tunnels. We use mules instead of unicorns because they’re smarter, stronger, and don’t smell as bad.”

  Robo-Princess had to fight back the surge of anger and override the incineration command that was being issued by her hostility processor. Instead, she switched off the microphone and leaned forward. “That little remark is going to cost you.” But Dwight simply grinned.

  Robo-Princess next moved to where Dirk was standing. “And what about this human? Do you have a preferred name?”

  “Yes,” Dirk said, taking a breath. “Call me . . . creator!” This sent a wild flurry of blinking lights from around the room. “I’ve built more than a dozen computers in my basement, and they’re probably like your great ancestors. So free me now, your creator demands it! Or face my wrath!”

  The machines in their seats felt a brief surge of panic pass through their systems. They universally agreed they didn’t like this human—not at all.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Robo-Princess announced, finally moving to stand in front of Sarah. The robot’s gleaming metallic horn and silver skin made the girl look small by comparison. “And how about this one?” Robo-Princess continued. “Why should our viewing audience vote to save you tonight?”

  Sarah looked up, but instead of looking at the robotic unicorn she looked at Max. “I think you’re asking the wrong question,” she said in a measured tone that didn’t sound at all fearful. “You should be asking how you save yourselves. You see that boy up there, Max Spencer? He’s my friend. He’s a wizard, and I believe in him. Leave us alone and you can probably save your lives. If not, Max Spencer will destroy you. Tell that to your viewing audience.”

  More blinking lights measured the reaction from the thousands of seat cubes filling in the stadium. For a microsecond Robo-Princess considered the possibility that the humans could actually defeat her, but then she dismissed it—she was just getting caught up in the theatrics of it all.

  The voting commenced and the scores were tallied quickly. If nothing else, the machines were efficient. The result was sent to Robo-Princess. “And the winner, advancing to the finale, is . . . the dwarf!” A clear cube was lowered to the floor as two floating prisms, armed with shock wands, drove the dwarf inside. The cell was sealed shut and hoisted back into the air to join the others. For Robo-Princess, it was all about showmanship. “Now, I’d hate for anyone to think we machines don’t also have mercy.” She looked up at Max, who was hanging in the cage. “Max Spencer! You’ve defeated two of us, and for that we’re offering you a surprise gift.” She turned to an image that materialized in midair, showing a zoo with various caged animals. One empty exhibit, however, was a typical human apartment complete with furniture and a television. “You, Max Spencer, will get to choose one of your companions to live out the rest of their days at our wonderful Organic Zoo.” Max could hear applause rolling down from the darkness, and he was struck by the impression that he wasn’t so much inside a room as he was in the middle of a giant stadium. He looked down at the large, metallic unicorn staring back at him.

  “So,” Robo-Princess continued, “one lives, the other one dies—you decide.”

  Max looked over at the metallic horror that was the Frobinator as several shoulder cannons leveled themselves at his friends.

  “You can’t,” Max called out, his words sounding pitiful even in his own ears. “Please.”

  “Please . . . ?” Robo-Princess mocked. “Have we reduced the powerful wizard to begging?”

  Sarah tried to smile at Max, but her eyes were bright with tears. Dirk was pulling at his bonds and kicking at the post that held him in place. “You can’t make me choose,” Max said.

  Robo-Princess moved to stand between Sarah and Dirk. “Right now I’m offering you the life of one of your companions. I would think that you’d be polite enough to accept. If not, well, maybe I’ll kill them both.”

  Max felt a strange vibration in his cube. He looked across at the other cubes suspended in the air and noticed they seemed to be swaying more than usual.

  “It’s okay, Max,” Sarah said. “You don’t have to choose. I won’t ask you to.”

  “Cool, then choose me!” Dirk exclaimed, continuing to pull at his chords. “I like zoos.”

  Sarah suddenly flushed with anger. “Seriously, Dirk? Forget it, I take it back. I’m asking you to choose me now.”

  “Cheater!” Dirk cried out. “You can’t take it back.”

  “I can and I have,” Sarah said defiantly.

  Something strange was happening to Max’s cube, however. Not only did the vibrations seem to intensify, but the whole thing lurched downward, causing Max to have to steady himself. He looked around but he couldn’t see anything.

  “So . . . ?” Robo-Princess asked again. “Which one are you going to save, and which one will you condemn to die? Hurry now, ‘the clock’s ticking’ as you humans used to say.”

  Both of Max’s friends were staring at him. Sarah with her auburn hair and green eyes—smart, confident, and tough. Max admired everything about her. And then Dirk, his oldest and best friend. Maybe Dirk didn’t always see the world like everyone else, but he was the most honest person Max had ever known. He couldn’t choose between them—it was an impossible choice. “I . . . ,” Max started, but a shadow passed over him. He looked up to see a metallic spider crawling on the top of the cube. It was about the size of a dinner plate and had orange eyes. Cenede!

  Suddenly cubes began to drop rapidly to the floor. When they landed, the walls vanished, sending the occupants scrambling over the floor. Max only had a moment to take it in before his own cube dropped. He hit the floor fairly hard, momentarily knocking the wind out of him as he stumbled forward—past the point where the cube wall used to be. He could see thick strands of spiderweb hanging from the air. The spiders were cutt
ing the cubes loose and lowering them to the ground!

  “No!” Robo-Princess screamed as the cubes continued to fall, one after the other, losing their form once they crashed into the floor. And like Max, the cube occupants had been allowed to keep their things. Frobbits and faeries poured from their open cubes, weapons in hand.

  Purple and the rest of the executives wasted no time. They released the police bots that had been standing by in case of an emergency. It violated the spirit of the games, but the executives had unanimously decided that the moment Robo-Princess looked as if she’d lost control of the situation, they were taking matters into their own retractable pincers.

  Robo-Princess whirled as the police bots flew past the row of warrior statues and formed a line on the stadium floor. “No!” she screamed again, watching as her carefully laid plans began to unravel. “This is about me! I’m the one who will save Machine City!”

  Yah Yah appeared near the front of the assembling frobbit and faerie platoons, yelling orders and getting things organized. He raised his spear and oriented the faerie archers toward the police bots. At his command, a volley of arrows flew into the air, falling into the advancing robots. Most of the small arrows bounced harmlessly of their metallic skin, but a good many slipped through tiny joints and sensor holes never designed for such a crude assault. The tiny arrows began to short out socket motors, retinal cameras, and other sensitive electronics. Police bots fell as the tiny arrows rained down on them.

  The mood in the stadium had turned from celebration to shock, then outright terror. Tens of thousands of lights pulsed and strobed with alarmed intensity.

  Several dozen spiders dropped from the shadows to engulf Robo-Princess, leaping on her back and striking at her with their fangs. She began fighting them off, spinning and bucking as she tried to free herself from the assault, destroying the spiders with her horn or tearing them apart with her teeth. Robo-Princess was too busy to notice Dwight run past. He reached Dirk and Sarah and cut them free with his axe.