“What do you want?” I would have barked, but it was better to keep quiet.

“Jesus. So defensive.”

I shoved him against the door.

“Look, it’s nothing to get your panties twisted up about. I’m going to need your help to clean out that old work shed. It’s a two-man job, and we need your SUV to carry it all. I heard on the news that Genesis HQ is closed, and the next closest place is an hour away. Between that and the six-hour drive round trip, it’s going to take all day.”

My jaw dropped lower and lower the longer he talked. “What makes you think I’m going to help you with that?”

“I know you know what’s in there. I gotta get all that old junk off to Genesis before the law changes and we get caught with it.”

“We?”

“Yeah, we. Your face is literally plastered all over that stuff. It’s your problem too. Plus, unless you want to stay a teenager forever, you’re going to want what I have in there.”

My limbs went cold. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. “My adult model.”

“There you go. So, go grab a couple cups of breakfast, and let’s get a move on.” He gestured to Lucas. “Bring Uncle Remus here. Six hands are better than four. Even crippled ones.”

Under different circumstances, he might have had a real bargaining chip. That adult model would hide all the damage I’d accumulated and solve a good number of my problems. My father might not have known about the damage, but he did know I needed that model to keep up normal appearances. Unfortunately for him, none of that was important to me. Besides, I’d already promised my time to helping Lucas set up his radio.

“Today isn’t a great day,” I said.

“It is for me.” My lack of interest didn’t faze him. Little did I suspect, he had another card up his sleeve: “It’s either that or I ask your sisters to help.”

No.

No, they couldn’t find out. Not like that.

My horror must have been showing. He smiled. “That’s what I thought. I’ll meet you by the car.”

He opened the door, but before he could step out, Lucas tackled us both against the back of the couch. The ear-shattering snap of a gun firing split the morning air, and a bullet lodged into the hardwood where we’d been standing. Across the street, on the neighbor’s roof, a security bot lay with a rifle in its shoulder.

The front door. The bot must have been waiting for Lucas to pass through it. Easy pickings. Why bother breaking in and causing an uproar? The metallic AR models weren’t like the squishy android models. They weren’t designed to mimic humans and all their frailties and imperfections. They didn’t have impatience or fatigue. The security bot was the perfect hunter. It could have been sitting there all day and all night with its scope fixed on the door and its finger on the trigger.

But security bots weren’t soldiers. They were made to take field notes, enforce regulations, and call human authorities in the event of emergencies. They weren’t programmed for combat strategy and couldn’t account for human habit and ritual. There was no way it could have known my family always used the back door. If my father hadn’t been there, it might never have gotten Lucas in its sights. Leave it to him to always ruin everything.

The bot fired again, this time nearly striking Lucas in the leg. The bullet ricocheted off the metal of his crutches and lodged itself in the wall. My father ran up the stairs to hide, shouting profanities along the way. I secretly hoped the bot would take him out through a window. All the while, I dragged Lucas across the hardwood, away from the open door.

So, Blaise was alive. As glad as I was to not be a murderer, I couldn’t say I felt relieved.

“Mama, what’s happening?” Mia called from the kitchen.

“Just stay in there!” I called back.

A loud crash of metal crashing into pavement preceded rattling footsteps. “Citizens,” said the bot’s empty voice. “You are interfering with an emergency operation.”

Plan A: Sit Outside the Door had failed. It had been found out. So what was plan B? How far was it willing to go? I had no way to defend myself or my sisters. My gun was in the car, unloaded and useless. We had Spaceman-Lucas, but seeing him propped up on one leg only reinforced how defenseless we were.

“Citizens,” the bot said. “You are interfering with an emergency operation.”

“Chance?” Mia said again, her voice shaky, nervous.

“Go out the back door!” I said. “Start the car. We’re right behind you.” I nudged Lucas toward the kitchen. “Go. Protect the girls. I’ll catch up.”

“Don’t die.”

“No promises.”

I reached across the frame and swung the door shut. It wouldn’t be enough to keep the bot from getting in, but it would prevent Lucas from being shot as he hobbled through the house. I activated the lock, wedged my foot under the door, and held the handle to keep it from turning.

The security bot didn’t even attempt to come in like a civilized person. It rammed into the other side of the door like a bull. Adjusting into a sturdier stance, I pressed my shoulder against the metal and prepared for the second strike, and then the third. Each time it smashed into the door, it pushed me back inches. Its metal arms bent and twisted the door frame until it was only a matter of pushing me aside to enter. But I couldn’t let that happen. 

Face-to-face with the metal monster, I shoved my arms into the space between its chest plates and tore at anything that looked important. The crack jimmied wider, and I stuck my hands in as far as they would go. Doing so aroused the pain of my burned hands, even with the settings turned down, but I clawed and pried and scratched like a cat ripping its prey to shreds.

Sparks flew and metal popped. Some kind of fluid leaked into my sleeves. But the bot didn’t flinch. It stuck the back of its hand against my chest and flicked me off like nothing more than a bug.

The back of my head struck the metal bars of our shoe rack. It took a moment to regain my composure, but lucky for me, my attack must have accomplished more than I thought because the bot didn’t immediately start shooting.

I pushed onto my knees. Something clattered against the floor. When my head hit the rack, it not only dislodged my sisters’ ridiculously large assortment of shoes—but also our fire extinguisher.

The bot’s rifle found me, but I moved quickly, and the shot went over my head, barely grazing the hair on my scalp. I wrenched open the crack in its chest with my fingers, buried the extinguisher horn as deep as I could into its guts, and squeezed the handle.

A white cloud billowed out. The glove protected my hands, but what skin remained of my wrists burned under the frozen blast.

Lights flashed, and the bot’s body spasmed. It was injured but still moving. Still alive. It wasn’t enough. It threw me backward again, and my head hit the exact same spot on the rack. Mia and Lucas better have gotten the car situated. I couldn’t stall anymore.

Ditching the extinguisher, I sprinted past the living room, through the kitchen, and out the back door. Lucas sat in Pumpkin’s front passenger seat with Sophia in the back behind him. Mia and Selena, however, were having it out in the yard.

“What are you doing?” I shouted. “Get in!”

“But there’s blood on the seat,” Selena complained.

Mia scowled. “I tried to get her to—”

“We don’t have time for this.” I cut her off, picked Selena up, and threw her into the backseat. Mia was next. She wailed as I scooped her up and plopped her beside the others.

Pumpkin was already set on manual mode (thank you, Lucas!) and raring to go. I swung the door shut, hopped behind the steering wheel, and started to back it out of the driveway—but not fast enough.

The bot smashed in my window as I drove by. Shards of glass rained into my lap, and the girls’ screaming shook my eardrums and prickled my skin. The bot took hold of the wheel and would have sent the car careening into the back of the house if I hadn’t slammed the break down at the last second.

“Citizen,” it said, “I am an emergency services specialist robot, and I am here to assist you.”

Its fists locked onto the fabric of my shirt, it heaved me out of the driver’s seat and dragged my upper body out of the window. Lucas jumped across the center console and latched onto my legs. Selena and Sophia continued to scream. But Mia surprised me. She got out of the car and seized the old shovel beside our long-dead tomato garden. Wielding it like a spear, she thrust the tip into the crack in the bot’s chest, slicing clean through and displacing metal parts and gears.