Defenders by Will McIntosh Read Free Book Online

yourselves?”
    We would have done that gladly, but we know your minds. Do you really think your kind would have taken us in as refugees? They won’t even take you in.
    Kai pulled open the grate leading to the church’s basement and dropped the food Mrs. Boey had given him into the darkness.
    Wake up.
Five’s message was deafening, like an alarm set too loud.
    Kai lifted himself from the cold concrete, looked groggily into the street, where mist crawled close to the pavement. “It’s the middle of the night.”
    Soldiers are coming with spotlights. Hide in the bathroom.
    Still half asleep, Kai gathered the towels and blanket he’d pilfered from an apartment using a key hidden by its owner and hurried into the bathroom.
    A few minutes later Kai heard the purr of engines. Two all-terrain crawlers rolled past on fat tires, flashing spotlights as soldiers scanned the buildings with night glasses. Kai pulled the bathroom door closed.
    “How do they know where to find you?”
    My heat signature. I have a baffle, but I can’t run it all the time.
    “Why not?”
    The crawlers purred away. Kai wondered if Five was debating whether to trust him. He wondered if it should.
    I trust you now. But after I leave, or I’m killed, you’ll tell your people what you’ve learned about me. If I’m gone, probably they won’t believe you. But if I’m caught, they will.
    Kai immediately thought to lie, to claim he wouldn’t tell. Then he caught himself, remembered lying was impossible.
    Talking to you was a betrayal of my kind. I feel deeply ashamed. I was alone, in terrible pain. I was afraid to die.
    Was Kai betraying his kind, by keeping Five’s secret? He was sure he was, although it wasn’t as if Five was a threat, hiding under a church, cut off.
    To answer your question, I’m almost out of power. That’s why I can’t run the baffle all of the time.
    Kai had gotten accustomed to the sensation of Five speaking in his head. It wasn’t as unpleasant as it had been at first. It reminded him of how he’d grown to like hot sauce on his chili. The first time he’d tried hot sauce it had been awful, burning his tongue and lips, making his eyes water. But the stinging had grown pleasant.
    When he pictured where the voice was coming from, though, when he pictured that giant starfish crawling around under the church …
    That made him dizzy with fear.
    “I don’t understand why you don’t just sneak out of the city, if you know where everyone is.”
    I am large, and a novel sight. I can’t evade the eyes of every person who might look out their window.
    That made sense. “So how will you ever escape?”
    Unless one of my kind enters my range so I can contact it, I won’t.
    It was morning when Five woke him again.
    They’re coming back. More of them. Many more.
    Kai peered out at the rectangle of street visible from his sleeping spot, at the passing vehicles, the faded pod-style apartment complex across the street. “Will they find you?”
    Yes, probably. You should get away now, before they come. Otherwise they might question you about what you’ve seen or heard. Their eye gear is equipped with vocal stress-detectors, so they’ll know you’re lying. I don’t want you to get in trouble because you were kind to me. Go now, through the back.
    Kai gathered up his bedding and ran out through the back side of the bay, into waist-high milkweeds that choked the space between the garage and the building behind it.
    The telltale whisper of an ultralight copter grew louder as Kai pushed onto the sidewalk and turned right, up a hill.
    You should feel proud
, Five said.
We should both feel proud. We were kind to each other, despite everything. I’m not ashamed to call you my friend.
    A line of army crawlers appeared at the top of the hill, the crawlers’ legs tucked, their big wheels spinning.
    Kai watched them pass, his emotions in a tangle. He would miss Five, would miss its company at night, but he was also relieved to be getting