Fugitive X by Gregg Rosenblum Read Free Book Online Page A

eye. The room exploded with pain and he stumbled backward, half falling, half sitting on the cold ground. He held his hand up to his face. Otter looked down on him, hands on his hips, and Kevin scrambledback to his feet. His eye was already swelling, he could feel it shutting. At least he hadn’t rebroken his nose.
    Otter waited calmly, his hands at his sides, waiting for Kevin’s reaction. Pil and Cort watched intently from behind.
    “I said go rust yourself,” repeated Kevin. “And you punch like my sister.” Which actually was a compliment, but he knew Otter wouldn’t take it that way. He clenched his hands into fists and waited for Otter’s move. There was no way one kid with a fat neck was going to intimidate him. He’d fight back as hard as he could, and he’d lose, but Otter would feel it.
    Otter threw his head back and laughed, a genuine laugh. Kevin stood there, confused, his hands slowly unclenching.
    “Take any bed on that side of the room,” said Otter, pointing. “Sorry about the eye.”
    Kevin sat down on a bottom bunk nearby. His eye throbbed and he felt a bit dizzy. The other two boys now came up and reintroduced themselves. Up close, the tall boy, Cort, looked younger than Kevin had first thought—he might have been Cass’s age. He said hello in a quiet, soft voice, then walked away. The other boy, Pil, offered his hand and Kevin shook it, formally, feeling awkward. “Don’t worry about Otter,” Pil whispered. “He’s all right. Just making sure about you. No room for cowards in the Island.”
    “Yeah, well maybe he could have done that without punching me in the eye?”
    Pil laughed. “No, unfortunately not.”
    “So what is this place?” Kevin asked.
    Pil shrugged. “It’s the bunkhouse for us orphans.”
    I’m not an orphan
, Kevin thought, but he kept it to himself. Maybe if they didn’t think he had any reason to leave, they wouldn’t watch him as carefully.
    “No, I mean all of this,” Kevin said, gesturing broadly with his hands. “The Island.”
    “The Island?” said Pil. “The Island is the Island. It’s a place where we can live safely, as long as we do our jobs. The Wall protects us from the bots.”
    “What about the weird bots in the Island? The ones with the leather faces?” said Kevin.
    Pil frowned. “They’re the Governor’s bots, not City bots. Nobody likes them, but they get a lot of work done, at least. And it’s not like anyone’s going to tell the Governor or Captain Clay to get rid of them.”
    “Who’s the Governor?” asked Kevin.
    Pil shook his head. “Enough questions.” He nodded at the door. “Come on, it’s time for our work shift.”
    Kevin followed the boys out the door, although all he wanted to do was lie down on the bed. His eye was hurting badly, and the anesthetic the medic had used on his nose was wearing off, so that was starting to hurt too.
    The boys walked quickly, without talking, like all the other Islanders Kevin had seen. They took him to the southern edge of the camp, and despite Kevin’s fatigue and pain, he foundhis curiosity was piqued. The Wall loomed high to the left and right, but they stood in front of the large gap, fifty feet across, where the Wall was unfinished. The open area was up against a steep hill—all Kevin could see through the gap was the green and brown bank.
    A small group of Islanders, two men and a woman, were working on the Wall construction. The two men were uncoiling a length of the conductive wire, and the woman was cutting lumber with a table lase. She looked up when the boys arrived and lifted the dark goggles she wore. She pointed at a large pile of raw lumber. “Same as yesterday. Strip down the wood with the glide, then haul them to me.” She nodded at Kevin. “Welcome to the Island.”
    Kevin wasn’t going to say thank you, but he nodded back. They got to work. The glide, it turned out, was a sort of handheld laser planer, similar to the tabletop version that he had used in