Kingdom Keepers V(14)

The brooms could swing their handles like baseball bats. They were agile and quick. Their buckets were known to contain toxic fluids that could chemically burn. They could sweep up a hurricane-force wind in seconds.

None of which could harm her as long as she maintained her hologram state, as long as she kept fear at bay. But despite her courage under fire, Charlene considered herself the biggest chicken of all the Keepers. True or not, she didn’t look forward to testing her resolve. Not now. Not ever.

But the two brooms were climbing—their limbs stuck through the buckets’ wire handles—toward the Base’s second-story windows.

Maybeck rounded the far corner and spotted the brooms. He and Charlene met at the drainpipe.

“We’ve got to warn them!” Charlene said.

“We got to get up there and stop them!” Maybeck countered. He bent down and found a pebble and hurled it at the glass. He missed. “You’re the climber!” he said.

She’d sensed that coming. The problem was…well, there were several problems. First, in nearly any battle the person with the high ground won, and she’d be coming at them from below; second, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to do. Pull them off the drainpipe? Third, there was the matter of fear and testing the full capabilities of 2.0: she would be climbing, therefore not fully a hologram—would that leave her vulnerable to injury and attack?

“Go!” Maybeck said.

Charlene took hold of the pipe and climbed, amazed at how easy 2.0 made everything.

“I’m going to sound the alarm!” Maybeck called to her—for she was climbing quickly. He took off around to the other side, where a warning device had been installed.

Charlene was instantly in her element: doing something physical. She wasn’t going to worry about upgrades or fear or strategy. She was going to climb up to the first broom and pull it off the side of the building. Hand over hand, she ascended.

The broom bristles were divided into two “feet” that pressed to the pipe. Their limbs (they weren’t really arms but more like tree limbs) held the buckets, leaving their twiglike hands free to climb. But possibly because of the weight of the buckets, or just plain inexperience with climbing, they were slow. She gained on them. Reaching the bristles of the lower broom, she grabbed and tugged, hoping to pull the creature free of the drainpipe. Instead, it slipped and sank toward her. One of the buckets beaned her. The broom was a warrior. He—it!—swung a bucket at her awkwardly, but with enough authority to smash her in the face. The next attempt hit her hand and she screamed out and let go, hanging by just her left hand. She blocked the next attempt, hooked the bucket, and leaned her weight on it. The broom tilted to that side. She intentionally allowed herself to slide down a few feet, pulling the bucket and the broom with her. It let go of the pipe and fell, crashing to the ground.

Both buckets spilled out a foul neon green goo. The broom scampered to get away from it, but too late. Its bristles made contact and melted away immediately. The melting spread like fire up the fuel of the bristles and the wood, dissolving it. A moment later, two wooden buckets sat on the asphalt. The green slime re-collected into two separate globs and oozed back into the tipped buckets.

She looked up and saw the handle of the broom above her bent down as if looking at her. She felt a chill. Recognizing it as fear, she tried to push it away. Fear could compromise her hologram, making her more “mortal.” Had the upgrade to 2.0 eliminated that effect? The broom climbed quickly. Some of the goo sloshed out of a bucket. Reacting to an impulse of fear, Charlene spun on the drainpipe to avoid being hit—but wondered if that was necessary. Wouldn’t the goo just pass right through her? Was she willing to trust that? Was she able to trust that? It slopped down onto the asphalt.

Unseen by her, the goo moved like an undulating starfish and then, finding no fuel, affixed itself to the wall and began oozing up the drainpipe, coming at Charlene’s feet like an alien blob. It was trying to return to its bucket.

Charlene saw none of this. She reached out and took hold of the broom’s bristles only to have it kick her away. The broom scampered higher and tipped a bucket toward her. Charlene let go of the drainpipe and hung from the broom’s bristles. The spilled goo missed her, but the lower blob was now only a few feet away.

A security alarm sounded inside and out.

The broom stiffened in panic and then struggled to climb as Charlene now held to its stem. Reaching the window, the broom tipped the bucket toward the wall.

Charlene could not allow the goo to disintigrate the wood of the windowsill or the broom would be inside. With two hands she made herself perpendicular to the pole, then swung her legs up and kicked the bucket, sending it flying. The goo spilled out, landing on the broom, dissolving it as Charlene completed her backflip, heading toward the ground.