Grace wandered around the science fair with Dax, amazed by the variation in projects. And skill level. There were kids who had built mind-blowing inventions on par with Thea’s androids, and kids who had clearly slapped together a poster the night before. Or possibly the morning of. Maybe even fifteen minutes before the fair started.
“Are we just going to keep walking around while Jasper races?” Grace asked.
Dax shrugged. “I was going to watch Holly in the musical when it started.”
“You really don’t need to do that,” Holly muttered into her comm.
“Well, I am. We’ve been through the whole fair three times anyway.”
“I’ll come, too,” Grace added. It had to be better than doing more laps.
They stopped by Thea’s table on the way out. The two androids she’d built were now standing, and as Grace and Dax approached, their heads turned to watch. One was put together with mostly gold and black metal, the other with silver and black. The one with gold was taller and stockier than the silver. Both had massive gaps in their plating that exposed wire and circuitry beneath. And they didn’t have much by way of faces at the moment.
“A little creepy, but cool!” Dax said.
“Like I said, they’re just prototypes.” Thea was typing on her laptop. “I’m going to redesign the bodies once I have access to better parts. And I want to work out bugs in the integration software, first.”
“Well, we’re headed to the musical, if you wanted to join us,” Dax told her.
“I’m busy with an issue in Mia’s navigation protocol.” Thea pointed to the android with silver parts. “Mia, find me the nearest Bibi’s.”
“The nearest Bibi’s is two-point-five light years away.”
“Isn’t there one down the street?” Grace asked.
“Yeah. And she’s doing better than Chloe,” Thea said. “Chloe, find me the nearest MoonCo.”
The gold and black android spoke. “The nearest MoonCo is seven.” Chloe’s voice was feminine, like Mia’s, but a bit deeper and a shade less gentle.
“Oh, I wanna try!” Jasper exclaimed. “Someone put a comm by Chloe.”
“Isn’t the race starting?” Thea asked.
“I have two minutes. Let me talk to Chloe!”
Grace pulled her comm out and held it toward the android. “Go ahead.”
“Don’t—” Thea started.
“Chloe, what is the powerhouse of the cell?” Jasper asked.
The android answered, “According to a net search, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”
“Uh, I don’t know what you mean by bugs. Sounds like she’s working just fine.”
“Again, that’s not grammatically correct,” Thea replied. “Jasper, stop messing with—”
“Sorry gotta go the race is starting! Wish me luck!”
Grace slid the comm back in her ear. “I thought you said you didn’t need luck.”
“Yeah, but I’ll take what I can get.” Grace could practically hear Jasper winking.
Grace and Dax left Thea to her work and walked to the auditorium, where they found seats near the front. The lights dimmed moments after they sat down.
The cast was halfway through the opening number when Thea spoke over comms. “Guys? One of my monitor drones detected movement outside. Red Blades are entering the building.”
Jasper groaned. “Of course they are,” she said. “All right, hang tight, I’m on my way.”
“Wait, how many?” Grace asked.
“Six,” Thea answered.
“We can handle them, right?” Grace stood up. “Holly?”
Onstage, Holly moved in unison with a row of twirling dancers in old-fashioned astronaut costumes. “You’ll have to wait for the musical number to end,” she said through clenched teeth.
As it turned out, they didn’t. The opening number was still going when three Blades stumbled onto the stage. It took the audience a moment to realize that the men with blasters who sent the ensemble running and screaming were not part of the show. Then, they joined in the screaming.
Dax sprinted to the stage. Grace tossed aside her jacket, flew up, and dropped onto the back of one of the Blades. Dax and Holly each took another. While they were able to quickly disarm their opponents, Grace struggled to get the blaster out of her Blade’s hands. Someone’s finger brushed the trigger, and a blast of red light blew a hole in the wall.
The auditorium lights went out, and the complete darkness made people scream louder. Three spotlights came on, each pointing directly at a Blade’s face and blinding them.
“Aymes is on lights,” Holly said. She saluted into the darkness before kicking her Blade in the gut.
Grace knocked the blaster from the hand of the Blade in front of her. She swung at his jaw and sent him down with it. He climbed back up immediately, but the spotlight stayed on his face, and shielding his eyes didn’t seem to do him much good.
Apparently bolstered by the Blades being blinded, the fact that Grace and the others were fighting them, and probably a lot of iced coffee, the musical cast returned to the stage and joined the battle. They weren’t exactly good, but they did have strength in numbers. Holly darted between moving legs and swinging fists to snatch up the three blasters.
While the theatre kids beat up the unarmed gang members, Grace and the others slipped off the stage and into the hallway.
“Thea, you good?” Holly asked.
“I’m being chased around the hallways by dudes with blasters, so, no.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. These halls all look the same!” Thea exclaimed. “I’ll try to head back toward the fair, but I left in the first place because I didn’t want these guys catching anyone in the crossfire.”
Grace, Holly, and Dax flew around a corner, and—
“Ow!” Grace smacked into someone and stumbled to the floor. “Sorry!”
“No need to apologize, I can’t feel pain.”
Grace looked up at the black and silver android standing over her. “Oh—I—what?”
She held out a hand to help Grace up. “It’s me. Mia. Mitochondria.”
“Yes, I see that.” Grace frowned. “Wait, Jasper, is Mia short for Mitochondria?”
“Duh,” Jasper replied. “I didn’t name her, though,”
“Yeah, you did,” Holly said, folding her arms. “You had her when you found us!”
“Never said I named her. Now leave me alone. I’m busy.”
The taller android behind Mia waved. “Hi, I’m Chloe.”
“Where’s Thea?” Dax asked.
“Thea wandered off. We’re looking for her,” Mia explained.
“Uh, wandered off or ran off?” Grace asked.
“Yes, she was running.”
“Look out!” Chloe shouted.
Grace, Dax, and Holly whirled around as a Blade came around the corner behind them and raised his blaster. Nothing happened. Frowning, he examined the weapon, searching for the problem. Then, he dropped to the ground.
Thea stood behind him. She shook out her wrist. “There are two more Blades around here somewhere—” She looked up. “Oh god, what are Mia and Chloe doing?”
“Helping,” Chloe said.
“You gave us combat programming,” Mia added.
“You did what to our children?” Jasper demanded.
“Jasper, aren’t you racing? And yes, I thought they could be helpful.” Thea walked toward the group and flung out her arms in exasperation. “But they’re nowhere near ready yet!”
The last two Blades appeared at the other end of the hall, holding blasters.
Thea’s fists clenched. “They’re not close enough for me to—everyone get down!”
While everyone else dove out of the way, Holly went for the other Blade’s blaster and held it up. “Thea!” she shouted.
Thea nodded. Holly fired. Her shot missed, but it forced the approaching Blades to slow down.
Grace climbed to her feet and tensed. Voices rose in the distance, joined by thundering footsteps. She frowned. “Do you guys hear that?”
Confused, the Blades halted and looked behind them. Their eyes went wide with confusion, then even wider with alarm.
The first kids of the stampede came around the corner, dressed in blue and white sports uniforms, carrying streamers and balloons, and screaming. Something blasted music.
“What is this?” Holly asked, gesturing wildly with her blaster. As the rest of the crowd emerged, so did the giant stuffed creature they were carrying. Their mascot.
“Oh, this is the invasion,” Thea said calmly.
Dax stood up. “The what?”
“Are those kids from Blue Trench?” Grace asked.
“Yeah, it’s all over the local media,” Thea said. “There’s a big inter-school sporting event next week, so everyone’s trying to intimidate their rivals. These kids are basically planning to leave streamers and confetti and cardboard cutouts of tardigrades everywhere before their games against the sea goats.”
“I love how schools have taken something as simple as teaching kids to read and count and turned it into an aggressive competition,” Jasper said.
“Jasper, if you’re not going to help, shut up,” Holly snapped.
The Blades’ alarm persisted as the stampede drew closer with no signs of stopping. Holly took the opportunity to shoot them both in the shoulders. A few kids at the front of the crowd slowed.
Before they could fully process what was happening, Grace pointed at the Blades laying on the floor. “Hey guys, let’s grab those sea goats and, uh, put them on the roof!”
This earned cheers and applause from the rival kids as they scooped up the Blades and carried them off. The kids left a trail of blue glitter and white streamers in their wake. A few balloons drifted free of the pack, too.
One of the Blades, still holding his blaster, aimed at Grace and fired. Grace moved, but in the split second she had, she realized it wouldn’t be fast enough. Her eyes widened and—
Something clattered to the floor in front of her.
“Chloe!” Thea shouted.
Grace knelt next to the android. “Is she okay?”
Thea raced over, dropped to her knees, and slid to Chloe’s side. The android’s chest plate had been blown open by the blast.
“I can’t shoot at the Blades. I could hit one of the kids. But they’re still armed,” Holly warned. “We need to move.”
“Hang on,” Thea said. She opened a compartment on Chloe’s neck and pulled out a chip.
“Thea, look out—”
This time, Mia jumped in the path of the shot.
“Wow, they’re fast,” Dax said as the android collapsed in a smoking pile.
“They have computers for brains, of course they’re fast!” Thea moved to Mia and removed her chip. “And now I’m going to avenge them and kick that guy’s ass!”
“Aren’t their chips fine?” Holly asked. “You can just put them in another—”
Thea slid them in her pocket. “For Mia and Chloe!”
“For Mia and Chloe!” Dax exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air.
“Dax, don’t encourage—ugh, fine,” Holly said. “For Mia and Chloe! Even though they’re fine!”
“For Mia and Chloe!” Grace repeated as they sprinted toward the crowd of kids.
The same Blade lifted his blaster again but struggled to aim with the kids bouncing him up and down. The other Blade—who was being dragged by a pair of athletes at the edge of the crowd—had lost his blaster. After a moment of fumbling, though, he managed to draw dagger from his side. Grace spread her wings and took to the air. She crashed into the Blade and tumbled to the ground with him.
He stabbed at her, and she barely managed to grab his wrist before the dagger reached her chest. She forced the wrist to the ground. While he fought to break free from her grasp, she punched him in the stomach. He grimaced but kept his hold on the weapon.
A kid marching by stepped on the Blade’s arm. The Blade grunted in pain, and the dagger clattered to the ground.
Grace snatched it and pointed it at his throat. “How did you know I was here?”
The Blade chuckled. “Our network on other worlds isn’t nearly as extensive as Kronos, but we do have eyes everywhere. We’ve been scouting race locations, since you seem to have developed a rivalry with Van Terra.” With a cold smile, he added, “You can be as careful as you want. But sooner or later, we will get our hands on you.”
The Blades had more resources than Jasper had expected, apparently. Grace rose to her feet and pointed at the Blade. “This guy just said that tardigrades suck! Are we going to take that?”
There was a chorus of no’s as kids eagerly scooped up the Blade to carry him off. The rest of the crowd disappeared around the next corner, leaving Grace and the others standing in a hallway littered with confetti and glitter. While Grace had dealt with the Blade, Holly had managed to retrieve the blaster from the other one.
“I think Jasper had the right idea, dropping out of elementary school,” Thea said.