Free Channel Blue by Jay Martel Page B

he had begun perspiring profusely. Amanda, meanwhile, seemed bizarrely unconcerned. As if trying to get more of a reaction, the tall guard stepped to within a few inches of her face and glared at her. ‘We have a situation here. You have brought an Earthle into the station.’
    ‘Who cares?’ Amanda said. ‘He’s harmless. Look at him. He’s certainly not a threat.’  Though Perry understood the strategy behind this, he found Amanda’s casual discounting of his dangerousness annoying. ‘I know, I know, I shouldn’t have brought him in. Just zap his brain with your collar and let’s forget about it.’
    ‘No.’ The tall guard cocked his head and eyed Perry, who involuntarily recoiled from the menacing gaze. ‘He’s been here before. We need to erase more than his brain.’ Perry did his best to steady his shaking legs – he needed them to get out of here.
    ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ the short guard said. ‘We should all talk to Mr Pythagorus. If you could both come with us?’
    The two guards strode into the room and Perry saw his chance. With all the speed he could summon, he darted to his right, scurried around the guards, slipped through the open doorway and sprinted down the hallway. He glanced over one shoulder and was pleased to see that no one was following him, only to look ahead and nearly run into the tall security guard. He staggered to a stop, barely avoiding a collision.
    ‘Hey, how did you—’ he said, before the guard grabbed him.
    Perry struggled, his arms flailing. Something came off in his hand, and when he glanced down to see what it was, he saw, to his horror, the guard’s face dangling between his fingers. With a groan of annoyance, the guard snatched his face from Perry and smoothed it back over the steel tube that protruded between his shoulders. Amanda and the short guard walked by and the tall guard, his face still a little crumpled around the edges, pushed Perry down the hallway after them.
    Perry, still breathing hard, caught up with Amanda. ‘What the hell are they?’
    ‘Copbots. Or, more specifically, good copbot/bad copbot.’
    ‘Where are they taking us?’
    ‘To see my boss.’
    Perry could feel a wave of sweat breaking onto the small of his back, drenching the seat of his pants. ‘What are you going to tell him? How are you going to explain what we were doing?’
    ‘I don’t know. Just remember, you don’t know anything. I never told you what we’re doing here.’
    ‘Hey, guys. What’s going on?’ Dennis the receptionist sauntered down the hallway towards them, idly munching popcorn from a paper bag. He noted the security-guard escorts. ‘Is there some kind of problem?’ he asked with forced nonchalance.
    Amanda glared at him. ‘What happened to you?’ she whispered. ‘You were supposed be a look-out.’
    ‘I was,’ Dennis replied under his breath. ‘I looked and I got out.’
    ‘You were supposed to warn us .’
    ‘There wasn’t enough time,’ Dennis whispered. Amanda smirked. ‘Come on, Manda. You know I wasn’t bred for bravery.’ Then in a conversational voice he said, ‘Hey, you should check out the feed in screening room seven: bunch of rich guys seeking enlightenment dying in a sweat lodge – totally hilarious ,’ and bustled off. A large hand smacked down onto Perry’s shoulder. It felt like a turkey vulture had landed.
    ‘No talking,’ the tall security guard growled. ‘Keep moving.’
    After walking for what seemed like blocks, Perry and Amanda were herded through the doorway of a large office. At one end, behind an improbably large desk, a nine-year-old boy in a suit, his hair stylishly spiked with gel, sat watching an array of screens floating in the air and talking to no one Perry could see.
    ‘Look, just tell him I loved what he did with the tsunami,’ the boy said. ‘Everyone here loved it. And we loved the Russian earthquake, too. But just not as much. It just wasn’t as disastrous as we were