Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
This is the story of how everything changed. It's not my story, not really. This is the story of my sister and her best friend Scrap, and of what they gave up for me ... to save me. After escaping the clutches of Mayor Highshine for a second time, Scrap, Paige and Gnat make the perilous journey to the ocean jungles in search of the last rocket ship on Somewhere 513. But as they struggle to liberate the ship from a family of vicious frogbears, disaster strikes and it suffers a near-fatal crash. As Scrap works to repair the ship, things go from bad to worse when he makes a discovery that means leaving is impossible. But with the forces of Mayor Highshine closing in, staying isn't an option either. As old rivalries return and new alliances form in the midst of a final stand-off, Paige faces an agonising decision if she is to keep her promise to her mum to keep Gnat safe... The final instalment in an original and entertaining new trilogy for middle-grade readers from the award-winning author of STITCH HEAD. For fans of Maz Evans and Thomas Taylor.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 262
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
1
2
3
Contents
6
All the Things That Will Never Change
I thought me and my sister would be together forever.
Those first five years on Somewhere 513, it was just me and Mum and Paige in the Foxhole. It didn’t seem weird at the time – growing up in an underground bunker, not even seeing the Outside except for pictures in books. To be clear, we didn’t stay in the Foxhole all that time because being there was so great (it mostly was but I don’t miss the smell). We stayed in the Foxhole because we had to.
We stayed cos of the robots.
You’re probably like, yeah,weknow.YougrewuponafarawayplanetwheretherobotsweresupposedtolookafterthehumansbuttherobotsdecidedtokeeptheplanetforthemselvesandtheymadeallthehumansleaveandsointheendtherewerenohumansleftonSomewhere513,8except there actually were – your mum and dad. They hid in a Foxhole and they had your sister and you, but then they died and then you had to leave the Foxhole in search of the King of the Robots so he would help you get off-world.
And you’d be right. That’s exactly what happened.
But that was a long time ago.
When I was five, if I’d have made a list of all the things about my life that I didn’t think would ever change, I’m pretty sure that list would look like this:
Mum
Paige
Foxhole
Turns out that’s everything that didchange.
Maybe that’s what growing up is. Maybe it’s when all the things you thought would always stay the same start to change. They change and there’s not one thing you can do about it and that’s that.
Well, this is that. This is when everything changes.
Not that things hadn’t changed a lot already. From the moment me and Paige met the King of the Robots, it was pretty much allchange. We found him living on a pile of junk and he wasn’t pleased to see us. K1-NG didn’t think he was King of the Robots any more – he thought he was just Scrap, partly cos he wasn’t very shiny 9or strong and bits fell off him. And partly cos I called him Scrap and he liked it.
And then his house blew up and we all had to leave. The three of us, together.
We’ve been through a lot since then.
Me and Paige and Scrap got hunted by robots. We ended up in the robot city, New Hull, and the whole place was run by Mayor Harmony Highshine. She turned out to be the robot who made all the other robots rebel against the humans but the weird thing was Harmony Highshine didn’t want to be a robot at all. Harmony Highshine wanted to actually becomehuman. The only way she could do that was by putting her robot core inside a human body … and the only ones left were me and Paige.
Even after all these years, I don’t like Harmony Highshine the most.
Anyway, as soon as we got to New Hull, we were trying to get out of there. We ran and we kept running. We headed west to the Elsewhere, looking for this rocket ship, the Pink-FootedGoose, so we could get off-world.
Instead, we found Mooch.
Mooch was a town that sort of wandered around. It was full of robots but they were the first ones we’d 10ever met who were nice to us. There was Wired Bill and Cybil and my best friend for a bit, Punkie. For about ten minutes it was great. We should have known then it was bound to go wrong. Turns out they were working for Harmony Highshine … turns out they led her right to us. We reallynearly didn’t make it that time, but when we were with Scrap, somehow, we always managed to get away.
Then it was just the three of us again.
Oh, and a bitof someone else. His name was Newman, and all we had was his core. You’ll find out more about him. Sorry about that.
And all the while, we were looking for a way to escape – a way to get off-world. We looked for the ship that brought the robots to Somewhere 513, but it turned out that ship didn’t exist at all. Then we found out about this othership, and we didn’t know whether that ship existed either, but we still had to go looking. We just sort of hoped. Hoped the ship was there … hoped it would fly … hoped it had stasis pods that would keep me and Paige alive … hoped it would take us Somewhere … Somewhere else. That’s a whole lot of hopes. But what else could we do? Just stay here? Stay on Somewhere 513? We couldn’t.11
We couldn’t stay.
This isn’t my story, not really. This is the story of my sister and her best friend, and of what they gave up to save me.
Everything changes. Like I said, I guess that’s what growing up is.
It’s what you gain … it’s what you lose…
It’s what you leave behind.
Episode 01: Home, Sour Home
“It tastes like fart.”
Gnat grimaced, staring down at the shrivelled fruit gripped between her finger and thumb.
“…Like if fart was food, is what it tastes like,” she added with disgust, and just a touch of glee.
“Don’t eat it, then,” tutted Paige. She snatched the fruit from her sister’s hand and threw it over her shoulder. It disappeared into the cloud of dust left in the trail of their transportation, a muscular, armoured bike known as a ‘brawler’. Its pilot, Scrap, bemoaned his 13missing left arm as he struggled to steady the bike, its makeshift saddlebags rattling with the few possessions the trio had to their name as they sped across the desert.
“I’m still hungry,” Gnat said, jabbing Paige in the back.
“That’s why I gave you the muzzy apple,” Paige replied, scratching at the patch that covered her left eye. “Now you’re going to starve to death.”
“Good,” said Gnat cheerily. “I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt you.”
“If you’re a ghost I’ll just drive through you,” said Paige.
“I’ll use my ghost powers and make you crash.”
“I’ll—”
“Would you two give it a -zk- rest?” grunted Scrap, glancing round at the sisters. “It’s hard enough to drive this thing as it is, without the pair of you chewing each other’s ears off.”
“Sorry, Scrap,” Gnat said, pointedly adding, “Paigedidn’tsayshewassorry.”
“Shut up, you gub,” Paige said, rolling her eye. After a moment she leaned towards Scrap and said, “Do you want me to take over for a while?”
“I’m OK,” Scrap answered. “I mean, I wouldn’t say 14-zk- no to another arm…”
Scrap waved his left arm, which ended abruptly at the elbow.
“Well, if we’re going to find you a new arm anywhere…” Paige noted, pointing ahead, “it’s there.”
Far on the horizon, low, wide mountains loomed. They glinted in the bright light of the planet’s one and a half suns.
“Home, sourhome,” Scrap muttered. “Never thought I’d see -zk- the Piles again…”
It had been less than a month since Scrap had been forced to leave his home on the Piles. This bizarre mountain range was formed entirely of robot parts – unwanted limbs, heads and bodies from robots who had upgraded to finer cases. In the robot metropolis of New Hull, upgrading was a citywide preoccupation. All any of the robots there seemed to care about was replacing old with new and, as soon as they had done so, new suddenly became old and they hungered to upgrade again. It had, for a time, become Scrap’s obsession too. Trapped for years in a lowly ‘junk case’, Scrap had longed to be the mighty mechanoid he once was – the so-called King of the Robots. But in the short time he had spent with the last two humans on Somewhere 513, he had 15learned to accept who he now was.
Since they were happy for him to be ‘Scrap’, he thought, why shouldn’t he?
“Are we going to go back to your old house?” Gnat asked from the back of the brawler.
“My house that got -zk- blown up? No, Gnat, we’re not goin’ to do that,” Scrap replied. “You doremember the -zk- plan, right?”
Gnat’s sigh was more than loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the brawler’s engine. “Ye-e-es, I remember the plan, because you said it one million times over.” She reached for a scruffy-looking toy bear that was looped to her belt and held it up. “Even Mr Steven Kirby knows the plan.”
“So what is it?” Scrap pushed her.
Gnat held the bear in front of her face, and in the deepest voice she could muster, said: “Find case. Get case. Go.”
“Ex-zk-actly,” Scrap said.
“Well done, Mr Steven Kirby,” Gnat whispered to her bear.
“We find a case, we get a case, and we get out of there faster than a snackrabbit in the midday -zk- sun,” Scrap continued. “We do not, under any -zk- circumstances 16want to involve ourselves with any ’bots that might be -zk- lurkin’ around.”
“I wasn’t going to…” Gnat said, drawing out her words.
“So no stops, no diversions and no sightseeing,” Paige added, turning back to glower at her sister.
“Iwasn’tgoingto,” Gnat repeated, taking even more time to say it.
“This is serious, Gnat,” Paige went on. “Either Harmony Highshine is dead or she isn’t, but Scrap still stabbed her. There’s every likelihood we’re public enemy number one…”
“And two and three,” Gnat corrected her.
“So no messing around,” said Paige. “No trying to make friends or pretending to be a robot or—”
“You think I’m stupid,” Gnat interrupted, folding her arms. “You think I can’t do anything and I always mess up, but I don’t, and you think you’re my mum and dad but you’re not.”
Paige shook her head, and decided not to entertain the idea that her sister had a point. She opened the satchel slung across her chest – a sickly green glow emanated from inside.
“How’s our -zk- patient doin’?” asked Scrap.17
The hexagonal object Paige took from her satchel fitted comfortably in the palm of her hand. It flickered faintly.
“Not good,” Paige replied. She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a rust-red armguard mounted on her wrist, her core tracer. On its small screen, Scrap’s core showed up as a bright, insistent dot of light. “Newman’s core barely shows up on the tracer any more,” she added. “Do you really think it can power a case?”
“It has to – Newmanis the only -zk- hope you have of gettin’ off-world,” Scrap said firmly. He checked the display on the brawler’s control panel and sped up. “Keep your heads down, we’re comin’ up to the -zk- edge of the Piles…”
Paige returned the core to her satchel. “The Outskirts?” she said, tensing up as ridges rose up on either side of them. “Last time we were here, we nearly got caught. Shouldn’t we go around?”
“Avoid the whole valley? That’ll take -zk- forever,” Scrap explained as they reached the Outskirts. The ‘town’ was little more than a long street of ramshackle buildings, as unimpressive as Scrap remembered. Even Bad Knees Outpost, the only building that looked like it might survive a storm, seemed more neglected than 18ever. “Anyway, that was back when the -zk- hovertrain passed through – these days, I’ll bet there’s nothin’ left in this one-cog town except a few rust buckets on bad -zk- charge,” Scrap said. “No one will even … know we’re … here…”
As Scrap trailed off, he was forced to bring the brawler to a standstill. Their path was blocked.
By robots.
Hundreds of robots.
Episode 02: Abandon Brawler
Paige glanced down at her core tracer. “Robots everywhere,” she whispered.
“Millions and thousands,” added Gnat in awe.
“Like a gubbin’ -zk- army…” blurted Scrap.
The sea of robots was too big to avoid – leaving no path through to the Piles.
“Scrap, we need to go,” insisted Paige.
“We can’t leave without a -zk- case,” replied Scrap, glancing around. “Just let me think for a – wait, these are city’bots.”20
Sure enough, these were not the dejected, sorry souls he’d expected to see in the Outskirts, nor the rusting junk cases of the Piles. Their stylish, polished forms betrayed them as citizens of New Hull – every shape and size and colour Scrap could imagine, and more besides – bipeds to tripeds to octopeds and everything in between … hoppers … crawlers … wheel-footed rollers … each bold and beautiful in their own way. It was a dizzying sight.
“What are they all -zk- doin’ here?” Scrap muttered to himself.
Paige’s tone was urgent. “Back up, Scrap. Get us out of here.”
“Huh? Oh -zk- yeah…” Scrap muttered, coming to his senses. He checked his rear-view mirror to find dozens more robots converging behind them.
“Cog’s sake, we’re boxed in … anyone recognizes us, we’re dead,” Scrap growled. “Everybody -zk- out. Abandon brawler!”
“Abandon?” Paige whispered. “What about our food and—”
“Bail out, now!” ordered Scrap. “Heads down an’ hoods up!”
Paige dragged the hood on Gnat’s jacket over her head 21before pulling up her own. Gnat zipped the jacket up to her nose as Paige took her hand. They followed Scrap off the brawler into a river of robots, all clamouring to get closer to who-knew-what. The crowd’s unforgiving metal cases bounced the sisters left and right like pinballs, until Scrap grabbed Paige by the arm, clearing a path with a few butts of his head as he made for an alleyway between two ramshackle buildings.
The trio huddled in the shadows as more robots flocked past. Above the crowds, floating billboards flashed up adverts for upgrades and the latest headlines from New Hull:
22“We’ll just have to -zk- wait till they go their separate ways,” Scrap whispered. “The last thing we want to do is draw -zk- attention to—”
“Citizens of New Hull! Thank you for churningoutin such big numbers!”
Scrap recognized the voice that boomed out across the Outskirts. Even if he hadn’t, the turn of phrase was unmistakable.
“Many of you have not sprayedthis far from the city since you first landed on Somewhere Five One Three!” the voice continued. “Indeed, most wouldn’t be seendreadin this one-saucetown.”
Paige turned to Scrap.
“Is that…?”
“Gunner,” he whispered. “Stay here – I’m goin’ to get a better look…”
“What? Why?” Paige hissed, her one eye wide.
“Cos somethin’s goin’ on, and I don’t like -zk- surprises,” Scrap replied. “Don’t worry, I’ll -zk- stay out of sight…”
He checked behind him and spotted an external generator attached to one of the Outskirt’s least impressive cube-built shacks. Using its coolant pipes as handholds he dragged himself up on to it.
23Atop the generator, Scrap peered over the heads of the assembled robots. Ahead, he saw the old train station where, only a few weeks ago, he, Paige and Gnat had unwittingly boarded a hovertrain bound for New Hull.
And there, standing tall on a raised podium…
“GunnerKill-U,” Scrap uttered aloud. Gunner looked more impressive than ever. Her case was a vision in blue and gold, all curved lines and sleek grandeur, with a cascade of brightly glowing wires that flowed behind her like a mane of fire. A pair of dust-drones he didn’t recognize zipped eagerly around her, polishing and shining her already immaculate finish.
For a reckless moment, Scrap wondered if Gunner might help him get hold of a new case, since she herself went through them at an eye-watering rate. What if news of what he’d done hadn’t reached her? What if, as far as she was concerned, he was just Scrap, a junk case who tended to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time? She might even be pleased to see him, he thought.
But Gunner Kill-U knew exactly who Scrap was … and she hated him with every spark in her core.
Episode 03: The Hovering Highshine
“It was here in the Outskirts where my newlife began,” Gunner continued from her podium as Scrap teetered on top of the generator, trying to get a better look. “After the Difference of Opinion – after the humans were spentpacking– I, like the rest of you, was impatient to embrace my new-frownedfreedom … the freedom to choose my own path … the freedom to express myself in my own way … the freedom to upgrade my case inex-chainsfor charge! This was Harmony Highshine’s dream for all of us.”
25The crowd cheered at the name, but Scrap bristled. Highshine. He could only hope that he had destroyed her when last they met but, like him, Highshine had a habit of surviving. What did she have to do with this gathering of robots?
Scrap glanced back at Paige, to find her pointing down the length of the alleyway, keen to run. He held out his remaining hand, telling her to wait.
“Has any ’bot started from more fumblebeginningsthan our illustrious mayor?” Gunner continued from the podium. Scrap turned back to see her pick up a stout silver-blue object and hold it out to the crowd – he recognized it immediately as an H15 ‘buff-bot’ case – a so-called highshiner. “It was in a case like this that Mayor Highshine trolledoffthe assembly line. Nowandershe was the first to dream that robots might one day upgrade, and before long, that dreamcametoo. Upgrading literarymade us the robots we are today!” Gunner tucked the H15 case under her arm as her dust-drones circled her dramatically. “When outdated cases piled up in the city, the mayor invited me to oversee their removal. My precious silver stallion – my hovertrain – transported unwanted cases from New Hull to the Piles! So imagine my dismay when it met a sorrybend…”
26For a moment, Gunner seemed to drift off, before glancing at the H15 case under her arm and regaining her composure.
“I knew our mayor would not wallow in shelfpity, so neither could I,” she said after a moment. “I returned to the Outskirts to rebuild…”
Gunner gestured behind her. Scrap had thought the glimmering black tarpaulin between her and the station was some sort of dramatic backdrop, but as he looked again he realized that whatever the tarpaulin was covering stretched the entire length of the station.
“And so, without furtheradieu,” Gunner went on, “I give you a new, improved hovertrain, for the always improving citizens of New Hull. I give you … the HoveringHighshine!”
“Scrap…!”
Scrap ignored Paige’s whisper – he couldn’t avert his gaze as the tarpaulin fell away to reveal a streamlined, luminous hovertrain, with the words ‘The Hovering Highshine’ emblazoned on its side.
“She -zk- rebuilt it…” Scrap muttered to himself, slapping his one hand against his forehead in frustrated realization. “These ’bots are -zk- here for a gubbin’ maidenvoyage.”
27“Now, I invite you all to board the container carriages, for the HoveringHighshine’s return to New Hull,” Gunner declared. At the grand sweep of her mane, the containers’ doors slid open in unison. “A onceinalifelinetrip, before she is loaded with cases. Allabroad!”
“Scrap…!” Paige whispered again.
As he teetered on top of the generator, Scrap held out his hand once more, certain that their predicament was about to resolve itself. The robots had gathered for a chance to ride the hovertrain – all he, Paige and Gnat had to do was wait for them to board, then they could get back on the brawler and find what they came for.
“Scrap!”
Paige again, louder this time. Scrap almost lost his balance as he spun back towards the sisters.
“Shhhutup!” he whispered. “The ’bots are -zk- leavin’, we’re in the clear!”
It was then Scrap noticed that both Paige and Gnat were pointing at something above him.
Scrap looked up.
A billboard, floating overhead, displayed a giant, flickering picture of his own face, accompanied by the words:28
“Uh -zk- oh,” Scrap mumbled. He cast his eyes around at the other billboards. They all displayed the same image – his.
“Look! Up there!” came a cry from below. A lanky, four-armed robot was pointing at him with each appendage in turn. “The ’bot on the billboards!”
As robot after robot craned their necks to look, Scrap spun back towards Paige and Gnat but, before he could tell them to run, he lost his footing on the generator and tumbled forwards. Instinctively, he reached up for the one thing he could and grabbed hold of the bottom of the billboard. He shrieked as it lifted him into the air.
A moment later, Paige and Gnat watched Scrap float across the assembled robots, carried by a billboard displaying a wanted poster with his face on it.
“Oh,” uttered Paige, “no.”
Episode 04: Wanted: Scrap
As he floated helplessly across a sea of robots, Scrap had just enough time to think that Paige might have been right about their journey through the Outskirts.
Maybe it would have been easier to go around.
“…Rusty?” Gunner gasped from the podium, gazing at the suspended little robot in shock. After a moment, she thrust her arm into the air. “It is … it’s Scrap!” cried Gunner. “A brand-new case for the ’bot who brings me that junk case!”
That was all the motivation the crowd needed.30
31“F’cog’s -zk- sake, gettoff me!” Scrap howled, tucking his feet up as the teeming mass of robots started desperately clawing at him with hands, pincers and other appendages.
“Spick! Span! Bring him down!” Gunner barked from her podium. Her dust-drones abandoned their polishing duties and flew towards Scrap, ramming him with what little force they could muster.
“Knockitoff!” Scrap shouted as the drones bumped against him. He felt the billboard judder, its trajectory shifting with every impact, and an idea occurred to him. As the drones closed in for another strike, he kicked out, sending one of them spiralling through the air and disappearing into the crowd of robots.
“Spick! Or is it Span?” Gunner shouted from below. “You break it, you pay, Scrap! And you’re growingtopay! Oh, I’ll make you pay for what you did to me!”
WhatIdidtoher?Scrap thought, giving the second drone a solid kick with enough force to alter the course of the billboard – it was floating back over the top of the crowd, too high for even the tallest robot to reach. He glanced back at the alleyway but there was no sign of Paige and Gnat. Perhaps if he just kept floating away, he thought, Gunner and the mob of baying ’bots would 32follow him, and Paige and Gnat could recover the brawler and sneak away. Then, when the dust had settled, Paige could use her core tracer to track him down, drifting across Somewhere 513, going nowhere in particular.
He suddenly felt a strange sense of calm. The day, it seemed, wasn’t turning out so badly after all.
That was when he saw Gunner take the H15 case from under her arm and heave it at him with all her might.
“…Cog’s— UrFF!”
The bucket-like case smashed into the billboard, breaking it almost in two and sending both it and Scrap plummeting towards the mob of robots. Before he knew what was happening, he was on the ground. The crowd wasted no time in setting upon him – while some trampled his fragile case, buckling his torso, others grabbed his arms and legs. He felt bolts strain and wires snap as they began to pull his limbs from their sockets.
Not for the first time, Scrap found himself apologizing to Paige and Gnat. He had promised he would try to find them a way off-world … promised he would stick by them, no matter what. But it seemed like a promise he could no longer keep.
Then he heard an explosion and remembered he had 33never met anyone as determined as Paige Brightside.
He felt the robots release him all at once. Through their various appendages, wheels and treads, he saw a fireball engulf the hovertrain.
“My traaaaiiiinn!” Gunner’s voice rang out over the sound of the echoing explosion.
As grey-black smoke billowed into the air, the rattled robots began to scatter. Scrap checked his limbs were still attached before pulling himself to his feet. He saw the hovertrain ablaze, a dark hole blasted out of its side, and immediately recognized the handiwork. His eyes darted to the brawler to find Paige in the pilot seat, with her sister huddled behind.
“Get down!” Paige screamed, and fired again. Scrap ducked as, with a low KuRRFF, a second missile blasted out from the brawler’s launcher. It streaked towards the hovertrain, impacting in almost the same spot. In a burst of flames and with a deafening boom the hovertrain was torn in two.
Scrap did not wait. He raced towards the brawler, knocked and jostled by fleeing robots, and heard the roar of the bike’s engine as Paige readied to leave. But a moment later, he found his feet were no longer touching the ground.34
He’d been hoisted into the air.
“SCRAP!” He heard Gunner’s voice as her mane of tendrils tightened around his chest. “Where do you think you’re growing?”
“Get … off … me!” Scrap groaned. Gunner spun him upside down and then squeezed harder. He felt two bolts ping from his chest. “Get -urrrk!- off…”
“That’s two hovertrains you owe me … and a whole lot more, eh, Scrap?” Gunner snarled, turning him to face her. “Or should I call you K1-NG?”
Episode 05: The Robot Formerly Known as K1-NG
“What’d you -zk- call me?” Scrap blurted. “You – you’re out of your -zk- brain-frame! I’m not—”
“Don’t bother with all that,” Gunner hissed, shaking him with her tendrils as he hung upside down. She watched the crowd of robots running for cover and leaned in close. “I know who you are,” she added in a whisper, regarding him searchingly. “K1-NG, the robot renegade … the mechanical mutineer … the enemy of robotkind … King of the Robots.”
36Scrap let out a grunt. “How’d you -zk- find out?”
Gunner stared at him and shook her head. “Part of me thought you’d deny it.”
“Hardly -zk- matters, if I’m a wanted ’bot,” noted Scrap. “Who told you?”
Gunner pulled him even closer. “Remember that shovel ’bot you sent me to pick up from the Piles?”
“Wait … Morten?” Scrap asked. He hadn’t thought about him in weeks – M0-TN, a humble shovel-bot reborn as the mighty Morten Prometheus, champion of the ’Bot Bouts.
“He had plenty to say,” Gunner went on. “Told me that Mayor Highshine gave him a new case, but that it used to belong to the King of the Robots, and that its original owner came looking for it … and that he was a little robot named Scrap.”
“Did he tell you -zk- the rest?” Scrap snapped. “Did he tell you Highshine’s gone out of her brain-frame? That she wants to become hu—”
“Idon’tcare!” Gunner howled, flinging him back and forth in the air. “Twenty years ago, you took everything from me … junked me like I was nothing! I spent weeks as nothing more than a core! Do you know whatitfeelslightto be nothing?”
37“Do I -zk- know? Look at me!” Scrap growled in reply. “I’m the junk case that even -zk- junk cases feel sorry for!”
“It’s the leashyoudeserve!” Gunner shouted. Scrap felt the tendrils around his torso tighten, heard the creak of crumpling metal. “No, wait,” Gunner added, “the leashyou deserve is being torn limb from—”
The roar of engines cut her off mid-sentence. Gunner held Scrap to one side and saw the brawler, heading straight for her at speed. She squinted, peering at its pilot.
“Is that … a human?” she gasped, a second before the brawler ploughed into her. She heard herself cry ‘my case!’ even before she had hit the ground. Then came the rough graurrnchof metal against metal as the bike ran over her.
Scrap felt his feet hit the ground and realized that Gunner no longer held him in her grasp. An instant later, the brawler swerved towards him and skidded to a halt inches from his feet.
“Get on!” Paige howled. Scrap clambered on as gracelessly as he had ever clambered on to anything.
“Go, go -zk- go!” he shouted. “No, wait! Wait, wait!”
“What? What!” Paige screamed.
38
