The Roundabout (The Only City Left Book 3) by Andy Goldman

Author:Andy Goldman [Goldman, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2018-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

At some point the timer must have reached 00:00. A black dot appeared in the otherwise clear blue sky, quickly resolving into a circle of dots growing ever larger. Standing, I took quick, shallow breaths as the dots resolved into glistening black daggers. It took every bit of will I had to hold still as they rained down, slamming into the steel coating of the Roof in a wide circle around me

I twirled in place, looking at each of the imposing black monoliths in turn. They steamed and hissed, cracking the ground around them with little pops and fizzes.

“Hello?” I asked.

That single word sent the daggerships into a frenzy of motion. Each one fragmented into pieces which swirled, bent, and clicked into new configurations until a phalanx of ten-foot-tall robots surrounded me.

“You are not a member of the Fifth House either,” the robots spoke in unison. “This game grows tiresome.”

“No, I’m not Fifth House,” I said, choosing one robot to focus on. “I don’t want any part of them. I don’t want any part of you. I don’t want any part of your damn contest. I want you all to leave us alone. I want—”

“Your wants are of no concern to us,” the robot in front of me said. The others had fallen silent. One of them walked over to the remains of the tent and inspected the beacon. “This is Fifth House technology. They were here but you failed to deliver them to us.”

“What do you expect? We don’t have the technology to fight them. We killed one of them but that was luck! Why don’t you come down here and look for them if you’re so hot to catch them all?”

“We are leaving. You have three days, twenty hours, and forty-eight minutes to deliver the Fifth House to us.”

Without thinking about it, I ran up to the robot and pounded a fist against it. Tendrils of pain shot into my hand and I stepped back, rubbing my bruised skin.

Might’ve been smarter to use the metal one, I conceded. Sucking in a pained breath, I yelled, “You can’t just leave, and you can’t blow up the Earth. You don’t have the right! Take me to your leader. I want to talk about this.”

“We are the Roundabout,” the robots said in unison. “You are already talking to us. We are not interested in what you have to say.”

“Too bad,” I yelled, slamming my other fist into the robot this time. It didn’t hurt me but it also had no visible effect on the robot’s skin. “You don’t get to come here and make demands. This is our planet, not yours, and I’m not done talking!”

The robot looked down at me in silence. It was big enough that it could probably splat me against the Roof with one blow, but I held my ground and it held still.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” I stated, reassuring myself more than anything else. “It’s against the rules of your so-called Contest.”

In an instant, the robot bent over and plucked me off the ground.

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