Cloneward Bound (19 page)

Fisher felt like he had stepped into a huge, gleaming nightmare. With hisses and creaks, undercut by the bass thrum of huge, electric motors, the soundstage began to unfold.

No. To
rebuild
.

There was the whirring of servos and the muted scream of metal scraping metal, and what had looked like huge piles of junk became, instead, towering mechanized monsters.

Metal trees—thirty feet tall with razor wire–lined branches that whipped from side to side like the brushes of a demonic car wash—ringed the area where they were standing, extending into the distance as far as the eye could see, a forest of deadly steel. Rubber vines slithered along the ground, each studded with barbs whose tips were coated in a sickly green fluid. Giant, metal Venus flytraps sprang up from the ground, snapping
their four-foot-wide jaws with bone-severing crashes.

Robotic monsters prowled between the deadly metallic plants. A mechanical Tyrannosaur stalked among the trees, swinging its car-sized head from side to side and searching out prey with glowing ruby-colored eyes. Anacondas made of dozens of flexing titanium segments rolled and slid through the branches, waiting for the right victim to walk beneath them to be smothered in thick, chrome-plated coils.

There were human-looking robots as well, running around on legs or rolling on wheels, weaponry sprouting from arms and torsos. They had a strangely familiar look to them, but Fisher was too terrified to figure out why. His brain screamed at him to run, to run anywhere. But there was nowhere to run. The machines weren’t closing in yet, but Fisher didn’t imagine they had much time.

All five members of the group—GG, Dr. Devilish, Kevin, Amanda, and Fisher—automatically formed a tight circle. Fisher was surprised to realize that he had instinctively balled up his fists. Since when did he have a fight—and not just a
flight
—instinct?

“What … 
is
this??” Dr. Devilish managed to squeak out.

“I—I saw commercials for this.” Fisher was surprised he could still form a complete sentence. “It’s that new
reality show:
Sci-Fi: Survivor
. It’s a giant obstacle course. Contestants have to solve puzzles and fight their way to the end. But—but the commercials made it look easy. Rubber darts. Pools of foam. This isn’t right.”

“How big is this place?” Amanda squeaked.

A faint crackle cut through the background hum of machinery.

“I wouldn’t concern myself with such trivial questions, if I were you,” a man’s voice boomed over loudspeakers, making everyone jerk with surprise. “This place is exactly as big as it needs to be for my purposes.”

Everyone turned to look at one another.

“Oh,” the voice went on cheerfully as the robotic monsters continued to circle and prowl, “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I am the Producer. I brought you all here. Let me get you up to speed: put simply, you’re going to have a romp through my little playground, and I’m going to watch. And probably laugh a great deal.”

“Why should we?” Amanda shouted up into the air. “Who are you? What do you want with us?”

“To answer your questions in reverse order,” the Producer said, “my reasons are none of your business, knowing my identity won’t help you, and you will do what I say because if you don’t, you’ll all die. Of course, you will very likely die, anyway, but you
certainly
will if you refuse to cooperate. I have not yet given my … 
creations
the order
to attack. You have thirty seconds before I do.”

“There’s a—there’s a dinosaur staring at me,” Dr. Devilish croaked.

“Some wheelie thing has me in its sights,” said Amanda, her voice rising in panic, tugging on Fisher’s sleeve. He followed her panicked gaze. The robot looked like a motorcycle, but with a curved plastic chassis where its driver should be. A single, glaring blue eye stared Amanda down.

“Ten seconds,” said the Producer.

The trees began shivering and shaking, branches thrashing in the air. The flytraps clapped their jaws together like castanets.

“Hold still,” muttered Fisher urgently. “Nobody move until I say go. Then scatter, okay?”

“Got it,” Amanda said.

“Right,” said Dr. Devilish. GG McGee whimpered something that sounded like a yes.

“Kevin?” Fisher said. “Did you hear me?
Kevin!
”

“Y-y-y-yess,” Keels managed to splutter.

“Five, four, three, two … one,” the Producer said. A harsh laugh exploded through the speakers. For a second, Fisher felt an idea skirt the edge of his consciousness.… The laugh sounded familiar, too.…

But he had no time to mull it over.

The Tyranno-bot began to stomp forward, its body
swaying low to the ground. The wheel-bot gunned its engine. Its tires squealed as it sped at Amanda.

“Not yet,” Fisher said.

“Fisher …” Amanda said nervously.

“Not yet …” Fisher said.

“Basley!” GG screeched.

“Not yet …” Fisher forced himself to stay rooted in his spot.

The mechanical dinosaur’s mouth yawned open, revealing rows of serrated steel teeth. The motorcycle raced forward, gunning to full speed … five feet away … four …

“NOW!” Fisher shouted as he dove and tumbled forward. All five of them scattered in different directions, and the speeding motorcycle collided with the Tyranno-bot, shearing its control capsule off on the dinosaur’s teeth. Its sparking wheeled body sped right into the dinosaur’s legs, clipping them out from under it. The Tyranno-bot crashed heavily to the ground. Smoke and sparks began to spray from both machines.

“All right,” Amanda cried, panting, over the noise of the other machines. “What now? Which way should we go?”

Before anyone could answer, a fuzzy pink blur zipped out of the trees, shot between Fisher’s legs and off into the mechanical wilderness.

“FP!” Fisher shouted, bolting after him. The others followed behind him, calling his name—“Fisher!” “Basley!”—and dodging swiping, bladed tree branches and twisting electrical vines.

FP was charting his own course, scurrying ahead in a panic, weaving between the deadly animatronics. Fisher didn’t know how he’d escaped, but given the little guy’s heroic deeds at TechX, he was hardly surprised. Maybe he was trying to lead them to Two and Molly.

An enormous android stepped out from behind a tree, each arm sprouting a ten-foot whip. Fisher stopped short, and his companions skidded to a halt around him.

The android advanced on them, cracking its whips in
turn. FP had paused ahead of them, whimpering and shaking.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no …” Keels said over and over again.

“Shut up,” snapped Amanda. “Everybody spread out. We need to give it multiple targets.” When nobody moved, she said impatiently, “Listen, I know what I’m doing. I watch a lot of action movies—ahhh!” No sooner had she pronounced the words before a whip lashed itself three times around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides and dragging her off her feet.

“Amanda!” Fisher yelled. The other whip snapped out in a fluid motion, wrapping around Keels and pinning him to the ground. The pop star squealed in terror.

The robot began to pace backward, dragging its two victims along the floor with it.

“Come on!” Fisher rushed forward.

He grabbed hold of the whip that had encircled Amanda, wrapping both arms around it. The whip was made of thick but flexible steel. Fisher couldn’t hope to uncoil it. But Fisher’s added weight made the android falter for a moment. It gave Fisher an idea. “Devilish, grab the other whip!”

Dr. Devilish shook visibly, but he took two big steps forward and grabbed hold of the whip encircling the whimpering Keels and leaned backward. He was much larger than Fisher, and the added resistance stopped the robot short.

“It’s stuck!” Fisher cried. “We’re too heavy!” He looked around wildly. “Turn it left!… 
Left
, Doctor,
left! Your
other
left
.”

With Fisher pulling one way and Dr. Devilish pulling the other, they were able to turn the struggling android. A few feet behind its back were the snapping jaws of a flytrap. “GG,
push
!”

McGee took a few slow, halting steps forward, then planted her hands on the android’s body and added her effort to Fisher’s and Devilish’s.

“This …” she began, gritting her teeth and starting to push, as Fisher and Dr. Devilish pulled, “is …” The android was forced to take a step back to stay on its feet, then two. “For …” Fisher strained with all the strength in his barely one-hundred-pound body.
“Molly!”

With a final shove from McGee, the android fell backward into the open jaws of the flytrap. The flytrap snapped shut, and a horrible crunching sound filled the air. The flytrap sparked and hissed as the android’s body was severed clean from its legs. The whips went slack, and Amanda, who had been fighting and straining all along, burst out of the loose grip. Kevin Keels lay still.

“Kevin!” GG cried out, falling to his side.

“Is he dead?” Devilish asked, his eyes wide. “Badly hurt?”

“No,” GG said, “just fainted.” She tapped her palm
against his cheek a few times. “Kevin! Kevin! Wake up! That’s a good boy.”

“I had the most awful dream,” Keels said, sounding groggy. “I dreamed that we were trapped in this horrible death maze that …” He sat up and looked around.
“Aaauugh!”
As if someone had unplugged him, he instantly passed out again, flopping flat on his back.

Fisher had immediately darted over to FP and had scooped up his pet pig.

“I was worried about you, boy,” he said.

FP frantically nuzzled his face and even began to chew on Fisher’s ear, which Fisher assumed—rightly—was an expression of happiness. GG struggled to revive her pop sensation client until finally Kevin staggered to his feet again.

A dull, rhythmic popping sound suddenly filled the air. After a moment Fisher realized that it was the sound of someone clapping slowly into a microphone.

“Well done,” the Producer’s voice rang out. “Very noble and extremely thrilling. I’m sure your audience agrees.”

“Audience?” Amanda wrinkled her nose. “We’re not actually being
filmed
right now, are we?”

Fisher heard a dull crackling behind him and turned around.

“Uh, guys …” he said. “The audience is behind us.…”

The others turned. Dozens of fiendish machines had gathered in a rough semicircle behind them. Some had barrel-shaped bodies perched on two thick legs, with spherical heads sprouting antennae. There were more dinosaur-bots, in the shapes of Stegosaurs, Triceratops, and smaller birdlike beasts, all of them with strips of plastic imitation skin covering parts of their bodies, but with metal plating and exposed wires everywhere else. There were robots on wheels, treads, two legs, three legs, and four legs.

“RUN!” Amanda screamed.

Nobody needed to be told twice. The group tore off through the artificial foliage, ducking and weaving between the plants as the troupe of robots stomped after them in hot pursuit.

“Over there!” Dr. Devilish panted out. “Look!”

Fisher whipped his head around to see where Devilish was pointing. There was what looked like a small cement building up ahead, with a door just visible in its side. They ran for it, and Devilish heaved the metal door open, herding the others inside before slamming and bolting the door shut behind him.

They were plunged into pitch darkness. Everything was quiet except for the faint, muffled hums and whirrs of the machines outside and the frantic sounds of their own breathing.

A panel in the ceiling lit up, washing the small cement room in buttery yellow light.

“Well,” GG said, patting down her hair. “That wasn’t too bad. We’ll just stay in here until someone notices we’re missing and comes for help.”

Kevin was blubbering. “I—I want to go home.”

“Quiet,” Amanda said sharply. “We’ll just have to wait here, like GG said. At least we’re safe.”

Then there was a
click
. Then another. Finally, a steady, slow
click-click-click
filled the room.

“I don’t want to alarm anyone,” Dr. Devilish said in a high, trembling voice, “but has anyone else noticed that the ceiling is getting lower?”

CHAPTER 18