Cloneward Bound (23 page)

She raised her arms and met its clasping hands with her own, digging in with her heels and pushing. The robot wavered, caught off guard, and shifted its weight to try and force her off her feet.

That was its mistake. There was a reason that Amanda was captain of the wrestling team. As Amanda
let herself be pushed down to her knees, the robot leaned farther and farther forward. Timing her motion exactly, Amanda slipped her hands out of its grasp and threw her body into its knees. The machine toppled forward and fell onto its face … or where its face would have been, if it had had one.

As GG and Devilish swatted and stomped and flung the little bug-bots, Amanda swung around, putting her knee into the robot’s back and twisting its arm behind its metal body.

“I really wish …” she said through gritted teeth as she held the thing down and tried to pin its struggling arms, “that you had elbows.” She managed to keep it pinioned to the ground with her knee, locking its arms with hers. “Fisher! Now what?”

“Look for a little panel on the back of its neck!” Fisher shouted down, feeling sweat sting his eyes. “I just need a few more minutes!”

“We don’t
have
a few minutes,” Amanda shouted back. She located the panel, popped it open with an elbow, and quickly freed a hand to yank out every wire she saw. The robot jerked up and down a few times, then lay still.

The main force was on them now. Amanda seized her staff again and began swinging left and right, but there were too many robots, and they were slowly driving her
back. Dr. Devilish’s comb was snapped in two by a robot that looked like a cross between a dog and a leopard; GG had lost her contract
and
her purse, and all of them were being hemmed in by a wall of mobile steel.

“Fisher!” Amanda cried in terror, as a humanoid robot managed to reach out and snatch away her staff, breaking it in two like a toothpick.

Fisher, watching from above, remembered the bewildering language in the contracts GG had offered him. He remembered, too, the way that he and Two had managed to short-circuit a robot in the TechX labs by confusing it, and an idea occurred to him.

“GG!” he yelled “Paradoxes! Robot brains can’t cope with unsolvable puzzles!”

“I work in Hollywood,” GG said smugly. “Unsolvable puzzles
are
my business.” She cupped her hands around her mouth, forming a makeshift megaphone. “We would like to offer our surrender!” she trumpeted out. “We wish to set this down on paper, and signify our agreement by signing a written contract. But we cannot agree to your terms until you have shown us the written contract bearing our signatures—confirming our agreement.”

“You … you will only agree and sign … once you are shown the proof of your agreement in the form of your signatures.…” the robot said, and a faint whine started
to emit from within its metal head. “If you have signed, then you have already agreed, but you will not agree until you have signed, and you will only agree and sign if you have signed, but …”

The robot’s limbs began to spasm in little flutters, and the whine began to grow in volume and pitch. GG stepped back just as it finally lost control, stomping and flailing back and forth, zigzagging across the platform, sending three other robots tumbling down the steps.

Fisher wiped sweat out of his eyes with one hand.
Come on
. He’d never seen a circuit so complicated before. He imagined Two next to him, saying:
You can do this
.

A slender-looking robot with long blades for hands lumbered toward Dr. Devilish. Devilish, weaponless, backed up until he bumped against the leg of the Tyranno-bot.

“Sayonara, sweet world!” he cried dramatically. “Remember me well. And remember me as extremely attractive.” He swept a hand through his hair, placed his hands on his hips, bracing to meet his end, and let loose the gleaming, sunbeam smile that had made him famous.

The robot stopped. The little iris lens opened and closed, blinking what appeared to be long, iron lashes.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Devilish said. The robot continued watching him.

“You know,” he said, keeping the smile firmly in place, “we really don’t
have
to fight.” He took a cautious step forward. “Just because I’m a human and you’re a machine doesn’t mean we can’t get along. And really, just because you’re a robot doesn’t mean you don’t have a heart.… Well, I guess it does mean you don’t have a heart, but you have batteries, right?”

On either side of him, Amanda and McGee were whacking robots apart with anything they could find, but Dr. Devilish managed to maintain his composure, his smile, and his charm.

“Look deep into your … batteries,” he said, sidling directly up to the robot. “You don’t always have to do just what you’re told, do you? Can’t we be friends?” He slowly put his arm around it. “After all, we …” His hand found the panel on the robot’s back and with two lightning-quick motions, he flipped it open and pulled out a fistful of wires. Immediately, the robot collapsed.

But there was no doubt about it: the machines were winning. And still, they continued to surge up the stairs.

“There are too many of them, Fisher!” Amanda shouted exhaustedly. A robot armed with a spinning blade made
straight for her, and she barely managed to dive out of the way as it swung in again. “We can’t hold them off anymore!”

Come on, Fisher. You can do this
. Fisher inhaled and connected two wires. A spark fired; and then, all of a sudden, he felt the Tyranno-bot begin stirring and rumbling underneath him, coming back to life.

Thump. Thump. Thump
.

Every step that the Tyranno-bot took sent shudders through Fisher’s spine. “Easy, boy,” he whispered. He held a bundle of crossed wires and loose circuitry in one hand. With his other, he gripped his Extendo-tie, which was looped around the beast’s head like a horse’s bridle. “Easy.” Adrenaline raced through his system as two and a half tons of high-carbon steel followed his commands.

“Fisher!” Amanda screamed, ducking the blow of a double-whip android.

“Charge!” Fisher roared. Using his jury-rigged controls to steer, Fisher directed the Tyranno-bot straight for the robot attacking Amanda. The Tyranno-bot delivered a steel-shattering stomp that almost knocked Fisher off his perch. When it withdrew its enormous metal foot, nothing remained of the robot but a pile of scrap and a plume of smoke.

“Thanks,” Amanda called up shakily. Fisher gave her the thumbs-up.

Then he pivoted the Tyranno-bot and stomped right into the middle of the robotic force. Fisher felt the impact as a tail swoop knocked a round-bodied axe-bot through the air, colliding with two others and sending all of them tumbling down the stairs with showers of sparks and gouts of flame. His stomach leapt as he made the beast’s head plunge down, and there was a powerful jolt as its jaws ripped a many-bladed android in half.

Fisher twitched his hand slightly and the Tyranno-bot’s tail swung out and bashed two of the whip-armed androids to pieces. The spider-bots were trying to crawl up its legs to pry Fisher from his perch, but GG, Amanda, and Dr. Devilish kept them at bay. He looked back and saw Three emerging from the Producer’s booth with some kind of metal suitcase.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the spider-bots zoom past Amanda and crawl up to the knee of the Tyranno-bot. Before Fisher could scream or react, it leapt straight for his face.

“SquuueeeeeeeEEEEE!” FP flew out of nowhere, clamping his powerful jaws around the spider-bot and crushing it to bits. He made a circle in the air and landed on the Tyranno-bot’s head.

“Good to see you, boy!” Fisher shouted. “Thanks for the assist! Now let’s finish the job!”

The robot army was crumbling. GG McGee, Dr. Devilish, and Amanda had all picked up fearsome weapons—blades and metal clubs that had broken off the malfunctioning robots. They were cutting down the few stragglers that Fisher and his Tyranno-bot had left in one piece.

“We did it!” Amanda shouted. “We won!”

Fisher cheered. He hugged FP tightly, and his pig squealed with happiness.

Then he felt the force of an impact that almost knocked his eyeballs out. A gigantic
boom
resonated throughout the room. A hole the width of a salad bowl had appeared in his Tyranno-bot’s head. The robot started to wobble on its feet, and then sagged to its knees. Fisher, clutching FP, managed to jump off before it collapsed completely onto its side.

“Have you ever seen one of those movies,” said the cold, expressionless voice of Three, “where the villain has an elaborate, strange-looking device that the heroes manage to thwart with their cunning and determination?” He was standing on the balcony outside the Producer’s booth, and holding a huge, smoking object in his hands.

Three continued, narrowing his eyes: “And didn’t you ever think to yourself, ‘You know, if the villain just had a
really big gun
, it would make things much easier?’ ”

He thumbed a button on his really big gun, pointed it straight at Fisher, and smiled. “Well, so did I.”

CHAPTER 22

Fisher tore his eyes from the enormous barrel of Three’s gun and looked around at his companions. Amanda’s hair was wild. One of her sleeves was torn almost completely off, and she brandished a sickle-shaped blade in bruised hands. Dr. Devilish had a shallow cut from his upper cheek to his chin, and his suit jacket was missing completely. His hair, on the other hand, was in perfect order. GG McGee’s green suit was stained black with machine oil.

Kevin Keels had passed out again, flat on his back.

“I’m sorry, Amanda,” Fisher said. He felt his throat squeezing shut. “I’m sorry to all of you. If it hadn’t been for my actions, Dr. X wouldn’t have escaped. And this thing”—Fisher nodded at Three—“wouldn’t exist in the first place.”

“Keep it together, Basley,” GG muttered. “Don’t crack up now.” Both of her hands were raised and she was grinning stupidly in Three’s direction, as though hoping to charm him out of firing his gun. She obviously had not
processed the fact that Fisher was
not
Basley.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Amanda crooned to Three in the voice she sometimes used on the debate team when an opposing team member was getting overly emotional.

“Occam’s razor,” Three said crisply, almost cheerfully.

“Occam’s
what
?” Dr. Devilish spluttered, then drew back as Three turned the gun on him.

“Given multiple solutions to a problem, the simplest solution is most likely best. There are few things simpler than pulling a trigger.” Three smiled, and turned the gun back on Fisher.

“I can think of
one
thing,” said a voice from behind Three. Three frowned and turned around.

But not quickly enough to avoid the fist that smashed across his jaw. Three took a single, staggering step and collapsed to the ground out cold, revealing the proud face of Two.

“Two!” Amanda shouted. She dropped her weapon and ran up to him as he jumped down from the balcony of the Producer’s booth to meet her. She nearly knocked him over when she reached him, wrapping her arms around him like he was full of helium and would float away if he weren’t held down. He gasped out a shallow breath before returning the embrace.

Fisher was completely speechless. He tried to say something and felt a weak sputter of air leave his throat. As Fisher rose unsteadily to his feet, FP dashed up to Two, and started to gnaw on his ankle. But it was, somehow, a
loving
ankle gnaw.