Counterattack (10 page)
“So now you know your father sent me, right?” Cannon said.
I nodded. “Do you think you could start from the beginning? With all the stuff in the letter that I didn't get a chance to read?”
A couple of hours later, dawn broke across the hills. The sky was rose colored, with a hint of orange growing brighter as the sun almost broke across the jagged lines of the horizon.
We drove on the main highway in a van that Nate had purchased from a used-car dealer. The small town of Parker and the motel were only a few minutes behind us, but already the desert was totally without any houses or signs or any other marks of human life. There was no other traffic. Because the sand was almost red, it felt like we were on Mars. The weight of gravity, however, and my tiredness told me otherwise.
“Let me get this straight,” Nate, now partially recovered from the neuron blast, said. He sat in the passenger seat. “The supreme governor set this up.”
Nate had only been awake for a few minutes. We'd left the motel quickly, taking time only to load up the van with all our gear and the robots and pay the bill.
“From the beginning,” Cannon said, not taking his eyes off the road as he drove. “We even planned it down to the tracking chip in Tyce's arm. Without that, I'd have never found you.”
“Why is the supreme governor involved?” Nate asked, incredulous. “I mean, he's the most powerful government person in the world. What does heâ?”
“His grandson is in the Institute. Just like my son,” the general replied harshly.
Grandson? Son?
I had a dozen questions of my own. But I kept my mouth shut and listened.
“We shouldn't have been arrested when we arrived on Earth,” Ashley said. “It was Dr. Jordan who tried to kill us. He's the one who should have been put in prison.”
“Some of us know that now,” Cannon answered. He didn't turn his head as he drove. His neck seemed like chiseled granite.
“Who is âus'?” Nate interrupted.
“A group of the top World United Federation Combat Force generals. You see, as the
Moon Racer
approached Earth, the signals sent to the Combat Force informed us that the ship's pilot and some of the crew had turned against two highlevel government passengers, including Dr. Jordan. They'd been killed and ejected into space.”
That was exactly what Dad had informed me in his note.
“A total lie,” I said indignantly. “It was the opposite. Dr. Jordan and Luke Daab had complete control of the ship's computer. They must have secretly changed all of our regular transmissions.”
“We know that now, but how could we tell differently at the time? Furthermore, we had no way of knowing that Dr. Jordan was alive and on his way to Earth. Since then, we've confirmed that. Intelligence sources tell us a cargo ship returning from the Moon picked up his escape pod. From there, Dr. Jordan has disappeared.”
And now he's somewhere on Earth, planning something we have to stop. Only we don't quite know what.
“What changed?” Nate asked quietly. I could tell his old belief in his platoon commander was back. “How did you find out the truth and decide that the report was false?”
“Two things. The first was Tyce's computer.”
My computer?
“Naturally we went through all the confiscated equipment. Including Tyce's computer. A program broke his password code. It had a journal of the
Moon Racer
's voyage. That gave us a different story of the space trip. We weren't sure whether to believe it, but it cast enough doubt that when prisoner Blaine Steven asked for a private meeting with the supreme governor, we arranged it.”
“Blaine Steven â¦,” Nate prompted.
“Former director of the Mars Project. A man with plenty of political clout even though he hadn't been on Earth for over a decade.”
Blaine Steven. The man who'd secretly been working for Dr. Jordan all those years he'd been on Mars. And yet, once aboard the
Moon Racer
, Steven had been worried that Dr. Jordan would try to kill him. For good reason.
“Blaine Steven,” Cannon continued, “didn't know the details, only that Dr. Jordan intended some kind of Terrataker mission as soon as he got back to Earth. And with the rest of what Blaine Steven told us, things began to make sense. We are now trying our best to stop Jordan, but we're working in the dark. That's why we need Tyce and Ashley so badly. It goes way beyond trying to rescue my own son and the governor's grandson.”
Cannon began to slow down. In the growing light of day, I could hardly recognize the upcoming turnoff as a road. It was more like a set of tire tracks leading into the desert hills. He drove off the highway onto the tracks.
“Cannon,” Nate said quietly, “where we need to go, this van doesn't have a chance.”
“We're not going there in the van. Remember, I do have a few military connections.”
“Which is why the supreme governor brought you into this?” Nate asked.
The van bounced and jolted. Dust began to film the windows.
“He brought me into this because he could trust me. As you well know, like most high levels of the Federation government, even the top levels of our Combat Force are infiltrated by Terrataker rebels. Just like Dr. Jordan. With crucial peace talks coming up in New York, the rebels are going out of their way to bring war. If any of the Terratakers found out about Tyce and Ashley and their robot connections, what we're about to do next would have no chance. That's why the supreme governor and I needed to privately arrange Tyce and Ashley's escape. And why I brought you in to help. I wanted you to bring them to me before the Combat Force could track them down again. We figured with Tyce and Ashley's help, we also might find the secret location of the Institute.”
“I think I'm with you,” Nate said slowly. “These kids have refused to tell me anything about these robots, but I can make my guesses.”
“As could the other generals who were about to arrive at the Combat Force prison. That was another reason for getting them out in a hurry.”
“Sir?” I broke in. “What exactly
is
happening? All I know is that we're on a six-day countdown to find the Institute and then rescue my dad from the base. And today is day four.”
Cannon glanced at his watch. “A very tight countdown. In a little over 48 hours, the supreme governor and the assembled governors of all the nations of the world will have their annual meeting in New York. It's a simple guess that if the Terratakers are going to try anything, this is the time. Especially if Dr. Jordan believes no one knows he's on Earth and that no one knows about the Institute.”
“Impossible to do any damage,” Nate scoffed. “You of all people know how tightly secured the meeting will be. Nothing short of the world's best army would be able to get in there.”
“Exactly,” Cannon returned. “And that's exactly what Jordan has. From what Blaine Steven told us, his army can't be stopped.”
The van rounded a corner into a tight canyon.
“Let me correct myself,” Cannon added. “Jordan's army can't be stopped without Tyce and Ashley.”
“How?” I asked. My knowledge of geography wasn't great, but even I knew that Arizona was a long way from New York.
“I wish I could stop right now and explain it to you,” Cannon answered. “But if you look ahead, you'll see our ride.” He pointed through the windshield.
We saw a helicopter, painted dull green. Machine guns were mounted on each side.
“I've had the pilot on standby,” Cannon said. “Right now every minute counts. You'll learn more when we get to the Institute. I just hope no one tries to shoot us down when we land.”
“There?” Cannon shouted a few minutes later.
“There!” Ashley said.
I focused a pair of binoculars where Cannon had pointed. Ahead and below was a box canyon, cut in a perfect square halfway up a mountain. It seemed empty. I truly hoped it was.
I briefly set the binoculars down and glanced around me in the helicopter. Nate squatted on one side, armed with a rocket launcher. Cannon guarded the other side with another rocket launcher. The pilot had his right hand on the trigger mechanisms of the helicopter's machine guns. He was a skinny guy with dark glasses who called himself Grunt. Military people sure liked weird nicknames.
I watched the three of them, tense and ready. If someone attacked as we landed, would we have enough firepower to defend the helicopter?
The helicopter moved in closer, chasing its own shadow across the barren rocks of the desert hills. Slowly it began to take us down into the canyon of the Institute. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Nate asked Ashley.
No one had stepped out of the helicopter yet. We were parked squarely in the middle of the empty canyon. Although the pilot had shut down the helicopter, the roar of the motor echoed in my ears, making the silence around us seem loud.
“I'm sure.” Ashley pointed up at the high, narrow mountain peak. “I saw that every day I was allowed out here in the sunshine.”
“What,” Cannon said to Nate, “you're hoping someone shows up and starts shooting at us?”
“It just doesn't seem right,” Nate commented. He had not taken his hands off the rocket launcher. “You'd think if there was something to guard, we wouldn't be able to just walk in like this.”
“Fly,” Cannon corrected. “It's not like this is easy to get to, even if you know where it is.”
Cannon, of course, was right. It had no entrance. This was not a natural canyon but a perfect deep box cut into the rock. Only heavy machinery could have made this. It was too square, the sheer high walls too straight, and the ground too perfectly flat. On the far side, maybe 100 yards from the helicopter, was a large metal door set into the canyon wall.
Nate motioned to the door. “You've been in there, right, Ashley?”
“Every day I was here,” she replied. “Inside it's like a maze of rooms. It's where we ate and slept and worked on computer simulations and robot control.”
“We've got explosives,” Cannon pressed. “We can blow the door apart.”
“Then let's do it,” Nate said. “We'll leave the kids behind.”
I lifted the binoculars again while they began to unload their equipment. I studied the door. There seemed nothing strange about it. Except for the dead lizard on the ground in front of it.
I looked closer, straining my eyes. The lizard seemed to be lying on top of a dead bird. Weird.
I put the binoculars down and said nothing because Nate and Cannon had already begun moving across the open floor of the box canyon. They each carried ready machine guns, with backpacks to carry the explosives.
I peered through the binoculars again.
A tiny mouse scurried up to the dead lizard. Was it going to eat it?
As I watched, the mouse stopped moving. It fell on its side.
Nate's words came back to me.
“You'd think if there was something to guard, we wouldn't be able to just walk in like this.”
“Hey!” I shouted at the two of them. “Hey!” My loud, frantic words bounced off the high rock walls around us.
They stopped.
I waved them back.
“Yes?” Nate asked.
Cannon's eyes didn't settle on me. He was too busy scanning in all directions for danger.
“Remember you thought it was strange that we could just walk in like this?”
Nate nodded.
“Well, what if it
is
guarded? But not by people.”
“Trust me,” Nate said. “We're keeping our eyes wide open.”
“But you haven't been using the binoculars. Try them now. And look at the door from here.”
Nate did as I requested. “Dead animals. Place like this, who knows how long they've been there?”
“The mouse just died,” I said. “I saw it walk up to the lizard and keel over. I remember reading Earth stories about miners who brought a canary down with them. If it died ⦔
Nate locked eyes with me. “Maybe it was breathing poison gas. Gas leaking out from under the door.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Who knows what's on the other side of that door?”
“Great,” he replied. “So how do we open it without killing ourselves?”
“You don't.” I grinned. “Ashley and I do.”
“Ready?” Ashley asked.
“Ready,” I said.
We sat in the helicopter, each of us plugged in to our botpacks. Ashley was seat belted in place. Nate had strapped my arms onto my wheelchair. On short notice, it was the best we could do to remain motionless.
One end of the bot-pack was attached to a plug that connected to my spinal nerves. The other end fired X-ray waves to the computer controls on the robot.
The rules of robot control were simple. First, avoid any electrical currentsâthey could do serious damage to my own brain. Second, disengage instantly at the first warning of any damage to the robot's computer drive. Especially since my brain circuits worked so closely with the computer's circuits.
“Ready for the headset and blindfold,” I told Nate.
He placed a soundproof headset on my ears and then a blindfold over my eyes. The fewer distractions to reach my brain in my real body, the better.
It was dark and silent while I waited for a sensation that had become familiar and beautiful to me. The sensation of entering the robot computer.
My wait did not take long. Soon I began to fall off a high, invisible cliff into a deep, invisible hole.
I kept falling and falling and falling. â¦
