Counterattack (20 page)
I laughed with her, but neither of us laughed for long.
We knew what was ahead.
I could not guess how much time had passed since all the robots had been unloaded into this large storage room. But each second seemed like a year. Ashley and I didn't talkâwe didn't know when one of the robots around us might wake. And we didn't know when Dr. Jordan or Stronsky or both of them would open the storage room door. It was too important now that our identity among the other robots remain a secret.
As we waited, my mind kept going in circles. About the only question that had been answered by the two deliverymen was our approximate location. Our robot bodies were in downtown New York City near the summit meeting. Which meant the targets were definitely the governors of the Federation.
But how did Dr. Jordan intend to get us into the room?
More importantly, when?
The best case would be as late as possible. The brain-wave activity that Ashley and I were sending to these robots was enough transmission for the Combat Force satellites to get the location of Dr. Jordan's receiving satellite. Those three satellites would be in the right positions to triangulate at 7:00 a.m. Arizona timeâ9:00 a.m. New York time. And it would take 20 minutes for the triangulation. If Dr. Jordan didn't intend to attack until after that, Cannon and Nate would be able to get Dr. Jordan's satellite position, then unplug all the other kids before they were hooked up through virtual reality, so every robot in this room would be useless. That would leave me and Ashley to face Dr. Jordan and Stronsky as they opened the door.
But if Dr. Jordan's attack was planned before 9:20 â¦
That's what made waiting so difficult. Thinking about the worst-case scenario.
Cannon would wait as long as possible to unplug the kids, hoping for enough time to triangulate. But he was on a direct cell-phone line to someone he'd sent to join the governors. If these robots somehow managed to breach security and reach the summit, he'd have to pull the plug on each of the kids in the jelly tubes except for me and Ashley. And because they'd be actively connected to the robots through virtual reality, their brains would never be the same.
And Ashley and I would remain in robot control, because if everyone else was unplugged, it was crucial for Ashley and me to continue our brain-wave transmissions for the triangulation efforts.
Worst of all, we'd have to face Dr. Jordan and his death chip activator.
I sure hoped Rawling's theories were right.
I let these thoughts circle through my mind until finally, finally, I heard the sound of robots waking up around me.
Shortly after that, the storage room door opened.
Dr. Jordan and Stronsky stood framed against the light.
“Good morning, boys and girls,” Dr. Jordan said. “Are we all awake and ready for a big day?”
“Last night we had to disconnect the computers to Numbers 17 and 23,” Kurt reported. His robot stood in the hallway, alone with Dr. Jordan and Stronsky. Barely 30 seconds after the door opened, Kurt had raised his robot arm to tattle on us.
“Numbers 17 and 23,” Stronsky repeated.
I was listening to them because I had amplified my hearing. Trouble was, to get their words, the background noise had to be a lot higher too. I could also hear the scratching of cockroaches in the nearby walls, a sound I'd learned, to my disgust, during my time in the Florida prison. “I'm not surprised. Those two gave me trouble during yesterday's training session.”
“Shut up, idiot,” Dr. Jordan hissed. “Don't you understand? If this happened last night, that means the kids weren't asleep.”
His tone changed as he directed his next words to Kurt's robot. “Isn't that right, Number 19?”
“Yes, sir. It was the weirdest thing. Just like that, I popped awake. So I started robot control, expecting to see you. But we were in the back of the trailer. Everyone else woke up, and Ashley started to tell usâ”
“Ashley!” Dr. Jordan interrupted Kurt with fierceness that would have scared a bear protecting her cubs.
“Yes, Ashley. I mean, I know you sent her there to test us to see who would rebel against you. I thought it would be better to make her quiet so that the younger kids wouldn't be tempted to do something stupid. I mean, you asked me to protect them by reporting everything to you.”
There was a long pause. “You did send her, didn't you?” Kurt asked, his uncertainty amplified 100 times in my robot hearing.
I could guess what Kurt was suddenly thinking. Because if Dr. Jordan had not sent Ashley, then it meant Ashley had been telling the truth. She wasn't a traitor to the rest of the kids.
“Of course I sent her,” Dr. Jordan said after the briefest of pauses.
“That's what I thought, sir.” Kurt sounded relieved. If my robot had had teeth, I'd have been grinding them at how badly Kurt was trying to be a teacher's pet. “I have to admit, that Tyce person sounded like the real thing for a second or two. His story about being from Mars fit exactly with what she was telling us.”
Dr. Jordan sucked in a breath. Now I could imagine what he was thinking. That I was supposed to be dead. “Yes, Tyce. So you disconnected their robot computers? Did anything else happen?”
“No, sir. I might have dozed off. Next thing I knew we were all here in this storage room.”
“Thank you, Number 19.”
“I just thought of something,” Kurt added. “You're not going to activate the death chip on them, are you? I mean, if they're secretly working for you ⦔
“Of course not.” I wondered if Dr. Jordan simply meant not while Kurt was watching. Because then Kurt would realize that Ashley and I were enemies of Dr. Jordan.
I heard Kurt's robot wheels squeak against the floor as he turned away. Then another squeak. He'd pivoted back to Dr. Jordan.
“You will remember all my help, won't you?” Kurt asked. “After this is over, you will free me from the cylinder like you promised?”
“Of course,” Dr. Jordan said smoothly. “Just remember to do your best in this next mission. We're almost ready to begin.”
Kurt rolled back to join us.
Dr. Jordan remained in the hallway. He didn't talk to Stronsky. Probably because he was thinking through what he had just learned from Kurt. Among his lies to Kurt was the one that meant the most to Ashley and me.
The one where he had promised Kurt that he wouldn't activate our death chips.
I knew that was a lie for three reasons. One, since he knew that Ashley and I had taken control of a couple of robots here, he also knew that she and I were back at the Institute, thousands of miles away, where the only way he could stop us quickly was by killing us.
Two, he knew from Kurt that Ashley and I had spent part of last night trying to convince all the other kids to help us. Which meant to him that if Ashley and I were still alive and back at the Institute, we would be doing our best to stop him.
And three, he had already tried to kill us a couple of times by other means.
So I waited, wondering what would happen to the heart in my body back at the Institute. Wondering if blinding pain would take me away from robot control. Wondering if I would die in the next 30 seconds.
I did not die in the next 30 seconds. Or the next minute.
Which meant Rawling had guessed right. The first part of his last e-mail to me had been very simple:
Tyce,
I doubt Dr. Jordan would kill the kids in the jelly tubes. He has invested too much time and money in their operations and training. My guess is he wanted to replace some of the older kids with younger ones and ship the older kids somewhere else, so he made it look like he had killed them. It would be easy. Slip some sort of knockout capsule in their food and activate it with everyone watching. Pretend to make them an example and tell everyone that Ashley had betrayed them. I know it will be gambling with your life, but if he really has the power to activate the death chip, you have nothing to lose. I think it's a bluff. There's no such thing as a death chip. Why? Because if Dr. Jordan had really implanted a death chip in you and Ashley, he'd have activated it a long time ago the other times he had tried killing you. I'm sure he is very, very annoyed that he hasn't gotten rid of you yet!
Inside the storage shed, I slowly moved the robot head to look over at the robot that Ashley controlled. She, in turn, had swiveled its head to look at my robot. She nodded slightly. I did the same to her.
We were still alive!
Dr. Jordan stepped into the doorway again to address us. Stronsky was nowhere to be seen.
Now came the difficult part.
Dr. Jordan checked his watch. “In 15 minutes, your targets will be assembled. At that time the computer will arm your lasers. Five minutes after that, you will complete your mission.”
He surveyed the robots. “Your task today will be no different than the way you have trained for this mission. Number 19 will lead you. He will throw a smoke bomb immediately upon entering the room. Switch to infrared and destroy the targets. Thus, in 20 minutes, I want all of them dead.”
“Dead?” This came from robot 9. “This is a virtual-reality mission, right? To prove we can be great soldiers.”
“Yes, yes,” Dr. Jordan said in a soothing voice. He glanced at his watch again. “None of you need to worry about a thing.”
“But it seems you've gone to a lot of trouble andâ”
Dr. Jordan interrupted by pulling a small remote from his pocket and aiming it at Number 9. “Let's see,” he said, staring down at the remote. “I punch in 9 and ⦔
“No!” the kid controlling the robot yelled. “I believe you.”
I desperately wanted to tell the kids it was a bluff. That Rawling had been right. There was no death chip. But if I did that and Dr. Jordan thought he was on the verge of losing control, he himself might use his remote control to shut down the transmission from the satellite. And we still needed time to triangulate. It wouldn't happen without a continuous stream of digital signals bouncing back and forth.
“Let me remind all of you,” Dr. Jordan threatened. “If just one of you disobeys or tries to stop this mission, I will activate the death chip in the heart of every single person here.” He looked carefully at each of the robots. “There are two of you here who know what I mean.”
So he'd guessed that Ashley and I had returned by using different robots!
But he hadn't guessed we knew he was only bluffing about the death chip. So that meant we had a better shot at stopping him from killing the governors at the summit. But would we be able to get the triangulation signal before Cannon unplugged all the kids in their jelly cylinders? If that happened, it would be just like activating a death chip, because some of the kids might die.
“Two of us here know what you mean?” Kurt repeated.
“Oh, shut your whining mouth,” Dr. Jordan snapped. “We're down to 17 minutes. Follow me to the street. Stronsky will take over from there.”
Twenty-one of us rolled our robots as we followed Stronsky down the sidewalk, with hundreds of passersby barely glancing at us. So this was what the truck driver and his assistant had meant about New York. Nothing was new, and nobody was impressed at anything. We could have been invisible, for all the city's reaction to 21 robots rolling in single file.
I glanced around. A bright sun beamed down from a beautiful blue sky. I was hardly used to seeing blue sky as it wasâon Mars the sky is butterscotch coloredâand I realized I hadn't seen much light at all in the last couple of days. Plus, my thoughts had been so filled with stress, it just seemed like the world was dark.
I'd forgotten how amazing a blue sky could look.
And, since I'd never been in a big city before, I was also amazed at the buildings and vehicles and the sheer number of people who ignored us as they flowed around the robots.
The noise was nearly overwhelming. Horns, shouting, sirens.
This was New York City!
I wished badly I could just be a tourist. Not a freak controlling a robot because someone had operated on me when I was little.
But I had to worry about time.
We approached a large public square surrounded by grand buildings, and on one of them, a large clock plainly showed the time. I checked it against my hidden countdown device.
Twelve minutes past nine. The triangulation had begun 12 minutes ago! The three Federation satellites in three different orbits were tracking the transmission beams that came from the mountaintop in Arizona. As soon as they'd been able to gather enough data, they could fire a laser at Dr. Jordan's satellite and knock it out of orbit. All transmissions to these robots would end.
Twelve minutes past nine.
Eight minutes to go.
And what looked like now only five minutes until we reached the building where the Summit of Governors met.
Was there a way Ashley or I could slow down this procession?
As we neared the largest building five minutes later, I relaxed. Twenty armed Federation soldiers guarded the entrance. They wouldn't let us in without a fight. Surely that would take more than a couple of minutes.
That's all we needed. A delay.
Except as we rolled up the wheelchair ramp to the wide doors of the main entrance, the soldiers stepped aside.
One of them saluted Stronsky.
All of the soldiers were on the side of the Terratakers!
We entered with no delay.
Now three minutes and counting â¦
I looked around for Dr. Jordan. That had been the next part of the plan: to take him hostage as we approached the summit. That way he'd be prisoner, and we could hold him long enough for the triangulation to finish.
No Dr. Jordan.
Instead, the robots continued to roll down a wide hallway, with a nice carpet that hushed the sound of our wheels.