Counterattack (21 page)
Where was Dr. Jordan?!
At the end of the long hallway four more Federation soldiers guarded another gleaming door.
We'd get there in less than a minute. But my countdown device showed we needed at least two more minutes for successful triangulation and to disable the satellite. Two minutes. Which we desperately needed. If those soldiers ahead let us through as well, one of two things would happen. The robots would kill the governors. Or back in the desert, Cannon would be forced to unplug the kids in the cylinders while they were still connected, killing or brain-damaging them.
Where was Dr. Jordan?!
All right then,
I told myself.
Take Stronksy.
I sped up the rolling of my wheels and reached him. Grabbing his arm, I spun him toward me.
“What?” he snarled. Few men were bigger than he was, and even fewer carried more muscle bulk. Yet he couldn't shake off my robot's grasp. The machine in my control was five times more powerful than the world's best human soldiers. “Let go!”
“No. Stop all these robots.”
“Have you lost your mind!” he exclaimed. “You want Dr. Jordan activating all the death chips?”
“We both know there are no death chips. Now give the order to stop!” I put my other hand around his throat and applied pressure. “You know the strength these robots have, Stronsky. Your neck will be skinnier than a pencil when I finish squeezing.”
“Tyce, I wondered when you would try your usual cheese-ball heroics. Only this time it won't work.” Dr. Jordan's voice came from a miniature walkie-talkie on a string around Stronsky's massive neck. “Surprised to hear from me? Did you really think I wouldn't find a way to monitor this?”
“Stop the kids,” I said. I squeezed harder and Stronsky grunted. “Or I activate Stronsky's death chip the old-fashioned way.”
“I highly doubt that, Tyce. You haven't got the guts to kill him. Besides, even if you did, you wouldn't be able to stop the robots. They don't trust you, and you don't have enough time to explain.” Dr. Jordan stopped, then addressed Stronsky. “Are you near the summit doors?”
“Ten yards,” he grunted.
“Good. Proceed as planned.”
Even though I had Stronsky by the neck, he waved all the robots forward.
“Stop!” I had to delay them just one more minute.
“Stop?” The squealing protest came from, of course, Kurt, who was running Number 19. “Are you trying to get all of us killed?”
“No, Iâ”
The robots kept rolling forward.
“Really,” Ashley pleaded. “Stop! You don't have to kill anyone!”
None of the robots slowed down.
This was too crazy. We'd actually found a way to stop Dr. Jordan and rescue the kids from the jelly cylinders, but they wouldn't listen. They didn't believe us. And because of it, they were less than a minute away from being unplugged from their robots. It seemed like there was nothing we could do to save them.
The soldiers ahead stepped aside. One of them began to open the door. They too were Terratakers who had infiltrated the Federation army!
A deep voice reached us. I recognized it. It belonged to the old man I'd met in prison. The man my father had been holding at knife-point in the cell. The man I'd found out later was the supreme governor, with the most political power in the world. From where I was in the hallway, I could see his distinguished features at a podium as he spoke into a microphone.
No!
I wanted to shout in frustration. In 30 more seconds, the triangulation would be complete, the transmitting satellite disabled. But Kurt was almost through the doorway, ready to toss the smoke bomb that would lead to the deaths of all these governors. We wouldn't get those seconds!
“Aaaaagh!”
In my panic, I'd forgotten I was still clutching Stronsky by the neck. As my frustration and panic grew, I'd accidentally begun to squeeze harder.
I dropped him. He fell like a sack of dirt.
“You'll never stop us,” he said. “No matter how badly you might defeat us here.”
I wasn't worried at this point about the long-term defeat of the Terratakers. Just about saving the lives of the governors in the room beyond.
I scanned the hallway, desperate for something, anything, that might delay us.
Two things grabbed my attention.
One I was familiar with.
The other I only knew because of what I was able to read in white letters against a red background. It was a lever. And the instructions plainly told me to: Pull in case of fire.
Kurt was a few feet from the door. He lifted his robot arm to toss the smoke bomb. When the supreme governor saw the motion, he stopped speaking.
Once Cannon's observer in the room noticed the robot at the door, Cannon would begin unplugging them!
I was down to less than 10 seconds. Spinning over to the side of the wall, I pulled as instructed.
Immediately a loud clanging echoed through the building. So loud I could barely hear Ashley. That was good. It meant that anyone trying to get a message to Cannon wouldn't be heard either.
But it was also bad. Because if Cannon didn't pull the plugs, these robots would begin killing the governors who were fighting so hard to help the Earth survive its population explosion.
So I had to stop the robots myself.
But I already had a plan for that. Because of the other fire-related thing that had grabbed my attention. I knew exactly what it would do, because it looked just like the ones at the dome. And I knew exactly what it would do to a robot, because once I'd been beneath one at the wrong time.
“Where's the fire?” Ashley shouted.
I pointed at the ceiling. “There!” Aiming my laser, I shouted the mental command,
Kill!
An almost invisible red flash of light fired from my finger and burned a hole in the ceiling. I kept firing, and almost instantly the ceiling burst into flame.
I knew what to expect, so I had already pulled Ashley toward a table at the side of the hallway.
“Help me lift!” I shouted above the clanging of the fire alarm. We needed to keep our transmission going so the triangulation could finish. “And stand beneath it with me! This is our umbrella!”
The fire in the ceiling triggered the sprinkler system.
Water burst out of the pipes. And as the liquid hit the robot bodies below, they began to topple. The water caused their electric currents to short-circuit. When it had happened to me, back on Mars, I'd awakened with nothing worse than a horrible headache. And that was sure better than brain damage.
Water continued to gush downward, pouring off the table Ashley and I used to protect our robot bodies.
The last of the other robots fell around us.
“It's finished,” I said to Ashley. “At least for now.”
Cannon snapped his cell phone shut and turned to me. “They've got Stronsky, but no sign of Dr. Jordan.”
“Jordan had been communicating with Stronsky by audio,” I said. “Even though he left when the countdown was at 15 minutes, if he was in a car he could have been miles away while Stronsky led the robots to the summit.”
“Miles away?” Cannon shook his head. “More if he'd left in a helicopter. By the time we got it all cleaned up, he could have made it to a space shuttle and been halfway into orbit. He was like a ghost commander. Untouchable while he sent his army in.”
It had only been eight hours since the robot attack in New York City. Already, it seemed to me like it had never happened. I was in my wheelchair, here in the desert mountains of Parker, Arizona, under a clear blue afternoon sky. It was a world away from the noise and pollution of New York City, where the Combat Force was loading the robot bodies into a truck.
“There's going to be a lot to clean up back there,” Cannon said, as if he were reading my thoughts. “Including the Terratakers' penetration of the World United Federation. We knew that some soldiers had turned against us, but all those guards ⦔
I heard Cannon's words, but I was only half listening. My attention had turned to the kids now stepping out into the sunlight. Nate and Ashley had been helping them out of the jelly cylinders while I gave my report to Cannon.
The kids were dressed in clothes that Ashley had found in one of the rooms down a hallway in the Institute. They staggered slightly as they followed Ashley toward the helicopter. I understood why they staggered. I remembered the headache I'd had when my own robot was doused with water back on Mars. And they were probably weak, too, since they'd been in the jelly cylinders for six days, unable to use their own muscles.
Some of the smaller kids, though, found the energy to run and giggle as they pointed to the sky. That, too, I understood. They were free. From their jelly cylinder prison and from Jordan's manipulation.
“Tyce,” Cannon began, then stopped as his cell phone rang. “Hang on.” He answered.
I waved at Ashley.
She waved back. One of the bigger kids tapped her on the shoulder. She nodded at him and pointed at me. They both walked straight toward me as Cannon stepped away to speak on his cell phone.
“Tyce,” Ashley said as she and the kid neared me in my wheelchair, “this is Kurt.”
Kurt smiled, showing straight rows of strong, white teeth. He was much taller than Ashley. With his blond hair smoothed back, he looked like a young movie star. That made me dislike him even more.
“Hey,” he said kindly. “Glad to meet you. Ashley tells me it's true. You
were
born on Mars.” He stuck his hand out to shake mine.
I ignored it.
“Tyce?” Ashley frowned. “Don't be like that. Kurt was just trying to protect the other kids. He really couldn't know we were telling the truth when he got them all to unhook our robot computers.”
Kurt held his hand out, keeping his smile in place.
“I've got no problem with that,” I snapped back. “But ask him about his little deal with Dr. Jordan.”
“Deal?” Kurt arranged his face into a puzzled expression.
“Helping out Dr. Jordan so you could be released earlier.”
“I doubt it,” Kurt said. But his smile now became uncertain.
“I don't.”
“Tyce,” Ashley said soothingly, “are you sure? You two didn't get off to the best of starts andâ” She stopped.
My face felt like it was set in stone as I stared at her. She saw the anger in my eyes. She knew I was telling the truth. I'd tell her all of it later.
“Oh,” she said. She took a small step away from Kurt and a step closer to me. She rested her hand on my arm as I continued to speak.
“The triangulation worked,” I said. “It located 10 other pods, and the Federation immediately sent jets with soldiers to each location. From what I've learned from Cannon, there has been no resistance. All the kids are being rescued as we speak.”
“That's good news,” Kurt said, trying to get back into the conversation. “Boy, if it wasn't for you ⦔
He didn't notice that Ashley was looking at him as if he were covered with dead skunk.
“What I'm getting at,” I continued, speaking to Ashley, “is that the general has already talked about letting the kids spend a few months with their parents, then sending any of the families who volunteer to Mars. For two reasons. Once all of this makes the news, people on Earth will see them as the soldiers that Dr. Jordan tried to make them. And with all of us able to work our robots on the surface of Mars, we can speed up the settlement project by decades.”
“Good, good,” Kurt said smoothly. “Count me in.”
“Not a chance,” I retorted. I turned my head and spoke to Ashley. “The general has already asked me if I'll take a leadership position among all of us who can handle robots. Which I've accepted. And that means my first request is that Kurt does not go to Mars. In fact, when I told the general about Kurt and Dr. Jordan, Cannon said he'd make sure that Kurt never handles another robot as long as he lives.”
Finally Kurt's smile faltered. He tried to speak, but Cannon interrupted. “Tyce, Ashley.”
I rolled away, and Ashley followed.
“All of the units have reported successful missions,” Cannon said. “Out of the 10 pods, 9 were similar to this. Kids in jelly cylinders.”
“The tenth?” I asked.
“Empty,” Cannon said. He let out a breath. “And they still haven't found Chad. Or Brian. They're somewhere, with that missing pod.” He put his hand on Ashley's shoulder. “We're going to do our best to find your parents for you. And the same with Tyce's father. But I may need your help over the next few weeks. Both of you.”
“Sir?” I said. All I wanted was to find my father.
“Early indications have given us a hint of where that pod might be.” He paused. “Will the two of you go to the Moon?”
You've probably noticed that the question of God's existence comes up in Robot Wars.
It's no accident, of course. I think this is one of the most important questions that we need to decide for ourselves. If God created the universe and there is more to life than what we can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch, that means we have to think of our own lives as more than just the time we spend on Earth.
On the other hand, if this universe was not created and God does not exist, then that might really change how you view your existence and how you live.
Sometimes science is presented in such a way that it suggests there is no God. To make any decision, it helps to know as much about the situation as possible. As you decide for yourself, I'd like to show in the Robot Wars series that many, many peopleâincluding famous scientistsâdon't see science this way.
As you might guess, I've spent a lot of time wondering about science and God, and I've spent a lot of time reading about what scientists have learned and concluded. Because of this, I wrote a nonfiction book called
Who Made The Moon
? and you can find information about it at
www.whomadethemoon.com
. If you ever read it, you'll see why science does not need to keep anyone away from God.