MBryO: The Escape (3 page)

“So you live here all alone?” Melara quizzed. “Or are there others?”

“Except for Stanley and the other robots that keep the bunker running I am the only remaining humanoid being on the planet,” he told her.

“Is there is no way off this rock?” Joshua asked telepathically.

“Not that I have found,” Pax returned.

“Don’t you at least have a shuttlecraft or a terrain-hopper?” Sasha asked incredulously.

“Are you referring to the ship you came here on?”

“Among others,” Joshua intoned.

“No, I have no space craft. I travel by zip line.”

“But you mentioned landing bays, so am I correct in thinking there might be some tools or parts stored there?” William intoned.

“We could check it out anyway…right?” Joshua asked.

“Be my guest,” Pax told him. His native language, long unused, was beginning to return. “As the old Terrans used to say, ‘make yourselves at home’. You are welcome to stay here as long as you need to.”

“Well, on the bright side,” Melara said tiredly, “we should be safe here for a while. MBryO doesn’t know where we are.”

“Father will just keep looking until he finds us!” William stated with the sure knowledge he had gained at the hands of a tyrant such as MBryO.

“But crashing here on Nyla 6 might have bought us some time. Maybe we can come up with a plan to outwit Father and destroy MBryO once and for all.”

“And then we must rescue as many of our brothers and sisters as we can!” Joshua added hopefully.

“Joshua and I will begin working on the shuttlecraft in the morning,” William told her. “We set her down as gently as we could, but she was too heavy for us to land in one piece.”

“That sounds like a good idea William,” Melara smiled proudly. “You all did a wonderful job landing the ship without any of us being seriously hurt.”

“Why does this MBryO want to harm you?” Pax inquired.

The question went unanswered as the louvered doors swung open.

“You guys should really see the food prep center,” Ian exclaimed following Stanley back into the room and flopping down on the couch beside Melara.

The golden robot set two large trays loaded with food and beverages on the coffee table. “There’s this machine that turns brown packages into food. It can replicate anything you want.”

As Pax watched the young telepaths reached hungrily for the thick cheeseburgers and bottles of root beer. Stanley had added a collection of raw vegetables and julienned potato chips. Their mental chatter echoed through the portals of his mind bringing a smile of pure pleasure to his normally grim face.

So this was what friendship felt like? For the first time since his parents had died he did not feel alone. This rag-tag group of telepaths had absorbed him into their unit as if he had been born to it. Pax knew that he would die before giving human contact up again.

And he had a feeling that it might come to that. This MBryO sounded like a monster. He could be bad business.

But so was Pax when it came to taking care of what was his. And when this group had crash landed on Nyla 6 they had involved him in their situation whether they knew it or not.

His dark gaze collided with Joshua’s across the noisy room. The two linked telepathically, while deliberately blocking their thoughts from the others in the room.

With mutual resolve they agreed to do everything in their power to keep the others safe at all costs. Even if it meant killing the monster known as MBryO!

The next afternoon Pax led Joshua and William across the valley to the crash site. They intended to assess the damage before attempting to move the shuttle to one of the open landing bays. All three carried blasters and tool boxes.

Pax slowed the zip line just inside the shadow of the canopy and waited. He didn’t think the eughi was still hanging around but he didn’t want to take any chances.

“Okay!” he said aloud. “Let’s go! But keep your eyes and ears open. Eughi aren’t the only danger on Nyla 6.”

“We will be careful,” William assured him silently.

Joshua pushed the button that lowered the zip cage his blue gaze searching the underbrush for signs of intruders. Pax readied his blaster as the three approached the downed ship carefully.

“It is worse than I thought!” Joshua thought broodingly, surveying the damage to the fuselage.

“It will certainly require major work to get her back in the air,” William agreed.

“And that is if we can find the parts we need,” Joshua added.

Pax walked away from the duo to the edge of the small clearing at the rear of the space craft. His dark gaze searched the lakeside while the duo assessed the damage. It would be a huge mistake to relax their guard down here on the valley floor. There was safety in the canopy.

Melara and the others had settled in the night before. The females and Ian had chosen the apartment next to his. Joshua and William had taken the unit on the other side of them.

He and Ian had taken a trip to the robotic department that morning. The boy had been beside himself with excitement at all the deactivated systems housed there. Pax had archived the retinue of serving ‘bots when his parents died. Once or twice a year, when the dust got too bad in the bunker, he used the ‘bots to restore order. Then back into the storage area they went until he needed them again.

Stanley was the only exception. He had been assigned to Pax’s family from the beginning. Deactivating Stanley was out of the question. Stanley was family.

With Ian’s delighted help three service ‘bots now took care of the occupied apartments. Pax figured the robotic department would become Ian’s favorite hangout from now on. He seemed to be enthralled with all things computerized.

Early that morning, Melara Sivanza and Sasha had gravitated to the science lab on the bottom floor next to the medi-doc. Sasha had erected a wall that blocked her telepathic responses from the men. Both females were being closed mouthed about their interest in the lab. But the males were too busy with their own objectives to pay attention to them.

Not so Pax! Anything to do with the beautiful Melara Sivanza interested him.

He had taken Joshua and William on a tour of the three shuttle bays. The facility’s docking bay was built into the top of the mountain. The other two garages were equipped with tools and equipment needed for the everyday maintenance of the bunker’s machines.

“Pax?” William sent a probe across the crash site, trying to pinpoint Pax’s location.

“I am here!” Pax called.

“We have seen all we need to. We must figure out a way to move the shuttle to the bunker. We require access to the tools there.”

“The bunker is just ten minutes away by zip line. Traveling along the valley floor, however, would take much longer. Even if we used the heavy machinery we will need a day or two at the least,” Pax told the teen, mentally calculating the distance between the bunker and the crashed spaceship.

“We’ve done all we can do here for the day,” Joshua said as he and William met Pax by the zip cages. “Let’s get back to the bunker. Maybe we can come up with a plan.”

“Yeah…maybe Stanley can find us some more of those burgers and root beer,” William said grinning at the prospect.

“Burgers and root beer it is!” Pax grinned back, pushing the button to raise the cage.

Soon they were soaring high above the forest canopy toward the bunker.

There were signs of life all over the normally silent bunker when Pax stepped out of the lobby elevator. Service drones of various shapes and sizes were hard at work vacuuming and dusting. The red, yellow and green lights on top of their domed shaped heads blinked in synchronized time with the shrill bleeps and whistles they used to communicate with each other.

Life-sized, gold skinned chore ‘bots were scurrying around the lobby intent on carrying out various assignments.

Across the lobby the trio spotted Ian’s blonde head buried inside in the back of a female robot. He was working on the robot’s control panel with a palm sized soldering iron. He rose up at their approach and gave them a satisfied grin.

“You have been busy,” Pax commented silently.

“Aren’t they wonderful? It seemed a shame for them to just sit around gathering dust. They were created to work. They need to be busy, don’t you think?”

“You seem to have a knack for working with the service ‘bots Ian.”

“A predisposition for knowledge of service computers was included in my genetic design. It was what I was created to do,” Ian replied seriously.

“MBryO selected different predispositions for each of his children,” Joshua added. “He hard wired each of us with a preference or talent for certain occupations.”

“I suppose that is why William is so at home in the science lab. But what did he give you?” Pax asked Joshua curiously.

“My father manipulated certain strands of my DNA to increase my talent for levitation and telekinesis. I can manipulate objects through space, move things with my mind,” he replied. “When my siblings and I are linked telepathically, we are incredibly strong.”

“That’s how you landed the shuttlecraft…levitation?”

“Yes,” Ian went back to working on the service ‘bot and the others moved toward the lobby elevators.

Once inside Pax pushed the button for the residential quarters. “It was the biggest thing we have ever attempted. Even when MBryO made us perform different experiments in the lab, we never attempted anything that large.”

“And Sasha? What is she gifted with?” queried Pax.

“Sasha is MBryO’s greatest creation of all. He will stop at nothing to get her back,” William told him.

“You might have noticed that she alone has the capacity to communicate her thoughts aloud,” Joshua pointed out quietly. “The rest of us are unable to verbalize. We are telepathic.”

“And that is why he finds her so valuable? She has verbal speech abilities?” Pax was confused. It seemed to him that telepathy was a far greater accomplishment than merely being able to talk.

“Sasha is the finest example of a cloned human being!” William informed him. “She is sentient, empathic! She can feel! Therefore she has emotions…true emotions!”

“The rest of us do not!” Joshua added. “To feel satisfaction in the performance of our talent is about the extent of our ability.”

“It is the intention of our father to clone the next generation of super humans, using samples from Sasha’s genetic strands. He does not care that the extraction process will, in all probability, end her life,” added William.

“MBryO drones will stop at nothing to find us,” Joshua added. “We must be very careful Pax Vitar!”

Soberly, the three entered Pax’s apartment.

Stanley was zipping happily around the living quarters dusting and…humming!

Surprised at the almost human sound coming from the robot Pax simply stopped and listened. He had never heard any of the service ‘bots hum before. Stanley seemed…almost happy! The louvered doors swung open and a very pretty dark haired maid walked out with a tray of soft drinks.

“I took the liberty of ordering for you sir,” Stanley told him, holding his duster aloft as the three set down tiredly.

“You sure do seem to be in a good mood, Stanley,” Pax teased the aging robot gently.

Stanley looked adoringly at the retreating back of the young maid. “It is always good to have companionship, sir.”

“I couldn’t agree more!” Pax told him with a knowing grin. He reached for one of the frosted glasses and tossed back a third of it in one thirsty gulp.

Pax looked back at the two young men sitting in front of him. “So why is emotion important? It seems to me emotions would get in the way of performance.”

“The ability to feel emotion is the biggest difference between humans and robots!” William explained. “The objective of our father’s research has always been to create a human being with emotions. Sasha is the culmination of that research.”

“MBryO has had many failures,” Joshua told him obliquely. “To date, Sasha is his one success! He is very ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants. He will stop at nothing to get her back.”

“He will eventually find us!” William added confidently. “He is a very smart man. He will not let anyone stand in his way. His will do his best to eliminate any and all opposition.”

“If he tracks us here then we will need the shuttlecraft to escape,” Joshua added.

“Do not worry. Nyla 6 is my home. I have no intention of letting this MBryO discover the bunker or harm you. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“For the time being, we must come up with a plan to move the ship to the bunker so that we can make the necessary repairs,” Pax told them. “Then we will work on finding a way to protect you!”

Melara and Sasha spent the morning in the chem lab on the third floor of the bunker.

The service ‘bots had been scurrying around since dawn getting everything in order. The place had not been used in several decades…if ever! There was a layer of dust on the bevy of beakers and vials spread out on the counters.

Boxes of Bunsen burners and a centrifuge sat on a laboratory table unopened. Sasha was in her element putting the lab together. She was currently inventorying one of many storage compartments filled with chemical supplies.