Counterattack (11 page)

The morning sun almost blinded me.

It didn't hit my own eyes but one of the four video lenses of the robot parked outside the helicopters.

Beside it was the robot controlled by Ashley. We waved robot arms at each other to confirm we were both in control. Ashley's robot rolled forward.

I followed across the hard-packed sand. For the first time since landing on Earth, I felt like I was in familiar territory. This was no different than traveling across the surface of Mars. To the robot, it didn't feel any different whether the atmosphere around it was oxygen or carbon dioxide.

Or poisonous gas.

Nate had slung a backpack over the right hand of my robot and given me a quick lesson on how to plant the explosive device.

If I made a mistake and blew it up too early at least it would take off the robot's hand instead of my own.

The door blew perfectly. A green cloud of gas mushroomed outward and dispersed well before reaching the helicopter. We'd been right about a booby trap.

Because Nate and Cannon worried about other traps, they had asked Ashley and me to first explore the inside of the Institute with our robots.

It was dark inside, but that didn't matter. Our robots were equipped with infrared. We didn't need light. And Ashley knew exactly where to go.

We didn't discover any more booby traps.

But we did find light switches.

And 23 kids.

They were in a room just down the hallway.

We halted in shock. Large upright cylinders, made of clear plastic, were almost full of what looked like dark jelly. Wires and tubes ran down from the ceiling into each cylinder.

The 23 kids?

They couldn't talk to us. Couldn't wave at us. Couldn't see us. Or hear us. Each was suspended in one of those cylinders of dark jelly. With only their heads above the jelly and with the tubes and wires running down into their bodies.

Although their eyes were closed, they weren't dead. Only unconscious.

The rest of the Institute was empty. They'd been left behind.

Trapped in life-support systems.

CHAPTER 23

“Put me back!” the first kid pulled from a cylinder shouted. “Put me back!”

Another five minutes had passed since first opening the outer door.

Grunt, our pilot, was still with the helicopter. Nate and Cannon had gone ahead of Ashley and me, once we'd disconnected from our robots, and helped one of the kids out of a cylinder. They'd wrapped him in a blanket.

Ashley had followed me to the room. We had arrived just as the kid woke up and started screaming.

“It's okay,” Nate soothed, holding the kid. He was a little bigger than Ashley. His hair was dark and slick where some of that jelly stuff had touched him. “We're friends. We're here to help all of you.”

“Put me back!” the kid yelled. His eyes rolled with panic. “If he knows I'm gone, he'll use the death chip! Put me back! Put me back!”

“Son!” Cannon said, leaning over to touch the boy's shoulder. “Son! We can't help you unless you tell us what is happening.”

The kid's screams changed to pleading. “Please. Hook me up to my robot. He'll see it isn't responding. He'll think I'm refusing to help. And he'll trigger the death chip.”

Ashley stepped forward. “Michael. It's me.” She kneeled down beside him and took his hand.

“Ashley, you're back! They said you were dead.” Then Michael remembered his panic. “Ashley, tell them to hook me up! You know how we work.”

“Michael, we need to know what's happening.” Ashley spoke calmly.

“I don't have time to tell you! My robot is down right now. He'll—”

“Dr. Jordan?” Ashley asked.

“Yes! Yes! All of us. He implanted death chips. That's why we do what he tells us. Right now he might be talking to my robot, and if it doesn't respond—” Michael began to sob with fear—“he'll activate the death chip and something in my heart will explode and …”

Nate spoke urgently to Ashley. “We really need to know what's happening here. If he can't tell us, I don't know what to do.”

Ashley's eyes narrowed. “Michael, what if I hook up to your robot? Dr. Jordan will have no idea that you and I have switched. These men need to learn everything they can from you.”

Michael shivered beneath his blanket. He said nothing for several moments.

Finally he nodded.

“I got to ask you something first,” Cannon said. His voice was down to a whisper. “I've looked at all the other kids, and I don't see him. Where's Chad?”

“Chad?” Michael repeated.

“My son,” Cannon said. “And someone else. Brian. Both about your age.”

“Don't know them,” Michael said slowly. I guessed he could tell how worried the general was. “Chad? Brian?”

Cannon bowed his head. “They've got them somewhere else.”

Nate put a big hand on the general's shoulder. “Remember, as hostages, they are more valuable alive.”

Cannon took a deep breath before lifting his head. “You're right. And here's where we win the first battle in stopping them.” He seemed to grow in strength. “Michael, tell us what you can.”

“About four days ago,” Michael began, “our keepers cleared out of here. Each of us disappeared. Because one by one, they were taking us into this room and hooking us up.”

Behind us Ashley was blindfolded and strapped motionless into a chair we'd found. One of the wires from the ceiling was the contact wire to a computer. It had a plug that fit into her spinal plug. The other tubes from the ceiling hung beside her, slowly dripping liquids.

“Hooking you up?” Nate said, as if he were trying to understand the robot-control system.

“All 23 of these kids are controlling robots through virtual reality,” I explained. “Robots somewhere away from here.”

Michael nodded. “I can't tell you where the robots are, though. I just know that Dr. Jordan is there, supervising us while he waits. But he won't tell us what we're waiting for.”

“If the robots aren't here and nearby,” Cannon mumbled, more to himself than to Michael, “how can they possibly be controlled?”

“Satellite,” I guessed. With my Mars background, I knew a lot about communication technology. “These high mountains are perfect for a transmitter to beam something to a satellite. Signals bouncing at the speed of light from the main computers here could reach anywhere in the world almost instantly.”

Cannon's eyes bugged out. “You're telling me these 23 kids are capable of handling their robots anywhere in the world? From this hidden room here?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I'm afraid that's true.”

“It makes sense,” Nate commented, stroking his now-stubbled chin. Then he pointed at the other cylinders with motionless kids on life support. “What scares me most is how permanent this looks.”

“Permanent?” Cannon asked.

“I'm not a doctor,” Nate answered Cannon, “but I do know that when people are in hospitals for long periods, they have to be shifted in their beds at least three times a day. Otherwise they develop horrible bedsores. This jelly stuff … it looks like that solves the problem. These kids have been set up in a way that no pressure will be put on their bodies. As long as those tubes supply them with nutrients, they will live in the cylinders indefinitely.”

“You can't treat humans like this!” Cannon exploded. “What about sleep?”

“Michael?” Nate asked.

“We all fall asleep at the same time. We all wake up at the same time. And all of us have headaches when we wake. I've talked to some of the other kids—”

“How can you talk to them?” Cannon interrupted. “You're all here, suspended and unconscious on life support.”

“Our robots talk to each other,” Michael said quietly. “Our bodies might not be moving here, but for 16 hours a day we live through the robot bodies, wherever those bodies are. Until we fall asleep again. And when we wake up, we see what the robot bodies let us see.”

“Must give them some kind of sleeping drug,” Nate reasoned. “Drip nutrients through the tubes. And when you want the kids to fall asleep, drip some kind of drug. Measure it right, and they'll wake up eight hours later. If a computer monitors all of this, you don't even need anybody around. Ever.”

Cannon made a fist and punched his other palm. “So they've been left here. Like mushrooms. Too afraid to disobey because if they do, Jordan will activate a death chip that kills them in their bodies here.”

Michael nodded. “It's worse than that.”

“Worse?” Nate asked. “How could this be worse?”

“Here we mostly trained with digging robots. But when they put me in the jelly and I saw through robot eyes on the other side …”

“Yes,” Cannon said with impatience.

“I was handling a soldier robot. Dr. Jordan is training us on how all of its weapons work. I'm not sure anything can stop these robots.”

“Unbelievable,” Cannon exclaimed. “These kids are the perfect military weapons. Hidden and untouchable. They control weapons that can be used anywhere in the world. They—”

Ashley suddenly spoke from her chair. “Tyce! Nate! Get me out of this blindfold. I need to talk.”

Seconds later, Nate had unstrapped her. She yanked off her blindfold and blinked a few times. Shaking her hair, she ran her fingers through it.

“Nate,” she called frantically, “can you unhook one of the other kids and hook up Tyce? I'm going to need his help. I can't stay here any longer and tell you why. I've got to get back to my robot. Strap me in again.”

Without waiting for permission, she pulled her blindfold down again. She slumped back in the chair as she resumed control of her robot.

“Tyce?” Nate asked.

I nodded.

Somewhere in the world was a small army of super-weapon robots. With Dr. Jordan in complete control. I would do everything I could to help Ashley stop him. I wasn't sure how we were going to do it, but I was determined to try. I knew now that Ashley was right. We were the kids' only chance. And now my dad's life hung in the balance too. Even more, what happened in the next 48 hours could change the world—for better or worse.

Five minutes later, I, too, was ready. I was strapped to my wheelchair, blindfolded, and put into a soundproof headset.

I didn't know what was on the other side.

But I was about to find out.

In the darkness and silence, I began to fall … fall … fall. …

CHAPTER 1

Smoke bomb!

The only indication of the explosion had been a small crackle and a flash of blinding light. Instead of shock waves of blasting heat, however, dark smoke instantly mushroomed in the warehouse, blocking all light. And sucking out all oxygen.

Like any human, my body and lungs needed oxygen to survive. As the dense, choking smoke filled my vision, I fought panic. If I weren't seeing this through the eyes of a robot, I'd be dead as soon as my lungs ran short of air.

“Targets! Targets! Targets!” a deep voice yelled from somewhere in the smoke. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Weird, high-pitched hissing sounds whined past my microphones.

More screaming.

Something—or someone—banged into the hard titanium shell of my robot.

By the clank, I knew I'd been bumped into by another robot. Mine was one of nearly two dozen robots in the room. But that was about all I knew.

I'd connected to this robot body only 30 seconds before. Barely enough time to look around and see the small army of other robots.

Thousands of miles away, the nervous system of my own body was plugged in to a computer that allowed me to control this robot through my own brain waves. I had done that plenty—handled a robot—but not like this before.

Because this robot was different. It rode on wheels, like the one I was used to controlling. But this one was much taller, with four arms. Two arms ended with the normal titanium hands that I'd trained with my entire life. Two others ended in round tubes. I had no idea what to do with those tubes.

The weird hissing sounds continued to buzz over-top in the black confusion of the smoke.

“Ten seconds!” the voice screamed. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

I made a mental command to switch to infrared vision, something I should have done the instant the smoke mushroomed.

My robot's controls switched away from visual, and the four video lenses mounted on top of the stem of the robot body blinkered shut.

Temperature sensors gave me instant feedback of my surroundings. What I saw in the shades of blue and orange and red was completely eerie.

The smoke roiled in clouds of cool blue, telling me the bomb had not been a heat detonator nor something intended to explode anything but the smoke. My infrared detected glowing red shapes in the smoke. Human shapes.

“Fifteen seconds! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Around those red human shapes and me was a frenzy of movement, the faintly red outlines of the titanium shells at room temperature. They scurried back and forth in the smoke. Laser shots zipped from their extended arms, piercing the shading of the smoke.