Cerberus: A WOLF IN THE FOLD (38 page)

 
"Kabash leaves, a substance about which, if I remember, you also know something."

 
"Oh."

 
I got the picture. This was the stuff that forced a transfer if anybody else in the area had it or was receptive. Samash was wheeled into the other room, and soon Merton and the techs all emerged. "Give him, say, an Aour," she said confidently. "I'll call you."

 
And with that, w$ were dismissed.
As before, we were fed, and very nicely, too.

 
"I'm still worried'about all this," Dylan commented.

 
"Want more?" I told her about my fears of Merton.

 
She sighed. "Well, we did our best, right?"

 
"We'll see. It isn't over yet."

 
An hour or so later we
were
called back and found.the lab the same except that now the great giant seemed to be sleeping on the table in .the center. Of the old body I saw nothing, and guessed it had died from lack of interest.

 
Even though the giant robot was sleeping, there was
no doubt that there was a
person
inside it now. It looked natural and normal; somehow even its sleeping face was filled with an indefinable
something
that had not been there before.

 
"Wake him up," Laroo ordered.

 
Dr. Merton and the two assistants stood back, and there was a sudden, almost deafening cymbal-like sound all around. It subsided quickly, and Merton called, "Samash! Wake upl"

 
The body stirred, and we stepped back to the wall and held our breath. Even the Laroos seemed extremely tense.

 
Samash's eyes opened, and the face took on a puzzled look. He
groaned,
a deep bass, shook his head, and sat up on the cart and looked around. "Wha—what happened?" he managed.

 
"Look at yourself, Samash," Laroo told him. "See what you've become! See what I have given you!"

 
Samash looked and gasped, but seemed to realize instantly what had happened. He jumped off the cart, stretched, smiled, and looked around,
a.
slight- smile on his face. I didn't like the looks of that smile.

 
"Samash, I am Wagant Laroo. Activation Code AJ360."

 
The giant hesitated a moment as if puzzled, then started to laugh.

 
"Samash, Activation Code AJ3^>!" Lartte repeated uneasily.

 
Samash stopped laughing and started looking mean and irritated. He turned and pointed to goatee. "I don't take orders from you," he sneered. "Not any more. I don't take orders from nobody! You don't know what you did, Laroo! Sure, I know what Activation Code AJ360 means. But it
don't
mean nothin' to me. Not me. You fouled up this time, Laroo." He turned, ignoring us all, and said to
himself
, aloud, "You don't know the feeling! The power! Like a
god!"
He turned back to goatee. "Greater than you'll ever know, Laroo, whichever one of you you really are. You're
through
now!" With that he lunged for the five Laroos.

 
"Protect me!" screamed the teenage girl we'd rightly fingered, real panic in her voice—and to our shock the other four, plus Merton and the two assistants, all leaped upon the giant with almost bunding speed. In seconds they had pinned him to the floor.

 
"Oh, my God!"
Dylan breathed. "They're
all
robots!"

 
The girl—Laroo, the real one—stepped nervously to the far wall and tripped the intercom. "This is Laroo.
Security on the double!"

 
On the double was right: we were suddenly flooded with National Police as well as Bogen, arms drawn.

 
"Stand away from him!" Bogen shouted. "Let him up!" - •

 
As quickly as they were on him, they were off. Then it took only a split second for Samash himself, in one motion, to get to his feet and charge Bogen and the NPs.

 
He never had a chance. As lightning-fast as he was, they were even faster. Beams shot out, covering the giant's body. It was an incredible display, since any one of those beams would slice steel in two and burn, melt, or disintegrate almost anything we knew—and all they did was stop Samash. No, not even stop him, exactly— just slowed him to a crawl. He was almost at them, but they kept firing and stood their ground—and suddenly you could see the beams finally taking effect

 
There was a sudden, acrid smell. Samash stopped, looked surprised and more confused than anything, and then, with a bright flash that almost blinded us, ignited and melted down into a horrid little puddle of goo. At the moment of ignition, all weapons stopped firing at the same moment, so no beam went astray—an incredible ^display.

 
"All of
them," Dylan was saying.
"Even Merton and Bogen and the cops.
All
of them."

 
"Except her," I noted, pointing to the still frightened face of the teenaged girl. "That's Wagant Laroo for today."

 
Laroo regained some of his—-her—composure.

 
"Yes, that's right. All the important people on the island are robots," she admitted. "Normally only two of my
party are
, but I didn't want to take any chances this time. You can see why."

 
I nodded. "But you took one anyway. He almost got you, even after taking enough blast to melt the Castle."

 
She nodded nervously. "Well have better precautions next time. I really didn't quite, expect that"

 
"Well? What did you expect?" Dylan asked caustically. "You're not exactly the most popular person on Cerberus, you know, and you suddenly gave the old guy tremendous power and a real shot at you."

 
"Enough for now!"
Laroo snapped. "Get out of here, you two! Go back upstairs until I call for you again."

 
//
you need us again,
you mean, I thought grumpily.

 
"Well, at least we proved the system works, I think," I noted, and both of us exited at that line, carefully stepping around the NPs, Bogen, and the still smoldering pile of goo.

 
"How
did
they stop him?" Dylan wondered later that evening.

 
"I suspect they trained a bunch of different weapons at different settings on him," I told her. "His cells kept compensating for one kind of charge and he was finally faced with too many contradictory conditions to fight at one time. One got through, damaged something vital, and triggered the self-destruct in the cell units."

 
She shivered. "It was horrible."

 
"I don't think we'd have liked Samash, either," I pointed out.

 
"No, not that.
The fact that Aey're all robots.
Even that nice Dr. Merton."

 
"I know. Even 7 didn't think of that, which shows how paranoid he really is. And damn it, they're so stinking
real!
Bogen, Merton—they were real people.
Natural, Understandable.
They looked, talked, acted just like normal people." I shivered a bit.
"My God!
No wonder they haven't found a defense against these things!"

 
"So now what
do we
do?" she asked.

 
I sighed. "We relax, get some sleep, and find out if we still wake up in the morning."

 
We
did
wake up and were served an excellent breakfast to boot. It was a good sign. After we ate, dressed, and cleaned up a bit we were summoned back down to the lab. Laroo had not changed bodies and was alone now, except for Merton, Bogen, and a figure we both recognized.

 
"Sanda?"
Dylan called.

 
She saw us and smiled. "Dylan! Qwin! They told me you were here! What's this all about? I don't remember anything since I went to sleep last night back in Medlam."

 
Dylan and I both suddenly froze, the same idea in our heads, and Sanda, sensing something wrong, stopped too, her face falling and looking a little puzzled. "What's the matter?"

 
I turned to Laroo. "You did it anyway." She shrugged. "She
was ,
here, prepped and available. We decided to see if Dr. Merton's process would work from what we took off of you."

 
"I gather it didn't, or we wouldn't still be here," I noted.

 
Sanda looked genuinely bewildered.
"Qwin?
Dylan? What's all this about? What are you talking about?"

 
"That's quite enough, Sanda," Laroo told her wearily. "Go report to housekeeping on the third level."

 
Suddenly Sanda's manner changed. She forgot about us and her
bewilderment,
turned to Laroo and bowed. "As you wish, my lord," she said,
then
walked out. Our eyes followed her in stunned amazement.

 
"How does it work, Laroo?" I asked. "I mean, what does the programming we're canceling
say?"

 
"You don't know? Basically it states that you love, admire, worship, or whatever whoever gives you the activation
code,
and that you wish to serve only the wishes of that person or that person's designated agents. It's sort of an emotional hook, but it's unbreakable. They genuinely love me."

 
"Surely you don't activate all of them yourself!"
"Oh, no.
But if one of my own robots is the activator, it works out to the same thing, you see.
Complicated, though.
Takes a computer to remember who loves whom."

 
"Well, I gather your process doesn't work in recording, anyway," I said, relieved,
then
turned to Dylan. "Don't worry about Sanda. She's still all there. She's just finally in love with somebody else."

 
Laroo sighed. "Well, we've done what we could. Merton assures me that the language is still gibberish. There's no reason why it shouldn't record and work—but it doesn't. We tried it out not only on Sanda but on three others, varying various factors. It didn't work with any of them. I sadly have to admit that I need you," ^

 
Back to my move,
I thought, and
thank you,
Dr.
Dumonia or whoever.

 
"Ready now to take the plunge yourself?"
Dylan asked Laroo.

 
She nodded. "But I'll need a half-hour or so in prep. However, I want to warn you—both of you.
Any
funny business, anything wrong with my programming, even accidentally—
anything
—and you won't live a moment
My
robots will tear you to pieces, slowly."

 
"There won't be any double-cross," I assured her. "We have some stake in
this
ourselves, remember. We're the only two people who
can't
become those robots—and as such, we need you for new bodies at the proper time. It's an even trade."

 
"It better be." It was that little girl's voice, but that same threatening tone was there.

 
We waited anxiously for the prep.

 
To our surprise, the body Laroo had chosen was rather nondescript. Average in almost all respects—civilized world standard, male, nothing exceptional, wouldn't stand out in a crowd. *"

 
"Still, it makes sense," I told Dylan. "The last thing he wants is to attract attention to
himself
."

 
"It's not too bad," Dylan said critically. "Looks a little like you, really."

 
"Thanks a lot."

 
In a short time the girl's body was wheeled in by Bogen and the two attendants, and off into the back room. We wasted no time at all giving the jolt to the selected body on the helmet machine, and watched that body get the same hand-truck treatment to the back.

 
I spent the time looking around the lab, asking Merton a few mane and useless questions and taking in what I could. Something bothered me. Laroo had given in too easily, even considering the stress.
Particularly after last night.
Something just felt
wrong.
It was a while, though, before I figured out what it
was
and whispered to Dylan.
"Another trick.
Don't fall for it"

 
She frowned and whispered back so low I could barely hear, "How do you know?"

 
"Those were cameras up there yesterday, I'm sure. Now they're laser cannons."

 
"You sure they weren't there before?"

 
"Sure. Otherwise they'd have used them on golden boy. They can track anything in the lab on those camera mounts."