Counterattack (14 page)
“Numbers 17 and 23 were our best students,” Dr. Jordan said. “I'm very puzzled that you had problems with them.”
“They won't make trouble anymore,” Stronsky said. “Nothing like a good shock toâ”
“Go easy on the shock treatment,” Dr. Jordan interrupted sharply. “These kids are worth billions each. They are irreplaceable as military weapons. We must do nothing to endanger their lives. I want you to check them out immediately.”
“Check them out? They're in the trailer withâ”
“Not the robots, idiot. The kids themselves. Run a satellite check and monitor their bodies. I want to make sure all of their body functions are fine.”
If a robot body had blood, mine would have frozen.
I knew what Dr. Jordan didn't. Back on the other side, two of the kids were not on life support anymore. The computer monitor would pick up no vital signs from either of them. Once Dr. Jordan discovered this, he'd have some serious questions about exactly who was controlling the robot bodies of 17 and 23.
“Ashley!” I hissed into the darkness. Her robot was somewhere among the others packed into the back of this truck. “Ashley!”
“Tyce?”
“We have to go back,” I said. “Now!”
Ashley beat me back. More accurately, she was quicker than I was in removing her blindfold and headset. For each of us, all it took to leave robot control was a quick mental shout of the word
Stop!
So, as I lifted my blindfold, she was already standing in front of me, hands poised on her hips in typical Ashley fashion.
She flashed me the grin that always made me feel warm. When she tucked a lock of straight black hair behind her right ear, I saw the flash of her silver cross earring.
Nate and Cannon stood behind her.
“What's happening?” Cannon asked.
“Plenty.” I repeated what I'd heard. “You know they're using a computer to automatically handle the jelly tubes. Stronsky is about to monitor it remotely any minute now.”
“Explain ⦔ Cannon's forehead crinkled with concern. “With everything I've been learning today, I think I can guess. But I learned a long time ago not to make assumptions.”
I could see the spark in Ashley's almond-shaped eyes as she explained for Cannon's benefit. “If signals are being sent from us here off a satellite to the robots, it wouldn't be hard for them to use the same satellite to get information on their end from a computer here.”
She was right. Not too far away, back on the helicopter that had taken us here, was my comp-board. It would be no problem for Dr. Jordan and Stronsky to use one like it to check the computer that ran the life support.
“What's to monitor?” Cannon asked. “I mean, how could they know if any of the kids are disconnected from the jelly cylinders?”
“Brain-wave activity?” I asked.
Michael spoke up. “Through our spinal plugs. We're able to send our brain waves out to control the robots, so I'm sure they'd be able to do it in reverse. If the spinal plug is in place, they might be able to read our brain-wave activity through it.”
All of us glanced at the two empty jelly cylinders and then the others, each filled with a kid on life support. Michael had been in one. Joey, who now watched us carefully, had been in the other.
“Don't put me back in,” Michael begged. “It's horrible. The only thing you can move is your eyeballs.”
“There's only a couple of seconds each day when we reconnect from sleep on this end to the robot on the other,” Joey said, sounding panicked. “Those two seconds ⦠it feels like I'm trapped forever. How can you ask us to go back in and just wait until all of this is over?” He began to cry.
I didn't know what to say. If Dr. Jordan found out what was happening here, we wouldn't have a chance of stopping him. But how could we force these kids back into the jelly cylinders after all they'd been through?
“There's something you should know,” Ashley said to Joey and Michael. “Dr. Jordan told us our parents are alive.” Her voice stopped there, as if she were choking back a sob.
“What!” Joey stopped crying.
Michael's jaw dropped. “Alive?”
“He's using that against us as a threat,” Ashley said. “But once we find a way to stop him, we can look for our parents. Right?”
“He's planted death chips in all of us,” Joey said. “If we don't listen to him, he kills us. And if he dies, the chips are activated automatically. How could we ever stop him?”
“I don't know,” Ashley said. “At least not yet. But I do know the only chance we have is to fool him into thinking you're both still hooked up. Then Tyce and I can go back and do our best.”
Silence.
“Here's something,” I said quietly. “We won't have to put you back in the jelly cylinders. Just get you hooked up again.”
“I'll do it,” Michael said firmly. “Plug me back in.”
“Me too,” Joey said, although he had to take a gulp of air. “For as long as it takes.”
“It shouldn't be long,” I said. I knew the kids were making a big sacrifice, going back to their worst nightmare. “We'll give Stronsky a half hour to run his check on you. But we've got to move fast.”
Cannon and Nate rushed to reconnect both kids.
Ashley stared at the other rows of jelly cylinders. “Tyce,” she said softly, “follow me.”
I rolled my wheelchair forward.
Slowly we passed cylinder after cylinder. Each cylinder showed the darker outline of a kid's body stuck in the dark, thick jelly, with the liquid pushing against the thin clothing they wore. Clear liquids slowly dripped through the clear plastic tubing that had been placed in their veins. I'd once thought Mars food was tasteless. Now I wondered what I'd ever complained about. These kids didn't get to eat a single meal. All the vitamins and nutrients they needed to live long, healthy lives reached their blood directly through the veins in their arms.
Most frightening of all, however, were the faces that we passed. Each kid's eyes were closed, and the wax plugs quivered as their eyeballs moved slightly, as if they were dreaming. Or fighting nightmares.
I heard a slight noise. It took me a couple of seconds to realize Ashley was crying.
“I
hate
this,” she said. “When we were growing up here in the Institute, none of us knew they had
this
in mind for us. They were getting us ready, like cows for slaughter. Except this is worse than death. They can only live through their robots.”
I touched Ashley's hand and gripped it. I hadn't grown up in the Institute, so I couldn't fully feel her pain. But I shared her anger and confusion. How could I help her through what I couldn't understand myself?
Ashley continued to cry quietly. “It seems forever since I left here. It wasn't bad, you know. We thought we were orphans. We were learning to run robots. And none of us knew why. But while I was gone, they put everyone into these cylinders. ⦔ She turned away and swiped at her cheek. “I feel so guilty. If I hadn't been sent to Mars, I'd be in one too.”
It was true. Ashley
had
escaped this fate because she'd been sent to run some secret experiments on the Hammerhead torpedo. One that would have been controlled like any other robot. One that would have given Dr. Jordan and his Terrataker rebels the capability to kill millions. Only Ashley's bravery had stopped him.
“Someone else might not have survived,” I told her. “You did. And returned. It's the only chance the kids have. So if you hadn't been sent to Mars ⦠if you hadn't crashed the Hammerhead ⦠if you hadn't helped us figure out what was happening to the
Moon Racer
⦠It's almost like God planned for you to be here.”
Ashley placed a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks.”
Suddenly she tightened her grip. “Tyce, I don't believe what I see.”
Ashley stared hard into a cylinder.
“I don't believe this.” She moved down the row and stared into another cylinder. Then another. “I really don't believe this.”
Before I could roll forward in my wheelchair and catch up with her, she returned. “I know all the kids I grew up with. We all learned robot controls here, hidden away from the world. Most of us arrived when we were five or six years old. Old enough to remember our parents.”
Ashley drew a deep breath, like she was trying to keep herself from crying again. Then she let the breath out. I could tell she didn't want to talk any more about her parents.
“See, Tyce,” she said, “I think they needed to take us when we were that young. The spinal-plug operations probably won't work on older kids who have already done a lot of their growing.”
That made sense. I knew my own operation had happened before I could remember.
“And if that is true,” Ashley continued, “it makes sense that the younger the kid is, the easier the spinal nerves can grow into the virtual-reality control system.”
“Sounds right.”
“I'm wondering,” she said, “if it's also easier to train kids the younger they are. I was 10 by the time my spinal plug had grown into my nervous system. And after that, it took me a couple of years to learn the robot controls because I kept mixing them up with my own muscle movements.”
“That makes sense too,” I replied. On Mars, I'd spent years and years in virtual-reality training sessions before anyone even told me I was capable of robot control.
“I was afraid of that.” Ashley walked forward a few more paces. I followed.
She pointed at the last few jelly cylinders, the ones she had stared into.
At first, I didn't understand. The jelly was so thick that it hardly let any light into the center, where the kids were suspended.
Then, with horror, I realized what she meant. And what she couldn't believe.
Behind us, all of the kids had been close to her age. Not these kids at the end.
“Ashley,” I said slowly, “these kids here areâ”
“I know everyone in all the other cylinders,” she said. “I know their faces as if we were brothers and sisters. I've never seen these kids before. And they can't be more than eight years old!”
A shiver ran down my spine. She was right. They did look like eight-year-olds. With faces much younger than the kids in the other jelly cylinders. Tiny, innocent faces with eyes closed.
It made me sick. My anger grew until I thought it would burst. Dr. Jordan was treating these kids as if they weren't even human. Like they were cows or monkeys in a test lab. Using them as slaves to do his bidding. Not giving them even the chance to experience life outside a jelly tube. In the early 21st century, all such experiments, even with animals, had been banned. And yet they'd still been going onâwith humans this timeâright under the World United Federation's nose. Worse, the experiment was being run by one of their own top Combat Force people.
I voiced out loud the thought I didn't want to say. “Are you telling me that half the kids you grew up with aren't here? And that they've been replaced by these younger kids you don't know?”
“Yes,” Ashley stated flatly. In the light her face looked a little green.
When we had first arrived in this room, General Cannon had frantically searched all the cylinders, looking for his own son who had supposedly been kidnapped and taken to the Institute. I now understood why he hadn't found him.
“That can mean only one thing,” I said, pointing at the rows of jelly cylinders. “This isn't Dr. Jordan's only army.”
“I think we wait one hour,” Cannon said wearily to Ashley and me. “By then, Jordan and Stronsky should have finished their monitoring. Then it will be safe to unhook those two boys and let you replace them again. We desperately need you controlling robots on the other side. Otherwise we're totally blind to Jordan's operation.”
Cannon's face looked older than it had earlier that morningâbefore we'd found our way into this place in the Arizona desert mountains. As if defeat had taken away his strength. I thought of the younger kids Ashley and I had just left behind us to return to the general. And I thought I understood why he looked so defeated. Another kid. His son, Chad. It must be terrible to think about him trapped in a jelly tubeâsomewhere. And not to be able to find him or get to him.
“General?” I said. “I remember the first thing you did when we got here. You looked for your son. You asked Michael and Joey about him.”
Cannon nodded. “I was hoping so much I'd find him here. ⦔
Some things were slowly beginning to make sense. Dr. Jordan had said all the parents of these kids were in positions of power, so that the kids could be used as hostages. Cannon was in a high position in the Combat Force. And besides the president of the World United Federation, no one in government held a higher position than the supreme governor, who had sent Cannon to help Ashley and me. And he was missing his grandson, Brian.
“I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news,” I said. “But your son may be in another group.”
“Like this?” Cannon's eyes widened.
“I don't know if that group is in jelly cylinders like this one,” I replied, “but it's beginning to look like these aren't the only kids with robot control.”
Once, not very long ago, I'd thought I was the only kid in the solar system wired to handle a robot. Later I'd thought Ashley was the only other kid. Then I'd learned about an entire Institute of kids like us on Earth. So now it didn't seem so impossible that there could be more than one group.
When I paused, Ashley quickly explained that half the kids in these jelly cylinders were strangers to her.
“You're saying that part of this group has been sent away, with replacements added?” the general's voice boomed. “That there are more than 24 kids with robot control?”
