Counterattack (18 page)

And so that we could talk here through our robot bodies, instead of back at the Institute with the general listening.

“If Dr. Jordan finds out, he'll activate the death chip!”

“We won't let him find out,” I answered. “This is our only chance to stop him and—”

“Stop him? Are you crazy? We can't stop him!”

Those words hung in the air. Until someone else asked another question. “Who are you anyway?”

“He's my friend,” Ashley said.

“Well, who are you?”

“Ashley, speaking through Number 23.”

Immediately buzzing filled the inside of the trailer as all the robots began to speak at once. It only ended when another robot shouted for silence.

“Let me through,” the robot insisted when the other voices quieted. “I'll speak for all of us.”

There was more clanking and rolling as the robots moved with difficulty. Through the bluish haze, I saw one robot push forward until it reached Ashley's and mine.

“Ashley,” the robot said. The voice was not friendly. “This is Kurt speaking. I see you're back.”

“Kurt!” Ashley responded. She sounded friendly. A little
too
friendly for my liking. “I missed you! But I couldn't say anything before when Stronsky was around. Let me tell you though, if robots could hug, I'd hug you.”

Missed him? Hug?
Now I definitely didn't like the friendliness in her voice.

“I wouldn't let you hug me,” Kurt retorted through his robot. “Not after what you did. Did you get them to fake your death after you escaped?”

“Me?”

“Don't play dumb. What did you two do now—kill Michael and Joey to take their places?”

“What!”

“I guess two more deaths wouldn't matter to you.” Kurt sounded bitter. “After all, because of you, half of us got to learn from the other half how the death chips work. And because of you, a bunch of new kids had to replace that first half.”

“Half? Killed? Death chips?”

“The half who had agreed with you to try to escape. Stronsky told us what you did. Gave him their names so you could be set free and leave the rest of us behind. But he told us you'd been killed too, which made us all very happy.”

“What!” Ashley sounded like she was in shock. “That's not true. I had no choice. Dr. Jordan took me away.”

“More like he brought you back to spy on us again,” Kurt threw back.

“No! Dr. Jordan took me to the Mars Dome. He—”

“Mars,” Kurt interrupted. I heard a sneer in his voice. “
Right.
Most of Earth knows the
truth
about the Mars Dome.”

Much as I wanted to punch this robot with my own titanium fists, I simply asked, “Which is?”

“There's no Mars Dome. It's all a fake. Every time the Federation wants to keep people happy about sucking the world's resources, they bring out new footage showing progress on Mars. But we all know it's some computer-generated images that any Hollywood producer could put together.”

“I see,” I said.

“You do?” Again, I sensed the sneer that could not be hidden through a robot's speakers. “And who exactly are you? I mean, being Ashley's friend isn't a good thing.”

“Me? I was the first kid born on Mars.”

Kurt laughed, and other robot laughter grew behind him.

Although I knew better—that one robot punching another would not prove much—emotion won. I raised my fist.

Ashley stepped between us. “Listen,” she insisted, “there will be time to sort this out later. And when we're done, you'll see that Tyce and I are telling the truth. For now, though, we have to work together.”

“Why?” Kurt asked loudly. “Even if we could trust you, why should we risk our lives and work against Dr. Jordan and Stronsky? You heard what he said today about our parents.”

“Whenever this truck gets to where it is going,” I said, “they are going to use us as an army.”

“We know that.” The sneer again. “It's just some more training. In some sort of virtual-reality war game.”

“Not a game,” I said. “You'll be shooting real people. The governors of every country of the world. Dr. Jordan wants us to destroy their summit meeting and start a new world war.”

“Ha-ha,” Kurt said. “You and Ashley make quite a pair. First you've been to Mars, and now we're going to start a world war.”

“Maybe we should listen to them,” a voice in the back said.

“Really,” Kurt said sarcastically. “So Dr. Jordan can get a new list of the rebels among us? So he'll activate a bunch more death chips? So our parents will be killed?”

I jumped in because I didn't want to allow anyone to answer. “We can prove we're telling the truth.”

In the blue haze, robot heads swiveled my way.

“Why don't a few of you jump out of robot control and go back?”

“Back?” came a voice. This one sounded afraid. “I'd rather be asleep than wake up back in the jelly cylinder. I can't see or hear, and my body feels so trapped.”

“What's your answer to
that
?” Kurt said.

“Simple. Those of you who go back just call out for help. General Cannon and a guy named Nate will help you take off the wax over your eyes and ears so you can see and hear. Then you'll see Michael and Joey. You'll know they're alive. And the general and Nate will tell you why we need to stop Dr. Jordan.”

“Fine then,” Kurt said. “We'll do that.” He spoke to everyone else. “I need three volunteers.”

He got them.

It took less than a minute for all three to return to controlling their robots.

“Kurt,” the first one said, “these two are lying to us.”

CHAPTER 15

“Lying?” I raised my robot arms in protest. “Impossible.”

“No one came,” the first kid said. “I screamed for help. No one came. It was horrible, feeling my body stuck there. Like a spider had me all wrapped up. I was blind and deaf. Finally I came back here. At least when I control my robot, my brain doesn't feel like it's stuck in a black box.”

The other robot voices began to babble again.

“Silence!” Kurt shouted.

As the truck roared down the highway, the voices died down.

“Do you other two agree?”

They both said yes. No one had helped them.

“And that from three of us who have no reason to lie,” Kurt put in. “Because if there was a chance to be rescued, we would take it. Three of us against two of them. We know Ashley already turned traitor against us. And a friend of hers is probably an enemy of ours.”

I could hardly believe this. We were their only hope, and yet there was nothing Ashley and I could do to get them to believe us.

“I would say,” Kurt continued, “that it's obvious what we should do.”

“No,” Ashley protested. “Listen to me. I was sent to Mars. I was supposed to test a space torpedo called the Hammerhead. But it was intended to kill millions of people. So instead I crashed it into one of the moons of Mars. Then Tyce came back with me to help find you guys. Dr. Jordan, who was in a prison on the ship, took over the computer and escaped in a pod. He had programmed the spaceship to crash into the sun, but we …” Her voice trailed off as she realized how crazy it must sound to the other kids.

“Ha-ha,” Kurt answered. “This isn't story time, you know. And we're not stupid.” Then he spoke to the other robots. “You know what Stronsky promised when we began training in these war games. Once we prove ourselves to Dr. Jordan, he's going to let us show the entire world what we can do. Then people will know that armies like ours can protect them. We'll be heroes.”

Some of the kids cheered at this.

Kurt paused. “Not only will we be heroes, we'll still be alive. Which definitely won't happen if we follow these two against Dr. Jordan.”

“You're wrong,” I said. I raised my voice to the others. “The only way you can stay alive is by defeating Dr. Jordan.”

Voices began to chatter again.

“Everyone!” Kurt shouted. “Listen!”

They listened.

“You know they're lying to us,” he said. “I say we tear their bot-packs off so they can't try anything here. In the morning Dr. Jordan can activate their death chips. That will catch up with them, no matter how far they run in their real bodies.”

Our death chips?

Ashley spoke my thoughts. “Kurt, I wasn't around when you were put in the jelly cylinders. The death chips don't scare me.”

Kurt laughed. “You weren't around because you turned traitor. But you also missed hearing everything they told us about the death chips, didn't you?”

Ashley's silence told him enough.

“See,” he taunted, “the same satellite that beams our signals to the robots will also beam an activation signal anytime Stronsky or Jordan want. Just like a GPS, the signal will track you down. Then
poof
! You're dead.”

“Not me,” Ashley said, with a little less certainty than before.

“Of course you. We found out they didn't implant the death chips when they put us in the jelly cylinders. No, they did it when they operated on us for the spinal plugs. All those years we never knew that little bomb was waiting inside us. Not until we watched half of us die. The half that you betrayed.

“Yes, Ashley. We saw Stronsky push the button, and they died—in front of us. Just slowly fell and then stopped moving. In the morning, the same will happen to you. Justice will be served.”

“Please,” I said intensely. “Listen to Ashley. She's telling you the truth. She didn't betray any of you.”

“Then how did Stronsky know the ones who were planning to try to escape?”

I had no answer for that. Neither did Ashley. But we knew the story couldn't be true.

“Then consider yourselves guilty,” Kurt insisted. “Okay, everyone. Time to vote. Here's the plan of action. We tear the bot-packs off their robot bodies and disable them. In the morning, we report this to Dr. Jordan and let him activate the death chip. How many yes votes?”

In the hazy blue, there was no movement behind him. Not at first. Then one hand went up. And another two. Another three.

It didn't take a genius to figure out where this was headed. If we were still connected when the bot-packs were torn off our bodies, it could blow our own brain circuits. Sudden disconnection was far worse than any shock.

“Ashley,” I said urgently, “we'd better go.”

Without waiting for her to say anything, I shouted
Stop!
in my mind to release myself from robot control.

And fell into darkness.

CHAPTER 16

Back in the jelly cylinder room, I shouted as I tore at my blindfold and headset. “Ashley! Ashley!”

Finally clear of my blindfold, I saw her sitting against the wall, motionless.

Nate and Cannon were gone. So were Michael and Joey.

“Ashley!” I began to wheel toward her. “Ashley!”

I knew she couldn't hear me, not with her ears covered, but that didn't stop me from shouting again. “Ashley!”

Then I saw her hands move, and I let out a deep sigh of relief.

As I reached her, she was taking off her own blindfold. She blinked her eyes a couple of times in order to focus on this room. And then she smiled.

“Ashley.”

“I'm back,” she said. “Where are the others?”

“Not sure. But it explains why the three kids who returned didn't get any help.” I pointed at the jelly cylinders where the intravenous tubes were pinched and tied with pieces of shoelace. “We've got to untie those tubes and get them all back to sleep again. And then figure something out in the remaining hours until Dr. Jordan wakes them up.”

The other four returned about 10 minutes later, with Michael and Joey trailing the big men.

“You're back,” Cannon said. “I thought we agreed you were going to stay with all the other robots and try to find out what was planned next.”

Ashley quickly filled them in.

“Let me get this straight,” he said when she finished. “The truck is going to arrive at its destination, and you won't be able to get back into your robots because they were disconnected.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered for her. “I doubt we put them to sleep fast enough to prevent them from disconnecting the robot computers.”

“And as soon as Dr. Jordan wakes them up and talks to them, he'll learn about you two. And he'll …” I could tell the general's mind was racing ahead.

“Yes, sir. If the death chip works like he says, Ashley's chip will be activated.”

“Michael.” The general turned to him. “Was everything Kurt told these two correct? Half of your group?”

“Right in front of us,” Michael said, shivering. “Stronsky showed us his little remote. He let us watch him push the button. They all slowly fell down. And then some of the aides dragged them away. The next morning a bunch of younger kids were brought in to replace them. In the afternoon they put us in the jelly cylinders.”

The general frowned. He turned his gaze back to me. “Why only Ashley's death chip? Why not yours?”

Mine?
“Sir, I wasn't part of this group of kids. My operation took place on Mars.”

“What makes you assume Dr. Jordan doesn't have a death chip implanted in you, too?”

“I … I …” I couldn't come up with an answer. Horror filled me as I understood. If the death chip were part of the operation, why wouldn't it have been done to me, too?

When the truck arrived at its destination, and as soon as Dr. Jordan woke up the robots and found out that Ashley and I had survived, he would press a little button and send a signal that would stop our hearts.

Cannon closed his eyes, then opened them again. He spoke very quietly. “This changes things, doesn't it?”

CHAPTER 17