Final Battle (2 page)

As if this wasn't enough stress, just a day earlier my friend Ashley and I had nearly died. We and our robots helped stop a terrorist plot that would have killed all the supreme governors of the World United Federation—what used to be called the
United Nations
when my dad was a kid. Ashley was in the desert mountains of Arizona, helping with the other robot-control kids who had just been rescued.

And I'd been sent here to California. With the thunderstorm that had begun the blowout long gone, the weather had been perfect for flying. As the jet circled the Los Angeles basin on its approach to the Combat Force base, the military division of the World United Federation, I had a clear view of the almost endless city sprawl and the autopilot vehicles that plugged the highways.

The city was in a valley, guarded by the jagged edges of the green-brown mountains against blue sky. I took in the view with awe, since the planet I'd lived on all my life—Mars— looked so different. There the mountains are red, and during the day, the sun is blue against a butterscotch-colored sky.

Nuclear plant officials had spoken to me by videophone almost the entire flight, explaining the situation and trying to prepare me for my task. Time was running short, so they couldn't afford to give me instructions on my arrival.

Once the jet touched ground in L.A., it had taken another two hours for the nuclear experts to coach me through the training session. Or, more precisely, for me to run the robot through its training session. Again and again and again. I would have only one chance. If I made the slightest mistake, I might actually trigger an earlier meltdown.

Which would kill me just as surely as everyone else in the meltdown zone. Because I was only a mile away from the nuclear plant, controlling the robot by remote from my wheelchair.

Now the fourth and final door began to open, and I focused all my attention on the task ahead.

I'd already shut down the robot's heat sensors. Although the titanium skin of my robot was far more durable than my own skin, I didn't want my brain to panic, telling me my body was in a furnace.

A vertical bar of intense white heat widened as the door opened more.

I directed my robot to reach up with its right arm and flip down a protective shield of black glass to reduce the glare. Otherwise, with the light rays reaching my brain through the robot's video lenses, it would be like staring into the sun. I was already in a wheelchair. I didn't want to become blind too.

Mentally I braced myself to rush the robot forward. Even with the robot's asbestos cape for protection, the technicians figured it would not last for more than 30 seconds against the heat.

So that's all I had. Thirty seconds.

If the robot even continued to function once the radiation hit.

The technicians' biggest fear was that the intense radiation would interfere with the robot's computer drive, which received signals from a transmitter that was directly linked to a plug in my spinal column, and from there to my brain. I shared that fear. If the robot failed to operate, the nuclear plant would blow. And no one could guess if the radiation interference might scramble the transmissions enough to affect my brain. You see, if a robot is zapped with an electrical current, the controller is knocked unconscious at a minimum or perhaps even killed. As for radiation interference … well, that could be far more deadly.

But with the door three-quarters open, I had no time to worry anymore.

I could see a huge glow through the black glass of my protective shield. Somewhere in the center of it was a rod the length and width of a person's arm. I had to pull it loose before the robot lost its function.

The door stopped opening, then sagged slightly. Had the heat melted its hinges?

I didn't hesitate. My robot was nearly six feet tall, 150 pounds, and incredibly strong. I surged forward, smashing into the door.

Pain instantly shot through me in my wheelchair. The virtual-reality program that enables me to control a robot is so real, it felt like my left arm had broken. I tried to get the robot's left arm to wave. It wouldn't. I'd demolished it against the door.

But the door was open, and I was through.

At the center of the huge glow filling the room was a rod-shaped whiteness almost unbearable to see, even with the black glass that protected the robot's video lenses.

I had to act quickly. The robot already felt sluggish.

I commanded it forward. It lurched, stopped, then lurched again.

Radiation interference!

I'd spent 10 seconds, and the robot was only halfway there.

With all my concentration, I commanded it to continue.

Then …
clunk.

It had hit the far end. The core was within reach. All I had to do was somehow get the robot's right arm up and …

Another 10 seconds.

The robot's arm began to glow. Would it last long enough to …?

The robot's titanium hand closed on the end of the core rod and fused instantly. That didn't matter. We'd expected that.

What I had to do now was roll backward and …

A sluggishness hit my own brain. Like black glue oozing into my skull.

Come on!
I shouted mentally.
Come on! Think!

In my mind, it felt like I was falling backward. Backward. Backward.

And then the black glue froze all of my thoughts.

Silence squeezed my consciousness into total darkness.

CHAPTER 2

I was startled awake with the feeling of something damp on my forehead.

Opening my eyes, I saw a nurse, probably a little older than my mother. She wiped my forehead with a cool, damp sponge.

Then I remembered. I was in a hospital somewhere in L.A. I'd woken up late last night as doctors poked and prodded at my body. They had dryly informed me that I was a hero. As my robot had fallen backward, it had pulled the core of uranium far enough out of the sheath to prevent the final stage of uncontrolled nuclear fission. I'd grimaced. With my killer headache, I hadn't felt like a hero. Just like a kid who missed his home. Which for me, of course, was Mars. Then the doctors had given me a painkiller for my headache and let me sleep again.

I guess I'd slept all the way through 'til the next day.

“Good to see you awake,” the nurse said. “You gave everybody a scare.”

Right now, she was scaring me. The only thing normal about her was the light green nurse's uniform. Her platinum-colored hair was so shiny and piled so high, I knew it had to be a wig. Especially because it wasn't a natural color for a woman with skin darker than chocolate. Her lips were smeared with purple lipstick, and I was ready to choke on the smell of her heavy perfume.

She smiled, showing gleaming white teeth that were surprisingly straight and even. Like she'd spent a lot of money on those teeth but cheaped out on the horrible wig. “Of course, that nuclear plant gave everyone a scare too. What was it like in there?”

“It all happened so fast,” I answered, trying not to stare at her bad makeup. I'd never gone trick-or-treating—we never celebrated Halloween on Mars—but I knew about it and wondered if somehow I'd been in a coma so long that it was now October 31.

“Well, I think you were brave,” she replied kindly. “Even if you didn't have to go in yourself. That robot … you controlled it, right?”

I nodded, wondering if my head would hurt like it had last night. It didn't. I relaxed a little. Weird thing was, something about this nurse looked familiar. Like maybe I'd seen her in a movie from one of the DVD-gigaroms I'd watched growing up on Mars.

I grinned at my strange thoughts. It must be the shock I'd had. I was imagining things. A woman in a wig like this would never be on camera.

“I control the robot with my brain,” I answered. No matter how she looked, I reminded myself she was trying to be nice. “Like it's a virtual-reality game. Except I move a real robot, not something in a computer program.”

“Wow.” A big, encouraging smile again. “Your parents must be proud of you.”

I did my best to hide a frown.
My parents.
Mom was a plant biologist on Mars, millions and millions of miles away. I missed her badly, along with my friend Rawling, who'd taught me how to control robots when I was a little kid. I wondered what they were doing right now, in another part of the solar system.

As for my dad, Chase Sanders, I didn't even know where he was. Dad was a space pilot. He'd taken the first shuttle to Mars over 15 years earlier. On that eight-month trip he'd met my mom, Kristy Wallace, who was also part of the first expedition of scientists to set up a colony on Mars. They had gotten married as soon as they reached the red planet, and I'd been born almost a year later.

That's why I'd never seen Earth until I came back with Dad on his most recent shuttle from Mars. But something had gone wrong. Dad, Ashley, and I had been arrested almost as soon as we reached the Earth's orbit. We'd been taken to a military prison in the swamps of Florida. But because Dad held some old guy hostage—I found out later he was the supreme governor of the World United Federation—Ashley and I had been able to escape the Combat Force prison. Dad had told us to go ahead with our mission and that we had a six-day countdown to find the pod of kids Ashley had been a part of. Otherwise it would be too late. And then sometime in the middle of our mission, we'd heard that Dad had disappeared. No one had heard from him since. Until the nuclear plant thing, he had been my biggest worry. And now—with this nurse's question as a reminder—my worry returned.

“I'll bet you don't know what your father might think,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning forward to whisper, “since you haven't spoken to him since you escaped prison, have you? And you know that he's disappeared… .”

Her words had the same effect as if she'd jammed an electric prod into my chest. Only the top people in the Combat Force of the World United Federation knew about my dad. Or that he'd been put in prison as soon as he'd arrived on Earth.

“How do you know about my—?”

She put one finger over her lips.

I stopped speaking.

She leaned over farther and put her face up to my ear. She spoke softly as I held my breath, trying not to gag on the smell of her perfume. “There's a reason I'm whispering. You need to assume that electronic devices are set up to listen to whatever you say. To anybody at any time. Not everyone in the Combat Force is on your side.”

I pushed my face close to hers. Loose hairs from the platinum wig tickled my nose. “My father?” I asked in a whisper to match hers. “If you know where he is—”

“What I know,” she whispered back, “is that the World United Federation won't be able to keep your robot-control abilities secret from the world any longer. Not after the nuclear plant.”

“My dad. What do you know about—?”

“Even the Terratakers within the Combat Force realized they couldn't put all those millions of lives at risk to protect the secret of this new technology. A hundred lives, sure. A thousand. Maybe even 10,000 lives. But not the entire Los Angeles basin. When it came down to deciding between keeping you under wraps or stopping the blowout, they made the right choice. But that means you are now in great danger.”

As if that was news. For the past nine months somebody had been trying to kill me. And I knew the rebel faction, the Terratakers, was involved, because of Dr. Jordan, who had tried to kill Dad, Ashley, and me by sending our shuttle into the sun. The Terratakers had spies everywhere, and they fought hard against the World United Federation. Unlike the Federation, which worked to find solutions for Earth's growing population, such as making planets like Mars suitable for humans, the Terratakers were a terrorist organization that worked against the colonization of Mars. Instead they claimed the Earth's population should be reduced. Fewer babies should be born. And when humans had outlived their usefulness, they should be put to sleep.

What the Terratakers believed was pretty scary. Because if you followed what they believed, it meant I wouldn't be alive. To them, someone in a wheelchair with useless legs isn't worth enough to use valuable water and food.

“My dad,” I insisted. It seemed weird enough to be a dream. All of our conversation was in a low whisper. Although this woman had on enough makeup to be a clown, I had no choice but to take her seriously because of what she knew.

“Remember, the Combat Force has too many Terrataker traitors inside it. That's why they were almost able to storm the Summit of Governors.”

The Summit of Governors! Where all the world leaders gather each year to deal with international problems.

She straightened and stared at me to see if I understood what it meant that she knew about the summit. The surprise on my face must have shown.

“I know,” she whispered, leaning forward again. “The attempt on the governors' lives was supposed to be a secret too. You can't imagine the steps the Combat Force took to bury that. And the danger of robot soldiers controlled by an army of kids. Except now they'll decide to show you off to the world. And put you at great risk.”