Robot Trouble (11 page)

Roger frowned. When their father started repeating himself like that, it usually meant big trouble.

Rachel busied herself with her coffee.

“I don't know what the Swenson boy's parents think about this kind of thing,” said Dr. Phillips, running his hand through his thinning auburn hair. “Personally, I find it deeply disturbing to be informed by my boss that my twelve-year-old daughter was out joyriding at two in the morning when I thought she was safely in bed!”

As a longtime student of cranky parent speeches, Roger had to give his father credit. This one was intense, yet too subdued to justify Rachel getting angry in response—always a good opening stance. The main problem was that it was also completely misinformed. Whether Dr. Phillips would have been any happier if he knew what was
really
going on was another question altogether. But Roger didn't like to see Rachel get in trouble for something that, as far as he knew, hadn't even crossed her mind.

His train of thought was interrupted when his father turned his attention from Rachel toward him. “I almost hate to ask this,” said Dr. Phillips. “But knowing the way you two operate, I feel that I have to. Roger, did you know what was going on last night?”

Roger looked at his father with wide, innocent eyes. “Yes, sir, I did. As a matter of fact, it was my idea.” Dr. Phillips looked as if he was going to fall off his chair. “Would you care to explain that?” he asked, struggling to remain calm.

Rachel stared at her brother in fascination, wondering how he was going to wriggle out of this one.

At the moment Roger had no idea how he was going to get out of it. But his brain was operating at top speed. Clutching at the tablecloth, he stared his father straight in the eye. “Dad,” he said seriously, “can I trust you?”

Dr. Phillips looked totally confused. “Haven't you got the question backward?”

Roger shook his head. “This is vitally important. It has to do with the robot.”

Dr. Phillips blinked.
“What
robot?”

“Brody's robot! One of his security robots was captured last night. Didn't you know about that?”

“They don't keep me posted on security problems,” said Dr. Phillips huffily.

“That's part of the problem! They don't keep anyone posted. That's why we were out last night. There's something weird going on around here, and we—”

“Now look,” said Dr. Phillips, “I want you two to keep your lightly freckled noses out of things that are none of your business.”

“Surviving here is everyone's business,” said Roger softly. “If we had been keeping our noses clean last month, we wouldn't be here today—and neither would anyone else, since that wacko would have blown the whole island to kingdom come.”

Dr. Phillips opened his mouth, then stopped. Roger was right: The entire population of Anza-bora Island owed their lives to the kids' “interference” in that security problem. He decided to change direction. “All right, do you know what happened to Brody's robot?”

“We're working on it.”

Rachel gasped, then covered it by pretending she was choking. She couldn't believe her brother's audacity. His reply was perfectly honest, of course. But it was also open to two interpretations. In this case the truth—that they were actually working
on
the robot—was so outrageous that she was certain her father would opt to believe that they were working on
finding
it.

Dr. Phillips sighed. “I knew it wasn't going to be easy raising you two after we lost your mother, but honest to God, I never expected anything like this. Do me a favor, will you?”

“What is it, sir?” asked Roger, his voice filled with respect.

“Stay out of trouble.”

“We'll try real hard.”

In this, Roger spoke the absolute truth. He planned on working very, very hard to keep from getting caught.

 

Dr. Remov

Dr. Celia Clark, the no-nonsense neurosurgeon who had switched to computers in the hope of finding a way to link brains to bytes, stood in front of the hall leading to Dr. Remov's room with her arms folded across her chest. Running the clinic was her share of the island's “housekeeping,” and she ruled the place with an iron hand.

“I'm sorry, kids,” she said firmly, “but Stanley does not need a mob descending on him right now. He has had all the excitement he can take for the time being. Two visitors is all I will allow, and that's final.”

The gang moaned. Flushed by his earlier success in fast-talking his father, Roger stepped forward and offered a long and complicated explanation of why the rules should be bent on this occasion.

Pinching the bridge of her rather prominent nose, Dr. Clark listened carefully to Roger's reasoning. Moving slowly, as if considering what he had said, she transferred her long, chestnut-colored braid from one shoulder to the other.

“You know, Roger, that almost made sense,” she said at last. “Until I actually tried to sort out exactly what you said. At that point it took me only a moment to reach the inescapable conclusion that you had just spouted the biggest pile of horse puckey I have heard in a long time!”

“Defeat!” cried Roger. He slapped a hand to his forehead and collapsed into an institutional armchair.

Dr. Clark turned to the others. “All right, two of you are getting in. Who will it be?”

After a moment's conference it was agreed that as the “rescuers,” Rachel and Hap should have the first chance to visit their friend.

“Don't take it too hard,” whispered Rachel to her twin. “If you won them all, there'd be no living with you.”

“Are you coming, Rachel?” asked Dr. Clark. “I don't have all morning!”

Rachel had not had a chance to talk to Hap alone since the gang had convened that morning. So she took advantage of the walk down the hall to whisper, “What did
your
parents say about last night?”

Hap smiled. “My mom was pretty mad. But Dad told her to leave me alone. He said it just showed I was a chip off the old block. That didn't make her very happy, let me tell you! I'm afraid he'd be very disappointed if he knew why we were really out there. He's quite a romantic at heart.”

Rachel made no response to this. But she did remind herself to avoid appearing too dreamy-eyed when she looked at her handsome friend.
Settle down,
she told herself fiercely.
You've got more important things to think about right now
.

When Dr. Clark ushered them into the recuperation room they found Dr. Remov sitting up in bed, playing chess.

Rachel stifled a cry of shock. In the dark she hadn't been able to see how badly battered the scientist really was. Though she had been horrified by all the blood, she had told herself that once it was washed off, he would look much better. She had been wrong. His heavily freckled face was so swollen and puffy it made her think of a toasted marshmallow; his cheeks were mottled with black and blue marks, a fierce shiner circled one eye, and a line of ugly stitches marched across his chin and down his neck.

“Ah, my rescuers!” cried Dr. Remov jovially. “Let me finish this game, and then we'll have a chat. I have some very important things to say to you.” He looked up. “Thank you, Dr. Clark,” he said in a voice that made it clear she was being dismissed.

Her face darkened a bit, but she stepped out of the room and closed the door. Remov smiled with one side of his mouth. “Stop trying not to look at me, Rachel. I know it's pretty awful. But as one computer scientist said to the other, I'm not ready to cash in my chips yet. Now be quiet for a minute while I figure out my next move.”

He stared at the chessboard, his brow furrowed in concentration, then slid his queen three spaces to the right.

“Oh, sir, that
was
a wicked move,” said his opponent, who happened to be a robot. Rachel and Hap watched in fascination as the silver-skinned automaton scratched its head, studied the board, then reached out and moved a bishop close to Dr. Remov's queen.

“Damn!” said the scientist. “Sometimes I think you machines have taken all the fun out of chess.”

“What's his name?” asked Hap, nodding toward Dr. Remov's opponent.

“It!” said Dr. Remov crankily. “It, it, it! Don't try to make them any more human than they already are. Gender's the one thing they
don't
have—and never will, if we're lucky. Believe me, the last thing we need is a bunch of walking junkyards with hormone problems! Now let me finish this game.”

Rachel turned her attention to Dr. Remov's opponent. Like a mermaid or centaur, the robot only looked human from the waist up. But instead of having a fish or horse for its lower half, it spread out to form a large, flat surface with a chessboard imprinted on the top. The whole contraption sat on a standard hospital table that extended across Dr. Remov's bed.

“The program itself is actually quite conventional,” said Dr. Remov, as if he had read the questions in Rachel's mind. “The biggest challenge was building Egbert here so it could pick up and put down the pieces. And since the location of the chessboard is constant, even that wasn't much of a problem. The squares are always in exactly the same location relative to its arms.”

“It's really wonderful, sir,” said Hap.

“Thank you,” said Dr. Remov. Then he picked up his queen and moved it to a new location.

“Wretched human!” cried Egbert. Stretching out a metallic arm, it swept the board, sending chess pieces flying in all directions.

Dr. Remov chuckled and rubbed his hands together. “Egbert is so much fun to beat!”

The robot closed its eyes and folded its arms over its chest.

“It'll stay that way till I push the reset button,” said Dr. Remov. “Now, push the table aside for me and let's talk.”

Hap did as the scientist asked. Then he and Rachel pulled their chairs close to the bed. Dr. Remov looked at them closely. He took a deep breath, then said, “We're in big trouble.”

Rachel swallowed uneasily. The look in the scientist's eyes assured her that he was serious.

“What do you mean?” asked Hap.

“We have a new enemy on the island; a dangerous one. It was bad enough when we had to deal with G.H.O.S.T.—though you kids seem to be doing a good job of keeping
that
mess under control.”

“Don't be too sure,” said Rachel grimly.

Dr. Remov looked startled. “I beg your pardon?”

Hap looked around, then leaned forward and whispered, “It looks like Black Glove is back.”

Speaking quickly the two kids told Dr. Remov about the glove Wendy's mother had found, and the threatening message that had arrived at Wendy's terminal the next morning.

Dr. Remov didn't seem surprised. “I was never certain the spy left to begin with,” he said. “What concerns me now is how quickly he—or she—figured out that you had some new information. I suspect our E-Mail system is not really secure. Don't use it for anything you want to keep confidential.”

Rachel shivered. But before she could respond, Dr. Remov went on. “All that is complicated by this fact: We now have another spy on the island. This one is a wild card. I don't know why he's here.”

“You know who it is?” asked Hap.

Dr. Remov made an expression of disgust. “Yes. His name is Ramon Korbuscek. He's a former student of mine, from my days in the espionage business. A brilliant man, but totally devoid of morals, convictions, or beliefs.”

“What does he look like?” asked Rachel.

“How would I know?”

Rachel blinked. “But you said—”

“I'm sorry, I guess that was a reasonable assumption on your part. But Ramon has almost certainly had his face altered at least a half dozen times since I last worked with him.”

“Didn't you see him last night?” asked Hap.

Dr. Remov shook his head. “It was too dark, and the fight was moving too fast.” He snorted in disgust. “That whole thing was very stupid on my part. I'm not in bad shape, but I'm not honed to a fine edge like I used to be. And Ramon is in his prime. Of course, I didn't know it was Ramon when I jumped him.”

“I'm confused,” said Rachel. “If you didn't see him, and you wouldn't have known him if you had, how do you know it was him?”

“Style. Technique and tactics. Besides, he told me—just before he was about to knock me cold.”

“No offense, sir,” said Hap. “But why didn't he kill you when he had the chance?”

“Because he couldn't. That's how he told me who he was.”

“Sheesh!” said Rachel. “Remember a minute ago I said I was confused? I take it back.
Now
I'm confused.”

Dr. Remov chuckled. “When I was training Ramon, I had reason to hypnotize him on a number of occasions. We used it for concentration training, among other things. Well, you learn to protect yourself in that business. Part of
my
protection was to drill a posthypnotic command into the heads of my students, a key word that, uttered by me, would cause them to experience an attack of excruciating fear. That's what saved my skin last night.”

He rubbed his freckled hands with satisfaction. “It was a strange fight from the beginning. My opponent's style was so familiar it was almost as if I were fighting myself. Suddenly it dawned on me who it might be. But it took me several seconds—some of the longest and most painful seconds of my life—to recall Ramon's key word. I whispered it just as he was about to knock me silly. When he leaped up and fled in terror, I knew that he was indeed Ramon.”

Rachel's next question was interrupted by an exchange of angry voices in the hallway.

The first was unmistakably Dr. Clark's. “No, Armand, you will
not
go in there. I forbid it!”

“Forbid?” cried Dr. Mercury. “You
forbid
me? Celia, I am a natural force. You do not
forbid
me. Go out and yell at the tides if you wish. You will have better luck getting them to flow backward than you will in keeping me from seeing my friend.”