Robot Trouble (19 page)

The control tower loomed ahead of them.

“How long?” asked Wendy.

“Two minutes, three seconds,” said Trip.

Ignoring her own hatless state, she cried, “Then hold on to your hats! We've got to force the door!”

The robot brigade hurtled forward, then crashed into the solid metal of the doors. They didn't give immediately, but the robots continued to crush in from the rear.

The doors began to bulge.

Seconds later they sprang apart. The robots surged through like water through a bursting dam.

“Come on!” cried Trip, scrambling off his “steed” and sprinting down the hallway. “No time to waste!”

His long legs pumping like pistons, he took the stairs three and four at a bound. No time now to worry about offending his shorter friends…

“Do you suppose we could grab the top of the silo when it opens for the launch?” asked Hap.

Roger shook his head. “The flaps are too far away. Even if we stood on the nose of the rocket—which I doubt we could do—we couldn't reach them.”

The boys were halfway up the side of the silo, clinging to the steel ladder. Another few rungs brought Roger face-to-face with the launch clock.

“Two minutes, fifteen seconds,” he said. “Hap, it's been a privilege.”

“The pleasure was all mine, buddy. Now here's another idea. What if we climb onto the rocket and try to jump off just as it's lifting out of the silo?”

Roger laughed. “That is the craziest idea I ever heard in my life.”

“Do you have a better one?”

“No.”

“Then let's try it.”

Roger took a last look down at the base of the rocket. In less than ninety seconds the missile silo would be a raging inferno.

Suddenly Hap's idea didn't seem quite so crazy.

Rachel lifted the whistle to her lips and began to play again. If no one had decoded her message by now, it wouldn't make any difference what Euterpe broadcast.

She played a song Dr. Weiskopf had taught her, a beautiful but mournful ballad lamenting life's short sweetness. As she played, she felt a strange sense of peace filter through her.

Euterpe picked up the tune, playing counterpoint to the simple melody.

I just wish we'd put in a window,
thought Rachel as she ran her fingers over the whistle's holes.
Euterpe doesn't need one, of course. But if I'm going to die in space, I sure would love to get a chance to enjoy the view before I go
.

Trip Davis stood at the keyboard, trying to keep his fingers from trembling.

“Sherlock” he typed, trying to call up their secret program.

The screen flashed green. Then a question mark appeared.

Trip typed in his personal code, cursed as he realized he had misspelled it, and tried again.

The clock on the wall gave him seventy seconds.

The doors on the top of the missile silo, visible from where he stood, were beginning to open. The sight jolted him into hitting another wrong key. He cried out in anguish. He was going to kill his friends with typing errors!

Taking a breath, he forced himself to slow down. Then he typed in the code word correctly.

The terminal lacked a voice synthesizer. The response appeared on the small screen: “Good morning, Trip. How are you today?”

Trip began typing in the commands that would abort the launch.

“Forty-five seconds!” cried Ray, rushing up behind him.

Trip jumped and typed the wrong character. “Be quiet!” he screamed.

Wendy, barreling into the room right behind Ray, had all she could do to keep from pushing her tall friend away from the keyboard.

Trip felt the sweat pouring down his brow. There. That was it!

He pushed the entry key.

For an agonizing moment, nothing happened.

“Ten,” said Ray, counting down with the clock on the wall. “Nine, eight, seven—”

A siren began to wail.

Mission aborted!
flashed the screen.
Mission aborted!

Trip sank to his knees in front of the keyboard.

Across the airfield, the reaction to the siren was instant and almost unanimous.

Rachel, unable to believe it at first, threw her arms around Euterpe. “We're safe!” she cried ecstatically.

Hap and Roger, clinging to the side of the rocket and bracing themselves for the thrust of launch, looked at each other and began to whoop with delight.

The adults in the observation tower, who were close enough to the silo actually to see Hap and Roger clinging to the rocket's smooth metal sides when the launch doors had opened, broke into wild cheers.

But for one of those adults it was a false joy, masking a ferocious rage. Smiling and cheering with the others, inside Black Glove was thinking:
I can't believe they've done it again. What does it take to stop those kids?

One other adult was not happy. Ramon Korbuscek, desperate to retrieve the device he had planted inside Euterpe, threw open the door to the missile silo and stepped out onto the catwalk. He stopped in shock when he saw Roger climbing down from the side of the rocket.

What is he doing up here? I can't have any witnesses now. None!

Unaware that he could be seen from the observation room, and unable to see Hap from where he stood, Korbuscek flung himself at Roger. Even now it shouldn't be too difficult to explain one body lying at the base of the rocket. A simple slip in the dark could have caused it.

Roger, backing down from the rocket and thinking he was safe at last, let out a bellow of fear when someone's arms wrapped around his chest and muscled him toward the edge of the catwalk.

“Hey, let go of him!” cried Hap, coming around the edge of the rocket.

Another one!
Fueled by desperation, Korbuscek wrenched Roger closer to the edge.

He had nearly pushed him over when the redhead grabbed the catwalk's iron rail. But Roger's bloodied palms began to slip as Korbuscek pulled at his arms. Only the adrenaline charging through his body gave him enough strength to cling to the railing until Hap made it onto the catwalk. The husky blond launched himself at the raging spy, distracting his attention from Roger.

Still holding Roger with one arm, Korbuscek lashed out at Hap, landing a backhanded punch that sent him to his knees, then slipping over the edge of the catwalk.

Mrs. Swenson, watching from the observation tower, screamed and grabbed her husband's arm—even as her son grabbed the edge of the catwalk just in time to avoid plunging to the bottom of the silo.

With the top open and the morning sun flooding in, the bottom of that pit was easily visible. Dangling from the catwalk, Hap looked past his feet and felt his stomach lurch.

Korbuscek yanked at Roger, trying to break his grip on the railing. At the same time he tried to maneuver himself into position to stamp on Hap's fingers.

His hands slick with his own blood, Hap was having a hard time clinging to the metal catwalk. When Korbuscek's boot slammed against the railing just a fraction of an inch from his fingers, it took everything he had to keep from flinching away—a flinch that would have sent him hurtling to the bottom of the shaft.

The observation room had erupted into chaos. The adults were screaming for action. Most were rushing for the door, getting in each other's way as they scrambled to try to get to the endangered boys.

Anthony Phillips, however, was pressed against the observation window. He knew there was no way to get to the silo to help his son. All he could do was watch and ache, as a madman tried to murder his child. His long-standing belief in psychic powers dropped aside as he tried to send his own strength across the gap to Roger.

Hold on, son,
he thought desperately.
Hold on!

It was Dr. Remov who ended things. Shouldering his way to the front of the room, he shoved Brody away from the control panel the sergeant was using to communicate with his men, then picked up the microphone. He turned to stare at the battle. He watched intently, waiting for the right moment—the moment that would cause the boys the least jeopardy.

Hap had managed to get one leg back on the catwalk and was trying to climb up again.

Korbuscek spotted him and aimed a ferocious kick at his head.

Now!
thought Remov when he spotted the spy raising his foot.
Now, while he's off balance!

Flicking on the microphone, he spoke a single word.

Though his authoritative voice was quiet, the word—a word he had embedded in Ramon Korbuscek's subconscious mind years before—did its work.

Overwhelmed by a wave of panic, the spy leaped away from the boys he was trying to kill. With a cry of terror, he plummeted to his death on the floor below.

 

Epilogue

A few nights after a second attempt at a launch had gone off without a hitch, the A.I. Gang relaxed in front of a small campfire on the north beach of Anza-bora Island.

Rachel looked around. It felt good to have all of them here together—even Wendy, who had broken the long-standing tension that had simmered between them when she asked meekly if saving Rachel's skin might not be accepted in lieu of a long overdue apology.

Now the Wonderchild was acting as referee while Trip and Roger wrestled on the sand. Not far away Ray was sitting on his basketball, toasting a marshmallow.

Rachel leaned back. “Look,” she said, pointing up.

Hap Swenson followed the line of her finger. “What?” he asked.

Darkness was falling, the stars slowly coming out of hiding.

Rachel shrugged. “Euterpe's up there somewhere. Not quite so far away as all those stars. But she's definitely there. She's part of the heavens now, like she was meant to be.”

She settled back on her elbows, her fiery-red hair brushing against the sand. It made her feel good to think of Euterpe circling the earth, singing her cosmic melody.

The fire crackled. The ocean surged against the shore.

Rachel smiled. Even the fact that the transmitter discovered during the search of the rocket had been blamed on Ramon Korbuscek—leaving the gang with no more tangible proof of Black Glove's existence than before—was not enough to mar her mood tonight.

What she didn't know, what none of them knew yet, was that the robot they had set to circling the planet still carried within it the device
actually
installed by Ramon Korbuscek—a device that carried the power to plunge the world into a nuclear nightmare.

They didn't know that now.

But it wouldn't be long before they found out.

Thank you for reading
Robot Trouble
! Please take a moment to review it on the source you purchased it from. I would truly appreciate it.

If you enjoyed the story, you'll almost certainly want to read the other two books in the trilogy,
Operation Sherlock
, which will tell you how the gang first got together, and
Forever Begins Tomorrow
, where the stakes get higher, the mystery deepens, and the adventures (and laughs) keep coming fast and furious. (You'll find a sneak preview of
Forever Begins Tomorrow
right after these notes.)

If you'd like to know more about me and my work, you can find me on the web at
www.brucecoville.com

You can also order autographed copies of print versions of most of my books there.

And now… the first chapters of
Forever Begins Tomorrow
!

Turn the page to continue reading from the A.I. Gang series

“Put Some More Colors in Your Paint Box”

Roger Phillips ran a hand through his fiery red hair and stared at his father in horror. “You have
got
to be kidding,” he whispered.

He glanced down at the small computer Dr. Anthony Phillips had just set before him.

“You've got to be,” he repeated weakly.

“No such luck,” said Dr. Phillips. The barest hint of a smile flickered over his face.

Roger looked at the machine with an expression he usually reserved for creamed broccoli. “An electronic tutor? Lessons?
Homework?”

“Afraid so,” said his father, struggling to keep his smile in check. “The government insisted.”

“What government?” demanded Roger. “Don't tell me the Chinese are out to get me now!”

“No, I don't think you've come to their attention yet.”

“You mean
our
government is doing this?” cried Roger. “In a period of global instability the United States of America is going to waste one of the great minds of our time on
homework?”

Dr. Phillips shrugged. “Typical bureaucratic inefficiency. You'll just have to live with it.”

Rachel, Roger's twin sister, wandered in from the kitchen, where she had been making herself a cup of coffee—a habit her father often warned her would stunt her growth. Secretly Rachel was hoping he was right. She had decided she was tall enough two days ago when she noticed she had passed their handsome friend Hap Swenson by half an inch.