by Bobbie Peers
A cold silence settled over the small group.
“Does that mean,” William said, “that if I had tried to solve it at school but not succeeded, then the pyramid—the orbulator, whatever it’s called—would have killed me?”
“Yes, if we’re to believe what it says in the Orbulator Parchment,” Benjamin said.
He paused and looked out at those assembled.
“The most important thing right now is that we get down to the ruins and stop Goffman from destroying the pyramid. It’ll be hard, but I think there are enough of us to do it. . . . I hope so anyway.”
“Long live the revolution!” cried one of the robots, raising its hand in the air.
“LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION,” the other robots cried out in unison.
“LONG LIVE—” ZONK! One of the robots was hit by a ray of blue light and crashed to the floor in a tremendous cloud of sparks.
William turned around and spotted a group of new guard bots rolling toward them. Every one of them was armed with a passivator.
17
“Iscia, William, run!” Benjamin yelled. “They mustn’t catch you. We’ll stall them.”
William grabbed Iscia and pulled her along with him.
They ran into the stacks, away from the guard bots, then flung themselves behind an overstuffed shelf. William poked his head up and saw how the new guard bots, with their passivators drawn, had already surrounded Benjamin and the little group of retired robots.
“I don’t think they noticed us,” Iscia whispered.
“Let’s hope not,” William whispered back.
“What do we do now?”
“I have to get down to the ruins and get that pyramid.”
“What do you mean ‘I’?”
“You heard what Benjamin said.” William gave Iscia a somber look. “It’s dangerous.”
“You’ll never make it on your own. I’m going with you,” Iscia said, sounding irritated.
“I don’t think so,” a hollow voice said from behind them.
They turned around and saw a white guard bot pointing a brand-new passivator right at them.
“Get up!” it commanded.
They stood slowly. William looked around for something he could use as a weapon. His eyes stopped on a big crate filled with round balls that looked like robot eyes. But what was he going to do? Throw eyes at the guard bots? He dismissed the idea.
“Over with the others,” the guard bot said, impatiently waving its passivator.
William gestured to Iscia to do as the guard bot said. They walked back over to Benjamin and the other robots.
“Some revolution,” one of the white guard bots sniggered.
“What kind of revolution are you guys actually planning up here?” one of the other guard bots asked.
“It’s more of a renovation, actually,” Benjamin said, maintaining a straight face.
“A renovation?” the guard bot repeated. “What kind of renovation?”
“A renovation . . . of your metal face,” Benjamin said, whacking the robot in the face with a spare robotic leg that he’d had hidden behind his back.
CLANK! went the leg as it hit the guard bot’s head. The guard bot staggered backward and toppled over. The other guard bots stood staring at it as it lay motionless on the floor.
“That’s all it takes to knock us out of commission?” one of them said, looking to the others.
“Of course,” Benjamin said. “I’m the one who built you. You can’t withstand very much at all.”
The guard bots exchanged glances.
“LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!” Benjamin yelled, brandishing the robot leg over his head.
“Finally,” a deep voice said from somewhere in the shelves.
William turned. At first he saw only scrap metal, but then he realized that something was moving. An enormous metallic robot came into view. It was three times Benjamin’s height.
William gasped.
All the shelves began rattling and clanking as one robot after another crawled and rolled out. Soon there were ten enormous robots around them. They looked like they’d been put together out of miscellaneous scrap parts.
“Finally! Come on, clatter bots!” Benjamin cried.
The guard bots couldn’t have been more paralyzed if they’d been passivized. They didn’t know what to do now that they were surrounded by gigantic robots on all sides.
Suddenly one of the clatter bots let out a war whoop and, with its arms raised, ran at the guard bots screaming, “ATAAAACK!”
The floor shook as the other clatter bots followed, all yelling in unison.
The guard bots responded by frantically firing their passivators. But for each robot they managed to passivize, two new ones came tumbling out of the overfilled storeroom shelves.
It was chaos. William and Iscia seized their chance to get away. They cautiously snuck backward, into the darkness between the shelves.
They stopped by the opening in the wall where William had entered the room. It was closed now. The terrific clanking commotion from the battle resounded through the vast storeroom. It didn’t seem like anyone was following them.
“This is where I came in,” William said.
“How do we open it?” Iscia asked, running her hand over the wall.
“No idea. Benjamin mentioned another door in here.” William looked around.
There was a sudden ping from somewhere in the room, followed by an electric hum.
William just had time to pull Iscia behind a shelf before a new swarm of guard bots rolled past them.
They waited for the guard bots to pass. Then they set off running until they saw an elevator door that was just sliding shut.
William grabbed the first, best thing he found on a nearby shelf and picked up his pace even more. He had to stop that door from shutting all the way. As he ran, he realized that he was holding a round, metallic robot head in his hands.
“What are you doing?” the head asked him, its eyes popping open.
“Sorry,” William said. “But you’re part of the revolution now.”
“Cool,” the robot head said.
William slowed, slid down onto one knee, and pulled his arm backward in an arc. Then he launched the head at the elevator like a bowling ball. It howled in fear as it rolled away, until it wedged itself tight in the elevator door. William was right behind it, but the opening wasn’t big enough for him to squeeze through. He tried pushing the doors apart.
“Help me,” he said through gritted teeth, looking to Iscia, who had caught up. Together they managed to open the door just enough for them to squeeze inside. William bent down and grabbed the robot head, and the elevator door slid shut with a ding.
“I guess you can come,” William said, tucking the robot head under his jacket.
“Me too,” Iscia said firmly.
18
William and Iscia ran through the dark park behind the Institute.
“This is completely nuts,” Iscia whispered. “How are we going to stop the crypto-annihilator from destroying the orbulator pyramid?”
“Dunno, but that’s precisely what we have to do,” William said, glancing back at the cybernetic garden cage where he’d hidden not so long ago.
There were two guards standing by the cage now. Here and there William could make out the silhouettes of other robots. The garden was full of guards.
To keep from being discovered, they stayed in the shadow of the tall wall that ran along the edge of the park. When William was totally sure no one could see them, he stopped.
“Do you know where the ruins are?” he asked.
“I’ve never been there,” Iscia said. “But I know they’re on the other side of the lake at the end of the park.” She pointed into the darkness ahead of them. “They’re ruins from the medieval castle that used to be here. There are still underground passageways running under parts of the property, but no one’s allowed down there.”
“Why not?” William asked.
“They’re no
t very stable. They could collapse at any time,” Iscia said.
“Sounds like a great place to hide a crypto-annihilator,” William said, and kept going.
• • •
Soon they were standing on the far side of the lake. The tall wall that marked the end of the park was only a few yards from them. William glanced at the moon, which was just rising.
“We need to find the entrance fast.”
“How?” Iscia said, looking around. They were surrounded by old ruins. Big stones lay strewn about, overgrown with moss and covered with grass and bushes.
“It must be nearby,” William whispered. He stopped suddenly when he heard footsteps close by.
Two figures came walking toward them. In the darkness it was impossible to see who they were. But as they stepped into the moonlight, William could see that they were two completely identical elderly women. One had a black suit on, the other a lab coat.
William grabbed Iscia and pulled her behind a bush. They crouched there and listened.
The footsteps stopped a little way away. Then came a complaining squeak of metal against metal. It sounded like a door being opened on rusty hinges. The sound sent shivers through William.
When William finally stuck his head out, the women were gone.
“They went in somewhere over there,” he whispered, pointing.
He and Iscia crept along the wall until they stopped in front of a mound of stone blocks.
William started searching.
“Here,” Iscia whispered, pulling a bush aside.
Behind it was something that looked like a rusty cellar door. William walked over to her.
“No lock,” he whispered, “just a handle.”
William reached out his hand and felt the handle. It was cold. The hinges complained as he opened the door.
Old, moss-covered stone stairs disappeared into the darkness below. The only thing William and Iscia could hear was the echo of dripping water. And suddenly William felt like he didn’t want to go down there. But it was too late to turn back now.
“Someone’s coming,” Iscia suddenly whispered.
“Come on,” William said, putting his foot on the first step.
Iscia followed right behind him.
William closed the iron door, and the moonlight disappeared.
Now they were engulfed by total darkness. William reached his hand out to the side and found the wall. The uneven surface was covered with moss.
“I can’t see anything,” Iscia whispered from somewhere in the darkness.
William heard someone fumbling with the other side of the iron door. They had to get away from here.
“Come on,” he whispered, and felt his way along through the darkness. He could hear Iscia’s cautious footsteps behind him.
The iron door screamed like a hoarse monster as it was pulled up. And once again the cold moon shone down on them.
William and Iscia reached the bottom of the stairs and continued down the narrow stone corridor. There was a faint flicker of light here from torches along the wall. The floor was smooth, and the ceiling was constantly dripping.
“We have to hide,” William whispered, and spotted a door just then. “In there.”
Iscia hurried in, and William slipped in after her. They pressed themselves against the cold wall and stood there listening to the approaching footsteps.
Three people passed their hiding place. Judging by their height, they were adults. William was sure they were wearing hologram masks, because they all had the same identical elderly woman’s head.
When they were far enough away, William peeked out the doorway.
“We have to change our masks to old women,” William said. He located the button on the back of his head and started clicking through the different faces. “Tell me when it’s her.”
A moment later they had both changed heads to the same old woman. It looked really weird.
“Quick. We have to follow them,” he whispered, and waved for Iscia to follow. “They seem like they know where they’re going.”
They snuck after the figures and stopped when they got to the end of the hallway. William leaned forward and peeked around the corner.
The figures had stopped at an old iron door.
One of them raised a hand and knocked. Three short raps, followed by three long ones, then a short, a long, and a short. A small hatch in the door slid to the side, and the same figure mumbled something that William was too far away to hear. The hatch closed, and the iron door made a deep clank before swinging open. Then the figures walked in.
The door closed behind them with a boom.
“Whatever’s happening, it’s definitely going on in there,” William whispered, and hurried down the hallway. He didn’t stop until he reached the rusty door.
He raised his hand and knocked using the same signal the figures before them had used.
The little hatch opened.
“Password,” a deep voice said from the darkness within.
William and Iscia stood there staring blankly into space. William’s mind was racing.
“Password?” the voice said again. More impatiently now.
Then William remembered the drawing Benjamin had shown them and what had been written in ink next to the ruins on the map.
“Lorem ipsum,” William said.
The hatch closed again, and the door opened.
19
William stood there staring straight ahead. They were in a room the size of a regular classroom. The walls were made of stone. It was reminiscent of an old dungeon from the Middle Ages.
There were about thirty people in front of them sitting on folding camping chairs, all with that same old woman’s head.
A couple of them turned and looked at William and Iscia. They nodded, and William nodded back. At the other end of the room a makeshift stage had been set up, made of wooden pallets. On the stage sat some object that was covered by a white sheet.
“Let’s sit down,” William whispered, and pointed to some empty chairs in the very back row.
The other people in the room didn’t seem to be interested in them. Everyone was watching the stage expectantly.
William stared at the covered object. There was a hum of voices around them.
Suddenly the lights up by the stage flashed on and off three times, and those present shushed one another. A movement behind the stage curtain caught William’s attention.
A sinewy hand came out of the gap between the curtains and pulled them aside. Yet another old woman stepped forward. William tried to make himself as small as possible.
“Welcome,” the old woman on the stage said. “Let’s get going. Before me is the crypto-annihilator, and here, ladies and gentlemen, is what you’ve been waiting for.”
A gasp ran through the room as the woman lifted the metal pyramid from under her cape.
“That’s it,” William whispered, pointing.
“The Orbulator Agent is back, and he brought with him the code pyramid. The key to the weapon. He also found his chosen one. But I managed to obtain this before William Wenton had a chance to solve it. The parchment tells the truth.” The old woman received an enthusiastic ovation.
A shivery feeling spread through William’s body as he realized who the woman on the stage was. The long slender figure, the suit. The sinewy hands and fingers. It had to be Fritz Goffman.
The man that William had, up until today, believed to be on his side. The man who had saved William’s life numerous times . . . How could he have changed so dramatically? Or had he always been like this . . . evil?
The figure on the stage touched something at the back of her head, and instantly her face changed back to her own. It was Fritz Goffman. His hair was combed back, and there was something strange about one of his eyes. His right eye seemed focused and normal, but his left eye was shifty, darting around the room. As if it were looking at something completely different.
“We’ve been waiting for this for a while,” Goffm
an continued, moving to stand behind the crypto-annihilator. “Finally, we’re here. This is the culmination of a process that has been going on here at the Institute. We are under development. For the better. And I—you!—are leading this development.” Goffman paused. He stared at the annihilator.
“This is a direct result of the progress that was made in the Crypto Portal.” Goffman swallowed. “Esteemed gathering, we are nearing full control.”
“Progress?” Iscia whispered. “What is he talking about?”
Goffman looked out at the audience. It was as if he were staring straight at William now.
William stiffened, afraid that Goffman had recognized him, that he and Iscia had been exposed. Or that this was a trap.
“This is a big moment,” Goffman continued. “Destroying the orbulator will make us invincible. The other side will stand no chance against the return of the luridium. And very soon we will be able to welcome Abraham Talley back.”
William looked at Iscia. Had Goffman totally lost his mind?
Goffman scanned the rest of the assemblage before he made a grand gesture of flinging out his arms and then turned to the machine.
In a quick motion, he yanked the sheet aside. “Let us begin!”
20
On the stage was a humanlike robot. The very sight of it sent shivers down William’s spine. The robot hunched over the table like the grim reaper. It sat there with its mechanical arms stretched out and its head drooped forward like a zombie. There was something really menacing about the way it had composed itself.
“Please welcome the crypto-annihilator!” Goffman said, placing the pyramid on a table in front of the robot. Then he leaned forward and pushed something on the robot’s back. The robot’s head lifted, and its narrow eyes began to glow red as its metallic body twitched.
Everyone in the room stared at the robot. It blinked its eyes a couple of times while the head turned back and forth as if looking at everyone around it.
“Are you ready to begin?” Goffman asked the robot, which nodded in response.
William sat paralyzed, watching as it picked up the pyramid. For a fraction of a second it seemed like the robot looked back at him. As the evil-looking robot turned its head, William spotted something protruding from its neck. He recognized it immediately: his grandfather’s thumb drive. Did the drive and all of his grandfather’s knowledge about cryptology amp up the robot’s analytical capacity?
