by Bobbie Peers
Goffman’s body twitched again, and his eyes turned black.
“What’s the hurry, you little brat?” he growled hoarsely with Cornelia’s voice. “Let’s give him the pyramid . . . let him destroy it.”
Yet again Goffman’s body twitched.
“This little rodent will have to destroy it himself. What a sweet irony.”
Goffman nodded to one of the chauffeurs, who walked over to them, opened a leather bag, and pulled out the pyramid. Somehow they had retrieved it from the molten crypto-annihilator.
Goffman turned to William and held the pyramid up in front of him.
Yet another explosion shook the building. Little chunks of concrete came loose from the ceiling and rained down on the guard bots. It sounded like hail on a tin roof.
“You’d better hurry!” Goffman barked with Cornelia’s voice, shoving the pyramid into William’s limp hands. “If you don’t destroy it, there’s no need for you anymore.” Goffman made a cutting gesture with his hand over his throat.
“No.” The word suddenly slipped out of William’s mouth. He was as surprised as the others that he could talk again. The passivization was wearing off, and he was able to move his head.
“What did you say?” Goffman said. If possible, his eyes grew even darker. His left eye popped out to the side just like Cornelia’s eye had done. He took a menacing step toward William, pointing at him with the mechanical hand.
“I’m not going to destroy it,” William said decisively. “I will never do it!”
“I have a better idea,” Goffman said, and pointed to one of the chauffeurs. “Bring him in here.”
The chauffeur raised a small walkie-talkie and muttered something into it.
A few seconds later, one of the doors to the lobby opened, and two guard bots rolled in with Benjamin drooping between them.
23
A new explosion boomed above them. Large cracks had formed in the concrete of the ceiling. It seemed as if the entire Institute building was crumbling.
“Don’t do as he says,” Benjamin yelled when he spotted William. “Don’t do it! No matter what he threatens!”
The guard bots carrying Benjamin stopped beside Goffman.
“Now, William,” he said. “Shall I show you what I do with mutineers?”
He nodded to one of the guard bots, which raised its free arm. In its hand it held something that looked like a long pipe, but on the side of the pipe there were several glowing joysticks and buttons. The guard bot aimed the pipe at Benjamin and pushed a couple of the buttons.
Benjamin started floating. It must have been some sort of antigravitation modulator. He flew upward and didn’t stop until he hung just below the ceiling, nearly thirty feet above them. Only now did William notice how many cracks there actually were up there. The explosions were destroying the whole building.
“Don’t let him threaten you into destroying it,” Benjamin yelled. “We need that pyramid!”
Goffman aimed his mechanical hand at Benjamin and began fiddling with the buttons.
“Silence,” he commanded.
“William . . . ,” Benjamin began. But he didn’t get to say anything more before a blue beam hit him in the shoulder. Benjamin flopped over in midair but remained hanging there.
“There,” Goffman said, and turned to face William. “Benjamin has always been a little too chatty. And so have you.”
Goffman pointed the hand at William.
“You should have left when you had the chance,” he said. “There’s really no use for you here.”
William froze. Was Goffman really about to zap him? He shut his eyes and felt his body tense.
There was an audible crash from somewhere or other in the Institute. William opened his eyes as a handful of guard bots jumped to the side just as a large block of concrete came loose from the ceiling and thundered to the floor.
Still pointing the hand at William, Goffman looked up at the ceiling.
“What’s going on?” he mumbled.
Clattering sounds could be heard from the floor above them. Hundreds of wheels squeaking and metallic feet running.
The guard bots lined up in a row and pointed their passivators at the escalators in the middle of the hall.
The clattering stopped, and the lobby grew totally silent. William glanced over at Goffman. He stood just as still as the guard bots, eyes fixed on the top of the stairs. For a moment it seemed like he had forgotten William. Instead, he was pushing some buttons on the mechanical hand so it started beeping. William knew what that meant. Goffman was getting ready to use it.
Something moving at the top of the stairs caught William’s attention. A figure came into view.
It was the argu-bot.
Suddenly William realized what was happening. The retired robots had managed to overpower the guard bots up in the attic.
The revolution was underway.
Goffman showed no sign of backing down. He was surrounded by several hundred guard bots. There was only one way this could go.
“I’ll give you one chance to go back where you came from unharmed,” Goffman yelled in an authoritative voice, aiming his mechanical hand at them.
“I think you’re full of horse manure!” the argu-bot shouted back.
“I’ll show you horse manure!” Goffman raised the hand and fired off a blue beam. The beam hit a column just above the argu-bot, and blue sparks rained down.
“Attack!” the argu-bot cried out, and then raced down the escalator.
“Down with Goffman!” a sea of different voices exclaimed, and William gasped as a wave of robots somehow clattered down the escalators. There were hundreds of them, swarming like angry ants.
The guard bots in the lobby shot one salvo after another at the clatter bots. They tumbled down the stairs. On the way down they crashed into the guard bots and drowned them in an avalanche of metal. But no matter how many clatter bots the guard bots managed to shoot, new ones appeared in an endless stream of metal bodies in all shapes and forms.
William looked down at the pyramid in his hands.
He turned his head and glanced at the door behind him. This was his chance.
“Get him!” Goffman yelled from somewhere in the racket.
William spotted Goffman a little way off. The tall man towered over the robots and was pointing his mechanical hand directly at William.
“Get that little rodent!” Goffman shouted.
A handful of guard bots immediately followed the order.
William tightened his grip on the pyramid. He turned and started running for the door.
Behind him he could hear Goffman’s hoarse cry: “Stop him! He can’t get away with the orbulator!”
Three guard bots turned toward William, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to escape. But then a figure tackled the guard bots. It rolled into one of the guard bots and hit it hard, and then hit another in the head with the back end of a passivator. The figure turned toward William. It was Iscia.
“It died on me,” she shouted, and held up the passivator. “But it’s still good for a club. Come on—let’s get out of here!”
She motioned for him to follow as she ran toward the door.
William and Iscia raced out into the park behind the Institute and kept going into the darkness. The sound of the robot battle faded and disappeared behind them.
24
William and Iscia ran through the woods behind the Institute. It had been surprisingly easy to get over the fence at the end of the park. True, it was high, but it was easy to climb, and they hadn’t seen or heard a single guard bot. They were probably all inside the main building, where the action was. And the action was exactly what William and Iscia wanted to get as far away from as possible right now.
When their feet hit the ground on the other side of the fence, William felt a sense of relief surge through his body.
“This way,” Iscia whispered, and continued into the dark woods.
William set off after her. He
looked back over his shoulder as he ran, but all he could see were the trees standing like tall skeletons in the moonlight. Had they really managed to escape with the pyramid?
Iscia stopped. She stood there, looking around while she gasped for breath. Her face was drenched with sweat. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” William said under his breath.
“Sounded like an engine,” Iscia said, looking up at the night sky.
“If it came from up there,” William said, “it might be a drone. We have to find somewhere to hide.”
William’s hands were so clammy he was having trouble holding the smooth metal pyramid. He stuck it under his sweater and hoped it wouldn’t start sparking. After having seen what the pyramid did to the crypto-annihilator, he was much more apprehensive about the thing.
They peered around warily, trying to make out anything among the trees in the darkness. But it was completely still now.
“Look,” Iscia said, pointing at something in between the dark trees. “Looks like some kind of shed. Come on!”
“It’s a bunker,” William whispered as they came closer.
In front of them was a partially collapsed concrete bunker. It was hidden behind a rotting tree. The roof had caved in a long time ago, and only the walls remained.
“We can hide in there until we’re sure no one is following us.” They walked through the low doorway together.
The room was small, and the floor was covered with broken glass and other trash.
“It’s dry over here,” Iscia said from behind him.
She sat down on a solid piece of concrete that had at one time been part of the roof.
William flopped down beside her.
They sat in total silence for a while, listening to the trees rustling against one another in the breeze. William looked up at the starry sky above. He thought back to the wheat field back home in Norway, and how they’d been caught by one of Goffman’s drones.
As he sat there, looking up at the sky, he thought for a moment that he heard the distant hum of a motor. Or maybe it was his imagination playing tricks on him.
“What happened in there?” Iscia asked.
William looked at Iscia.
“She’s back,” he whispered. It felt strange saying it out loud like that.
“Who is?” Iscia said.
“Cornelia,” William said. His voice was trembling. It was like he could still smell that burned stench that always followed her.
The color drained from Iscia’s face.
“Cornelia Strangler?” she asked.
William only nodded in reply.
“How?”
“She’s inside Goffman’s head,” William said. “She came from the hand.”
Iscia sat silently for a while. William could see that her brain was working on overdrive now.
“Was that why she zapped herself in the Himalayas?” she finally said.
And now William understood what she was thinking.
“She defragmented herself and somehow stored herself inside the hand,” William said.
“And Goffman brought the hand back to the Institute,” Iscia added. “And probably tried it on, and that was it.”
“How could he have been so stupid?” William said, and shook his head. “He knows how dangerous that mechanical hand is.”
“Maybe she did the same thing to him as she did to Freddy,” Iscia said. “She could telepathically make people do stuff. Remember?”
William nodded solemnly. How could he forget how Freddy had followed Abraham Talley into the Crypto Portal? It seemed like someone else had taken control of his body, forcing him to go into the portal. It had to have been Cornelia.
“She’s dead set on destroying this.” William pulled out the pyramid. He sat there for a couple of seconds, looking at the strange symbols on the surface of the ancient pyramid.
“I have to solve it,” he said without taking his eyes off the pyramid. “That’s the only thing that can stop all this. I have to solve it now!”
“Are you crazy?” Iscia blurted out. “You saw what happened to that crypto-annihilator! It melted. And so will you if you don’t make it.”
“You don’t think I can do it?” William looked up at her.
“I don’t know,” Iscia said. “Maybe it’s the hardest code in the universe. Maybe it’s completely impossible. Or maybe it’s a trap. What if this is exactly what they want, for you to solve it and get yourself killed in the process?”
William looked down at the pyramid again. Felt the surface. Pictured in his mind how it had glowed before it destroyed the crypto-annihilator. He felt fear surging through his body. Suddenly solving the pyramid didn’t seem like a good idea anymore.
“Let’s keep going.” Iscia got up.
But William didn’t move. He couldn’t take his eyes off the pyramid. Should he let the fear decide for him? What kind of code breaker was he if he let the fear of what might happen stop him?
“I have no choice,” he whispered.
“What do you mean, no choice?” Iscia looked at him in horror.
“I have to solve the pyramid. As long as I have it, Cornelia will keep looking for us.”
“No!” Iscia exclaimed. “You could die! We have to find another solution. We can leave it here and just go.”
In the moonlight, William saw that Iscia’s eyes had welled up with tears. He took a deep breath.
“There’s no other solution, Iscia,” he said. “I have to.”
She stood there for something that felt like forever, just staring at him. Then she sat back down again.
“You’d better make it!” she whispered.
“If something goes wrong,” William said, “you have to get out of here—promise me!”
She gave him a quick nod.
“Promise,” William urged.
“Promise,” she said.
William was glad she was staying. She was a true friend. He focused on the pyramid, then closed his eyes.
The vibrations began right away, meaning that this was a powerful code.
William hesitated. He let go of the pyramid with one hand and balanced it on his lap with the other. The vibrations stopped halfway up his spine, hovering there.
It wasn’t too late to quit. He could leave the pyramid in the bunker, do what Iscia said. Someone would find it; then it would be their problem.
No!
The Orbulator Agent had given it to him specifically. It was his problem, and he would deal with it. Besides, William couldn’t risk Goffman getting it again. William had to solve it. Now!
Once again, William grabbed the pyramid with both hands. He concentrated on the vibrations. They moved up his spine and out into his arms, hands, and fingers.
He opened his eyes. The pyramid was glowing. All the strange symbols pulsed with a golden light as they swirled around in the air above him. Only William could see this. This was how the luridium in his body helped him crack codes.
William focused on the floating symbols, and they started to form complex patterns. They were fast. William needed to be fast too.
Based on the symbols’ formations, William was able to calculate how to twist the various parts of the pyramid. He turned the first part and heard a low, satisfying click. And one by one the parts ticked into place. Images of how the pyramid had started to glow before destroying the crypto-annihilator flashed in front of William’s eyes. He wanted to stop but knew that he couldn’t. The vibrations had really grabbed hold of him now. It was too late to turn back. His fingers continued working. His only concern was to not fail.
If he did, he would be dead in a flash.
He knew that Iscia was still sitting next to him. He could barely see her in his peripheral vision. If things didn’t go as planned, he only wished that she had the sense to get out of there so that the pyramid wouldn’t destroy them both.
William continued working as the strange glowing symbols swirled around him. This code was taking longer than usual to solve
. It was a difficult code.
Then suddenly the vibrations vanished. So did the glowing symbols.
William was left sitting there in the dark with the metallic pyramid in his hand. Had he solved it?
“Are you done?” Iscia asked from somewhere in the darkness.
“I don’t know,” William said without taking his eyes off the pyramid.
Had he done it?
He wasn’t sure. But he was still alive.
“I hear something. There’s someone out there in the woods,” Iscia whispered. “We have to get out of here.”
Suddenly the pyramid started vibrating. William let go of it, and it toppled onto the ground. The vibrations grew stronger. And the pyramid emitted a high-frequency sound.
“What’s going on?” Iscia said.
“I don’t know,” William replied.
Did this mean that he hadn’t actually cracked the code, and that the pyramid was preparing to kill him?
“William,” Iscia whispered. “We have to go. Someone’s coming!”
Suddenly the pyramid levitated, stopping right in front of William’s face. William wanted to run, but his muscles wouldn’t obey him. He stared at the hovering pyramid. Then the inside of the pyramid lit up, and a beam of light shot out of it, rising into the night sky like an enormous beacon.
“William!” Iscia sounded really scared now. “We have to go.” She pulled at his arm.
The pyramid turned and shot out the door.
William and Iscia stumbled after it.
25
“There it is,” William said, and pointed at the light in the dark woods. “We have to follow it.”
William and Iscia ran after the levitating pyramid.
“There’s someone after us,” Iscia said just as a blue passivator ray hit one of the trees next to them. “Guard bots!”
William turned and saw the dark silhouettes of two robots coming toward them.
“Come on,” he said, hurrying after the floating pyramid.
• • •
