Dot Robot

by Jason Bradbury

  Despite being terrified by the responsibility he held in his palm, Jackson was grateful to be this side of the controls. If the route into the valley had been bad, the route out was a virtual rock-and-boulder theme park. The valley floor was fat with stones from a few thousand years’ landslides and Brooke bounced over every one of them.

  And now the bullets started. No match for the Hummer’s speed, the black Range Rover chasing Brooke made short work of any obstacles the valley threw at it. And at every smooth patch its driver sprayed a volley of slugs at the Hummer.

  Jackson knew Brooke’s machine could only sustain so many hits. He changed direction, the Hummer veering violently off the valley floor and up a steep slope. Brooke clung desperately to her windshield wiper hand-holds as Tin Lizzie tore up the slope, sliding round the gravelled edges of sheer drops and certain death.

  From his dingy room in south London, Jackson could have been forgiven for thinking he was looking at the surface of Mars. The precision optics that fed his high-definition video stream offered a glorious panorama of the hard-baked wilds of the Grand Canyon State. And he could see that despite a hairy downhill section to negotiate, with a few lowland dips and bumps, the road to Mammoth was tantalizingly close. Better still, they seemed to have lost the black Range Rover.

  As the battered Hummer coasted momentarily on the smooth plateau, Brooke took the opportunity to clamber from the hood to the roof and, stretching a slender arm down to the door handle, managed to swing the front passenger door open and flop uncomfortably inside. Her wild face appeared immediately in front of Jackson’s view.

  ‘Back off the hammer, daddy-o!’ said Brooke through the dust and the cracks on the windshield. ‘You’re doin’ good, but you might want to think about using the anchors!’ Jackson desperately wanted to tell his friend that, for reasons unknown, the brakes on her car were shot. But, as they both knew, the Hummer’s communication system was one-way. Besides, Jackson was confident he could cruise the machine down the steep incline by using the gear shifter to limit its speed. He blipped the throttle stick and slipped into second as the robust vehicle rocked forward and started to trundle quickly downhill.

  ‘Unbelievable!’ Jackson spun round in shock at the sudden interruption. His dad stood in the door of his room.

  ‘A driving game … at five in the morning! Turn it off!’

  ‘But, Dad –’

  ‘Turn it off now!’

  Jackson turned reluctantly to the screen and in one swift motion moved his cursor up. He clicked on the bright red AUTO-DRIVE button in the Hummer’s graphics overlay and switched his monitor off.

  ‘If I hear a sound coming from your room, you won’t know what’s hit you, young man,’ his dad fumed. ‘When you get up … in just over two hours … you and I are going to have a serious chat about you and your computer use.’

  And Jackson had to climb into his bed and close his eyes.

  CHAPTER 27

  Brooke didn’t know it yet, but as Tin Lizzie hastened down the slope towards the first of several sharp bends, her fate was in the hands of a few thousand lines of code. The Hummer’s brain, made up of three networked computers on the back seat that were still working, was using the perpetual logic of algorithms – problem-solving operations begged, borrowed and stolen from her father – to make sense of the flood of information flowing from banks of sensors all over the vehicle’s body. The Hummer could ‘see’ the sheer drop at the edge of the approaching corner and computed that at this speed, with this much weight, on these road conditions, with these tyres at this tyre pressure and with this amount of compression in the suspension, and in this gear … it had better slow down.

  Brooke did her instinctive calculations in a fraction of the time it took her mechanical creation to come to the same conclusion and went to her own default response for such situations. She started to scream.

  ‘Slow down! Put the goddam brakes on!’

  But the Hummer, still computing, carried on charging towards the bend. Its terrified passenger struggled to strap herself into the three-point harness her mother had made her install, but which she had never wanted to use until this moment. Brooke wiped the sweat from her brow, her eyes fixed on the brake pedal and its heavy pneumatic coupling which clearly weren’t moving. This is it, cowgirl. Your luck is up. You are going to die, said a voice in Brooke’s head that she didn’t want to believe but had to admit was probably right. All that stood between the Hummer and a few hundred metres of fresh air was a thin trail that clung to the mountainside. Brooke closed her eyes and prepared for the Hummer’s first and only attempt at flight.

  She thought she felt the vehicle start to drift sideways. Her eyes shot down. She certainly wasn’t dead yet. The Hummer’s gear-shifter was darting up and down, moving between its various positions at breakneck speed. Both back wheels swung out to the very edge of the track as the boxy four-wheel drive used every molecule of dirt and soil available to keep itself upright.

  Tin Lizzie made it round the corner with a millimetre to spare. As the Hummer prepared for two more hairpin bends, Brooke stared at the glowing AUTO-DRIVE indicator on the dashboard. A broad and very relieved smile spread across her face. She wasn’t sure why the brakes had failed or why Jackson had obviously turned the controls over to Lizzie, but she was certain of one thing. The problem with Lizzie’s steering that had been dogging her for months was solved – and the car had saved her life.

  Without the brakes, the auto-drive mechanism was better able to keep the vehicle stable. Altering the algorithm in favour of traction during cornering was the key. She had been too concerned with stopping. Ease off on the brakes side of the equation … and Lizzie would be a better driver. Brooke had Sheriff Dwight T. Gumption to thank for the eureka moment in the development of her self-driving car. His fourth bullet had entered one of the computers that, among other duties, was responsible for braking.

  Less impressive, however, was the fact that Lizzie seemed to be haemorrhaging gasoline. Brooke was unaware of the bullet that caused it, but very aware that once her engine stopped, even Lizzie’s bootload of batteries could only keep her robot brain alive for a few minutes. Without juice, she’d be a fast-moving lump of scrap metal.

  A deathbed on wheels for Brooke.

  Mr Farley had been in the bathroom for ages. Given that he still had to walk past Jackson’s room in prison-guard mode, get back into bed and go through his usual five-minute cooling-down period during which – as Jackson knew from bitter experience – he would have increased hearing sensitivity, Jackson was looking at ten whole minutes before he could get back in front of his computer.

  He tried his hardest to block the terrifying picture of Brooke speeding off a cliff and felt sick. Straining his ears for sounds from his dad’s end of the flat, Jackson hoped the silence meant he had fallen asleep. As he powered up his monitor, Jackson prayed there was something and someone left to drive.

  ‘I don’t know where you been joyridin’, Jackson, but you’ve done used up all her motion lotion.’

  Jackson couldn’t have been more relieved to see both Brooke and Tin Lizzie still in one piece, but was very alarmed to see the fuel gauge now showing empty. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The outline of the black Range Rover was back in the centre of the Hummer’s mirror.

  Brooke poked her head into the camera lens; Jackson could see that the fight had gone from her. ‘You done good, partner, but you better pull her over while we still can.’

  Jackson steered the Hummer on to a smooth patch of dirt at the side of the road as it rolled to a stop. He expected to see his gutsy friend leap from the car and run for the hills, but instead she slowly unclipped her harness and walked round the front of the car.

  ‘Tell my mum and dad I’ll be OK,’ she said, staring straight into the windshield. ‘Tell ’em … that I’ll figure a way out of this … somehow.’

  But Jackson wasn’t listening. In fact, he was trying to stop himself bellowing at the computer screen. In the
distance, coming round the corner, was an armada of blue flashing lights, assorted pick-ups and bob-tailed trucks, all led by the tiny Fiat 500 that had almost ended Jackson’s rescue attempt several hours ago. He checked the Hummer’s mirror again just in time to see the Range Rover kicking up a cloud of dirt as it performed a hasty about-face. When the dirt settled, it was nowhere to be seen.

  Brooke had heard the growing cacophony of engines behind her and turned to see the curious convoy approaching. She took two paces forward, then stopped and turned back.

  ‘This isn’t over, cowboy. We need to finish this. Be ready!’ Then she smiled at him with a warmth that if anyone had witnessed it, would have made Jackson blush.

  CHAPTER 28

  The plan, according to Brooke, was simple. Borrow two asteroid mining robots, fly them halfway around the world to gather damning evidence of Lear’s Ukrainian operation, then use it to bargain for the release of the Kojimas and ultimately bring Lear to justice. Jackson had wanted to laugh out loud – except that he dare not incur the wrath of the feisty engineer.

  It was the kind of plan that only Brooke could dream up. But, to be fair, Jackson thought the idea was no more outlandish than the past week’s events. And besides, what choice did they have? So, in the space of just half an hour, Brooke had managed to take Jackson through an extraordinary range of topics, including orbital velocity, low Earth orbit, drag force and her father’s patented two-stage heat shield that could withstand 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit – which, according to Brooke, who Jackson was quite positive had just set a world speed-talking record, was hot enough to melt rock. But his American teammate had saved the best bit until last – the bit that involved him piloting one of the two experimental robots.

  Brooke’s father was planning to send two small robotic mining machines into space from a private launch facility in California. They would complete a single orbit around Earth, before dropping down to the Mojave Desert where an audience of Chinese investors could witness first hand the short work their prototype tools could make of the rocky desert floor. And Brooke would be at Professor J.P. English’s side. She was, after all, the best operator he had and she was the brains behind many of the systems he would be testing. Also, he and the police still hadn’t managed to get to the bottom of her mysterious kidnapping and her father was afraid to let Brooke out of his sight.

  While Brooke’s crash course in astrophysics was a little quick even for Jackson’s mathematical brain, he was clear about his role. Assuming their makeshift machines made it to the Ukraine, it was Jackson’s job to work out exactly where they’d find Lear’s gang. Lear’s whole operation was designed to be mobile so, if Jackson and Brooke were going to gather the evidence that would bring Lear to justice, they needed to be sure where it was.

  Jackson had also been tasked with sourcing the parts to build himself a hand-held controller for one of the asteroid robots which Brooke had called Tug. It could be any controller he wanted, but it needed to connect to an enhanced version of Tin Lizzie’s online interface that Brooke was working on. Jackson knew just where to start.

  According to the tag line on the sign above the steps, ‘Nick’s Nax’ was ‘an emporium of the pre-owned’. The tardis of a place was accessed by a narrow stairwell, and occupied a single storey above a piano shop. It smelled like a museum, but had none of the orderliness. The muddled merchandise was bundled on racks under handwritten signs for things like metal detectors, turn-tables and disco lighting, but which rarely described what was found beneath them. In the centre of the shop was a full-sized jet-ski which was straddled by a mannequin wearing what appeared to be a green Darth Vader costume. Jackson had enquired about the outfit and been told it was a chemical warfare suit which had been traded in by a soldier just home from Iraq. He wasn’t sure whether that was true, but it was pretty cool.

  The gaming section of the shop was near the till. Behind it was the owner, Nick, whose almost total lack of hair made him appear ageless, moaning loudly about how much stuff had been stolen from his chock-a-block shelves. He raised his voice so a small boy in the Retro Games section could hear him. ‘You’d need a time machine to be able to play some of that stuff,’ he said to Jackson, while keeping one eye on the boy. ‘You’d think he’d prefer to go into town and thieve games that aren’t one up from cave drawings.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Jackson replied noncommittally.

  ‘He’ll get a shock if he makes a run for it,’ Nick continued. ‘I’ve got a new security measure.’ He pulled out something round and shiny from underneath his desk. ‘Throwing star! A guy swapped it for three games and a web cam. Which I swear he nicked off me last Tuesday.’

  The object in Nick’s hand was indeed a fine example of the ancient Japanese hand-launched weapon. Jackson marvelled at the ornate decoration on its five razor-edged blades.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit over the top?’

  ‘It certainly is not! I figure I only need to stick one kid with it and word will get round.’

  Jackson wasn’t sure if Nick was being serious, but thought it best he get down to business.

  ‘I’m after a new Nintendo controller.’

  From the specifications that Brooke had emailed over, it was clear that his PlayStation gamepad wouldn’t do the job. For starters, it didn’t have enough functions to cover all of Brooke’s requested parameters, and while many gamers swore by the feel of its analogue sticks, Jackson had always preferred the freedom offered by fully programmable digital controls. What he really wanted to use was the MeX fountain pen. The stubby blue writing instrument was the most unlikely joystick, but he would have hacked what lay inside its plastic shell – if he could. Jackson suspected that an array of microscopic accelerometers and digital compasses gave the futuristic interface its almost wand-like quality, but he couldn’t be sure. And if he opened it up, he risked wasting what little time he had. The nearest approximation of Lear’s technology that the young gamer could think of was the wireless controller from Nintendo.

  ‘And what makes you think I’ve got one of them?’ The crafty owner was being tactically evasive. Jackson had stood in front of this counter enough times to know this was all part of the shop owner’s idea of his role as a modern version of a medieval merchant. Jackson knew, as most regulars did, that Nick had as much new kit out the back as he had crusty old relics in the front.

  ‘And assuming I have said goods, what would you be willing to barter?’

  Jackson carefully pulled from his backpack a fist-sized object wrapped in a duster and handed it to Nick. He opened the yellow cloth with an Egyptologist’s reverence and held the statuette of Buffy up to the light.

  ‘A rare and mystic treasure,’ Nick agreed admiringly. Then, remembering how his enthusiasm often got in the way of his haggling, added, ‘You sure you didn’t nab this from me last month?’

  ‘No, I did not!’

  ‘Of course, she would be far more enchanting were you able to stretch to a sweetener.’

  Jackson was prepared. He dug deep into his trouser pocket and then placed four pound coins on the counter one by one.

  ‘Uh huh …’ said Nick expectantly.

  Jackson placed another pound on the table … and when the man’s silence became unbearable, one last coin.

  ‘Congratulations, you have yourself a deal,’ said Nick, loping towards the store room. ‘Keep an eye on that little scoundrel.’

  Jackson locked eyes with the tiny boy. Without breaking his gaze, the young lad extended a scrawny arm from inside a long coat at least two sizes too big for him. Having grabbed a handful of ancient games in cardboard sleeves, he stuffed them inside the coat and nonchalantly carried on browsing. Jackson thought about the five-bladed ancient Japanese weapon and said nothing.

  Jackson’s room was untidy at the best of times. It had been variously compared by his unamused dad to a cesspit, a tramp’s hovel and, perhaps most accurately, a black hole, meaning a place where things enter but never exit. As part of his penance for his 5
a.m. ‘driving-game’ session, a no-gaming-on-a-school-night offence, Jackson had agreed to straighten up his room. He had also agreed to make his dad’s sandwiches on his return from school each afternoon. But after one night shift with a squishy cellophane-wrapped preparation of peanut butter, honey and grated cheese, Farley Senior had let his son off that one.

  After the big clear-up operation, Jackson’s room had remained relatively shipshape for about a day, but over the course of the week had descended to new depths as a miscellany of electronic components for the asteroid-mining robot controller appeared on every available surface. Hopefully, his planned modifications for the new wireless controller would succeed where the insides of several joysticks and keyboards had failed.

  He carefully removed the thin plastic shell of the controller and, using a scalpel, levered up the wafer-thin printed circuit board inside. Its microscopic components sat like tiny towns and villages on a little green glen.

  Jackson then located the ‘voodoo’ in the cheap controller: the minuscule motion sensors, tiny silicon machines, each a feather-light mechanical contraption capable of translating every waggle of the modern magician’s wand into the subtle mathematics of movement. He scooped out the fragile innards and cleared them a space on his desk. Next, he used small sections of wiring to connect a couple of AA batteries inline with the naked gadget’s power connectors. Two tiny lights came on, and the rectangular skeleton was alive.

  Jackson’s bedroom surgery remained open for many more hours, as he refined the wireless connection between the electronic guts on his desk and his PC, using various software programs he had downloaded. The final stage of the operation involved carefully removing the tubular blade from his cherished replica lightsabre. It was the second of his most valued treasures to be sacrificed and there could be no finer proof of Jackson’s commitment to bringing Lear down and rescuing his teammates. Opening up its hilt, Jackson was able to transplant the bare circuit board and batteries inside the narrow metal handle.