The video was becoming shaky. A spinning vortex was forming at the center of the first portal. It was growing stronger and stronger. Items in the lab began flying into it. Suddenly, the vortex became strong enough to pull the concrete from the walls. The place was going to implode!
“The pilot is gone!” a technician yelled.
“Krei, shut it down! Now!” the general shouted just as Krei hit a kill switch.
The video screen in front of the friends went black.
Hiro stared numbly at the screen. Now he understood why the lab was destroyed. He figured the government must have taken over Krei’s equipment after the disaster.
“Krei’s using my microbots to steal his machine back. But why?” Hiro asked.
Suddenly, a familiar sound drew everyone’s attention to the lab. It was the sound of buzzing microbots—millions of them! Hiro looked out the control room window. The white-and-red face of Yokai came into view. He was standing on a platform of microbots.
They watched the black-cloaked figure raise his arm and the microbots hurled a chunk of debris at the control tower.
The debris smashed into the tower’s base. Hiro and his team held on as the tower buckled and swayed. A final wave of microbots leveled the entire structure.
Yokai smiled as he watched tons of rubble thunder to the floor. There was no way anyone could have survived.
Yokai turned his attention back to the business at hand—moving the precious portal. He used the microbots to dismantle the last portions of it.
Meanwhile, under the control tower wreckage, Hiro and his buddies huddled beneath Baymax. His huge carbon-fiber-covered body had protected them from the falling debris. Hiro gave Baymax a nudge. “Get us out of here!”
Yokai was ready to command the bots to raise the portal up through the hole in the lab’s ceiling. Then—smash! Baymax’s armored fist came crashing through the control room wreckage. Yokai spun around and saw Baymax throwing off steel beams and chunks of cement. He was stunned to see Hiro and the team come out from the wreckage.
Yokai suddenly realized he had to deal with this annoying team of misfits before he could get the portal to safety.
Hiro and the others came at Yokai with everything they had. “Go for the transmitter behind the mask!” Hiro yelled.
But before Baymax could make a move, a wave of microbots knocked him back. Hiro ran to help him, leaving the remaining team face to face with Yokai.
“All right, what’s the plan?” Wasabi asked.
Fred leaped over Yokai. “Super-jump!” he yelled. “Gravity crush! Falling hard!” he narrated as Yokai swatted him away with a wave of microbots.
“Seriously, what’s the plan?” Wasabi called.
“Go for the mask,” Go Go instructed.
“Right behind you!” Honey replied. The two of them took off together.
Go Go rode up a wall and flung her discs at Yokai. But Yokai dodged one while he deflected another. The discs flew past Yokai, just missing Honey as she lobbed a chem-ball. The chem-ball created an ice patch that caused Go Go to slip. She skidded on the ice and slammed into Honey, knocking them both down.
Yokai turned to Wasabi. Wasabi did his best to sound brave. “You want to dance, masked man? ’Cause you’ll be dancing with these!” He waved his laser hands. “Hand over the mask, or you’ll get a taste of THIS! And a little bit of THAT! Ha-ha!”
Yokai threw a cloud of microbots at Wasabi. When Wasabi slashed at them wildly, the microbots seemed to scatter. Wasabi was thrilled. Then he looked down and saw that the swarm was covering his feet and climbing his legs. They lifted him off the ground and threw him into Fred. Fred unleashed a stream of fire that sprayed like an out-of-control garden hose as Wasabi knocked him to the floor.
Yokai was pleased. Most of the team was now out of commission. He turned his attention back to re-forming the microbot platform and raising the portal out of the roof. The job was almost done when Hiro, riding on Baymax, flew at him full force. Hiro was dismayed to see his friends all knocked out of the fight. They were a team, but they weren’t fighting like one.
Yokai angrily sent a stream of microbots at Baymax and knocked him back. The jolt sent Hiro flying forward, slamming him into Yokai. As Hiro and Yokai tumbled down, Yokai’s Kabuki mask flew off. All the microbots instantly fell to the ground.
“It’s over, Krei!” Hiro said.
Yokai had his back to Hiro. But when he turned, Hiro’s eyes grew wide in disbelief.
“Professor Callaghan!” Hiro said, confused. The team was starting to recover and was now standing next to Hiro. “But...the explosion. You died,” Hiro said.
“No, your microbots kept me safe,” Callaghan replied.
Hiro’s mind was racing. “But Tadashi...you just let him die?”
“Give me the mask, Hiro,” the professor said.
“He went in there to save you!” Hiro said.
“That was his mistake!” Callaghan replied.
Wrong answer! Hiro thought, and something in him snapped. “Baymax!” he said, gritting his teeth. “Destroy!”
“My programming prevents me from injuring a human being,” Baymax said.
“Not anymore,” Hiro replied as he touched Baymax’s chest and opened his access panel.
Baymax tried to reason with him. “Hiro, this is not what—”
But Hiro wouldn’t listen. He pulled out Tadashi’s nurse chip. “Do it, Baymax. Destroy him!”
“No!” Go Go shouted. “Stop!”
Baymax raised his rocket fist, and Callaghan backed away.
But just as Baymax was about to launch, Go Go plowed into him. The blow redirected the fist, which hit a cement wall. It missed Callaghan by only a few feet.
Baymax then raised his fist and pointed it at Go Go. “Get the nurse chip back into Baymax!” she yelled.
Honey grabbed the chip off the ground and tossed it to Go Go, who zoomed over to Baymax and jammed the chip into his access panel. Baymax’s rocket fist powered down.
“What are you doing?” Hiro called. “He’s getting away!”
Callaghan had gotten the mask containing the neural transmitter back on. He directed the microbots to grab the last pieces of the portal. Moments later, he had gone through the hole in the ceiling.
Baymax blinked at the destruction around him. “My health-care protocol has been violated,” he said. “I regret any distress I may have caused.”
Hiro, angry and frustrated, looked at his team. “How could you do that? I had him!” he shouted.
“What you just tried to do, we never signed up for,” Wasabi said.
Go Go nodded. “We said we’d catch the guy. That’s it.”
“I never should have let you help me,” Hiro said as he climbed on Baymax’s back. “Baymax, find Callaghan.”
“My enhanced scanner has been damaged,” Baymax replied.
Hiro groaned in frustration. “Wings,” he commanded.
As Baymax’s wings deployed, Fred said, “Hiro, this isn’t part of the plan.”
But Hiro ignored him. “Fly!” he said to Baymax, and the team watched as they flew out of the building and streaked across the sky toward San Fransokyo.
Back at his garage, Hiro burst in with Baymax behind him. He sat down at his computer and accessed Baymax’s super sensor. This enabled him to make code changes directly into Baymax.
Baymax stared at Hiro. Hiro’s eyebrows were furrowed as he concentrated on the programming. “Your blood pressure is elevated. You appear to be distressed,” Baymax said.
“I’m fine,” Hiro snapped, typing faster. “There.” He turned to Baymax. “Is it working?”
“My sensor is now operational,” Baymax replied.
“Good,” Hiro said, and tapped the access port on Baymax’s chest. But the port didn’t open. Hiro tapped it again. “What?”
/> “Are you going to remove my health-care chip?” asked Baymax.
“Yes. Open,” Hiro said, tapping the port again.
“But my purpose is to heal the sick and injured.”
“Baymax, open your access port,” Hiro ordered.
“Will terminating Callaghan improve your emotional state?” Baymax asked.
“Yes! No....I don’t know!” Hiro said as he removed Baymax’s chest armor to get to the port, but it still wouldn’t open.
Hiro tapped it harder.
“Is this what Tadashi would have wanted?” Baymax asked, and Hiro felt a bit of a sting.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hiro said angrily, although he suddenly began to feel conflicted.
“Tadashi programmed me to aid—”
But before Baymax could finish, Hiro said, “Tadashi is gone.” Then he dropped his head against Baymax’s chest. “Tadashi is gone.”
“Tadashi is here,” Baymax said.
Suddenly, Hiro heard the muffled sound of Tadashi’s voice. He looked up at Baymax in disbelief. Baymax was running the data from the first day he was activated.
“This is Tadashi Hamada,” the muffled voice said, “and this is the first test of my robotics project.”
Hiro could see his brother on Baymax’s display screen. He watched as Tadashi ran test after test, trying to create Baymax. Finally, on his eighty-fourth try, the big white robot next to Tadashi said, “Hello. I am Baymax, your personal health-care companion.”
Hiro watched Tadashi pump his fist and spin around in his chair. “It works! He works! Ah! Yes! This is amazing! You work!” Tadashi cheered. “I can’t believe it! Ha-ha!”
A bittersweet smile came over Hiro’s face as he watched his brother. Then Tadashi said, “Okay. All right. Big moment here.” He turned toward Baymax, fingers crossed. “Okay. Scan me.”
On the screen, Baymax stared at Tadashi. “Your neurotransmitter levels are elevated. This indicates you are very happy.”
Tadashi said, “I am. I really am! Wait till my brother sees you!”
A tear ran down Hiro’s cheek.
“You’re going to help so many people, buddy. So many,” Tadashi said. “That’s all for now. I am satisfied with my care.”
And with that, Baymax’s display screen froze on the image of Tadashi. Hiro touched the screen.
“Thank you,” Hiro said, looking up at Baymax. He didn’t need to ask him to open his access port anymore.
Then Hiro heard someone call his name. He turned and saw the whole team standing in the doorway of his garage. By the looks on their faces, Hiro knew they’d seen Tadashi’s video, too. Hiro hung his head. “Guys, I...I’m...” he said.
Go Go rushed up to him. “We’re going to catch Callaghan. And we’re going to make it right,” she said as she hugged Hiro. The rest of the team watched, a little stunned. Was Go Go actually hugging someone?
“But maybe don’t leave your team stranded on a spooky island next time,” Wasabi said.
“Oh, man,” Hiro said, realizing that he’d been wrong to abandon them.
“Nah, it’s cool,” Fred told Hiro. “Heathcliff picked us up in the family chopper.”
“Hiro, we found something you should see,” Honey said. She was holding a hard drive.
Hiro hooked it to his computer and saw a frozen image of the test pilot, Abigail, on his screen. As the video played, Hiro gasped. Abigail was standing with Alistair Krei and another man. “Is that...Callaghan was there?”
“Yeah, but why?” Go Go asked.
“And they look like they’re good friends,” Fred added.
Hiro was confused. “But Callaghan hates Krei.” He thought back to the time at the Tech Showcase when Callaghan warned him not to take Krei’s offer. “I wouldn’t trust him with your microbots, or anything else,” he had said.
Hiro fast-forwarded to a close-up image of the pilot. He zoomed in. He could clearly see the name on her flight suit. It read callaghan. “The pilot was Callaghan’s daughter. Callaghan blames Krei.”
Fred nodded knowingly. “This is a revenge story.”
Hiro nodded, too, realizing that Professor Callaghan was after Krei all along. He needed Hiro’s microbots to carry out his revenge. Hiro thought about the awful destruction the portal could cause. “So what are we waiting for?” he said to his friends.
The team prepared to head to Krei Tech’s new campus, knowing it had to be Professor Callaghan’s real target.
When they arrived, Alistair Krei was addressing his employees at a company-wide meeting outdoors. “This beautiful new campus is the culmination of a lifelong dream,” he told them. “But none of this would have been possible without a few bumps in the road. Those setbacks made us stronger and set us on the path to a bright future.”
Krei was smiling when a voice boomed, “Setbacks?”
It was Yokai. A wave of microbots carried him down the side of a building behind Krei. The crowd panicked and began to run. Krei ran, too, but Yokai swooped him up in a fist of microbots. “Was my daughter just a setback?” he yelled, pushing up the mask for a moment.
“Callaghan!” Krei shouted. “Your daughter...that was an accident!”
“No!” Callaghan yelled as the microbots tightened around Krei. “You knew it was unsafe! My daughter is gone because of your arrogance!”
He raised his arms and wave upon wave of microbots descended on the Krei Tech campus. They carried in sections of the teleportation portal and quickly assembled it. Columns of microbots held the portal suspended over the campus.
“What are you doing?” Krei asked, terrified, as the portal began to hum.
“You took everything from me when you sent Abigail into that machine,” Professor Callaghan said. “Now I’m going to take everything from you.”
Krei knew all too well what happened when there was no exit portal. All of Krei Tech would be sucked into oblivion!
Callaghan smiled. “You’re going to watch everything you’ve built disappear. And then it’s your turn.”
He was about to give the signal to take the portal up to full power when he heard a voice call, “Professor Callaghan!”
The professor froze. Hiro and his friends were standing on the roof of a Krei Tech building. “Let him go!” Hiro yelled. “Is this what Abigail would have wanted?”
“Abigail is gone!” Callaghan shouted, his voice full of anguish.
“This won’t change anything,” Hiro said. “Trust me, I know.”
For a brief moment, Callaghan stopped.
“Listen to the kid, Callaghan!” Krei begged. “Let me go and I’ll give you anything you want!”
Callaghan looked at Krei and became furious again. “I want my daughter back!” he yelled, lowering his mask, and the microbot fist around Krei squeezed even tighter.
“No!” Hiro shouted, watching Krei’s face turn redder and redder.
But Callaghan had heard enough. He activated the portal and sent a wave of microbots to destroy Hiro and the team.
The microbots slammed into them, knocking them off the building’s ledge. Fred bounced onto a nearby roof, while Honey deployed a chem-ball net to catch herself, Go Go, and Wasabi. Baymax immediately swooped in to scoop up Hiro.
Hiro climbed onto Baymax’s back and flew toward Callaghan. “Go for the mask!” he yelled to Baymax, hoping to get control of the neural transmitter.
But before Baymax and Hiro could reach him, Callaghan used the microbots to grab and throw them. Baymax crashed through the wall of a building, while Hiro broke through a window.
Suddenly, the pull of the portal above him ripped off the ceiling, pulling the debris...and Hiro...toward it.
Hiro felt as if he would fall forever.
Hiro flailed his arms and grabbed on to the end of a metal pipe. Holding the pipe, Hiro fought against being pulled into
the vortex of the portal. He watched his team below, and saw they were being beaten badly.
Yokai laughed as the microbots grabbed Fred’s arms and pulled.
“They’re tearing me apart!” Fred howled.
Then Yokai turned to Wasabi. He had him pinned between two walls of microbots. “Getting a little tight!” Wasabi said as the walls closed in.
Go Go was immobilized in a ball of microbots. “I could use a little help!” she called.
Everyone seemed to be in a jam, even Honey. She had covered herself in a chemical dome, but the microbots were hammering on it.
Hiro was suddenly frightened. He could see them losing the battle. They could all be sucked into the portal. As he hung upside down, he watched pieces of debris and loose microbots fall into the gaping maw. “That’s it! I know how to beat him!”
He yelled into his communicator, “Hey! Listen up! Use those big brains to think your way out! There are no dead ends!”
It was just the jolt of inspiration the team needed.
Fred grabbed a fallen sign. Spinning the sign, he sliced through the microbots that were holding his Kaiju suit. “Oh, it’s Fred time!” he howled. “And we don’t need a super suit for the super sign-spin!”
At the same time, Go Go revved her wheels until they smoked—and sliced through the sphere of microbots around her.
Held between two walls of bots, Wasabi knew the best way to escape was to go down. Using his laser hands, he dug through the floor and was free. Honey latched on to a string of microbots that had penetrated her dome. They pulled her to freedom.
But the robot was still surrounded. “Baymax!” Hiro called. He gasped as a sharp piece of debris flew past and cut him.
Baymax looked up, and the two stared at one another before Baymax was completely covered with microbots. Hiro gasped, and then he felt his hands slip on the pipe.
Suddenly, Baymax’s rocket fist shot out of a mound of microbots.
The rest of Baymax caught up to his fist and he grabbed Hiro just as the pipe gave way. Krei and Callaghan could only watch. “I love that robot!” Krei shouted.
Big Hero Six Page 6
