Dr. Jordan strode toward me. He tapped his chin as he stared at me thoughtfully. “Did you learn your lesson, Number 17?”
Even though I knew the robot’s speakers would alter my real voice, I was afraid to speak.
“Answer me!”
“I learned my lesson,” I said.
Dr. Jordan let out a loud sigh. “Perhaps now is the time to let you know something.” He stepped backward so he could survey all the robot soldiers. “I know all of you have believed since childhood that you are orphans.”
All of us except for me. Because I’d been born on Mars, I was the only one among the kids who controlled these robots not to have been raised in the Institute—back where they were now held prisoners in jelly tubes. But because of my friendship with Ashley—who had been raised with the others before she was brought to Mars for the Hammerhead mission—I knew what Dr. Jordan said was true. Ashley had told me that both of her parents had died in a car crash. The only things she had left from them were two silver cross earrings. She’d given one of them to me as a symbol of our friendship.
“In one way, it does make sense that we would use orphans for these robot experiments,” Dr. Jordan continued. “Who cares about you? Who would come looking for you? The secret military arm responsible for the operations that gave you robot control would naturally pick experimental test subjects who have no family ties.”
He paused for dramatic effect. “So let me give you some good news. We have lied to you from the beginning. Your parents are not dead.”
A low, excited buzzing filled the warehouse. It took me a moment to realize it was the voices of the robots. With the exception of Ashley and me, the kids who controlled them were each stuck in their jelly tubes back at the Institute. There, even though they were inches apart, they were on life support and could not communicate by the use of their human voices and human ears. The only life they now led was through the robot bodies, and they could only talk among themselves here on this side. Now they were acting no differently than if they had gathered in a schoolyard.
“Silence!” Dr. Jordan roared. “Silence!”
The buzzing and talking instantly stopped.
“Let me now give you the bad news,” he said softly. His voice carried clearly. All the others, I guess, were as afraid of him as I was. “Yes, your parents are alive. For now.”
The silence seemed to become even more silent—if that were possible—as the kids controlling the robots listened intently through the robot audio controls.
“Yes, we can kill you through the death chip. All of you knew that going into this little military exercise. But now you need to know something more. We can—and will—also kill your parents if you disobey. And your brothers and sisters. Wherever they are in the world.”
Dr. Jordan rubbed his goatee as he stared at the robots gathered in front of him. “Think of yourselves as valuable hostages. Your parents are in positions of power, and they are held helpless because they are afraid of us hurting you. But now you must think of your parents as hostages and fear us hurting them. Wonderful, is it not, how we get so much use out of you?”
The silence remained.
“Good,” he said. “Very good that all of you are wise enough not to comment. I expect then that my commands will be obeyed instantly and without question.” He pointed to the open door at the far end of the warehouse. “Follow me. The first one to make any noise will be immediately punished by Stronsky.”
Without looking to see if he was being followed, Dr. Jordan spun on his heels and walked toward the door. Stronsky stepped in behind him.
I rolled into line behind the other robots.
Like the perfect army, we followed.
And that was what was most terrifying of all. For the first time in the history of mankind, we were the perfect army.
Undefeatable.
CHAPTER 5
I have never seen a real praying mantis—only a picture of one on the DVD-gigaroms that showed me everything I knew about Earth before I actually got here. In a way, I think our army of robots must have looked like a line of those stick insects. Except, of course, for the lower half, which had an axle that connected two wheels. Turning the robot was simple. If one wheel moved forward while the other moved backward, it could spin instantly.
The robot’s upper body, however, did look like a praying mantis. It was sticklike, with a short, thick, hollow pole that stuck upward from the axle. A heavy weight counterbalanced the arms and head. Within this weight was the battery that powered the robot, with wires running up inside the hollow pole to the head parts.
I was familiar with my own robot, the one I had trained with on Mars. I assumed these were based on a nearly identical design, except for the extra two arms that fired the lasers.
I knew that robots were perfect for exploring Mars. But it wasn’t until now that I realized robots also made perfect soldiers.
They were strong—their titanium hands could grip a steel bar and bend it.
They were fast—their wheels moved three times faster than any human could sprint.
Bullets wouldn’t stop them. Smoke or poison gas wouldn’t stop them. Bombs wouldn’t kill them. Not with the kids controlling them hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The big question was very simple. What did Dr. Jordan intend to do with this perfect army?
“Into the truck,” Dr. Jordan commanded.
For five minutes we as robots had followed him and Stronsky down a brightly lit corridor. The only noise had been the sound of our wheels squeaking against the floor.
At the end of the corridor Dr. Jordan had pushed a button and a large door had slid open.
It was dark beyond, but after my vision adjusted, I realized it was the inside of a truck trailer, backed up to the warehouse.
“No talking,” he said as we filed past him. “None. Not even a whisper.”
It was an unnecessary warning. I would have guessed that all the kids were thinking about what they had just learned. Their parents were still alive.
Ashley hadn’t talked about it much, but it was easy to imagine how often she would have wondered what it might be like to grow up with a real family. I wondered what she was thinking now, knowing her parents were alive. Knowing Ashley and how responsible she felt for this mission, I figured she’d shove that news to the back of her mind until we’d rescued the other kids and stopped Dr. Jordan.
Their parents are still alive. If these kids did something wrong with their robots, though, their parents might die.
I understood that too. Although my mother was still under the dome on Mars, my father was here on Earth. In a Combat Force prison. Waiting for Ashley and me to rescue him.
I couldn’t make mistakes either, or I would lose him, just as surely as if Dr. Jordan had him killed.
I rolled onto the truck with the other robot soldiers.
“Face me,” Dr. Jordan ordered from the inside of the warehouse.
Each of us spun our robot bodies quickly.
“Good, good,” he said. “See what a little incentive will do for you?”
No one answered.
“We’re going to shut the trailer door now. Don’t worry about getting bored during your trip.” Dr. Jordan took a small remote control out of his pocket. He pressed a button on it and cocked his head as he listened for a beep that told him the signal had been sent successfully.
I wondered where. But when I heard his next words, I understood. It controlled the computers back at the Institute.
“Sleep time, boys and girls,” Dr. Jordan said, “A long sleep. Until the day after tomorrow, which is going to be a big day.”
Sleep time. We knew from Michael and Joey that the computer controlling the life-support system sent sleeping drugs into the kids’ bodies through the nutrient tubes hooked up to them. The kids fell asleep instantly in their jelly tubes when the drugs hit. It was like shutting them off. In the morning, different drugs would be pumped in to wake them up. It was sad. The kids
controlled machines, and yet their bodies had been turned into machines. Dr. Jordan could make them sleep as long as he wanted, then wake them up at his convenience.
It really made me angry that the kids were so helpless. After all, Dr. Jordan was manipulating them, controlling everything about their lives. Making them prisoners in these jelly tubes. And he was doing it through fear. It wasn’t right.
It helped that Ashley and I had at least one secret weapon against Dr. Jordan. Because Ashley and I weren’t hooked up to the nutrient tubes, we wouldn’t be sleeping.
As the door to the truck trailer began to slide down, Dr. Jordan turned to say something to Stronsky.
I amplified the hearing controls of the robot’s audio. Above the suddenly loud squeaking of the closing door, I clearly heard their conversation.
“Numbers 17 and 23 were our best students,” Dr. Jordan said. “I’m very puzzled that you had problems with them.”
“They won’t make trouble anymore,” Stronsky said. “Nothing like a good shock to—”
“Go easy on the shock treatment,” Dr. Jordan interrupted sharply. “These kids are worth billions each. They are irreplaceable as military weapons. We must do nothing to endanger their lives. I want you to check them out immediately.”
“Check them out? They’re in the trailer with—”
“Not the robots, idiot. The kids themselves. Run a satellite check and monitor their bodies. I want to make sure all of their body functions are fine.”
If a robot body had blood, mine would have frozen.
I knew what Dr. Jordan didn’t. Back on the other side, two of the kids were not on life support anymore. The computer monitor would pick up no vital signs from either of them. Once Dr. Jordan discovered this, he’d have some serious questions about exactly who was controlling the robot bodies of 17 and 23.
“Ashley!” I hissed into the darkness. Her robot was somewhere among the others packed into the back of this truck. “Ashley!”
“Tyce?”
“We have to go back,” I said. “Now!”
CHAPTER 6
Ashley beat me back. More accurately, she was quicker than I was in removing her blindfold and headset. For each of us, all it took to leave robot control was a quick mental shout of the word Stop!
So, as I lifted my blindfold, she was already standing in front of me, hands poised on her hips in typical Ashley fashion.
She flashed me the grin that always made me feel warm. When she tucked a lock of straight black hair behind her right ear, I saw the flash of her silver cross earring.
Nate and Cannon stood behind her.
“What’s happening?” Cannon asked.
“Plenty.” I repeated what I’d heard. “You know they’re using a computer to automatically handle the jelly tubes. Stronsky is about to monitor it remotely any minute now.”
“Explain …” Cannon’s forehead crinkled with concern. “With everything I’ve been learning today, I think I can guess. But I learned a long time ago not to make assumptions.”
I could see the spark in Ashley’s almond-shaped eyes as she explained for Cannon’s benefit. “If signals are being sent from us here off a satellite to the robots, it wouldn’t be hard for them to use the same satellite to get information on their end from a computer here.”
She was right. Not too far away, back on the helicopter that had taken us here, was my comp-board. It would be no problem for Dr. Jordan and Stronsky to use one like it to check the computer that ran the life support.
“What’s to monitor?” Cannon asked. “I mean, how could they know if any of the kids are disconnected from the jelly cylinders?”
“Brain-wave activity?” I asked.
Michael spoke up. “Through our spinal plugs. We’re able to send our brain waves out to control the robots, so I’m sure they’d be able to do it in reverse. If the spinal plug is in place, they might be able to read our brain-wave activity through it.”
All of us glanced at the two empty jelly cylinders and then the others, each filled with a kid on life support. Michael had been in one. Joey, who now watched us carefully, had been in the other.
“Don’t put me back in,” Michael begged. “It’s horrible. The only thing you can move is your eyeballs.”
“There’s only a couple of seconds each day when we reconnect from sleep on this end to the robot on the other,” Joey said, sounding panicked. “Those two seconds … it feels like I’m trapped forever. How can you ask us to go back in and just wait until all of this is over?” He began to cry.
I didn’t know what to say. If Dr. Jordan found out what was happening here, we wouldn’t have a chance of stopping him. But how could we force these kids back into the jelly cylinders after all they’d been through?
“There’s something you should know,” Ashley said to Joey and Michael. “Dr. Jordan told us our parents are alive.” Her voice stopped there, as if she were choking back a sob.
“What!” Joey stopped crying.
Michael’s jaw dropped. “Alive?”
“He’s using that against us as a threat,” Ashley said. “But once we find a way to stop him, we can look for our parents. Right?”
“He’s planted death chips in all of us,” Joey said. “If we don’t listen to him, he kills us. And if he dies, the chips are activated automatically. How could we ever stop him?”
“I don’t know,” Ashley said. “At least not yet. But I do know the only chance we have is to fool him into thinking you’re both still hooked up. Then Tyce and I can go back and do our best.”
Silence.
“Here’s something,” I said quietly. “We won’t have to put you back in the jelly cylinders. Just get you hooked up again.”
“I’ll do it,” Michael said firmly. “Plug me back in.”
“Me too,” Joey said, although he had to take a gulp of air. “For as long as it takes.”
“It shouldn’t be long,” I said. I knew the kids were making a big sacrifice, going back to their worst nightmare. “We’ll give Stronsky a half hour to run his check on you. But we’ve got to move fast.”
Cannon and Nate rushed to reconnect both kids.
Ashley stared at the other rows of jelly cylinders. “Tyce,” she said softly, “follow me.”
I rolled my wheelchair forward.
Slowly we passed cylinder after cylinder. Each cylinder showed the darker outline of a kid’s body stuck in the dark, thick jelly, with the liquid pushing against the thin clothing they wore. Clear liquids slowly dripped through the clear plastic tubing that had been placed in their veins. I’d once thought Mars food was tasteless. Now I wondered what I’d ever complained about. These kids didn’t get to eat a single meal. All the vitamins and nutrients they needed to live long, healthy lives reached their blood directly through the veins in their arms.
Most frightening of all, however, were the faces that we passed. Each kid’s eyes were closed, and the wax plugs quivered as their eyeballs moved slightly, as if they were dreaming. Or fighting nightmares.
I heard a slight noise. It took me a couple of seconds to realize Ashley was crying.
“I hate this,” she said. “When we were growing up here in the Institute, none of us knew they had this in mind for us. They were getting us ready, like cows for slaughter. Except this is worse than death. They can only live through their robots.”
I touched Ashley’s hand and gripped it. I hadn’t grown up in the Institute, so I couldn’t fully feel her pain. But I shared her anger and confusion. How could I help her through what I couldn’t understand myself?
Ashley continued to cry quietly. “It seems forever since I left here. It wasn’t bad, you know. We thought we were orphans. We were learning to run robots. And none of us knew why. But while I was gone, they put everyone into these cylinders. …” She turned away and swiped at her cheek. “I feel so guilty. If I hadn’t been sent to Mars, I’d be in one too.”
It was true. Ashley had escaped this fate because she’d been sent
to run some secret experiments on the Hammerhead torpedo. One that would have been controlled like any other robot. One that would have given Dr. Jordan and his Terrataker rebels the capability to kill millions. Only Ashley’s bravery had stopped him.
“Someone else might not have survived,” I told her. “You did. And returned. It’s the only chance the kids have. So if you hadn’t been sent to Mars … if you hadn’t crashed the Hammerhead … if you hadn’t helped us figure out what was happening to the Moon Racer … It’s almost like God planned for you to be here.”
Ashley placed a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks.”
Suddenly she tightened her grip. “Tyce, I don’t believe what I see.”
CHAPTER 7
Ashley stared hard into a cylinder.
“I don’t believe this.” She moved down the row and stared into another cylinder. Then another. “I really don’t believe this.”
Before I could roll forward in my wheelchair and catch up with her, she returned. “I know all the kids I grew up with. We all learned robot controls here, hidden away from the world. Most of us arrived when we were five or six years old. Old enough to remember our parents.”
Ashley drew a deep breath, like she was trying to keep herself from crying again. Then she let the breath out. I could tell she didn’t want to talk any more about her parents.
“See, Tyce,” she said, “I think they needed to take us when we were that young. The spinal-plug operations probably won’t work on older kids who have already done a lot of their growing.”
That made sense. I knew my own operation had happened before I could remember.
“And if that is true,” Ashley continued, “it makes sense that the younger the kid is, the easier the spinal nerves can grow into the virtual-reality control system.”
“Sounds right.”
“I’m wondering,” she said, “if it’s also easier to train kids the younger they are. I was 10 by the time my spinal plug had grown into my nervous system. And after that, it took me a couple of years to learn the robot controls because I kept mixing them up with my own muscle movements.”
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