Here’s the “why” first. It’s because I’m not sure you’ve received any of my e-mails since I left Mars. I’m also not sure if any of the e-mails you sent me actually came from you.
I can’t give you all the details now, but you know that I always keep a journal of things that happen to me. With this e-mail, I’ll be attaching my journal of the entire trip from Mars to Earth in the Moon Racer and you’ll learn about the last person you would have ever suspected to be helping the Terratakers.
The short story is that he was able to secretly access the mainframe computer under the dome. From the time the dome was established! That meant he was able to monitor and change all incoming and outgoing reports and e-mails from Mars to Earth and from Earth to Mars. Most of what you reported about the genetic experimentation, alien civilization, and the Hammerhead space torpedo didn’t even reach Earth. We only thought it did, because of the fake e-mails sent back to the dome.
I stopped and thought of Rawling reading this in his office. He’d probably be sitting forward, leaning toward the computer screen in shock, instead of his usual feet-propped-up-on-the-desk habit. I could just see him—his short, dark hair streaked with gray, his wide shoulders that showed he used to be a quarterback on Earth. Although he was in his mid-forties, he was one of my best friends and one of two medical doctors under the dome.
I could just see his office too. I smiled. It was the only one under the dome that had framed paintings of Earth scenes, like sunsets and mountains, on the walls. Rawling hated them, because of what they represented. Blaine Steven, the previous director, had spent a lot of the government’s money to get those luxuries included in the expensive cargo shipped to Mars. I bet Rawling still hadn’t gotten around to taking them down yet. He always had more pressing matters, like all the life-and-death crises we’d been faced with on Mars recently.
What Rawling might not know yet was that the communications had been controlled from Mars since the beginning. So we on Mars would only get the information that Dr. Jordan and the other Terrataker rebels wanted us to have. And so even the highest-level World United Federation leaders on Earth would only have select information about Mars.
It was incredibly simple and incredibly smart to control all the outgoing and incoming messages and reports on the dome. After all, with Mars 50 million miles from Earth, those communications were the only way to stay in touch. We had no way of knowing that any reports reaching us were lies. And vice versa, with the stuff being sent back to Earth. Who knew how much damage the Terratakers had done this way?
I thought about it and began to type again.
In other words, you may have sent me dozens of e-mails, and I wouldn’t know it if someone intercepted them and wrote back as if he were me. Same with the messages I sent you.
I know that to be true because in one of my e-mails I tested you by making a mistake on purpose, and it wasn’t corrected. Since then, Dad and I and Ashley almost got fried by getting sucked into the sun, got arrested on Earth after we managed to rescue ourselves, and then Ashley and I were forced to leave Dad behind in a Combat Force prison as we went searching for the other Institute kids. This has been my first chance to send you an e-mail.
I’m doing it from what I think is the safest channel for three reasons. First, to let you know we’ve made it safely so far. Dr. Jordan found a way to escape, and it will take a complete journal to tell you what’s been happening, and I don’t have the time. If I get back to you tomorrow, you’ll know we stopped him. If not …
I lifted my fingers from the keyboard again. We had to stop Dr. Jordan. But there was a big difference between knowing what we had to do and figuring out a way to do it. To me, Dr. Jordan and the army of robot soldiers seemed unbeatable. Especially since he had the power of the death chip to control the kids in the jelly tubes.
Thinking about it, I wanted to give up. But if I had learned anything from Rawling, my mom, and my dad, it was that giving up was never an option.
… if not, I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to send you another e-mail. And that’s my second reason for sending this. To let you know that the mainframe computer has been tampered with and that you need to make sure all the communications with Earth haven’t been tampered with. (If you don’t get this, of course, that means someone else is still intercepting communications, and you’ll never know anyhow, but this was the best I could do.)
Third reason? I just want to know that you and Mom are doing fine. I miss you both. A lot. And I pray for you every day. Please send an e-mail back to the general’s account, not mine. And please do it right away, because I’ll check for mail in a couple of hours. I’ll know it’s you when you tell me what dumb joke you made in return that day when I made my dumb joke about the robot’s headache.
Really hoping to hear from you.
Your friend,
Tyce
I saved the e-mail. Then I made a quick copy of my Moon Racer journal and attached it to the e-mail before I hit the send button. Although electronic transmissions traveled at the speed of light, it would take a while for the e-mail to travel those 50 million miles and reach the dome’s mainframe on Mars.
I wished I could have told Rawling the fourth and most important reason I had sent him that message. But I didn’t want to risk revealing it in case someone was monitoring the e-mails.
Right now my life, my dad’s life, Ashley’s life, and the lives of all the Institute kids depended on Cannon. Yet he was the same guy who had long ago ordered the operation that put me in a wheelchair. The same guy who had been working with Dr. Jordan for years.
Now I wasn’t sure if I could trust Cannon. Maybe he had lied about having a son taken hostage. Maybe he was just stringing Ashley and me along.
It would make me feel a lot better if this e-mail went through. If people were filtering e-mails that went to Mars, one with my name and address would definitely alert them to this message. Chances were, they would let the general’s e-mail reach Rawling. And if Rawling replied with the right answer to my question about a dumb joke, I’d know it was him on the other end writing to me. This was the safest way I could think of to reach Rawling, because I still didn’t know if the Terratakers had kept control of the dome’s mainframe after Dr. Jordan left Mars.
Most important, if the general, who knew I was using his e-mail account, was willing to let Rawling and me correspond, it would tell me I could trust him after all.
And I really needed to be able to do that.
CHAPTER 11
“You want us to what?!” Cannon said through gritted teeth.
I was back inside the room of the jelly cylinders. Ashley stood beside my wheelchair. Nate and Cannon faced us from a few feet away. The hour had passed, and Cannon and Nate were ready to unhook Michael and Joey so Ashley and I could plug in to their robots. And I had just asked my question.
“Yes, sir,” I said calmly. “I mean it.”
Cannon’s square face was red with anger as he strained to keep his voice calm. “You force me to take you to the chopper. You demand to access my personal e-mail but refuse to tell me why. You take your sweet time and make me wait outside the chopper for you like you’re the general and I’m some raw recruit. You don’t explain a single thing about it on the way back in here. And now you want us to … to … to …” Cannon lost his voice. He took a big gulp of air and turned to Nate.
Nate shrugged, unsuccessfully trying to hide his smile. “You heard him, General. He wants us to pinch off all the nutrients in the intravenous tubes of the kids on life support.”
“Insane!”
“It’s not entirely unreasonable,” Nate said, letting his smile grow larger. I think Nate liked being out of the army. He didn’t have to jump at the general’s every command. “As Tyce pointed out, it’s only for a few hours. The kids in the jelly cylinders won’t be hurt.”
“If you think it’s so reasonable,” Cannon thundered at Nate, “then make your friend here tell us why. All I want to know is why.�
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Until I received an e-mail from Rawling and I knew Cannon could be trusted, I was going to tell him as little as possible. After all, as far as I knew, Dad was still stuck in that Combat Force prison in the middle of the Everglades. He was depending on me to get him out. To save his life. Even if it took making one of the highest Federation authorities in the country angry at me, I wasn’t going to back down.
“You may have noticed,” Nate stated, “when you tried to force Tyce to explain earlier with the e-mail stuff, he proved to be very stubborn. I doubt he’s changed over the last half hour.”
“But pinching off the tubes. How in the world … ?” Again, the general’s voice failed him.
“It should be simple, sir,” I replied. “Fold the tube and tie the fold with a short piece of shoelace. That way all the nutrients will be cut off.”
“A short piece of shoelace!” He exploded with so much fury that it surprised me. I was glad I wasn’t a raw recruit under his command. “Do you see 23 short pieces of shoelace lying around?”
“Actually, sir,” I said quietly, “only 21 pieces. Michael and Joey will be out of the jelly cylinders. Twenty-three minus two leaves—”
“I can do the math!” Cannon paused, and it sounded like he was grinding his teeth. “Do you see 21 pieces of shoelace lying around?”
“Nate has a knife.” I’d seen him use it to clean the fish he’d caught for us a few days earlier in the Everglades. That seemed like forever ago.
“A knife!”
“Unless he lost it,” I answered.
“And what are we supposed to do with his knife?” Cannon demanded.
I coughed and looked down at the general’s feet. He wore high boots, laced tightly.
He followed my gaze. “No! No! No! That’s the last straw! Stay behind then. I’ll send Ashley by herself.”
From my wheelchair, I peered up at Ashley.
She studied me in return, her serious, olive-skinned face framed by her short dark hair. She lifted her eyes away from mine and faced the general. “I’m with Tyce. We both go, or we both stay.”
“Nate!” Cannon pleaded. “Help me out here. They listen to you.”
“They’re not dumb, General. If Tyce wants the tubes pinched and tied, he’s got a good reason for it.”
“I just want to know the reason. In any military operation, the commander—”
Nate’s smile broadened. “I’m not sure who’s the commander anymore.” He held up his hand to prevent the general from exploding again. “Remember what these two have survived to get here. You could do worse than listening to them.”
Cannon opened his mouth. Then shut it without speaking. He leaned over and began to untie his boots. When he had yanked them off, he straightened up and glared at Nate. “Well,” he demanded, standing in his socks, “what’s taking you so long?”
“Sir?” Nate said.
“Your stupid knife,” Cannon barked. “Where is it? We have some laces to cut.”
CHAPTER 12
“Where are you?”
“Here,” I answered Ashley through the speakers of my robot. We had both just slipped into robot control, leaving behind the jelly cylinders in Arizona.
“Where is here?” she asked.
“Somewhere in the middle.” That was the best answer I could give her. The trailer was filled with robots, and it was totally dark. By the loud hum of wheels against pavement and the rush of wind through the cracks, it was obvious that the trailer was traveling down a highway.
“I’m up near the door,” Ashley said.
I reached in front of me. My hand clanked against titanium. How was I going to get there if I couldn’t see?
I switched to infrared. My world changed from darkness to a cool blue. We were traveling at night, and a quick temperature reading showed it was in the 40s, which would have been a heat wave on Mars. Like ghosts, the praying mantis shapes of robots—not quite as blue—emerged from the blue of our surroundings. Even though the truck had been traveling for the almost hour that Ashley and I had spent with Nate and Cannon, the robots had not quite cooled down to the temperature of the rest of the inside of the trailer.
“Ashley, I’m on infrared. Wave an arm!”
Her robot did, and I spotted the arm clearly.
“Give me a minute.” I lifted the robot in front of me and held it high above my head. Rolling forward to where it had been standing, I spun and set it down where my robot had just stood. I repeated this several more times until my robot finally stood beside Ashley’s robot.
“Hello,” I said, bowing gravely. My robot head clanked against the door. The back end of my robot, where the battery was a counterweight, bumped into a robot behind me. The clattering seemed deafening, even with the highway noises as a backdrop. “Oops.”
Ashley giggled.
Even with all my experience with virtual reality, it was still weird to think that our bodies were actually in blindfolds and headsets in the Arizona desert, while our robots were really only a couple of feet apart. Yet our brain waves sent signals to a computer, which converted them to a digital code and fired them to a satellite that bounced the signals to the receivers on the computers of these robots. Then the robots listened and spoke, and those sound waves were converted into signals bounced back up to the satellite and back down to our bodies, where our brains interpreted them. And all of this back and forth happened at the speed of light—186,000 miles per second—so that our brains responded instantly, as if we were really not controlling our robots but talking person to person.
“Hello,” she said. “Since it’s hardly been an hour since Dr. Jordan put them to sleep, I’ll bet we have plenty of time. Which is good. We’ve got a lot to talk about. I mean, it’s been a long time since we last had a chance to speak without someone else listening.”
“Since a Federation ship picked us up from the Moon Racer near the moon,” I said. About a quarter million miles ago.
“Well …,” Ashley began.
“Well, what?” It was difficult enough to read her mind when we faced each other person to person. With robots, it was worse. They weren’t capable of facial movements, and with only infrared to guide my vision, it would have been impossible to see her expression clearly anyway.
“What’s the deal with all the secret stuff that drove the general crazy?”
“Thanks for backing me,” I said. I explained my e-mail and that it seemed safer not to trust the general until we knew for sure he wasn’t part of the Terratakers.
“All right,” she continued. “I understand why you won’t trust the general. Yet. What about cutting off the nutrients of the kids in the jelly cylinders? Aren’t they suffering enough?”
“Let me ask you something first. Was Stronsky part of the Institute when you were there?”
“Part of it? When we were young, it was fun. Then a few years ago Stronksy showed up and training got serious. He ruled it like a boot camp.”
“What about Dr. Jordan?”
“He stopped by once in a while to watch our progress,” Ashley said. “That was it.”
“Which makes sense if he had other pods of robot kids to monitor.”
Ashley said nothing. The wind and tire-humming noises seemed to grow louder.
“What did I say wrong?” I asked, sensing even in our robot bodies that she was drawing away from me.
“Listen to what you said. ‘Pods of robot kids.’ Like we’re not really human. We are freaks. Not only that, we are freaks created to kill other humans,” she said bitterly.
“Not freaks. Not killing by your choice.” The only hope I could give her was something I had suggested to Nate just before going out to the helicopter to send my e-mail to Rawling. “Besides, no one will be killed once Nate and Cannon get to the right people to delay the meeting of the Federation governors. We all agreed that has to be Jordan’s target.”
“Bad news there,” Ashley said after a pause. “While you were in the helicopter, Cannon made a call to th
e supreme governor to warn him about the soldier robots. The supreme governor told Cannon there was no way he could cancel or postpone the Summit of Governors. He says too many people are waiting for an excuse to say the Federation has no power. He says this is the most important meeting in Federation history. They need a renewed commitment to the Mars Project and to world peace. If people—and the rest of the world’s governors—found out that robots spawned by the Mars Project were the threat behind a cancellation of the summit, the Federation might not survive. And the Terratakers would win in the easiest way possible.”
I could hardly believe what my robot audio input relayed to my brain. “So it will be better for the world to learn about us after all the governors are killed?”
“The supreme governor told the general there was only one option. That the robots be stopped before the world learns about them. Which is why you and I are here. To find out exactly where these robots are headed.”
“But my dad … he said we have to expose the robots to the world media and then they’ll have to release him from prison.”
“Tyce …”
By her tone, I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever she had to tell me. “Yes?”
“That’s the other thing I learned in that call. Your dad is gone from prison.”
“Gone! How? Where?”
“The supreme governor didn’t say. He just kept repeating that we had to stop Dr. Jordan and keep the world from knowing about the robots.”
Dad. Gone. Was he alive? Had someone taken him? I was glad to be controlling this robot body. Unlike mine, its arms and fingers wouldn’t shake from fear.
“Don’t worry,” Ashley said. “Cannon and Nate came up with a solution while you were in the helicopter. They say there has to be a transmitter somewhere nearby that beams all our brain waves by computer code to a satellite. While we’re gone, Nate’s going to look for it. They figure all they have to do is scramble or stop the transmission, and then all these robots here will be unable to respond to Dr. Jordan’s commands.”
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