Counterattack

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “What about the death chip?” I asked. “If the robots don’t listen, he’ll activate it. It would be great if once the transmitter was down, the death chips couldn’t be activated, but didn’t Joey tell us it’s on some highly secret cell-phone frequency?”

  “True. But Cannon and Nate believe that Dr. Jordan will first think if the robots don’t respond that it’s a computer malfunction. They believe that Dr. Jordan will first try to fix the problem. After all—” her voice became sadly bitter—“to Dr. Jordan, we’re perfect machines and worth a lot of money. That means we’re valuable to him. And he wouldn’t want to throw us away that quickly.”

  “But what if Dr. Jordan doesn’t realize it’s a malfunction? Or what if he gets mad when the robots don’t listen to him? What if he hits the death chip button?”

  “Better that the people in the Institute die than 200 world leaders. Better that the kids die than a new world war that might happen if the summit is wrecked.” It sounded like Ashley was crying, even though robots can’t make tears. “Those were the general’s words. Not mine. See? Even to someone who is supposed to be on our side, we’re freaks. Disposable machines.”

  I wanted to be able to comfort her. I searched for words to tell her that she and the other kids were more than just machines. Or freaks. But I couldn’t find them. Because deep down—although I had never wanted to admit it to myself—I wondered if she was right.

  Freaks. Experiments.

  It was true. That’s exactly what we were. Ashley, the other kids at the Institute—and me. I’d lived my whole life as a freak because of an experiment gone wrong. I’d never be able to walk like other people could, because Cannon had pushed for funds for a science experiment that would make me a cripple for life. He, Dr. Jordan, and others had used me, just like they’d used the kids in the jelly tubes. Like I was a lab rat. Or a monkey.

  It wasn’t fair. And I’d have to deal with the unfairness the rest of my life. I wanted to punch a titanium hand against the door of the trailer beside me.

  Instead, I forced my mind on what we needed to do next. “Ashley, let’s see if we can figure out where the truck is.”

  “From here?”

  “From here. We don’t have anything else to do.”

  At least, I thought, until the truck stopped. And then I had no idea what to do after that.

  CHAPTER 13

  I scanned beyond my immediate surroundings with my infrared, hoping for anything unusual that might give a hint of the truck’s location and destination.

  The concept of seeing with infrared isn’t much different than seeing with light waves. With light waves bringing your brain information, if you were outside on a hill, you could get on your knees and stare at the grass. Your focus range would be a matter of inches. Once you stood, you could change your focus and look a couple of feet away at a butterfly on a flower. Then a couple hundred feet away at a cow in the field. Or a couple of miles across the valley. Or upward at the clouds. Or past the horizon. Your eyes can see from inches away to infinity. Cool, if you think about it.

  Same with infrared on that same hillside. You could see the grass by its contrasting temperature with the ground. The butterfly on the flower would be outlined by its temperature, even if it varied from the air temperature by a tenth of a degree. Same with the cow. And the clouds.

  Because there are these similarities, the only difficult part is practice. But after spending enough time in infrared vision, your brain learns to look for patterns, the same way it does with light-based vision.

  The biggest difference is what you can and cannot see inside a room. When you rely on light, the walls block you from seeing the light waves on the other side. Not with infrared. Unless the walls are totally insulated, you can still see outlines of things on the other side that are producing more heat than the walls or sucking more cold.

  As I scanned, I first looked downward. The exhaust pipe of the truck glowed bright red beneath the cool blue of the trailer floor. The tires directly beneath us, heated by contact with the road, were a blur of orange against the dark, dark blue of the road. At the front, I could make out one human-shaped figure in warm orange on the other side of the trailer wall. By his shape, I guessed him to be Stronsky; Dr. Jordan was too important to stay with the robots.

  Looking beyond the sides of the trailer didn’t show me much. The night air was a darker blue than the trees, which had soaked up heat during the day. The leaves of the trees seemed transparent, almost as if I were seeing a color negative in the light.

  Other than that, nothing struck me as unusual.

  I wasn’t disappointed. I hadn’t expected to see much, and I knew even if somehow I could pinpoint the truck’s location within a couple of miles, it wouldn’t help Nate or Cannon. They had said unless we knew exactly where it was, they wouldn’t be able to set up a roadblock.

  I fully expected to have to wait until the truck stopped.

  Still, I hated wasting time. Even if I was hoping for something else to happen right away. After all, the intravenous tubes had been pinched and …

  “Tyce?” Ashley’s voice was soft in my robot audio system.

  “Yes, Ashley?”

  “Do you think it’s easier to believe in God when things are good in your life? Or when it’s bad?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” she murmured, “I remember all the hours and hours you and I spent at the telescope under the Mars Dome. I loved looking out at the universe. It was even fun doing homework with you. … I guess that when you don’t have any major problems and your world is so peaceful, it’s easy to believe God is like a father who loves you.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  On Mars it had seemed natural for Ashley and me to talk about God. Especially with all of the beauty of the universe so easy to see and with so much time on Mars to look. Our thoughts wandered to big questions—like how the universe was made, why was it made, and what that meant for a human living in it.

  “But,” she continued, “it’s times like now, when I feel lost and scared and unsure about what’s going to happen, that I wonder if God is really there and if he really does love me. I mean, I know that he does in my head, but I just don’t feel it in my heart.”

  I thought about it, knowing that she had been taken away from her parents. All she had of her life before the Institute was the pair of silver earrings in the shape of a cross.

  “I think,” I said, “it’s like when I’m with my parents. When I know they’re nearby, I don’t have much to worry about. And sometimes I don’t even think about their presence. I know they’ll take care of me. But if I get taken away to someplace strange, like Earth—” I grinned—“then they feel very far away. Because we don’t feel as close, it makes me miss them more. So in a way, the times you’re lonely and afraid are the times that remind you how much you need God. … Make sense?” I asked.

  “Makes sense,” she whispered.

  “If it helps,” I said, “right now I feel lost and scared and unsure about what’s going to happen next. But I’m glad I’m with you. And that God’s watching over us too.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I mean, glad to be with you. Not glad to be with myself.”

  She giggled, then stopped instantly as a voice spoke from a robot somewhere in the middle of the trailer.

  “Hey,” the voice said, “is it morning? What’s happening? Where am I?”

  CHAPTER 14

  “Hello,” I said, directing my robot voice beyond Ashley’s robot. “To answer your questions, it’s not morning. You’re still in the truck. And we’re moving somewhere down a highway.”

  “Not morning!” This came from another robot at the opposite end of the truck. “Why are we awake?”

  Other voices began to join in, and it was difficult to hear what anyone was saying. Then robot arms began to stretch, and robot bodies clanked against each other. Video lenses turned in all directions.

  Remember, I was seeing this throug
h infrared. Robots in a lighter blue against a darker blue background. The movement of the skinny stems of the robots and the extended arms and the turning heads looked like a closetful of skeletons coming to life.

  “Hello! Hello!” I shouted to get everyone’s attention.

  That brought relative silence. The wind noise was still loud, and I had to shout to be heard above it.

  “Here’s what’s happened,” I said, happy that my guess had been correct. When I wondered about the sleeping drugs that Dr. Jordan used to put the kids to sleep, I realized that he might not want to wake them up at the same time every day. If he administered one big shot when he wanted them to sleep, he’d either have to let it wear off or give them another drug to wake them. It seemed to me it might be simpler if the drugs were put into their bodies on a steady drip that could be shut off automatically on a preset timer in the computer, or manually shut off by instructions to the computer from Dr. Jordan. I began to explain all of this. “Back at the jelly cylinders, your intravenous tubes have been pinched off and—”

  “Pinched off! That’s the only food we get! We’ll starve!”

  I could not tell which robot had spoken. “No. There’s someone back there to unpinch the tubes. We—”

  “Someone’s back there? Who? Does Dr. Jordan know?” This from another robot.

  “He doesn’t know,” I said patiently. “That’s the whole point of this. So we can talk while he’s not watching or listening.”

  And so that we could talk here through our robot bodies, instead of back at the Institute with the general listening.

  “If Dr. Jordan finds out, he’ll activate the death chip!”

  “We won’t let him find out,” I answered. “This is our only chance to stop him and—”

  “Stop him? Are you crazy? We can’t stop him!”

  Those words hung in the air. Until someone else asked another question. “Who are you anyway?”

  “He’s my friend,” Ashley said.

  “Well, who are you?”

  “Ashley, speaking through Number 23.”

  Immediately buzzing filled the inside of the trailer as all the robots began to speak at once. It only ended when another robot shouted for silence.

  “Let me through,” the robot insisted when the other voices quieted. “I’ll speak for all of us.”

  There was more clanking and rolling as the robots moved with difficulty. Through the bluish haze, I saw one robot push forward until it reached Ashley’s and mine.

  “Ashley,” the robot said. The voice was not friendly. “This is Kurt speaking. I see you’re back.”

  “Kurt!” Ashley responded. She sounded friendly. A little too friendly for my liking. “I missed you! But I couldn’t say anything before when Stronsky was around. Let me tell you though, if robots could hug, I’d hug you.”

  Missed him? Hug? Now I definitely didn’t like the friendliness in her voice.

  “I wouldn’t let you hug me,” Kurt retorted through his robot. “Not after what you did. Did you get them to fake your death after you escaped?”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t play dumb. What did you two do now—kill Michael and Joey to take their places?”

  “What!”

  “I guess two more deaths wouldn’t matter to you.” Kurt sounded bitter. “After all, because of you, half of us got to learn from the other half how the death chips work. And because of you, a bunch of new kids had to replace that first half.”

  “Half? Killed? Death chips?”

  “The half who had agreed with you to try to escape. Stronsky told us what you did. Gave him their names so you could be set free and leave the rest of us behind. But he told us you’d been killed too, which made us all very happy.”

  “What!” Ashley sounded like she was in shock. “That’s not true. I had no choice. Dr. Jordan took me away.”

  “More like he brought you back to spy on us again,” Kurt threw back.

  “No! Dr. Jordan took me to the Mars Dome. He—”

  “Mars,” Kurt interrupted. I heard a sneer in his voice. “Right. Most of Earth knows the truth about the Mars Dome.”

  Much as I wanted to punch this robot with my own titanium fists, I simply asked, “Which is?”

  “There’s no Mars Dome. It’s all a fake. Every time the Federation wants to keep people happy about sucking the world’s resources, they bring out new footage showing progress on Mars. But we all know it’s some computer-generated images that any Hollywood producer could put together.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “You do?” Again, I sensed the sneer that could not be hidden through a robot’s speakers. “And who exactly are you? I mean, being Ashley’s friend isn’t a good thing.”

  “Me? I was the first kid born on Mars.”

  Kurt laughed, and other robot laughter grew behind him.

  Although I knew better—that one robot punching another would not prove much—emotion won. I raised my fist.

  Ashley stepped between us. “Listen,” she insisted, “there will be time to sort this out later. And when we’re done, you’ll see that Tyce and I are telling the truth. For now, though, we have to work together.”

  “Why?” Kurt asked loudly. “Even if we could trust you, why should we risk our lives and work against Dr. Jordan and Stronsky? You heard what he said today about our parents.”

  “Whenever this truck gets to where it is going,” I said, “they are going to use us as an army.”

  “We know that.” The sneer again. “It’s just some more training. In some sort of virtual-reality war game.”

  “Not a game,” I said. “You’ll be shooting real people. The governors of every country of the world. Dr. Jordan wants us to destroy their summit meeting and start a new world war.”

  “Ha-ha,” Kurt said. “You and Ashley make quite a pair. First you’ve been to Mars, and now we’re going to start a world war.”

  “Maybe we should listen to them,” a voice in the back said.

  “Really,” Kurt said sarcastically. “So Dr. Jordan can get a new list of the rebels among us? So he’ll activate a bunch more death chips? So our parents will be killed?”

  I jumped in because I didn’t want to allow anyone to answer. “We can prove we’re telling the truth.”

  In the blue haze, robot heads swiveled my way.

  “Why don’t a few of you jump out of robot control and go back?”

  “Back?” came a voice. This one sounded afraid. “I’d rather be asleep than wake up back in the jelly cylinder. I can’t see or hear, and my body feels so trapped.”

  “What’s your answer to that?” Kurt said.

  “Simple. Those of you who go back just call out for help. General Cannon and a guy named Nate will help you take off the wax over your eyes and ears so you can see and hear. Then you’ll see Michael and Joey. You’ll know they’re alive. And the general and Nate will tell you why we need to stop Dr. Jordan.”

  “Fine then,” Kurt said. “We’ll do that.” He spoke to everyone else. “I need three volunteers.”

  He got them.

  It took less than a minute for all three to return to controlling their robots.

  “Kurt,” the first one said, “these two are lying to us.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “Lying?” I raised my robot arms in protest. “Impossible.”

  “No one came,” the first kid said. “I screamed for help. No one came. It was horrible, feeling my body stuck there. Like a spider had me all wrapped up. I was blind and deaf. Finally I came back here. At least when I control my robot, my brain doesn’t feel like it’s stuck in a black box.”

  The other robot voices began to babble again.

  “Silence!” Kurt shouted.

  As the truck roared down the highway, the voices died down.

  “Do you other two agree?”

  They both said yes. No one had helped them.

  “And that from three of us who have no reason to lie,” Kurt put in. “Because
if there was a chance to be rescued, we would take it. Three of us against two of them. We know Ashley already turned traitor against us. And a friend of hers is probably an enemy of ours.”

  I could hardly believe this. We were their only hope, and yet there was nothing Ashley and I could do to get them to believe us.

  “I would say,” Kurt continued, “that it’s obvious what we should do.”

  “No,” Ashley protested. “Listen to me. I was sent to Mars. I was supposed to test a space torpedo called the Hammerhead. But it was intended to kill millions of people. So instead I crashed it into one of the moons of Mars. Then Tyce came back with me to help find you guys. Dr. Jordan, who was in a prison on the ship, took over the computer and escaped in a pod. He had programmed the spaceship to crash into the sun, but we …” Her voice trailed off as she realized how crazy it must sound to the other kids.

  “Ha-ha,” Kurt answered. “This isn’t story time, you know. And we’re not stupid.” Then he spoke to the other robots. “You know what Stronsky promised when we began training in these war games. Once we prove ourselves to Dr. Jordan, he’s going to let us show the entire world what we can do. Then people will know that armies like ours can protect them. We’ll be heroes.”

  Some of the kids cheered at this.

  Kurt paused. “Not only will we be heroes, we’ll still be alive. Which definitely won’t happen if we follow these two against Dr. Jordan.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. I raised my voice to the others. “The only way you can stay alive is by defeating Dr. Jordan.”

  Voices began to chatter again.

  “Everyone!” Kurt shouted. “Listen!”

  They listened.

  “You know they’re lying to us,” he said. “I say we tear their bot-packs off so they can’t try anything here. In the morning Dr. Jordan can activate their death chips. That will catch up with them, no matter how far they run in their real bodies.”

  Our death chips?

  Ashley spoke my thoughts. “Kurt, I wasn’t around when you were put in the jelly cylinders. The death chips don’t scare me.”