Half Life (Russell's Attic Book 2)

by SL Huang

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Set off the volcano?” he sputtered. “That’s pure science fiction. You can’t drop some TNT into a volcano and make it erupt!”

  “I know,” said Denise. “That’s why I’m not doing that.”

  Agarwal hesitated, squinting, as if he couldn’t figure out why the joke was going on this long. “How would you do it, then?”

  Denise pulled out the paper I’d written and laid it in front of him. “I thought you’d want to know. All those men the past few days who said they’re from the USGS? They work for me.”

  Agarwal’s face wrinkled in confusion as he skimmed the equations. “How could you have—the science…” He trailed off, turning the page.

  “My ’bot is useful for many things,” said Denise obliquely. Hey, it was sort of true.

  Agarwal looked up, his face a picture of hurt and betrayal. “But even if I believe you—and, Denise, come on, this is just too fantastic, but even if I believe it—why? Why would you want to kill millions of people? An eruption this size might even cause drastic climate change, wipe out the entire population. You can’t even kill spiders!”

  “As to your first objection, science fiction is only fictional until someone figures out a way to do it. You know that as well as I,” said Denise. She nodded at the paper in his hands. “Keep reading. As to your second objection…” She took a deep breath, and what I was sure was very real sorrow unfolded on her face. “I’m taking revenge. For Dana, Adrian, Sanjay, Esther, Su Lin, and Jason. And for Imogene Grant and Albert Lau.”

  Agarwal’s features contorted, still more confused and hurt than angry. “You can’t…but…” He blinked down at the paper in his hands again, turned a few more pages. He’d begun to go pale. “I think you’re bluffing,” he murmured, but his attention was on the math, and the words lacked his former confidence. “Even if you—even if this all checks out, this was too fast. Your ’bot’s help notwithstanding, how could you have figured out—and where did you get the manpower?”

  “That doesn’t concern you,” said Denise. “Everything’s in motion already. But I’m here to negotiate. I’ll stop it if you agree to my conditions.”

  Agarwal’s gaze shot back up to us, his mouth dropping open slightly. I felt a vindictive spike of glee. Denise and Pilar had been right about going big—the man who always had a contingency plan didn’t have one for the end of the world.

  “Are you willing to risk that I’m not bluffing?” asked Denise. “Or will you hear my proposal face to face?”

  Agarwal’s eyes flicked to me. “You’ve obviously been doing…quite a bit…of work off-book,” he said, almost to himself. “Congratulations, Denise; I underestimated you. Such an innocent persona. You’re as ambitious as I am.”

  “Yes,” said Denise.

  The ’bot set down the paper and leaned back, studying us as he drummed his fingers on the table again. “I’ll give you your meeting. But if I don’t like what you have to say, I’ll kill you.”

  “That’s okay,” said Denise. “I’ll die when the volcano goes anyway.”

  Agarwal squinted at her, uncertainty taking over his artificial features. Denise didn’t flinch.

  “Come with me,” said the robot.

  We got up and followed him out.

  The air had been crisp and chilly when we got there, but now it had turned cold, the wind biting through Checker’s purple blazer. I shivered before I remembered I was supposed to be a robot. Fortunately, Agarwal was leading the way and hadn’t seen.

  He brought us to a Jeep and gestured us inside. Denise got in the front; I climbed in the back.

  Agarwal took a small black box out of his pocket and set it on the dash. “Frequency jammer,” he declared. “Just in case you’re planning something else, or you’ve become friends with all those nice policemen who are after you. I’ll always be one step ahead, remember that.”

  Well, there went our backup, unless Arthur and Malcolm could follow us manually. But so far, Denise and Pilar were right: despite his big words, Agarwal didn’t seem to have an answer for the apocalypse. The one thing he wouldn’t have planned for, because it was impossible.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” said Denise quietly.

  “That seems unwise,” said Agarwal. The words had crept back to being singsong, mocking. “Even if you can do what you say. I have killed an awful lot of people, after all.” He glanced back at me. “Though I suppose you do have a rather effective bodyguard. What happened to its arm?”

  “Someone got me angry,” said Denise.

  I clenched my jaw, wondering if she was going too far, but Agarwal didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he seemed to look at Denise with a little more respect in his eyes.

  Maybe she did know how to manage him.

  We drove for a long time. As I’d expected, Agarwal headed northeast into the caldera, taking twisty mountain roads that probably snowed out within minutes in the winter months. Right now the slopes were still lush with greenery, however, spectacular blue lakes and vistas of majestic pine trees unfolding on either side of us. The evening hadn’t drawn on very late yet, but the mountains meant we drove in and out of shadow, the setting sun alternately ducking behind the peaks. I kept careful track in my head of the distance and direction, our GPS coordinates ticking past in my head.

  The ’bot eventually turned off onto a near-invisible track through the woods, the Jeep bumping over rocks and branches as it pushed through the trees. He stopped on the bank of a creek and turned off the engine. “We’re here.”

  We all got out. The woods were deeply quiet for someone used to city sounds—I registered the whisper of tree boughs and a susurration of insects, but compared to Los Angeles, the silence was so complete it was thunderous.

  I had a sudden frisson of foreboding, as if Agarwal were about to drop a bomb on us right then. If he believed us about setting off the volcano and was vindictive enough…if he thought he could stop the eruption on his own…

  But the woods stayed undisturbed.

  “It’s a tad bit of a hike,” said Agarwal. “Follow me.”

  Twilight had dimmed the slope and Denise was breathing hard by the time Agarwal stopped us again. He reached down into the forest floor, digging his hand through pine needles and natural detritus, and hauled. A trapdoor heaved open, revealing a narrow stairway leading down into the mountain.

  “Welcome to my kingdom,” said the Agarwal ’bot. “After you.” He bowed, gesturing expansively with one hand.

  Denise shot me a nervous glance, but she climbed inside. I stepped down after her, moving sideways, keeping half my attention on Agarwal and half forward.

  He followed us in and dragged the door shut. We had an instant of darkness—my other senses leapt to alertness, the mathematics outlining the stairs, Agarwal, Denise, even when I couldn’t see them—

  Lights flicked to life, illuminating metal stairs leading down, down, down into the mountain.

  “Follow me,” said Agarwal, squeezing past us.

  The narrow stairs led down to a narrow hallway. As we reached it we apparently walked through a sensor, because Agarwal stopped, turned to Denise, and said, “Please have your ’bot disarm itself.”

  Denise looked at me, her eyes wide. I took Malcolm’s Browning out of the back of my belt and put it on the floor.

  Malcolm would probably want that back at some point. Though if Agarwal buried us down here, he and Arthur would likely never find us or the gun at all.

  We continued on.

  At last, the Agarwal robot led us through a thick metal door, one that opened with a clang that echoed down the hallway. We found ourselves on the threshold of a huge cavern, half naked rock and half fantastic machinery, crystalline stalactites spearing downward across vast towers of robot arms and computer interfaces. A number of anthropomorphic ’bots sat or stood around the periphery of the underground lab, some shaped like Agarwal and some not, all of them with their eyes fastened on us. And standing in the
middle of the grandeur was the human version of Vikash Agarwal himself, Liliana next to him in her party dress and shiny black shoes, and some sort of very large, unrecognizably alien weapon in his hands pointed straight at us.

  CHAPTER 37

  WE STOPPED. Denise’s gaze flickered to me, and I gave her a fractional nod.

  “Hello, Vikash,” she said.

  “Hello, Denise,” said Agarwal. The ’bot who had led us down had gone silent and inert; I guessed the live version had to be controlling one of his clones for it to animate.

  “I have a proposal for you,” Denise said. Her voice echoed in the cavernous space.

  “I’m thinking about killing you,” said Agarwal.

  Denise flinched. For God’s sake, don’t let him rattle you! I glared at her back, willing her to understand, but she wasn’t looking my way.

  “I built this for fun,” Agarwal said, hoisting the absurdly large, silvery gun he held. It reminded me of something out of one of Checker’s science fiction films. “It’s a ray gun. At least, I like to call it that. I’m a mad scientist with a secret lab; I figured I needed a ray gun.” He grinned, all teeth. “I’ve got other security measures aimed at you, too, so you and your spectacular ’bot should stay just about there.”

  We stayed.

  “Now,” said Agarwal. “I believe you were about to offer me something.”

  Denise swallowed. “I’m offering you to live.”

  “And your condition for this?”

  “You come with me and surrender to the authorities.” Denise wet her lips and spoke faster. “If they lock you up, you’re probably smart enough to break out eventually, go back to whatever scheme you have going. Or I destroy all your work today. And us.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Agarwal. “About this volcano thing. I’m scanning for the USGS sensors. I think I’m going to find out they’re just sensors. I think you piggybacked on a geological survey and you’re expecting I’m gullible enough to fall for this. Ballsy, I admit.”

  “You saw the math,” said Denise.

  Agarwal scoffed. “Theory. A fascinating one, I’ll admit, and one I’ll be studying; thank you for that. But theory is a far cry from a practical application.”

  I let out a quiet breath. He’d believed my paper.

  “Are you willing to risk it?” asked Denise. “The clock is ticking down.”

  Agarwal narrowed his eyes.

  “Look into the environmental permitting. Contact the USGS if you like,” said Denise. “Everything got pushed through in the last couple of days. If you dig deep enough, it will all fall apart. The survey is fake. We staged everything.”

  “We?” Agarwal pounced on the word, his eyebrows jumping.

  Denise hesitated. You’re talking too much, I thought at her. Shut up. Shut up!

  As if she’d heard me, she only shifted her weight, not answering.

  “Well, well, well,” said Agarwal. “Still waters run deep. Perhaps you are not only a worthy colleague, but a worthy adversary.”

  “I wasn’t your colleague,” said Denise quietly. “I was your supervisor.”

  Agarwal tilted his head at her, evaluating.

  “I know how you work,” Denise continued. “I know you always have a plan. I know I can’t beat you with a bluff. And I know nothing can stop you except the end of the world.”

  Liliana reached up and tugged at the hem of Agarwal’s shirt. “Is this when we kill all the stupid people?” she asked.

  Denise’s eyes widened, and an anvil of emotion slammed into me, so strong I was dizzy from it. I had to stop myself from lunging forward and trying to kill Agarwal right then. My nails dug into my left palm, my blood running hot, buzzing in my ears, and I hoped my skin was dark enough to hide the flush of fury I felt rising…

  “You rewrote her ethical axioms,” said Denise, a funny tremble in her voice.

  “Well, yes,” Agarwal said. He looked down at Liliana. “No, my dear. That’s our end of the world. This is a different one. A bad one.”

  “When do we get ours?” said Liliana. “I want to help.”

  My throat constricted and I tasted bile.

  “Soon,” said Agarwal. “Real soon. But not today.” He raised his voice slightly. “I have a counter-proposal.”

  “What is it?” managed Denise.

  “This place can destroy itself if anyone intrudes. I’m sure you don’t want that—more of your precious human lives lost, you see. I’ll come with you, this one time—I’ll even let the court system decide if they can find me guilty, in their supreme incompetence—under one condition. You leave this place be.” He straightened his posture and gazed at her imperiously. “Because you’re right. One way or another, I’ll be free eventually, and I’ll want my work to return to.” His lips bent back into his angular smile. “And I suspect that by then I’ll have discovered you were bluffing, and you won’t be able to stop me. But I’ll fold this hand, Denise; I’ll bow to your poker skills—if you’ll spare my work. One scientist to another.”

  I didn’t want to take him in anymore. I wanted to kill him. But he was agreeing, he was walking into our trap, and Denise had to take it.

  Instead, however, she thought for a moment, her face blank. “I hold all the cards,” she said.

  Agarwal blinked at her, apparently surprised by the response, and then his face slid into an unhappy grimace. “Come on. Even if you aren’t bluffing, will you kill yourself? And will you destroy all this technology? Our work, your ’bot, everything I’ve done here—can you end all of that?”

  She hesitated for one breath more, then said, “I’ll agree to your condition.”

  She’d kept up the gambit till the very end, I realized. She did know how to play him. And she was much, much better at this than I was.

  I didn’t care what she’d promised, however. Agarwal’s security measures be damned, I was going to find a way back in, and I was going to rescue Liliana, and Denise was going to fix her. Once Agarwal was in custody, I’d have time to figure out a way.

  “Put down the weapon,” said Denise. “And let my ’bot restrain you. Once we’re out of range of your security, I’ll disable the countdown.”

  Agarwal folded his lips together, and I thought for a moment his pride would get the best of him, that he wouldn’t be able to surrender even though he’d said he would. But then he lowered his ridiculously large ray gun to a nearby counter, typed something into one of his interfaces, and raised his hands. “You win this round, Denise.” A hint of his smile flickered.

  The air rumbled.

  The sound started low, almost beyond hearing. But before any of us had done more than look up in bewilderment, it rose, faster and louder and louder and faster like the roar of an oncoming freight train—the floor began to vibrate—Denise whipped around to me in consternation, and Agarwal tried to shout something, but the ground interrupted by bucking up beneath our feet.

  I dove for Denise and caught her before she cracked her head open against the wall. The floor was heaving like a living thing, Agarwal’s equipment and lab counters rippling and buckling. Agarwal himself had been thrown to the ground and was struggling back upright while Liliana clung to a support pillar. The various Agarwal ’bots were sprawled bonelessly, the other robots trying to balance, shock and confusion on their artificial features. The walls of the cavern were falling inward, metal screeching and crunching and a great groaning roar reverberating in our skulls—

  My brain scrambled through every incorrect conclusion in the first instant. Agarwal had said he had other security measures, but were they going wrong, destroying his lab? And we’d only planted fake explosives, fake ones, not real ones, it couldn’t be—and then I remembered the topography maps, the seismic studies, the coordinates we were at, and the truth hit me, terrifying and absolute. Agarwal the genius had built his underground base right next to a fault line.

  Holy crap, the numbers Checker had shown me—the caldera was a hotbed for tectonic activity. This was an
earthquake—a big one—a strong one—and we were underground—

  The floor buckled and lurched again; I held onto Denise in a one-armed bear hug and cushioned her body as we slid against the rock. Chunks of equipment and stone screeched loose and crashed down—one of the ’bots screamed, the sound cutting off as a boulder plunged from the ceiling and crushed him.

  Agarwal managed to claw his way to his feet with the help of a tilting lab counter, and he whirled on us, his features contorted with hatred. “You said you’d stop it!” he shrieked at Denise. “You said if I came with you you’d stop it!”

  I felt Denise take a breath to try to speak, but at that moment the mountain bucked again, breaking my one-arm hold on her and flinging us both to the floor several meters apart. I struggled up to crawl back toward her; Denise was coughing, the wind knocked out of her.

  Agarwal grabbed for his so-called ray gun as it slid across the slanting countertop.

  “It’s an earthquake!” I yelled at him, the words tearing out of me, all thought of role-playing gone. “It’s just an earthquake!”

  But either he couldn’t hear me or wouldn’t, and he swung toward Denise, his eyes filled with hate, with fury at her betrayal, as he raised the ridiculous ray gun and pulled the trigger.

  Electricity arced out like living lightning, beautiful and lethal and as showy as it was deadly. Denise, still struggling for purchase on the heaving floor, saw it coming, and had time for her whole face to go rigid with fear.

  Right in that instant, as Agarwal turned and fired, in a sound I wouldn’t register until long after the fact, Liliana shouted, “Mommy! No!” and flung herself forward, in between them, her arms wide and waving, her face screwed up in fright. The blue fire of the ray gun lit her up like a halo, suspending her in time and space, its light falling on Agarwal’s expression of pure horror.

  She fell.

  Blackened. Inert. The acrid stench of burned silicone stung my senses, somehow more overwhelming than the thunder of the collapsing cavern, the cries of the other ’bots, or Agarwal’s scream of guilt and denial.