Chapter 45
“Everybody’s out there wrestling like a robot.”
— Hulk Hogan
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Poly.
“I wish,” said Rosalind via my phone. “Cornell and I are going to try to get inside it.”
“Good luck,” I said, “and remember not to get stepped on.”
“We’ll do our best,” said Rosalind.
I extended the robot’s hand, like one of the statues of Isildur and Anárion at the Falls of Rauros, and pointed at the gigantic new player entering the field. Gus turned to follow my gesture.
“O. M. Gee, that thing’s big,” he said.
“Coming from you, that’s sayin’ somethin’,” said Chit.
“Can you get large enough to stop it?” I asked.
The seven-hundred-foot robo-building was striding toward us, scanning us as potential opponents and scoping out something on the ground as well—the G70 delegates.
Gus pressed his fists together and assumed a look of concentration that I only saw in the mirror when I needed to pass gas. For the sake of the people on the ground, I hoped that’s how he summoned the extra mass needed to grow larger.
It was. As the robo-building approached, Gus doubled in size again to over six-hundred feet. He was still shorter than the building-that-walks, but not by much. He’d need help to take on The General’s biggest threat, which I’d decided to name G.D. for General Destruction or maybe some other, more blasphemous phrase.
“Do you have anything you can throw at that thing?” I asked Poly.
“Get me closer, and I’ll try lobbing a few nova bombs at its knees,” said Poly.
“Great,” I said. “And I’ve got a few ideas of my own.”
The G.D. robot was larger, but slower than my robot. It also couldn’t fly, and I could. I triggered my robot’s boot jets and did my best Superman impression, shouting “Up, up, and away!” while Poly and Chit looked at me like I’d lost a few screws. Maybe my robot had, after Gus’s last hug, but I hadn’t. I wanted to try something that might slow the G.D. robot down.
While we were airborne, Poly launched a couple of missiles from our robot’s forearms. They struck the G.D. robot at mid-thigh and latched on like remora fish sucking up to a shark, but the seven-hundred-foot robot brushed them away with its huge mechanical hands before they could explode. The nova bombs went off in midair, not attached to the robot’s armored skin, and did minimal damage.
“Drat and drat squared,” said Poly. “I was aiming for the backs of its knees.”
So was I, but I didn’t have time to tell her.
After a short ascent, I touched down across the street on the east side of the park, next to the two-hundred-foot SkyView Atlanta ferris wheel. Back in the park, I could see Gus had blocked the path of the monstrously large robot and the two behemoths were now in a battle of truly Brobdingnagian proportions.
The General Destruction robot’s back was to me, so I had my robot tug on the SkyView’s wheel until its axle popped off its mooring. My robot stood there, holding the wheel in its outstretched arms like a Salvador Dali-esque version of daVinci’s Vetruvian Man. The wheel was almost as tall as my robot, but it was mostly made from cables, which made it light enough to lift and easy to move around.
I rotated my robot’s hips and made it crouch so I could leverage the strength of its leg motors as I moved the wheel back and forth in a tick-tock motion. At each tock I moved the wheel farther and farther back, rotating it closer to horizontal in the process. Finally, as I moved forward for the last time, I released the giant wheel and sent it spinning into the park like an oversized Frisbee headed straight for the back of the G.D. robot’s knees.
The wheel hit the EUA robot precisely on target, forcing the multi-story monstrosity to kneel, its metallic patellas hitting the ground with enough of a shock to bounce G70 delegates a hundred yards away several feet in the air. I also watched in horror as several tables holding the Teleport Inn’s beautiful buffet toppled, sending what I was sure had to be delicious food onto the pavement.
Poly sent four more limpet missiles screaming in to latch onto the EUA robot’s shoulder joints, but once again they were ineffective. Odd-looking creatures resembling Alaskan king crabs made of obsidian—EUA’s version of octovacs, I assumed—skittered out of cracks in the G.D. robot’s back and detached the nova bombs before they could go off. The bombs exploded high in the air and the ugly black crab-things waved their segmented legs at us defiantly.
The G.D. robot hadn’t lost its grip on Gus when it knelt, either. The big Gojon was also on his knees and didn’t seem to be doing well. His bright green scales were fading to a bilious hospital-walls green and his eyes were bugging out. The giant EUA robot was choking the life out of my friend.
“Hang on,” I shouted.
Poly, Chit and my phone grabbed whatever they could to help maintain their stability while I pushed our robot’s boot jets up to maximum power and sent it flying directly at the G.D. robot. Realizing, almost too late, that it wouldn’t be wise to smash into the EUA robot with our robot’s head—since we were in it—I put out our robot’s arms and assumed a flying superhero pose, planning to slam into the center of the G.D. robot with the entire weight of our robot concentrated in the minimal cross section of its fingertips.
It would have been a good idea, too, if Gus hadn’t lost consciousness and suddenly returned to humanoid size. The G.D. robot bent forward involuntarily, as the giant lizard-alien it had been choking shrank away to nearly nothing. My robot went careening over the EUA robot, forcing me to pull up at a very steep angle so my robot wouldn’t crash into the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, and twenty-sixth floors of the Omni Atlanta Hotel.
“Everybody okay?” I asked, as I reoriented our robot and directed it back to the park.
“As Terrhi would say,” said Poly in a completely uninflected, deadpan voice, “Whee.”
Everyone’s a critic.
“You sure you don’t want me to drive this thing?” asked Chit.
“I don’t think you have the right size or number of appendages to pull it off,” I replied.
“I’m not sure you do, either,” said Chit.
“Point taken,” I agreed. “Now what?”
The G.D. robot had returned to a standing position, leaving the wrecked cables of the ferris wheel behind it. Macerator units were pouring out of the EUA robot’s feet, rounding up G70 dignitaries and herding them inside the G.D. robot. We were too late to rescue them.
I had our robot circle above the park on autopilot, trying to figure out what to do next. Maybe I could use the cables from the SkyView Atlanta ferris wheel to wrap up the G.D. robot’s legs, like Luke Skywalker taking down Imperial Walkers?
At least Tomáso, Queen Sherrhi and Diágo were safe—but what about Terrhi and Bavarian? And Max and Sally—were they still inside the aquarium?
We had to stop the G.D. robot before any more people were captured.
“Brace yourselves, here we go again,” I said.
“Go for it,” said Poly.
I landed our puny two-hundred-and-fifty-foot robot in front of the G.D. robot, feeling like a hobbit standing up to a troll. Poly launched a dozen more nova bombs, but they were all countered by the obnoxious black octocrabs. I tried to get our robot to punch at the G.D. robot’s knees, to bring it down closer to our level, but that brought me too close to its arms. The G.D. robot’s fist crashed into our robot’s head so hard we went flying independently while our robot’s torso remained rooted to the ground.
“I know there are independent thruster controls here somewhere,” I said, searching the command console frantically.
“Better hurry, bucko,” said Chit. “Nine point eight meters per second per second ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at.”
Poly, wisely, didn’t comment and distract me. It’s one of the many many reasons I love her.
“Got it,” I said.
The parabolic arc our robot’s head had
been describing changed to a vertical line.
“I love you,” said Poly, now that it was safe to do so.
“Love you, too,” I replied.
I instructed the robot’s head to hover well out of reach of the G.D. robot and tried my favorite guided meditation to lower my heart rate—without much success. Then my phone beeped.
“Jack,” it said. “You’re going to want to see this.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A multimedia text message from Rosalind’s phone. A photo.”
“Put it on the main monitor,” I said.
“Oh no!” said Poly when she saw the screen.
“Crap,” said Chit. “Crap squared.”
It was a picture of a conference room. Our friends—Rosalind, Cornell, Pomy, Emma Ann, Terrhi, Bavarian, Spike, Spot, Mike, CiCi, Ray Ray, Hither, Shuvvath, Roger Joe-Bob, Bart Urrrson, Niaowla Murriym, Mistress Marigold, Kijana, Pierre, and François—were all tied to chairs or otherwise bound on the floor of a large conference room. Even Mistress Marigold’s three self-mobile plants were held captive under bell jars in pots positioned near the far wall.
The photo was high definition, so we could make out the fear on our friends’ faces. It had a caption that made my blood run as cold as the atmosphere of Niflheim.
Room 6660 in ten minutes or they die.
Chapter 46
“I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today...”
— Standard Summation Trope
There are times when it doesn’t pay to get up in the morning. This wasn’t one of them. We finally had The General right where we wanted him.
Yeah, right.
“Is there a landing pad on top of EUA’s headquarters?” I asked.
“You mean the big-ass robot?” asked Chit.
“Yes, that’s what he means,” said Poly. She sighed.
“There is a landing pad large enough for you to set down just behind the rounded top of the EUA robot’s head,” said my phone.
“You mean the Vader helmet?” asked Chit.
“Yes, it means the Vader helmet,” I replied.
I quickly maneuvered our robot’s head over to the specified pad and made a gentle landing. I counted it as a win that we weren’t blown out of the sky in the process. We climbed out through the hatch near where the robot’s neck had been. Chit rode at my collar, hidden by my hair.
As soon as we left our robot’s head, dozens of obsidian-black octocrabs swarmed over it and began its disassembly. We wouldn’t be making our escape by the roof, unfortunately. Poly, Chit and I boarded the landing-pad-level elevator and Poly pressed the button with double sixes.
Things were tense in the small enclosed space of the elevator as we descended. Poly and I held hands to reassure each other and help cope with our jangled nerves. Chit started humming the music from Final Jeopardy. Poly and I both laughed, then told Chit to shush. I reached for my phone to see how we were doing on time, but it wasn’t on my belt. Just as well it was exercising its initiative again—it would probably be confiscated if it was on me when we reached our destination.
The normalcy of hearing an elevator chime its arrival on a designated floor felt surreal under the current circumstances. Poly and I stepped off and looked in both directions down a long, empty corridor. Nobody was around, though I could hear the chitter of octocrabs echoing off polished marble walls and floors in the distance. A sign pointing to the right directed us to Room 6660 and Media Production.
“Better step on it, bucko,” said Chit. “Only two more minutes left on The General’s deadline.”
Poly and I sped up our pace. I saw an open door on one side of the corridor and couldn’t resist a quick look inside. It was a television recording studio and the single fixed camera near the back wall pointed at the upper torso of a faceless mannequin in a dark suit. Curiouser and curiouser.
We continued walking and finally spotted signs of habitation. Two solidly built security guards in stiff black uniforms with epaulets stood outside a door. They weren’t the type to work for minimum wage. I was pleased to see the numbers 6660 were incised into a small rectangle of black marble affixed to the door.
“Assume the position,” said the larger of the pair. His partner covered us with a heavy-duty sweetener, the kind that’s jokingly referred to as a sugar shocker.
I’d seen enough cop shows to know what to do. I spread my feet apart and leaned toward the wall, resting both palms on its smooth surface. I was patted down professionally and felt heartsick when my Swiss Army knife was confiscated.
“Be careful with that,” I told the guard. “I’m going to want it back when this is over.”
“I don’t think so,” said the guard.
“Do it anyway,” I said.
My comments didn’t make him change his expression and he returned to his work, taking my mini-sweetener, but missing Chit because she could shift away from his hands. I stayed in my awkward, splayed position while his partner repeated the process on Poly.
The other guard was equally thorough and every bit as professional as her larger associate. She managed to find where Poly kept her cell phone, something I hadn’t been able to figure out in several months. The not-quite-so-large guard also discovered a long thin knife Poly had hidden in the waistband of her navy shorts. I was pleased to confirm that Poly and I both subscribed to the Boy Scouts’ Be Prepared philosophy. Somehow both guards missed our Orishen pupa silk shirts, but that made sense. The shirts only turned rigid in response to a solid impact.
The larger guard said, “You can go in now,” making the command resemble a request, but we knew better.
His partner was flicking her sugar shocker toward the door in an urgent manner that my brain interpreted as “Schnell, schnell!”
Poly and I entered. The room was an extended rectangle with tall windows along one of its long sides. Our friends were still tied to chairs around a light-oak conference table almost the size of a Dauushan Model-43 3D printer. Two more uniformed guards dragged us to a pair of empty chairs and duct-taped our arms and torsos in place. I could see the disappointment in our friends’ eyes when they realized Poly and I were also captives.
I scoped out more of the details of the room. I was sitting next to Poly, opposite the windows. I rotated my chair and studied the wall behind me. It was a smart wall displaying an intricate Microsoft Project plan for galactic domination, with boxes labeled things like Kidnap Princess Terrhi, Sue Melpomene Keen-Jones, and Leverage Dauushan Production Capacity for Conquest. I had to stifle a chuckle when I saw yellow sticky notes over certain tasks on the complex work breakdown structure. It was hard to find people who really understood how to update project plans properly. I took comfort in knowing my own efforts were responsible for parts of The General’s master plan being off schedule.
Alban White was also present, taped to a chair like the rest of us. The old man looked at me without any glimmer of recognition and I wondered if this was the original version, not his android human-duplicate doppelganger.
Adolphus Kone seemed to be presiding over the conference room with the don’t give me any crap attitude of a judge in a courtroom. He was standing by the far wall, checking a large tablet. There was a door behind him. Yet another pair of human guards flanked Kone, sugar shockers at the ready.
“So glad you could join us,” said Boss Kone. “The General will be pleased to see you. We only have to wait for a few more guests to arrive.”
“Guests?” I said, practicing my ironic tone.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Kone, doing the same, only better.
Someone knocked on the door behind Adolphus.
“Come in,” he said.
One of the guards opened the door and Pablo Daniel Figueres entered with Camilla Moultrie right behind him. Camilla had her right hand in the side pocket of her suit jacket, which made me wonder if she was holding a mini-sweetener or slug thrower. Camilla was behind SLN’s leaks, of course.
“What’s going on, Uncle Dolph?” asked Figueres. “Why are all these people tied up?”
Uncle Dolph?
“All in good time, Danny,” said Boss Kone. “I’ll explain everything as soon as the last few stragglers arrive.”
“You’d better have a good explanation,” said Figueres. “I don’t want to have anything to do with holding people captive.”
“I guess I was wrong,” I told Danny. “I thought you were one of the good guys—but you’re on his side.”
“I am a good guy,” said Figueres. “And I’m sure my Uncle Dolph is, too.”
“You’re related?” asked Poly.
“Not by blood,” said Figueres, “but we’re as close as family.”
Danny looked around the captives at the table and stopped short.
“Hi Rosey,” he said. “Hi Cornell. Why are you taped up?”
“Great question,” said Rosalind. “I asked Uncle Dolph the same thing myself.”
Rosalind’s Uncle Dolph, too?
“How do you know Rosalind?” asked Poly.
“Dolph and Freya adopted Rosey and Cornell after their parents died,” said Danny. “They also sort of adopted me too, unofficially. Remember the lawyer from Atlanta I tried to hustle in Old San Juan—the one who helped me get into Georgia Tech?”
I vaguely recalled Figueres sharing that story when we’d met in his office.
“Dolph and Freya took me under their wing when I moved to town,” said Danny. “Later, Uncle Dolph helped me get the financing I needed to get the Sirocco Legislative Network off the ground from my dorm room. We agreed to keep our relationship quiet since it made a better story for me to be a completely self-made, up-from-the-streets kind of guy.”
“But you lied to us about not knowing anyone on the EUA executive team,” I said.
“I know,” said Danny. “I’m sorry, but like I said, I’ve been keeping my relationship with Dolph quiet since before First Contact. By now it’s almost a reflex.”
Poly’s brows were furrowed.
Xenotech General Mayhem: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 4) Page 38
