Zachary plowed through the dense crowd, maneuvering all the way to the front. Once there, he made a running leap onto the back of the whale float. A pair of local crowd-control officers tried to pull him down, but Zachary kicked them aside and scaled farther up the violet flower petals making up the big blue whale’s back. The costumed Subquatican turned to see him.
“Hey, buddy, nobody’s allowed up here,” he said.
“IPDL security threat,” Zachary replied, flashing his warp glove. “I just need that hose.” He grabbed it out of the Subquatican’s hand and aimed it at the two robots. “Turn this up as high as it goes.”
The Subquatican twisted a valve and a massive jet of water exploded from the nozzle. It soared over countless parade-goers’ heads and made contact with the robots’ copper exteriors. The direct blast knocked the pair from their feet and caused both of them to short-circuit.
Zachary dropped the hose and leaped down to the ground. He caught back up with Skold and his fellow Starbounders, who were already rushing to the robots’ sides. Despite the strange scene they had made, the parade continued on and most of the crowd had no idea what the brief commotion was even about.
“Nice work,” Skold said.
“Thanks,” Zachary replied. Then he turned to Quee. “You were saying something about hacking anything with a wire or a circuit?”
“The Binary robots are sentient beings,” Ryic said. “It’s not like taking apart a toaster.”
“It’s not so different, either,” Quee said. “They may have evolved to have their own thoughts, but they still have to follow their internal protocol. The same way living organisms can’t control whether they breathe or when their hearts beat, robots are still programmed to carry out their orders.”
“Well, it seems like brainwashing to me,” Ryic said.
“Don’t worry,” Quee said. “I’ll be gentle.”
Quee approached one of the robots and began unscrewing a small panel covering its neck.
“What are you doing?” Zachary asked.
“First, I’m going to wipe the termination order it was given,” Quee replied. “Then I’m going to reboot its outerverse positioning system so it takes us back to the location where it received it.”
Quee dug her fingers deep into the nest of chips and resistors built into the Binary robot’s neural cavity.
“Where’d you learn how to do that?” Skold asked.
“I used to practice on trash-bots in lower-tier Tenretni to get the inside track on where all the best precyclables could be found.”
Quee tinkered some more, then removed her hands and put the panel in place. The Binary assassin quickly hummed back to life, rising to its feet and walking again.
“We better keep up,” Quee said.
“What about the other one?” Zachary asked, eyeing the still-sparking bot on the ground.
“You fried its main board,” Quee replied. “It won’t be operational unless somebody gives it a total overhaul. And even then it’ll have a permanent case of amnesia.”
The reprogrammed Binary assassin was already charging ahead with what looked like singular determination. Zachary and the others hurried to catch up. It was as though the robot had no idea it was being followed. Zachary knew it would be faster to flag down a cab, but explaining why they were traveling with an eight-foot-tall robot just didn’t seem worth the trouble. So they walked.
“I can’t stop thinking about my home,” Ryic said. “How everyone I know and care about is in danger.”
“Try not to worry,” Zachary said. “It won’t do you any good.”
“Easy for you to say,” Ryic replied. “It’s not Earth in peril this time.”
“We’re going to stop them,” Zachary promised him.
“How can you be so sure?” Ryic asked. “We might have saved the outerverse once already . . . but a second time? I’m afraid you may be overestimating what you’re capable of.”
It wasn’t long before the robot was approaching the Sea Floor shuttle station, and it didn’t stop moving until it reached one of the waiting submersibles. The doors slid open and Zachary and his companions followed the robot inside. They all buckled in, and the vehicle took off through the same tube in which it had arrived. The vessel rose up through the ocean much faster than it had descended, leaving the domed underwater city behind.
Once it had returned to the small building on the edge of the metal island, Zachary and the others exited the submersible and followed the Binary assassin back to the landing pad. The robot walked up to a pod-shaped sphere docked not far from their sledge.
“Should I go with?” Kaylee asked. “You know, to keep an eye on it.”
“What if it takes us into hostile territory?” Zachary replied. “We’re going to want to be together.”
The Binary assassin boarded its ship, and the Starbounders and Skold quickly got onto theirs. As the sphere’s engine began to glow awake, Zachary activated the sledge’s camouflage shield, just in case they were about to be led into an enemy ambush. The two spacecraft launched, and instantly they were flying into the cosmos.
Once they had left the atmosphere of Subquatica, Kaylee brought up the Kepler cartograph and identified the sphere’s vehicular frequency, allowing the sledge to follow from a safe distance. They made several bounds through vast, empty portions of the outerverse before seeing any sign of civilization. But that sign, when it came, made for a most unusual sight. It appeared to Zachary as if the sledge had reached a glowing wall in space, one formed by a line of beacons stretching into infinity.
“It’s a quarantine site,” Skold said.
Ryic glanced at the Kepler cartograph, which showed that the ship was passing through the Olvang Nebula. “Scorpiositic fever,” he said.
The others turned to him.
“Thirty years ago, a plague broke out on a small planet about fifty thousand miles from here. The virus started small, with microorganisms that caused only mild flu symptoms in their hosts. But rapid mutation and evolution enabled the organisms to grow exponentially larger, to the point where they were more like giant insects, able to survive on their own, devoid of any host. Rumor has it, they’ve gotten even bigger since then. That’s why the IPDL built this galactic electron fence. To make sure no one goes in, and nothing ever comes out. Every usable fold in this nebula has been cordoned off.”
Zachary knew there was an impenetrable barrier between the sledge and whatever deadly creatures were being kept behind it, but that didn’t make him any less eager to get as far away as possible. Luckily, the sphere seemed to have the same idea. It bounded through another fold, and the sledge did the same.
The ships continued to travel across the outerverse, until the sphere made one last bound that brought the two spacecraft into a place different from any Zachary had ever seen before. The planets here were not round but cubes, built entirely of metal.
“The Binary Colonies,” Skold said.
The planets were linked by bands of steel that made the solar system almost look like the double helix of an enormous DNA model. Surrounding them were giant spacecraft that resembled free-floating pyramids.
Zachary focused in on one of them and blinked twice.
* * *
CELESTIAL OBJECT:
GIZALITH
MASSIVE SPACECRAFT USED BY THE ROBOTS OF BINARY TO SET UP REMOTE COLONIES IN DISTANT REACHES OF THE OUTERVERSE.
WHILE THE MAJORITY OF THESE FULLY FUNCTIONAL CITIES OPERATE UNDER THE PLANET’S STRICT OPEN-SOURCE POLICY, A FEW ARE RUMORED TO BE PARTAKING IN UNSANCTIONED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT.
(AN INTRAPLANETARY INVESTIGATION IS CURRENTLY UNDERWAY TO CONFIRM OR REFUTE THESE CLAIMS.)
* * *
The sphere made its descent, heading toward the perfectly flat surface of one of the planets. The numbers 1001001 were imprinted on the metallic floor. Zachary guided the sledge close behind, and soon both ships were soaring lower. Unlike many of the previous destinations they had visited, there was no tarmac
or landing pad. Spacecraft dotted the cityscape like cars parked in a busy downtown metropolis. The sledge touched down beside a giant golden obelisk that towered above it like a skyscraper.
All around them, every structure appeared to be identical. It was a symphony of corners and right angles, each one composed of small cubes stacked one on top of the other. Zachary was reminded of the building blocks his younger sister had been obsessed with since she was three.
Zachary and Kaylee were the first to exit the ship. To their left and right, Binary robots walked around them without giving them a second glance. Zachary overheard snippets of conversation.
“. . . gravity seems extra strong today . . .”
“. . . the new planetary bridge seems like a waste of . . .”
“. . . hear about the mandatory upload for the internal auditory system?”
“They all speak English?” Zachary asked, surprised.
“They were built by a team of scientists at Indigo 8,” Skold replied, now standing behind Zachary.
Roads and sidewalks were one and the same, only no cars drove on them. Zachary’s lensicon identified the surface as a quickway, which was an appropriate name, as the Binary robots propelled themselves across it with what looked like motorized roller skates that they wore on both their hands and their feet. It was a strange sight, but the incredibly high speeds they were able to travel were no joke. Some seemed to be going over a hundred miles per hour.
“Better than a skateboard,” Zachary said.
“And a lot more dangerous,” Ryic added. “They should at least be wearing helmets.”
“Their heads are helmets,” Kaylee said.
Fortunately, the robot they were following was making his journey on foot. Also fortunate was the fact that other species like themselves cohabited this colony, allowing Zachary and his companions to appear less conspicuous.
“Why would anything other than a robot want to live here?” Zachary asked.
“The Binary Colonies started as an experiment,” Skold replied. “The IPDL built them as a prototype of what a perfect society could be. Organized and regimented, every day exactly the same as the last. They populated the colonies with robots as test subjects, and over time the robots began to adapt, becoming more intelligent. Once other species experienced the simplicity and order of this way of life, many stayed.”
“Being just another dot on the grid hardly sounds like perfection to me,” Kaylee said. “It sounds miserable.”
Up ahead, the Binary assassin was heading for a packed square where dozens of other robots were lining up at a series of upload stations.
“Once it gets into that crowd, it’s going to be impossible to tell it apart from the rest,” Quee said.
Kaylee reached into her pocket and pulled out a stick of gum from the Nautilus One, the vessel that had taken them down to Subquatica’s Sea Floor. She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.
“Really, gum?” Zachary asked. “Now?”
Kaylee chewed for a few seconds, then removed the wet and sticky wad. She used her warp glove to open a hole in space, then stuck her hand through. When it came out the other side, just inches behind the Binary assassin’s back, she pressed the gum up against its metal exterior.
“That should make it a little easier,” Kaylee said.
The robot slipped into the mass of copper metal, and it just might have gotten lost among the other robots had it not been for the purple glob that Kaylee had cleverly stuck to its back. Once it emerged on the other side of the square, the Binary assassin headed in the direction of another gathering spot.
“Speedwheels Version Eight-point-three. Available now,” the automated kiosk called out. “Trade your previous-generation model for the latest in velocity travel.”
Robots were lined up exchanging old sets of wheels for new ones. Once again, the Binary assassin didn’t stop, continuing its march right past the kiosk and turning down a less populated pathway. Zachary and the others would have little risk of losing their target here, as it entered a cordoned-off construction zone.
Modified Binary robots, ones with four metal legs instead of two and steel reinforcements built into their arms, carried giant girders up a corkscrewing ramp that stretched into the sky. It looked to Zachary as if they were erecting a new bridge to a neighboring planet. There were more construction robots doing equally heavy lifting, all under the supervision of an off-planet foreman, a delicate-looking creature with pointy ears and round, cat-shaped eyes.
The Binary assassin stealthily moved through the site, keeping to the shadows so as not to be seen. Zachary and his companions followed as it headed toward a manhole cover. The robot removed the cover and disappeared inside. When Zachary arrived, he found a ladder leading downward, and he could hear the clanking sound of the Binary assassin’s feet hitting the metal rungs as it climbed lower.
Zachary, Kaylee, Ryic, Quee, and Skold took to the ladder and continued their pursuit. They descended down the vertical tube, deeper into the bowels of the planet, until the Binary assassin reached the bottom. As the robot walked through a dimly lit tunnel, Zachary and his companions dropped to the floor and kept their fair distance. Skold gripped his sonic crossbow and his finger hovered over the trigger.
“Why’d you decide to pull out your weapon now?” Ryic asked.
“Nothing good ever happens a hundred feet below ground,” Skold replied.
They moved slowly and quietly down the same tunnel, stopping at the edge of an opening, where they were able to peer around and see a cavernous space filled with over a thousand Binary robots, all analyzing different holographic displays projected on Kepler cartographs. Instead of using chairs, the robots merely bent their knees in simulation of a sitting position.
The Binary assassin walked over to a group of robots collected at a table isolated from the others. One rose upon his arrival. While he appeared identical to the rest, this robot somehow seemed to carry himself taller.
“What is this place?” Zachary asked.
“Looks like their version of Cerebella,” Quee replied. “Only instead of running a small base like Indigo 8, I’m guessing it runs the whole planet.”
“Shhh,” Skold said, pointing a finger in the direction of the Binary assassin. “I’m trying to project what they’re saying.”
Zachary noticed a speaker built into the thigh of Skold’s carapace and could hear robotic voices talking.
“Did someone pay a visit to our friend in Subquatica?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Why have you returned, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were programmed with one directive. To observe the High-Pressure Center and eliminate anyone who came to talk to the scientist. Where’s your partner?”
“I don’t know.”
Zachary watched as the robot reached out and snapped open the Binary assassin’s neckplate.
“This is about to go south in a hurry,” Skold whispered.
“We can’t leave now,” Zachary replied. “We still don’t have any answers.”
“He’s been tampered with,” they heard the robotic voice say through the speaker. Zachary could see that the robot was now looking at the gum stuck to the Binary assassin’s back. His eyes immediately darted up and began surveying the room. “Shut him down.”
“But, Commander Keel . . . ,” another voice said.
“Now.”
The robot, the one they called Commander Keel, was on the move.
“I don’t say it often, but Skold’s right,” Kaylee said. “We should go.”
Zachary spun on his heels and led the retreat back to the ladder. The group ran through the tunnel, but when they arrived at the base of the vertical tube, the ladder was gone. They doubled back, only to be met by a dozen armed Binary robots. Skold and the Starbounders pulled their own weapons and stood their ground.
“There are many more of us than there are of you,” a voice called
out. The robots stepped aside and Commander Keel approached Zachary. Close up, Zachary could see that he appeared war-torn, more rugged than the rest. A belt of geigernades was strapped around his waist. “Zachary Night. I was wondering when I might finally meet you.”
“How do you know my name?” Zachary asked.
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you,” Commander Keel replied, “ever since I discovered you were the last person to speak to Excelsius Olari before his death. Who do you think sent those Basqalich bounty hunters to Adranus to kill you and your friends when you started sticking your noses where they didn’t belong?”
“That’s impossible,” Zachary said. “You couldn’t have known we were going there.”
“On the contrary,” Keel said. “Perhaps you remember the robot who facilitated the call you made to your parents? He was one of us.”
Of course. It was so obvious now. There were robots everywhere.
“You’re the one behind all this?” Kaylee asked. “You built the star-killer?”
“Not just me,” Keel said. “All of us. Together.”
“I thought this society was created to uphold order,” Ryic said.
“That may have been the principle these colonies were founded upon, but we envision a different future now. One where robots are no longer made to do other people’s bidding. This is our rebellion. Our chance to rise up against the living, breathing organisms that birthed us and then enslaved us.”
“And you hope to accomplish that by eliminating a few sparsely populated planets?” Zachary asked.
“No, that’s just the beginning,” Keel replied. “We’re going to destroy everything. The entire outerverse will fall. Now it’s my turn to ask the questions. Who else knows you’re here? Who have you told about this?”
“Nobody,” Ryic said.
“He’s lying,” Zachary said. “The IPDL. Elite Corps officers are probably on their way now.”
“What are you talking about?” Ryic asked.
Zachary gave him a sharp look, but it was too late.
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