In Over Their Heads

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  “Come on, kid,” the male cop said, pulling on Jackson’s good arm to get him to stand up. “Let’s get a move on. You walk, and Lieutenant Kapowski and I will carry your dad. If you try any funny business, we’ll drop him and chase you.”

  “Don’t drop my dad. You won’t have to chase me,” Jackson mumbled.

  Numbly, he walked alongside the cops back through the trees, back to the highway. It was hard to see where they were going in the snow, which was blowing around more and more.

  “Bet they’ll be shutting down the highway soon,” the female cop shouted, over the shrieking wind.

  “Good we’re getting out now,” the male cop shouted back.

  They shoved Jackson into the backseat of the squad car and slid Dad’s slumped-over body in beside him.

  “Back to the police station, and then we’ll check the dad’s memories,” the female cop said. “I bet his memories will be more interesting than the kid thinks.”

  You don’t know the half of it, Jackson thought miserably.

  “Sorry, Dad,” he whispered, even though he knew Dad couldn’t hear. “You were counting on me and I . . . I failed.”

  Dad’s body flopped against Jackson’s as though the framework of his body had rusted out.

  Wish his memory units had rusted out instead, Jackson thought. Wish I could blank it all out before the police revive him and scan his brain.

  Wait—wasn’t there a way that Jackson could do that?

  Right, and everything about Dad would be gone. His memories, his personality, his programming . . .

  What if Jackson backed up all that in his own brain before erasing Dad’s mind? The combined power of Jackson’s mind plus Dad’s would be able to figure out an escape. And then when they were away from the cops, Jackson could upload Dad’s memories back to Dad’s head.

  Jackson realized he was still clutching the bag of electronic parts. He shook melting snow off the sack and pulled out a cord.

  “Dad, I really do know what I’m doing,” he whispered, mostly just to reassure himself.

  The cops were sliding into the front seat now. The female reached for the police radio.

  “Returning to station,” she reported. “Confirm. Over.”

  Jackson cared only that they weren’t looking back at him. He snaked a cord from the back of his neck to the back of Dad’s and tucked it into his coat, so the cops wouldn’t be able to see it even if they turned around.

  “Download all,” he whispered.

  He felt a jolt. Images swam in his head of Dad’s long, secret nights in the computer lab. Of Dad scanning long lists of rules and regulations and figuring out how to evade them all. Then Jackson watched himself and Ava as babies, as toddlers, as gap-toothed first graders. It was so weird to watch events Jackson remembered—a soccer game where Jackson scored the winning goal, a second-grade music program where Jackson played a giraffe—entirely from Dad’s perspective.

  How could I have understood so little about how much he loves us? Jackson wondered. About how much he was fighting? About how he risked everything for us from the very day we were conceived?

  This was not the moment to get sentimental.

  Dad’s memories downloaded in order, so Jackson knew they were near the end when he began seeing scenes of the nature preserve. He saw his immediate family—plus his step-relatives—hiking into the nature preserve the day before. He saw the whole group in the cave. Then he saw himself and Dad hiking out of the nature preserve.

  Then the memory arrived where Dad had stepped out of the nature preserve and reconnected to the robot network. Jackson felt the same kind of shock Dad had felt when the new, dangerous information seared through his circuits.

  Oh no, Jackson thought. Oh no . . .

  He struggled to stay conscious. But it wasn’t enough just to stay alert—he had to act. Now.

  Fortunately, combining Dad’s knowledge with his own meant that he knew more about his options. He jerked the cord out of his neck and dug deeper into the bag of electronic parts. Wires, circuit boards, microchips . . . He worked in a rush, shoving new parts into his stomach, using his coat as a shield to keep the cops from seeing what he was doing, even if they turned around.

  Then he was done.

  “This is what I’ve got to do,” he whispered into his father’s ear. “I think even you would agree it’s the only choice. I have to warn the others.”

  With newly installed superhuman strength, he flung open the locked car door beside him. He hadn’t noticed that, while he’d been working, the car had pulled back onto the highway and was accelerating toward the speed limit—past thirty miles per hour, past thirty-five, past forty . . .

  It didn’t matter. Yanking seat belts from their moorings and casting them aside, Jackson grabbed his father around the waist and sprang out of the car.

  And then, still carrying his father, Jackson took off running back toward the nature preserve.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Nick

  Nick stared at the row of motionless babies in cribs, at the rows of motionless toddlers and preschoolers and elementary school kids behind them. Eryn had to be right; they had to be robots. No humans could stay that still without being dead. For all Nick knew, these robots might have been here for decades, for centuries, totally unchanging. Lying in wait.

  Eryn kept running the flashlight beam back and forth over the rows and rows of robots.

  “You really believe . . . ,” Nick whispered. “That they’re . . . they’re . . .”

  “Think about it,” Eryn said. Even completely horrified, she was still his take-charge sister. She could still sound so certain. “Think about what we already know. The killer robots had one purpose—to kill humans. They weren’t programmed to notice embryos as humans. We know that from the papers we found in the secret room—and from the fact that we’re alive at all. So centuries ago, once they’d killed all the humans who were babies or older, the killer robots probably thought they’d done everything they needed to. They didn’t have any other reason to exist. So maybe they decided to shut down to, I don’t know, conserve energy until they felt they were ‘needed’ again. And they didn’t know that the human race was starting up again outside this cave. . . .”

  “Lida Mae wasn’t shut down,” Nick pointed out.

  “How do you know she wasn’t, before we showed up in the cave?” Eryn asked. “What if she was, like, the early-warning sentry or something, and she was just reactivated when we tripped some sensor showing there were humans in the area?”

  Nick hated it that Eryn’s theory sounded so logical. So plausibly robotlike. He wanted to find a hole in her reasoning so he could pick the whole thing apart.

  “Lida Mae hasn’t tried to kill any of us,” he protested.

  “That we know of,” Eryn said despairingly. “Yet. Maybe she’s waiting to find out how many humans there are out in the rest of the world. Maybe when she finds that out, she’ll . . . she’ll . . .”

  Nick could tell that his sister was trying not to follow her thoughts to their logical end. She had to be thinking about Mom and Dad and Brenda, out there in the snow with Lida Mae chasing them.

  The grown-ups didn’t know anything. Because Lida Mae didn’t look or act like a regular robot—and had never been part of their robot network—they didn’t even know to be suspicious.

  Nick expected his sister to spin around and shout, Come on! We don’t have time to stand here staring! We’ve got to go rescue Mom and Dad!

  But Eryn just kept standing there, running her flashlight beam across one robot face after another. All the robots Nick could see were babies or children—younger children than him and Eryn, even. Did that mean they’d been designed to seem cute and cuddly and harmless, right up until the moment that they killed you?

  Nick felt sick to his stomach just thinking about that.

  “About Mom and Dad . . . ,” he hinted. It would help to throw his energy into running and running and running, so he wouldn’t have to loo
k at or think about all these robots.

  Eryn frowned, held up one hand, and shook her head, which Nick took to mean, I know! I know! But I want to make sure we’re doing this right. . . .

  “You haven’t changed your mind,” Nick said, his voice coming out cold and flat. “You are not thinking now that we do have to kill all the robots. Even our own parents.”

  “No,” Eryn said. Her hand was a fist now. “There are different kinds of robots. The ones like Mom and Dad—they aren’t evil. We have to protect them. I think maybe we’re the only ones who can protect them. But I’m trying to think strategically. If we go out and destroy Lida Mae, maybe that just activates the next robot. And then if we destroy that robot, the next one comes alive. So . . . I think we have to start with the robots that are all asleep.”

  She handed him the flashlight, then bent down and picked up a small column of rock about the length of a baseball bat. Maybe it was a stalagmite or a stalactite that someone had carelessly knocked to the floor.

  “Hold the light steady,” Eryn told Nick. Her voice shook. She stepped up to the nearest crib.

  “I have to do this,” Eryn whispered to herself, raising the rock column over her head. “I have to, to protect my family. I have to, to save all of humanity.”

  Nick flinched, and closed his eyes. He couldn’t watch. He wasn’t programmed like a robot, but he’d been raised to avoid violence. He’d been raised to think through options and possibilities before choosing an action. Sometimes he disobeyed; sometimes he misbehaved. But he got a little squeamish even slapping a mosquito. The truth was, he wasn’t as brave as Eryn.

  Or is it that I’m not as rash?

  Nick opened his eyes. Eryn was just starting to swing the rock column. He reached out and grabbed her arm.

  “Stop!” he yelled. “What if you’re wrong?”

  THIRTY

  Ava

  Ava felt like she knew everything now. Everything about the history of robots; everything about the tragic history of humans and robots together.

  Everything her predecessors had hoped was possible for the future.

  Thoughtfully, she pulled the wire out of her brain stem and coiled it up again along the wall of the gray room. The wire’s tip was the kind that could fit into a robot’s brain or a laptop’s port. Once that would have humiliated her—made her feel like just another pathetic machine. But she wasn’t ashamed of being a robot anymore. Now she understood why that shame had been built in to her programming. It was because so much dated back to the original humans and their attitudes—their fear of being surpassed by robots.

  Even though she’d been designed by her parents, they’d been designed by humans. And they hadn’t been able to completely disregard their programming or their basic beliefs.

  But it was possible to change some beliefs and overcome the past.

  It was.

  Ava had so much to tell Mom and Dad and Jackson. And Donald and Denise, and even Eryn and Nick.

  No, she thought. It felt like the new information in her brain was giving her a nudge. I need to tell everyone. Every single robot and human on the entire planet.

  But first she needed to find Nick and Eryn.

  She let her memory rewind a bit, listening to what she’d tuned out before. When Nick and Eryn left, what had they said? Oh yes: We’ve got to go rescue Mom and Dad. And your mom! Maybe even Jackson and your dad, too!

  That meant they’d planned to leave the cave.

  Ava brought up maps that were now imprinted on her memory, maps showing every inch of the cave in great detail. She saw exactly the route Nick and Eryn would have taken. She saw how they could have gotten lost—and where they might have gotten lost.

  Oh no, Ava thought, scrambling up from the floor. Oh no.

  What happened to Nick and Eryn next, and how they chose to respond—that could ruin everything. That could destroy all the careful plans and strategies that Ava’s kind had taken centuries to put into place.

  Ava stepped out of the room and peered back and forth, her enhanced vision taking in probably a quarter mile in either direction. Nick and Eryn were nowhere in sight. She did see that the FOR ROBOT ACCESS ONLY sign had fallen or been removed from the door. She paused long enough to put it back in place.

  Then she took off running.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Jackson

  Having superhuman strength and speed was amazing.

  Even with Dad’s body slung over his shoulder, Jackson felt like his feet barely touched ground as he sprinted away from the police car. It took only six steps before he was at the edge of the woods again. There was no danger of the cops catching him, because nobody else in the world could run as fast as Jackson was running now.

  Heck, they couldn’t even drive their car as fast as I’m going now, Jackson thought jubilantly, even though he didn’t bother computing his actual velocity to be certain.

  He was pretty sure the heavy snow hid him from sight already; the wind racing behind him probably erased his footprints a moment after he left them. Still, he kept running full speed into the woods. In the blink of an eye he passed the spot where he’d collapsed before. The place where he’d dropped Dad.

  No way I’d drop him now, Jackson told himself. I could carry him over my head in the palm of one hand. I could hold his entire weight on the tip of one finger!

  But the reason Jackson had dropped his father before hadn’t been weakness. It had been because Jackson had blacked out. And that could happen even with superhuman strength and speed.

  Jackson felt a lot less jubilant.

  Stay calm, he reminded himself. You’re fine. But . . . strategize. Prepare an optimal plan for every possibility.

  As the snow swirled around him—as he made a virtual tornado in the snow, with his own speed—his mind raced even faster.

  If I black out again, I can’t leave both Dad and me totally defenseless, he thought. The snow doesn’t bother me now, but if we were both lying unconscious on the ground for hours, the snow would probably get into our circuitry and melt and refreeze and . . . that could kill us.

  He was still using the humancentric language he’d been taught by his human-loving parents. It wasn’t really appropriate, now that he’d been upgraded in every way.

  But leaving even a superhuman robot out in a blizzard like this would be like . . . like dropping a cell phone in a toilet and leaving it there for hours, Jackson told himself. It was the most humiliating comparison he could think of. He had accidentally knocked a phone into a toilet once, and even though Mom had put it in a bag of rice, it had never worked again.

  What if he broke down and they lay in the snow for hours—and nobody could ever fix him or Dad, either?

  That thought brought him completely down from his euphoria.

  He began scanning the area ahead of him. The air was now so thick with snow that even with his enhanced vision he could barely see anything. He almost ran into a tree branch coated with snow; he clunked his toes against a rock hidden by a layer of white.

  I’ve got to revive Dad and restore him, Jackson thought. I can’t wait until we’re back with the others. I have to leave him a chance to rescue both of us, if I fall. Or fail.

  Up ahead Jackson saw a place where a rock overhang sheltered the ground beneath it from the worst of the snow. That could give him a relatively dry place to work. And even though it would probably take the cops with their normal skills an hour or two to cover the distance Jackson had just raced through in five minutes, the rock overhang would also hide Jackson from anyone who might be nearby.

  He scaled the hillside without even breathing hard. But once he slid into the sheltered spot, his hands shook as he laid Dad’s body out on the ground.

  This is no different from restoring files on a computer, he told himself. But it was. This was his father’s very essence—his soul, even, if Jackson could use such a human word. For Dad to be revived and restored to himself, every byte—no, every bit, every single one of the binary
digits that had been contained in his brain—had to transfer back exactly right.

  Jackson pulled out a cord again from the bag of supplies. He inspected it for chips and microscopic cracks. He plugged one end into his father’s neck and the other into his own. He’d been so rushed before, in the car, but this time he checked and double-checked and triple-checked himself on every step. He stretched a two-second process into one lasting five minutes—he was that careful.

  Finally there was nothing else to check.

  “Restore full set of Michael Lightner’s memories and programming from Jackson Lightner’s head back into Michael Lightner’s,” Jackson said, making sure he enunciated each word perfectly. “But . . . don’t delete copied files from Jackson Lightner’s head.”

  Jackson told himself he was just being cautious. He needed to keep a backup copy of his dad’s memories in case something went wrong.

  Jackson felt a throbbing in his head that he hadn’t noticed when he was making the transfer in the other direction. But he hadn’t had superhuman strength then—maybe his greater athletic ability also gave him greater awareness of every detail of his body.

  The throbbing ended.

  “Reboot Michael Lightner,” Jackson said. “Revive him.”

  Dad’s eyelids began to flutter.

  “Denise?” he called weakly. “Brenda? Donald?”

  It annoyed Jackson that Dad called for the adults first—as if Dad assumed it would have taken their help to bring him back.

  Still, Jackson made his voice gentle when he said, “No, Dad, they’re not here. We’re headed back that way, but we’re not there yet. I stopped and rebooted you now because . . .”

  Dad raised up on his elbows. He gazed out at the thick snow blowing sideways across the opening of their shelter. Jackson turned to look in the same direction. Even with his advanced eyes, he couldn’t see anything but snow past the nearest tree.

  “Of course,” Dad murmured. “You’ve got to be terrified. You need me to take care of you.”