Final Battle (7 page)

“Tyce,” Cannon said to me a couple of hours later.

“Yes, sir?” I had just eaten breakfast. Not tasteless nutrient-tube food, like we got on Mars, but real scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast with fresh strawberry jam. We were in a cafeteria—except the general called it a
canteen
—that overlooked the Combat Force base's runway. I sat with my wheelchair directly facing the windows. I'd gone my whole life seeing that butterscotch sky and blue sun on Mars. I couldn't get enough of Earth's blue sky and yellow sun.

“So that Ashley will have all day today with her parents,” Cannon continued, “the Moon shuttle is set for tomorrow afternoon. That will give her most of tomorrow with her parents too. In the meanwhile, I'll give you a briefing.”

I watched a jet land. The wing flaps were extended. Its nose was tilted up slightly. When the wheels hit the runway, a puff of smoke briefly blossomed behind it. It was an incredible sight. No one in the canteen seemed to be paying attention.

“Briefing?” I'd seen ads on television about undergarments, but this …

He smiled, and his stern face relaxed. “Sorry. I keep speaking military around you. A briefing means an information session. We'll continue from what you already know. Essentially we've already dropped robots into place on the Moon. One for you and one for Ashley. The robots are hidden just outside the warehouse in the Manchurian Sector. You and Ashley will go into robot control from a ship in orbit around the Moon.”

He grinned and shook his head. “You know, talking like this shows me how old I am. When I was your age, a Moon trip was incredibly expensive. Now it's like flying a commercial jet. We've got entire communities established under Moon domes. I mean, the last 20 years have been amazing in terms of space exploration.”

I nodded. Someone had told me that there were people alive who'd been around before cell phones were invented. I could hardly believe that.

“My father,” I said. I had decided to keep the early morning phone call to myself. “Any word on him?”

“Nothing. Yet. Everything possible is being done. He'll be found. I can assure you of that. In the meantime, we do have someone to make sure no Terratakers cause you any problems. On Earth or in orbit. He's your new escort.” He pointed over my shoulder.

I strained and turned to see a familiar face. “Nate!”

He was wearing a grin that matched mine, and his blue eyes sparkled.

“Good to see you, buddy,” he said, rushing forward with his large hand ready to shake mine. “Scared up any gators lately?”

I'd first met Nate in the swamps of Florida, where he had almost been killed by an alligator. He, along with the general, had helped Ashley and me escape the Terratakers. His platoon buddies in the EAGLES, the elite division of the Combat Force of the World United Federation, had nick-named him “Wild Man.” When we met him, he had looked the part, with a big, bushy black beard and equally bushy long hair. Since then he had shaved and cut his hair. He'd swapped his tattered wilderness clothing for something fashionable and now looked very respectable. The things that gave his background away, however, were the bulging muscles of his chest and shoulders and arms. Not even clothing could hide that.

“Good to see you too,” I said. I meant it. Crazy things had been happening, and having Nate around was like having an anchor in a storm.

“So,” Nate said to the general, “what's first on our agenda?”

“Nothing much.” Cannon smiled. “Just a committee hearing later this afternoon.”

Nate made a gagging sound. “Committee hearing! I thought you didn't want to put Tyce's life in danger.”

“Danger?” The general frowned.

“Danger. Committee hearings will bore anyone to the point of death.”

“It should hold his interest,” the general answered, with a twitch of a smile. “He'll be answering questions for a delegation from the ethics committee of the World United Federation. This robot control is as new to them as it is to the rest of the world.”

Ethics committee? Was this the interview Dad meant?

The general turned to me. “Yesterday's news conference set off a chain reaction across the world. Politicians at all levels are getting concerned phone calls about the treatment of children who are ‘attached' to robots. The ethics committee needs to hear from you in order to make some first-stage decisions on how to respond.”

My face must have reflected my thoughts.

“Don't be nervous,” the general commented. “They're on your side. They just want basic information about what it's like to control robots.”

“Sure,” I said doubtfully.

“And then there's an interview with Ms. Borris. You might remember her from the news conference.”

An interview with Ms. Borris.
Could this be the “her” Dad had referred to during that strange phone call a few hours earlier? If so, boy, did I have questions for her.

“It seems she wants to allow you to let the world know that it's not a bad thing to control robots. The interview will take an hour and—”

A soldier in a standard Combat Force jumpsuit rushed toward us. His hair was shaved close to his skull. Stopping a respectful distance away, he waited for the general to return his salute.

“Yes?” Cannon snapped off a quick salute.

“Sir, it's about the young Ashley and her family.”

“Yes?” Cannon lost his relaxed air.

“First of all, I've been instructed to tell you that the DNA results were faked.”

“Faked! Who did it? How?”

“I wasn't given that information, sir. But I can tell you why. You see, our surveillance team has lost them.”

“Lost them! Impossible!”

“Sir, I've been told it did occur. I've also been told to relay this message to you. Sir, they think she's been kidnapped.”

CHAPTER 11

An hour later, Nate began to blindfold me.

“Ready to find Ashley?” he asked. He was the only other person with me.

“Ready,” I said, trying to calm myself. Questions raced through my mind. Where had she been taken? How? By whom? The Terratakers? What did they intend to do with her? Or was she even still alive? I didn't want to consider that possibility.

“Headset next,” Nate said.

“Right.”

I was on a bed in a safe room somewhere deep in the Combat Force base. In a pinch, I could do this in my wheelchair, but the bed was more comfortable. Nate had already strapped me to the bed. With the blindfold came total darkness. Soon, when he finished pulling a headset down over my ears to block all sounds, the only sensory input to my brain would come from taste and touch and smell. But there wasn't much around to smell and taste, and since I couldn't move, my brain had already accustomed itself to the sensation of the straps that bound me in place.

All of this was important. I needed as few distractions as possible, for I was about to enter robot control. My head was propped on a large pillow so that the plug at the bottom of my neck did not press on the bed. This hookup had been spliced into my spine before I could walk so that the thousands of bioplastic microfibers could grow and intertwine with my nerve endings as my own body grew. Each microfiber's core transmitted tiny impulses of electricity through my spinal plug into a receiver. Then that receiver transmitted signals to the robot's computer drive. It worked just like the remote control of a television set, with two differences. Television remotes used infrared and were limited in distance. Just like with cell phones, this receiver was capable of trading information with a satellite that in turn bounced and received signals to and from anywhere in the world. And all at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. Since the world was only 25,000 miles around, it meant almost instant communication.

“Let me run a checklist past you,” I said, facing upward in total blindness. It was something Rawling had always done with me on Mars. He said it was very important, for the same reason that pilots run checklists before flying—safety. Nate didn't need the checklist; it was more a reminder for myself. More than that, it felt familiar. I needed that right now, when everything in my life seemed up for grabs.

“Fire away,” Nate encouraged.

“No contact with any electrical sources. Ever.” Any electrical current going into or through the robot would scramble the input so badly that the signals reaching my own nervous system could do serious damage to my brain.

“Check,” Nate said.

“Second,” I said, “disengage instantly at the first warning of any damage to the robot's computer drive.” My brain circuits worked so closely with the computer circuits that any harm to the computer could spill over to harm my brain.

“Check.”

“Final one,” I said. “Robot battery at full power.”

“Um …”

“I don't know either. But it's part of my checklist. Ashley's got the ant-bot. I can only assume since she intended for me to use it that she made sure it would be ready.”

“This ant-bot,” Nate began. “You're not making this up. Right?”

In the darkness beneath my blindfold, I laughed. “Not making it up. If a person can control a full-size robot, why not a miniature one?”

That was one of the many exciting possibilities for robot control. No computer ever built could rival the human brain. Through robot control, the brain gave commands to machines. Big robots. Microscopic robots. I'd once controlled a space torpedo. There was no reason robot control couldn't be extended to aircraft or submarines. “Robot control,” Nate said. “Antbot. All of this really messes with my mind. You know, when I was a kid, virtual reality was still a primitive type of game.”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning from my bed, “but that was ages ago … back when people listened to someone like Justin Timberlake. Now he might be in an old folks' home somewhere. So just remember. You
are
ancient.”

“Ancient, maybe. But much bigger than you. And trained in the use of deadly force. Don't forget that.”

“Also sworn to protect me, not threaten me,” I answered.

“After I put on the headset, can I tape your mouth shut too?”

I was glad for the joking around. It took away some of my fear about Ashley. But I couldn't escape one question. What if her kidnappers had found the ant-bot and I couldn't communicate with her?

The answer to that would arrive in the next few minutes.

“I'm ready for the headset,” I told Nate.

I felt him gently place the headset over my ears. Now I was completely trapped in darkness and silence. Which meant my brain would only respond to the signals from the robot.

I waited for the sensation of entering robot control. A feeling like I was falling off a cliff into a pitch-black void with no bottom.

It came.

Blind and in silence, I fell and fell and fell… .

CHAPTER 12

Somewhere, on the other end of the satellite, signals bounced back and forth between my brain and the ant-bot's computer. I expected to “wake up” and see through the eyes of the ant-bot.

You see, with robot control, the information is simply sent to my brain from the robot's eyes and robot's ears. In turn, my brain sends the robot information on how to move, the same way the brain directs my human body when I'm disconnected from robot control. I see and hear what the robot sees and hears. It moves the way my brain directs. Temporarily, it's like my brain is inside the robot computer. All I have to do is mentally shout “Stop!” and I disengage my brain from robot control.

Strapped to the bed, I waited for the falling sensation to end and for light signals from the ant-bot to reach my brain.

But the blackness remained.

It was as dark to my brain as if I were seeing through my own blindfolded eyes. In fact, for a moment I wondered if I had even managed to successfully link a signal between my brain and the ant-bot. Perhaps Ashley wouldn't even check the ant-bot until the time we'd talked about—late tonight.

So I tested it by flexing my arms. I half expected to feel the pressure of straps against my skin. Instead I heard a tiny click, as if the robot's tiny titanium arms and hands had hit something metallic.

Which meant the link had been established. My brain
was
receiving signals from the ant-bot. That meant I needed to explore the world around the ant-bot.

Groping in the darkness, I felt around with the robot's hands. I slid backward. That was my own action. But I also felt the entire body of the ant-bot bounce up and down gently. This was happening
to
the ant-bot, not because of it.

So I was inside something that was being carried by someone. Hopefully that someone was Ashley.

My brain gradually adjusted to the signals reaching it, just like my own eyes adjusted to light. And far away I saw the tiniest crack of light.

I tried to reach it and was surprised to find it closer than I expected. I bumped into something like a tube.

Finally I realized.

It wasn't a tube but a hinge. With light coming through the tiniest of openings provided by the not-quite-perfect fit of the hinge.

I was inside Ashley's locket. The one her “parents” had given to her when they'd come to pick her up from the Combat Force base. The one they said they'd given her as a baby, kept all these years they thought she was dead, and now were finally able to give back to her.

I assumed she was wearing the locket around her neck. Rumblings vibrated through it and my ant-bot body.

Sound!

Loud sound!

Mentally I adjusted the sensitivity of the ant-bot's audio input.

The ant-bot works like a regular full-size robot, except on a smaller scale. The video lenses zoom from telescopic to microscopic. It can amplify hearing and pick up sounds at higher and lower levels than human hearing.

As I lowered the volume, the rumbling stopped, and the words began to make sense.