Rat Trap (4 page)

Jeff knew the space station better than anyone coming here from Rodengenics. He ought to be able to think of a way to outsmart the investigator. He
had
to. He couldn't let Rat kill somebody!

Jeff slowed to a walk. He breathed in deep to quiet the heaving of his chest, noticed the bright blue walls of the science section. He'd left his room running
away
from the science section, but here he was. He'd gone all the way around Ring 9. It was easy to go in circles on a space station.

Jeff stopped and pressed his head against the elevator control panel.

What if he just visited?

Yeah. Case the joint. Isn't that what bank robbers did before a heist? Of course it was.

He would just look.

He didn't
have
to take the laser.

Not yet, anyway.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

O
NE
U
GLY
L
EG

Rat coughed. Her throat hurt. It felt scraped, as if she had swallowed a food pellet sideways. Rat had never been so angry before!

She feared the scientists. Hated them. Cold feelings. Desperate and silent.

But the boy …

What was the matter with the boy, anyway? He saved Rat's life before. Why did he hesitate to help her now? Did he want her to get caught? To live in a cage again?

Rat stared at the door. On this side, she had control of the boy. On the other side, anything might happen.

Rat looked down with disgust at the cast on her leg. Without it, she could follow the boy, sneaking and slinking through the vents. Even better, she could do the job herself. She would have the laser by now. She might even have tested it on something. No. Bad idea. The space station had ways of knowing when guns were fired.

Rat pulled a snip of wire from a box near the keyboard. The boy got them for her so she could be nervous safely. Twirling the wire like a corncob, she nibbled every bit of black off. Not as calming without the dangerous little tickle of electricity.

She reached for another—recoiled. Shook herself. Trouble coming, and she was dithering like a hamster. She had grown soft. Nothing had threatened her life for several days. And now she dithered when a job needed to be done!

Work!

Rat snipped the wire in half with one powerful bite. Tossing away the pieces, she turned to the keyboard. She needed to program a worm to track down and erase everything in the space station's computer that might give her away. A huge job. Better start with a little practice worm just to wipe out all traces of her search for the laser. She positioned herself on the keyboard, and right away the cast clunked against keys she did not want pressed.

Look at that! Her own leg making bugs!

Rat flopped onto the keys. The computer beeped in protest at the crazy input. Rat ignored it. Arching her back, she seized the cast with her forepaws. It took only a minute to shred it.

The leg looked ugly.

The hairs were matted, dull, and dingy. There wasn't any hair at all over the long white scars. The skin sagged loosely over the shriveled muscles.

Ugly, but the bones were straight.

Toes wiggled;

ankle flexed;

knee bent;

painless!

Good leg! Healed leg!

Rat twisted off her back onto all fours. Her body stood even, not lopsided. She squared up. Steady. Ready. Go!

Rat leaped onto the chair and scurried around and around the frame in a spiral to the floor. She ran across the room, switched back, ran across again, zigzagging. A powerful spring landed her on the bed.

Rat could sneak again! Run again! Scamper and scurry and jump again!

Rat leaped up the stacked cubbies, up to the ceiling, and into her air vent.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

LB

Jeff keyed the location of the Photonics lab into the elevator panel, then hesitated. No. He had to go. If he couldn't think of a better plan, Rat would need the laser. For self-defense, if nothing else. It was only fair.

“Proceed,” Jeff said. The car started moving
in.

Would the old lady be there? Did she work alone or with a staff? And what if someone
was
there? Then what?

Sneak, Rat said. Oh, boy.

The indicators flashed Ring 8, Ring 7, Ring 6. …

The space station was like a tree trunk. Over many decades it had grown ring by ring from the central hub. Each ring as you went
in
was older than the last, and like the rings of a tree, they were mostly dead. The rings wore out from the stress of space and being so close to the sun. So a new one, called Outer Ring, was always under construction. The old rings were cannibalized to help build it.

Reaching Ring 5, the car moved sideways through several sections, then stopped. Straight across the corridor, the door into the Photonics lab stood open. Lights off. Nobody home?

Jeff's heart gave a thump. Sweat broke out on his skin. Maybe this was his chance …

He shuffled across the corridor. If you walked normally in the half-gravity, the extra muscle power would bring your knees smack up against your chin.

Jeff stopped at the threshold. The room had a high ceiling and was about the size of a tennis court. It was filled with concentric circles of ball-shaped processing units, as tall as Jeff, all connected with thick cables. Everything glowed a faint red. It looked like someone had spilled a bowl of giant spaghetti and meatballs with glow-in-the-dark sauce. The glow must be from the laser source.

Where was it?

Jeff didn't have a clue. Rat's fault, chasing him out before he'd really studied the diagram. He didn't have Rat's or Mom's memory. He'd have to search.

Jeff called “Hello?” to make sure no one was there and, getting no answer, began shuffling toward the nearest cabinet, careful not to let his feet tangle in the cables.

“BOO!”

Jeff yelped. Sprang into the air.

He slammed into the ceiling, then dropped onto a pipe. Directly below him someone laughed and laughed. The lights came on. From his perch on the pipe, he looked down on a head of white hair styled in neat cornrows. It was the old lady he'd met, only she wasn't in a wheelchair anymore.

“Oh, dearie me. I always forget the gravity factor.” She swiped tears from her eyes, making her cheeks glisten. Her face was as dark and wrinkled as an overripe avocado. “Can you get down by yourself?”

So much for sneaking. Jeff let go. What would have been quite a drop on Earth ended in a mild jolt. “I called—”

“Storage room.” She waggled a parts packet at him. “But I heard you. Yes, indeed. Couldn't resist.”

She poked her head out the door. “You alone?”

Jeff felt a stab of that old anger: Nobody cared about a boy on this stupid space station. She really wanted Dad. And why not? He was the computer expert.

“Oh, well, you'll have to do,” she said, but with mischief in her voice. She was teasing! “Come meet LB.”

“LB?”

She put an arm over his shoulder. Her skin smelled of the almond moisturizer everyone used to combat the space station's dry air. Leaning close, she whispered, “Stands for Lite Brite, but don't ever call LB that, you hear?”

“Why not?”

“Lite Brite was a toy when I was a little girl. Used pegs of light to make pictures. Seemed a dandy name early on, but LB's got too much dignity now.”

She led him past the big round processors to the central console. It was mostly a jumble of half-assembled electronics, but one panel looked more finished. It contained a speaker grill and monitor screen. On the counter in front of these was a notebook-sized square lid. In the center of the lid was the keypad of an electronic combination lock. The lid was painted bright yellow with black bars and the warning:
DANGER. BLINDING HAZARD.

The laser!

The woman said, “LB, there's someone here who would like to meet you.”

A quiet, synthesized voice came out of the panel, neither male nor female and far more natural than Nanny's. “Is that a true statement or a figure of speech?”

“I wouldn't answer that question,” she warned, “unless you like philosophical discussions. LB, this is Greg Gannon's little boy … ah …”

“Jeff. I forgot your name, too.”

“Beatrice Wagg. Bett to you or I'll pout.” She pulled a very good pout, too, before a laugh bubbled up to spoil it. “LB, meet Jeff.”

“LB is interested to meet you, Jeff. LB has never met a little boy before.”

“I'm not little. I'm twelve.”

“LB is three years, two months, four days, five hours, two minutes, and 28 sec … 29 … 30 … 31—”

“Oh, dear.” Bett smacked the panel.

“Thank you,” LB said. “Human speech is full of ambiguity. Little can mean young or small. Perhaps Bett meant you are little for a twelve-year-old boy?”

A bar of light scanned Jeff from head to toe, like being photocopied.

“You appear to be within the first standard deviation of the height/weight bell curve for male
Homo sapiens modernus.
Please remove your clothes so LB can more accurately—”

“LB, that'll do,” Bett said. “I hope you're not shocked. Young people are so sensitive at a certain age.”

Jeff wasn't shocked. Bodies interested him, too. He asked, “Does LB use fuzzy logic?”

“You beat Nanny using that, didn't you?”

“Yeah.” Careful! Jeff didn't want to encourage more questions. Being an expert in artificial intelligence, Bett might be able to read between the lines. Then another worry occurred to him. “Um, LB and Nanny weren't friends, were they?”

“No,” LB answered with a sad intonation to its voice. “Nanny avoided LB.”

“Nanny sensed something odd about LB,” Bett said. “I know that bothers you, LB, but it gives me hope I'm on the right track. You see, Jeff, LB is light years—” she paused.

Jeff smiled to show he got the pun.

“Yes, light years ahead of fuzzy logic,” Bett continued. “I work with holographic models. I want more than intelligence. I want awareness.”

They'd learned about that theory in class. It was fringe stuff. Doubted by most AI scientists. So Bett was a maverick, like Mom. Too bad Mom wasn't as happy. Of course, Bett wasn't trying to save the world.

“Lost you, didn't I? I dare say your father would understand. Too bad he didn't come along.”

“Too busy.”

“Yes. He and your mother have taken a long, lonely road, Jeff. Your mother especially. I wonder if she'll discover she's been the servant of truth. Is she close to an answer?”

Jeff nodded. “What if she's wrong?”

“What if any of us are? What if LB never progresses beyond a mere bundle of talkative photons? Sorry, LB.”

“LB is not offended. LB understands our objective. Your statement is justified: The self-awareness indicators remain ambiguous.”

“Of course.” Bett bent her head, solemn and disappointed. “It's the risk all scientists take. The point is to find out. That requires a certain kind of courage.”

Jeff wondered what truth the scientists at Rodengenics were after when they made Rat. And was it fair to Rat? Mom's research didn't do anything to the sun. She was just finding out. But Rodengenics, and Bett, too, wanted to make something … something alive. What if Bett succeeded with LB? He'd be stuck in a box. Just like Rat in a cage.

“Well, you didn't come to chew on the soul of science with this old woman, now did you?” Bett rallied, mistaking his long silence for boredom. “You want to see the laser. Heavens, don't jump so!”

“How did—?”

“I don't read minds, if that's what spooked you. It's statistical.
Everyone
wants to see the laser.”

Bett tapped a combination into the lock on the lid, then reached under the console to take two pairs of welder's goggles off a hook. She handed Jeff a pair. He couldn't see anything through the goggles until Bett lifted the panel. There it was: the primary laser source, glowing like a blast furnace. He stared at the energy source that powered LB's circuits. It was like a heart, pumping light instead of blood. He couldn't steal that! It would destroy LB.

But now what? How was he going to save Rat? He really might have to ask Dad for help.

“Going so soon?” Jeff didn't even realize he'd started for the door. Bett was giving him a quizzical look. Of course she would. LB was so cool, how could anyone just hurry away? But all she said was, “I know. I know. You've got busy boy stuff to do. But LB doesn't visit much with anyone but me. Won't you ask a question or two before you go?”

Slowly Jeff approached the console. “LB, is it ever okay to break a promise?”

“The question is highly abstract,” LB said. “Would you care to supply specifics?”

Bett grabbed a clipboard.

Jeff shrugged. “Just asking.” He'd let his guard down. He should've asked LB something dumb: So, what's it like to have spaghetti for brains? Then Bett would be laughing, not suddenly watching him like a hawk.

“Very well,” LB said. “The question can be analyzed using various systems of thought. In a hierarchy of values, the greater good outweighs the promise. By contrast, the view that one's word is sacred puts personal integrity above all other values. Is the response sufficient, or shall LB continue?”

“No, that's really interesting. Thanks.”

“It is not very interesting to LB. LB reads these things in books. LB has no practical experience with broken promises or values or the greater good. Would you like to make LB a promise, then break it?”

“Ah
..
. some other time.”

LB said, “That's a promise, isn't it?”

Like a good scientist, Bett had stayed out of the conversation. But she hooted now. “Oooo, you're in deep, young man!”

“I guess I am,” Jeff said, thinking more of having to face Rat empty-handed than of LB's clever word trap.