Siege (13 page)

Great. As if I didn't have enough problems already.

DeShawn is pretty clever with names, and he came up with a good one for our new laser. He calls it the Portable Over-Energized Weapon, or POW for short.

The latest prototype of the laser sits on a lab table in a big, windowless building that's usually a hangar for cargo planes. The soldiers have hauled away all the aircraft to make room for our computers and machine tools and welding equipment. DeShawn hasn't fitted the POW prototype into a steel case yet, so I can see all its parts on the table: the pump source (which supplies energy for the laser), the long slender resonator tube (where the laser beam is created), and the output coupler at the end of the tube (which aims the beam at its target). This is the first time I've seen the new POW, but I can tell right away that it's different from all the prototypes DeShawn has built before. In fact, it's completely unlike every other laser on Earth.

I point a steel finger at the device. “Okay, I give up. How the heck does it work? What's the energy source?”

DeShawn shrugs, lifting his Einstein-bot's shoulder joints. “The design is pretty simple, actually. The laser's pump source generates positrons. You know, the antimatter versions of electrons, positive charge instead of negative, blah, blah, blah. Then the device shoots the positrons into the resonator tube, where the particles spin around ordinary electrons to form atoms of positronium.”

At first I have no idea what he's talking about, but then I retrieve some of the databases in my memory. I've downloaded tons of information about particle physics and antimatter from my dad's scientific archives, and it takes me less than a millisecond to analyze the files. When I'm finished, a bolt of wonder surges through my wires. “Whoa, wait a second. The positronium atoms are unstable, right? And you can trigger all of them to collapse at the same time?”

The Einstein-bot nods. It has a patient, serene expression on its plastic face, a replica of how Albert Einstein must've looked when he explained his theory of relativity. “Yes, that's the basic concept. When the positronium atoms collapse, the electrons and positrons annihilate each other and produce a burst of gamma rays. All I did was synchronize the annihilations so that the gamma-ray energy comes out as a laser beam. It's no big deal, really.”

“Are you kidding? It's a huge freakin' deal! Gamma rays are the most powerful radiation in the universe!”

“Yeah, true that. But the big question is how far the laser will reach. It won't be much of a weapon if it can't destroy anything that's more than a few yards away.”

I retrieve some more files and do a little more analysis. “Are you worried about penetrating power? You think the laser beam will lose energy as it blasts through the air molecules between the weapon and the target?”

DeShawn nods again. Then he points at the POW's output coupler, the laser's firing end. It's aimed at the steel wall at the far end of the hangar, almost sixty yards away. “I've tried to estimate the range of the weapon, but there are too many variables to make a good prediction. So I guess we should just test it.”

I feel another surge of excitement. I pan my cameras across the hangar until I spot an armored Humvee parked in the corner. The vehicle's hood is raised, and there are a couple of engine parts on the concrete floor nearby. The Humvee probably has some kind of mechanical problem, and that's why the soldiers didn't move it out of the hangar. “Well, lookie here. I think we have a target.”

DeShawn looks at it too, and a grin appears on his Einstein face. He gives his synthesized voice a thick German accent. “Yah, yah, the Humvee! Zat vehicle vill do very nicely!”

Gleefully sticking his plastic tongue out of his mouth, he starts the process of powering up the laser. Forming and storing atoms of positronium is an incredible technical challenge, but DeShawn has solved the problem using his nanobots, the microscopic machines that can crawl into the tightest spaces and manipulate the tiniest objects. He bends over the lab table and turns on the positronium pump, his steel fingers adjusting the dials on the machine's console.

I watch him closely, observing everything. “Dude, this is your best work yet. This weapon's design is phenomenal.”

DeShawn turns his robotic head and looks at me over his Einstein-bot's shoulder. I assume he's going to respond to my compliment in his usual way, by making a joke, but instead he gives me a grim look. “Be careful with the images you're recording now. Store them in the most secure section of your electronics, and don't share the files with anyone. Especially not Marshall or Zia.”

The excitement fades from my circuits. I can feel my microchips go cold, one by one. “So Shannon told you? About Hawke's suspicions?”

“Yeah, she told me.” DeShawn turns back to the console, but his steel hands hang motionless over the dials, as if paralyzed. “I still don't believe that either one of them would turn against us. It's just unreal, you know?” He's dropped the German accent. His voice is quiet and quavering. “But how else can you explain what happened? How else could Sigma get our engineering plans?”

Ever since we became Pioneers, DeShawn has always been the calm one, the most cheerful and carefree member of our team. He's never complained about anything, not even the fact that he hasn't seen his mother in months. (I think she's ill too, with heart disease. But I don't know for sure, because DeShawn doesn't like to talk about it.) So it's painful to hear him sound so lost and confused. What makes it worse, though, is my disappointment. I'd been hoping that DeShawn would propose another explanation, an alternative theory that didn't involve having a traitor in our midst.

I clench my steel hands. It's a struggle just to talk about it. “Here's what I don't get. Why is Hawke so sure that it has to be either Marshall or Zia? Why are they more suspect than the rest of us?”

DeShawn doesn't look at me. He keeps his cameras trained on the console. The conversation is obviously difficult for him too. “Marshall and Zia have had more contact with Sigma. When we fought the AI six months ago, it captured both of them. Sigma transferred all their memory files to its computers so it could study them. The AI had a chance to mess with their minds.”

“But the same thing happened to me! Sigma ripped my files out of my robot even before it captured Marshall and Zia!” My voice booms out of my Quarter-bot's speakers, louder than I'd intended. I don't like remembering this part of our history. That's when Sigma forced me to watch it delete Jenny. “So why doesn't Hawke consider me a suspect?”

The Einstein-bot shrugs again. “There are other factors, I guess. Probably the biggest factor is the battle we just fought in your hometown. If you were the traitor, you would've helped Sigma capture us. But instead you fried the AI's Swarm-bots.”

“Uh, hello? Didn't we all fight in that battle? I mean, I'd love to take all the credit, but I wasn't the only one there.”

“Marshall's Super-bot ran away as soon as the battle began. And Zia's behavior was also suspicious. In all our training exercises she fights like crazy and never surrenders. But she folded pretty quickly when the Swarm-bots attacked us.”

I shake my Quarter-bot's head. “Marshall was scared. And Zia didn't know how to fight the modules. There's no real evidence against either of them. Do you think maybe Hawke's just being paranoid?”

“There's something else.” DeShawn turns around and aims his cameras at me. “Last night someone hacked into General Hawke's laptop. It was a very sophisticated attack using a wireless signal that broke through the computer's firewall and allowed the hacker to view all the general's files. But Hawke realized what had happened, so he gave me the laptop to see if I could figure out who did it. Based on the strength of the wireless signal, the hacker must've been less than a hundred yards from Hawke's computer. And by examining the video from McGuire's security cameras, I could pinpoint the locations of all the Pioneers at the moment when the hack occurred. Only Marshall and Zia were close enough.”

My circuits grow colder. Hawke isn't just speculating. He has real evidence, enough to narrow down the list of suspects to two. I raise my Quarter-bot's right hand to my robotic head and rub the armor plating above my camera lenses. I know it's a useless gesture—I don't have headaches or eyestrain anymore, so why am I trying to massage the pain away? And yet I still do it when I'm worried.

“Let me ask you a question, DeShawn. Did Shannon tell you what my assignment is?”

His Einstein-bot nods. Its plastic lips are frowning. “Hawke wants you to help him identify the traitor.”

“He wants me to do his dirty work. He wants me to spy on Marshall and Zia. Because that's the only way to find out which one is working with Sigma.”

DeShawn extends one of his hands and rests it on my Quarter-bot's torso. At the same time, he exaggerates the frown on his Einstein-bot, making it grimmer. It's a little weird to see that famous face so unhappy—Albert Einstein usually looked so jolly in his photographs—but I understand why DeShawn is grimacing. In his awkward way, he's trying to commiserate with me. “I'm sorry, Adam. It's a rotten assignment.”

I let a sigh whistle out of my speakers. “I just wish I could trade places with you. I'd much rather build lasers than spy on my friends.”

“Well, you can help me test this prototype.” DeShawn stops frowning and gives me a sly Einstein grin. “Yah, yah? You vill fire laser at Humvee? It vill help you forget your troubles, no?”

Without waiting for a reply, he turns back to the lab table and resumes his work on the laser. In fifteen seconds the POW is ready to fire. DeShawn angles the resonator tube so that its firing end is pointed at the Humvee parked in the corner of the hangar, exactly one hundred and seventy-six feet away. Then he takes a step backward and points at the device. “You can do the honors, my good man. Just press the red button.”

It's a nice gesture, and I'm definitely grateful. “Thank you, sir.” I stride to the table and aim my cameras at the laser's firing end, ready to measure the weapon's power. Then I extend a steel finger and push the button.

The gamma rays burst out of the laser, trillions of them crowded into a brilliant yellow beam, all with the same direction and phase and frequency. They streak across the hangar, sizzling through the air, which is too thin to stop the high-energy radiation. In less than a millionth of a second, they strike the armored door of the Humvee. Sparks and smoke erupt from the vehicle as the gamma rays rip through the dense lattice of iron atoms. But the steel armor isn't thick enough to stop the furious beam, which spears into the Humvee and slices through the door on the other side, igniting a second shower of sparks. The blast rattles the hangar's walls and makes the concrete floor rumble.

“
Whoa
!
” DeShawn's voice is a synthesized mix of joy and terror. “
Turn it of
f
! TURN IT OFF
!
”

I push the red button again, cutting off the beam. For a quarter of a second, DeShawn and I just stand there, listening to the echoes from the blast. Then we race toward the Humvee.

I focus my cameras on the neat hole in the vehicle's door. It's two inches wide and perfectly circular, surrounded by a ring of white-hot steel. There's a hole in the opposite door too, and it's only a bit smaller. My cameras follow the straight path that the laser beam took, and I notice with horror that there's also a hole in the hangar's steel wall.

DeShawn sees it too. “Uh-oh. That's not good.”

I step toward the hole in the wall and bend over so I can point one of my cameras through it. I see the tarmac of McGuire's airfield and the runway where Amber Wilson landed thirty-five minutes ago. Fortunately, there are no planes or people nearly. But on the other side of the runway, a tall pine tree is on fire.

My circuits swell with relief. The damage could've been a lot worse. “Take a look, dude,” I say. “Your laser crisped a tree on the eastern edge of the airfield. That's more than half a mile from here.”

I back away from the wall so DeShawn can bend over and peer through the hole. After a couple of seconds, his Einstein-bot grins. “Interesting. It looks like the beam carried at least a billion joules of energy. That makes it as powerful as a lightning bolt.” He straightens up and turns to me. “Pretty good for a first test, huh?”

He synthesizes a chuckle. DeShawn is clearly pleased, and I guess I should be too. It looks like the Pioneers have a cool new weapon. Better yet, we're going to make sure that Sigma doesn't steal this one. DeShawn will tweak the design to make the laser so compact and light that each Pioneer can carry it. Then we can use the weapon against Sigma's Snake-bots and Swarm-bots.

But I don't feel pleased right now. In fact, I'm still pretty depressed. Soon I'll have to leave the hangar and go looking for Zia and Marshall. The assignment is so awful that I'd do anything to put it off.

After a moment I hear a fire truck's siren. Someone at the airfield must've spotted the burning tree and called in the military base's firefighters. As I stand there, listening to the distant siren, I realize there's another reason why I feel so bad, and it has to do with the laser. The weapon
isn't
cool. It's deadly and frightening. And what's worse, it's just the beginning. The Pioneers are going to use their electronic brains to build even more devastating weapons, one after another. That's our job now. That's what we're meant to do.

Where will it end?

DeShawn notices my silence and stops grinning. “Hey, what's wrong?”

I point at the perfectly circular hole in the wall. “It's happening too quickly. We're getting too powerful.”

The Einstein-bot nods. DeShawn understands what I'm getting at, probably because he's had the same thoughts himself. “You're right. It's scary. But what else can we do? We have to beat Sigma.”