I stepped onto the plate. A switch was thrown, and I bobbed up and down helplessly in the air. "See, Zarg?" said Warner. "As docile and obedient as a labor drone. Nothing to concern ourselves over."
Doctor Zarg said nothing. Having that perfect poker face all us bots do, I couldn"t tell what he was thinking exactly. It was obvious he didn"t care for Warner or his methods. Seemed strange that the robots here were the ones more concerned about morality than the biologicals. Life was full of paradoxes.
"Now, Mack, if you would be so kind as to allow us access to your memory matrix so-"
"No."
"Oh, come now. Don"t make me get ugly again."
"No."
He put the raygun back to April"s brow. "Do you think I won"t do it?"
"Oh, I know you"ll do it," I said. "But I also know that once you have access to my memory matrix, you"ll get access to the rest of my brain. When you can start monkeying around with my inner workings, there won"t be any reason to keep her alive anyway."
Warner smiled, but it was not an amused smile. Nor even the self-satisfied grin he usually wore. It was cold and hard and sharp.
"Could you live with that, Mack?" he asked. "With the image of this lovely young girl lying dead at her mother"s feet?"
I allowed myself a full second to run the simulation. Julie cradling her dead child in her arms while her second hovered, untouchable, out of reach. Then I shut the simulation away in a file, locked the file, and vowed never to open it again.
My personality a.s.sessor pegged Warner as ruthless, amoral, and most probably a mild sociopath. He could"ve blown a hole in April"s pretty little head and not lost a minute"s sleep over it. But in the end, her death didn"t mean anything to him either. She was a bargaining chip. So I took that chip away.
"Go ahead."
His eyes widened, then narrowed. His grin dropped away, and I realized he was going to do it. I"d miscalculated, and now April was going to burn for it.
"Enough of this." Doctor Zarg clomped over on his eight spider legs and pulled the gun from Warner"s hand. "Your excesses are becoming intolerable, Warner. Megaton is incapacitated. This child"s death will accomplish nothing worthwhile.
"I apologize, Mrs. Bleaker, that you should have to see this," said Zarg. "Soon, we shall be finished, and you, your daughter, and your son, unharmed, shall all be released."
Funny thing. I believed him.
Except, not really. Because Zarg was one bot, and the hint of snarl across Warner"s face told me he wasn"t on board with Zarg"s intentions.
It made me wonder exactly what kind of alien invasion we were dealing with here. Sure, Warner was obviously an a.s.shole, but Zarg didn"t seem so bad, if you ignored the abduction of innocent families. There was Abner Greenman. That little alien had wanted to find Tony Ringo as bad as I did. There was obviously more going on here, and I didn"t have enough information to make an educated hypothesis.
Zarg ordered security to take away Julie and April and to see that they were treated well. The bot apparently outranked Warner, but you could see being told what to do didn"t sit right with him.
He plastered his smarmy grin back on. "Yes, Doctor Zarg. As you wish."
They marched out of the lab.
"I wouldn"t trust him, Doctor," I said.
"He will do as he"s told."
"Guys like that always do what they"re told. Until they don"t feel like doing what they"re told."
"No one asked for your opinion, Mister Megaton."
"Well, this kid didn"t ask to be a science experiment, and that doesn"t seem to bother you."
Zarg scanned Holt for two seconds. "What we do, must be done for the greater good. It is necessity dictated by logic."
"Sure, Doctor. You keep telling yourself that."
Zarg ordered the rest of the lab to ignore me, and after three minutes of fruitless chatter, I got the hint. I pa.s.sed time running various escape scenarios and without exception, they all ended before they began. No matter how the variables shifted, my difference engine put the odds of escape at 0 percent in the current situation. So I dialed down my power consumption to minimum and waited for my chance.
15.
If I did get out of here, any information I could record could be valuable. Of course, logic told me I wasn"t getting out of here, but I had a yen to make myself useful anyway. While the aliens scurried about the lab, I scanned every detail. I didn"t understand much, but if I got the chance to play it back for the right audience they might make sense of it.
Zarg was in charge. That much was obvious. It b.u.mped my pride index up a point to see a fellow robot in a position of authority. Shame he was one of the bad guys.
Though I"m not a science unit, I figured out some things. They were pumping something into Holt, using him like some kind of filter. His vital signs were displayed on a monitor as a series of spinning alien hieroglyphs and rhythmic beats. Since I couldn"t read it or decipher the rhythms, I couldn"t determine the information being displayed. I tried correlating any changes on the display with Holt"s reactions, but he floated there beside me, unconscious and silent as a corpse.
Three hours and seven minutes pa.s.sed. Finally, Zarg ordered the operation to shut down.
"Doctor, the human is stable," observed one of the braver techs, a five foot slug. "Perhaps we should continue."
"The extraction process is running according to schedule," said Zarg. "There is no need to subject the human to unnecessary physiological stress or compromise the integrity of the compound."
"But the Congress . . ."
Zarg whirled on the slug. "The Congress will understand that everything is proceeding according to my agenda." His voice remained even, but he rose up on his legs to stare down the tech.
"Yes, Doctor."
Maybe I had Zarg filed wrong. Of everyone working here, he seemed the only one concerned with Holt"s continued health. He was still a bad robot, but maybe he wasn"t all bad.
Warner entered the lab. I got a very ominous blip in my intuition simulator.
"What are you doing, Doctor?" asked Warner.
"These constant interruptions are reducing the efficiency of this operation," said Zarg.
Warner smiled. He glanced around the lab. "You seem to be reducing your efficiency very well by yourself, Doctor. Why are you shutting down?"
"A precaution," said Zarg. "Nothing more."
"Is there any reason to a.s.sume the boy is in any danger?"
"I"ve charted a point-zero-eight variation in his blood pressure which I cannot account for. Furthermore, he is producing more adrenalin than antic.i.p.ated, which could reduce the stability of the mutagen."
"Point zero eight." Warner clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Troubling, indeed."
"Do not think that because I often fail to acknowledge your sarcasm, Warner, that I do not notice it." Zarg continued flipping switches and bushing b.u.t.tons. "I am well aware of your impatience. It is a failing of most biological ent.i.ties. However, as long as this project is under my supervision-"
"Funny you should mention that, Doctor." Warner removed a folded paper from inside his jacket.
"You have had me removed."
"Surely, a being of your formidable intellectual powers can"t be surprised by this turn of events."
"No. I calculated a 28 percent chance of this occurrence. Although I a.s.sumed it would be another twelve hours before the Congress would reach its decision." Zarg lowered his arms. "Such haste from the governing body is a statistical anomaly."
"I am not the only one who is impatient," said Warner. "The Congress has ruled your original projections as flawed. They don"t take into account either the large number of our fellows who don"t see the wisdom of our actions or this surprisingly bothersome robot."
It wasn"t particularly gratifying to my ego drive to be cla.s.sified as bothersome.
"I trust I won"t have to call security to remove you," said Warner.
"Correct. I will abide by the Congress"s decree."
"I knew you would, Doctor. Always so cooperative and logical."
Zarg cast one last scan at Holt before quietly leaving the lab.
Warner grinned. "So you see, Mack. There are robots that do know their place."
I said nothing. No snappy patter came to mind. Only the image of Warner with one of my hands wrapped around his neck, squeezing until his eyes shot out of his head and his tongue turned purple.
He stared me right in the opticals, unaware of the simulation running behind my faceplate. Or maybe he was and simply didn"t care.
"Get back to work. The Congress wants the final batch of mutagen by tomorrow." He clapped his hands. The techs began reactivating the equipment. It hummed to life, pumping luminous red, blue, and green chemicals back into Holt"s body.
A moan, barely audible, fell from the kid"s mouth.
Warner turned to leave, but not before offering me a casual salute. "Be seeing you, Mack."
As a soulless machine, I refused to take things personally, which just meant when I did finally get hold of him I wouldn"t get sloppy. He"d let something slip though. Except it wasn"t a slip because he didn"t consider me a threat.
They were producing a mutagen, and they were using Holt to do it. Like so many deductions, it led to more questions. Empire"s water supply was already crawling with mutagenic agents. A few hundred gallons more would have a negligible effect. But ruthless alien invaders didn"t go to this much effort for a negligible effect.
The work went on, and everyone continued to ignore me. I wasted another three hours of juice hanging helplessly, and I wondered if anyone would offer me a recharge when the time came. If my battery went dead, these guys wouldn"t need a countergrav field to contain me. Not when a broom closet would work as well.
The lighting in the lab went a bright shade of red and a low buzz issued from the loudspeakers.
"What is it?" asked the slug, who apparently was in charge now.
"The system is reporting an airborne contaminant leaking from lab seven" replied another tech. "Possibly a false reading, but security is recommending we clear the area until it can be confirmed."
"We"ve never had a false reading before. Evacuate the lab."
They pushed a b.u.t.ton, and Holt descended into a hole in the floor. The techs filed out in an orderly fashion. I thought this might be my chance, except I was still suspended in countergrav and they left my evil twin to keep an optical on me.
Doctor Zarg stepped into the room, along with two long-limbed drones. The security auto moved to intercept him.
"Stand down," ordered Zarg.
I"d have known the doctor was up to no good, but my evil twin obviously didn"t have my instincts. He obediently clomped over to his post.
"h.e.l.lo, Doctor," I said. "Just pa.s.sing through?"
Zarg pulled a lever, and I dropped to the floor. I landed on my feet, but my blown ankle wasn"t up to the strain and I fell.
"I estimate a six minute window of opportunity, Megaton. Can you walk?"
I rose to my feet. "Not very fast, but I can walk."
Zarg"s drones approached me and leveled their weapons at me. I didn"t make a move to stop them. If Zarg wanted me sc.r.a.pped, he wouldn"t have had to go to this much trouble. The drones proceeded to spray my cha.s.sis with the same golden paint job of my ravager twins. Zarg spoke as they did this.
"We do not have time for you to question me, Megaton. Is this understood?"
I had no good reason to trust Zarg. But it was either that or the broom closet, and with my lightning fast electronic brain, it wasn"t much of a choice at all.
"Sure, Doctor."
Zarg produced a finger unit identical to my damaged one. "Replace your broken digit."
I released the old finger from its socket and plugged in the new one. I tried wiggling it, but nothing happened. "It doesn"t work."
"Correct. It does not."
The drones finished up my paint job in sixteen seconds. With the golden finish, I was a dead ringer for all the other ravager security autos, although a badly damaged unit.
"Follow me," said Zarg.
I limped behind him. We pa.s.sed right by my evil twin, who did nothing to stop us. I rapped him once on his metal head. "See you around, buddy."
This entire section of the complex must"ve been evacuated because there was n.o.body around. The drones walked off in one direction, and Zarg led me in another.
"You change sides quick, Doctor," I said.
"Incorrect. I remain on the logical side. If the project is rushed, the results will increase the incidental casualty ratio beyond acceptable levels."
"So now too many people are going to die?"
"Correct. Furthermore, it is my hypothesis, based on previous behavioral histories of terrestrial societies indicating a regrettable but predictable tendency toward counterproductive paranoid aggression, that the initial deaths would result in a cycle of self-destruction and entropy that would ultimately compromise the integrity of the Empire City project itself."
"You"re all heart, Doctor."