“Then they’re playing Russian Roulette,” Dourado replied. “That thing could destroy the whole planet if it gets out of control. Who would take that chance?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out once we shut it down. Any ideas on how to get past this robot? Does it have an off switch?”
“Probably not where you’ll be able to get to it,” Dourado said. “But it sounds like a pretty simple machine. You should be able to outmaneuver it.”
Outmaneuver? Carter turned around and took another look at the robot. Dourado was right about its design being simple. Two large wheels mounted on a rectangular base, which probably contained both its CPU and a self-balancing mechanism to keep it from tipping over. “Okay, hang on a sec. I’ve got an idea.”
She shoved the phone into her pocket and started toward the door. The robot shifted to meet her approach. “Your presence is not authorized.”
When she did not stop, it started rolling toward her, projecting menace as its calm artificial voice finished the canned warning. “Please remain where you are…”
Carter side-stepped and took a quick step forward. The robot shifted to block her, reacting faster than any human, but the one thing its sensors and programming could not do was anticipate what she would do next. She cut back in the other direction, and then sprang forward, launching herself onto the robot’s base. As soon as her feet touched down on the molded plastic housing, she wrapped her arms around the upraised sensor disk and threw her weight sideways. The robot tilted up on one wheel and toppled over. As it passed the point of no return, Carter hopped clear.
The robot’s wheels spun helplessly, which caused the mast with the sensor disk to whip around in a circle, forcing Carter and Fallon to scramble out of the way, but after a second or two, some internal safety switch was tripped and it went still.
Fallon was livid. “What are you doing? That’s not a toy.”
“No, it isn’t,” Carter said. “It was a problem. I dealt with it. Maybe this hasn’t sunk in yet, but you aren’t in control of this place any more. Now, can you get us to the antenna array?”
“Fine,” he growled through clenched teeth. He took a step toward the door then stopped again.
“Well?” Carter asked.
“It’s not opening.”
“Oh, for the love of…” She reached out to open the door, but there was nothing to grab ahold of. “Who thinks doors without doorknobs are a good idea? Are we trapped in here?”
Fallon’s mouth worked but he had no answer.
Carter studied the door, looking for some vulnerability in the electrically-powered computer-controlled system. There were no hinges, which meant the door opened outward into the hall, and that gave her an idea.
“We need to drag that table over here.” Without waiting for Fallon or Tanaka to join her, she crossed the room and grabbed one end of the table. It was a lightweight folding rectangle, made of plastic or some similar composite material, durable enough for everyday use, but nowhere near as heavy or solid as a wood or metal table would have been.
It’ll have to do.
She tipped it over on its side. The edge banged against the carpeted floor, the noise causing both Fallon and Tanaka to wince. Neither of them had made a move to help her.
She folded the legs up and maneuvered the upended table around the toppled robot, lining it up perpendicular to the door, leaving a gap of a couple feet. “Never mind,” she muttered. “I’ll do it.”
She lowered her shoulder to the back edge of the table and then, like a sprinter bursting forward at the sound of the starter’s pistol, rammed it into the door. The lightweight table was a far from ideal battering ram, flexing in the middle with the impact, but enough of her momentum was focused into the leading edge to burst the internal latch free of the bolt hole. The powerful electric hinges kept the door from flying open and started trying to close it again, but the blow created a narrow opening between the door and the frame. Carter shoved the table forward again, forcing it through the gap to ensure that the door didn’t close again, then used it like a pry-bar to force the opening wider.
“Little help?”
Fallon shook off his stupor and moved up to assist her. “Would you please stop breaking my things?”
“News flash,” she grunted, as she squirmed half her body through the gap. “Your things are already broken.”
She stuck her head out into the hallway and saw two more of the upright wheeled robots scooting toward her. They were identical to the one that had guided her in — and then turned on them — except that instead of a bright yellow, their sensor disks were glowing fire engine red. A stentorian male voice, amplified as if by a bullhorn, barked out, “Halt. You are being detained.”
“I guess security really has been notified,” Carter muttered. With a heave, she scraped through, spilling out onto the carpeted floor.
“Halt,” the robot voice repeated. “Do not move, or you will be forcibly subdued.”
Despite the warning, Carter started to rise, but then she spotted bright red pinpoints of light shining from something mounted under the robots’ sensor disks. The lights reminded her of lasers — not the kind in science fiction movies, but the kind used in supermarket scanners and CD players.
And close-range gun sights.
She glanced down, saw two star-bright red dots on her chest, and threw herself flat again.
A loud pop, like a balloon bursting, signaled the discharge of some kind of compressed air weapon. Something flashed above her and embedded itself in the wooden door behind her with a faint thunk. She looked up and saw two long, twisted wires extending from the robot to the door. The rapid clicking sound of a pulsed electrical discharge confirmed her suspicions that the robots were armed with Tasers.
She took little comfort in the knowledge that the machines were only trying to stun and not kill her. If she couldn’t get Fallon to the antenna array, and soon, the distinction would cease to matter. But she was encouraged by one thing. Unlike bullets, Taser electrodes weren’t designed to penetrate flesh. Or anything else.
She rolled over, reasoning that a moving target was harder to hit than a stationary one, and grabbed ahold of the folding table that still protruded from the doorway. A single sharp pull brought it the rest of the way out into the hall and in the same motion whipped it around so it was between her and the robots. There was another pop and she felt a faint thump reverberate through the tabletop, as a second Taser shot hit, with no more effect than the first.
Carter peeked over the top of her shield. The security robots were only about ten feet away. Their advance had stalled but they were still blocking her path to the exit. She looked back at the door and saw Fallon wriggling through.
About damn time, she thought. “Do these robocops of yours have anything more powerful than Tasers?”
Fallon stared at her for a moment as if flummoxed by the question, but then shook his head. “No. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Of course not.”
Tanaka came through after Fallon, which both surprised and pleased Carter, as she had expected the Japanese scientist to stay behind. If removing the meta-material from the array didn’t shut the Black Knight down, his expertise would be critical to figuring out what to do next.
When both men were crouched down beside her, she raised the table a few inches off the ground and said, “Follow me.”
Without further explanation, she started forward, as fast as her crouched stance would allow. The robots barked another warning, but they stood their ground. Carter didn’t slow. Instead, she raised the shield a little more, just high enough to clear the twelve-inch diameter wheels on which the machines rolled. As the tabletop collided with the robots’ sensor disks, the impact tipped the robots over backward. Carter let the table fall flat, pinning the machines to the ground beneath it, and then clambered over and sprinted down the hallway toward the exit.