He walked up to the cart blocking the door, dropped to a squat and hooked his hands underneath it. With a howl of primal fury, he stood up, lifting one side of the thousand pound vehicle. There was a tearing sound — Carter hoped it was his clothes bursting at the seams, as his muscles bulged with the effort, but she knew it was probably his tendons snapping. The cart tilted up and then passed the point of no return, tipping over onto its side, clearing the way to the door. Lazarus stood there for a second, breathing heavily, face contorted in pain, then he reached for the doorknob.
Carter spied movement behind him, but before she could shout a warning, the second cart surged forward, slamming into Lazarus and pinning his legs against the door with a sickening crunch.
“Erik!”
She rushed toward him, but he held up a hand, forestalling her. Through teeth clenched against the pain, he whispered, “Cintia.”
Without retreating, Carter turned back to the computer expert. “Cintia! You’ve got to shut them down.”
“I’m trying!”
The construction machine was just fifty yards away, close enough that the noise of its metal treads on the pavement was almost deafening. Despite Lazarus’s earlier warning, Carter moved forward, joining him at the door. She braced her back against the wall, pushing against the cart, trying to force it away from the door. As before, it refused to budge. Despite his injuries and the awkward position in which he had been pinned, Lazarus pushed as well.
The cart shifted a few inches, but then the wheels began spinning, pushing back. Lazarus howled again, as the vehicle slammed him into the door a second time.
The construction robot was now just twenty yards away, its spider-like manipulator arms unfolding above its tracked chassis. The large circular saw-blade tipping one arm was already spinning.
Ten yards.
“Get out of here!” Lazarus shouted.
Carter had no intention of leaving. Instead, she turned to face the wall, placed her hands against it, closed her eyes and prepared to unleash her power against the two men inside.
The noise abruptly ceased.
Carter opened her eyes and turned to look at the now motionless construction robot, which had come to a complete halt, almost touching the rear of the cart, its manipulator arms stretched out above her. The saw blade was still spinning, but hissing as friction brought it to a stop. The only other sound was the hum of the transmitter on the other side of the door.
Then she heard a shout from around the corner. “Yes!”
“Cintia? That was you? Can you back these things away?”
Dourado stepped into view, her attention still glued to the computer in her hands. “I had to do a blanket shutdown. He’s fighting me hard.”
Carter tried pushing the cart again. It rolled without resistance, but only for a few inches before bumping up against the motionless treads of the construction-bot. It was enough of a gap for Lazarus, his face twisted with pain, to extricate himself. But it was not enough to get into the transmitter building.
“Keep trying,” Carter said. “I’ll see if I can distract him.”
She was relieved that circumstances had provided her an alternative to unleashing her power, but whether this was a true reprieve or a postponement remained to be seen. She pulled the door open a crack and shouted inside. “Fallon! Stop this! Now!”
The reply was a shout loud enough to be heard over the hum. “I’m afraid Mr. Fallon is indisposed.”
“Tanaka?” Evidently, Marcus Fallon was guilty of recklessness and bad judgment, but not responsible for activating the Black Knight. “What did you do to him?”
“He’ll live. At least a little while longer.”
“Why are you doing this? You know what could happen?”
When Tanaka didn’t answer, she glanced over at Dourado, who made a rolling gesture with her finger. Keep him busy.
“Let me guess,” Carter went on. “You saw the potential to turn this into a weapon, but Fallon didn’t want that.”
“Ha!”
“Have I got that backward? Is Fallon the one who wants to weaponize it?”
“He’s naïve,” Tanaka said. “He thinks he can save the world. He’s a fool.”
“And you? What do you want? To destroy it?”
Silence.
“Seriously?” Carter asked. “You want to destroy the world?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
She glanced over at Dourado. A nod. Almost there. “Try me.”
“The world can’t be saved, Dr. Carter. Not by you. Not by Fallon. All you will do is prolong the suffering. Life is a mistake. A brutal, terrible joke that’s already gone on far too long.”
Carter recognized the rhetoric. Tanaka was a pessimist. Not merely a gloomy, glass-half-empty Eeyore, but he was a believer in the nihilistic philosophy that life — all life — was meaningless.
No wonder his Cerberus recruitment score was so abysmal, she thought. “Seven billion people deserve a chance to figure that out for themselves. You don’t get to make that decision for everyone else.”
“Seven billion,” he echoed. “A hundred years from now, they will all be dead, and ten billion more will have taken their place, living short, ugly, miserable lives. Billions more after that. Suffering. Dying. I am not destroying the world. I’m putting it out of its misery. I’m sparing untold billions the horror and pain of existence.
“I thought perhaps I could use HAARP to do it, but the transmitter wasn’t powerful enough. Then, when Marcus approached me about the potential of the Black Knight satellite, I knew I had been given a second chance. I’ll confess, the gravitational anomaly was an unexpected bonus, but ultimately unimportant. The world will not be shaken apart. It will die entombed in ice.”
“You’re going to stop the sun, is that it? I’m pretty sure it’s going to take more than a couple of minutes of that to have the kind of effect you’re looking for.”
The hum stopped.
Carter looked over to Dourado, but the latter shook her head. Not me.
Tanaka had shut the transmitter off. Was he surrendering?
She returned her attention to the door. “So why do it? Why go through all this?”
There was a long silence. Maybe he wasn’t giving up after all. Lazarus got to his feet, his broken legs already healed. He leaned against the side of the car, gathering his strength to shove the remaining cart out of the way and end the threat. Then, Tanaka spoke again.
“Call it proof of concept.”
Even before he finished speaking, Dourado let out a dismayed shout. “No! Damn it!”
Distracted by the outburst, Carter didn’t see the construction-bot’s manipulator arm swinging toward her, but Lazarus did. He threw his arms around her and tackled her out of the way.
The mechanical arm struck the cart, smashing through the fiberglass housing and knocking the machine sideways. Carter caught only a glimpse of it as Lazarus scooped her up with one arm and scrambled around the corner, dragging Dourado along as well.
There was a harsh ringing sound, as the robot’s circular saw began spinning again, but it was drowned out a moment later by the clank and rumble of metal treads moving against the pavement. Carter had just got her feet under her when the machine rolled into view, lowering the saw to slice them all apart.
Lazarus thrust Carter and Dourado away, well outside the reach of the mechanical arm, then spun around, ducked under the sweep of the blade, and leaped onto the base of the robot.
Carter recalled what Fallon had said, about how the construction robot wasn’t programmed for combat. The same appeared true for self-defense. It lumbered forward, trying to seize hold of her and Dourado, oblivious to the stowaway.