The last was added as he remembered his manners. He was starting to take command again.
“Sounds good to me,” she replied, unruffled. “Do you have any more blasters to spare?”
“Just one, and that’s mine,” Hosato apologized.
She made a face at him. “Some spy. Well, let’s go.”
“Spy?” asked James, looking at Hosato.
“Later, James. Like the lady says, let’s go.”
The mall was a madhouse. Crowds of people were milling around in various stages of confusion and panic. Disembodied hands seemed to pluck at Hosato’s sleeve as he and Suzi traversed the corridors. Voices babbled questions and demands at him, but he shrugged them off without breaking stride. The few who noticed he was carrying a blaster hurried to catch up with him, only to find his smooth pace deceptively fast.
Sasha had disappeared shortly after they left his room, but he assumed she was following her own route through the chaos. He could not waste energy worrying about her. She had her job and seemed competent enough to handle it. He had his. He had to make it to Maintenance, hopefully ahead of the crowds.
The narrow off-corridor to the Maintenance Building was unoccupied. Apparently no one else had recognized it as a possible avenue of escape. After the dimness of the mall, Hosato found the silence unnerving, and without realizing it, began carrying his blaster at the ready position.
The metal door at the end of the corridor was closed. A prickly, chilly sensation ran along Hosato’s spine. He hesitated, then made his decision. He hadn’t survived this long by ignoring his warning instincts. Motioning Suzi back against the wall, he bent and sealed his suit. Then, gripping his blaster, he reached out and jerked the door open.
The Maintenance Building was a wreck. Three men who had been huddled over something on the floor sprang apart and desperately dived for cover behind workbenches and boxes. As they scattered, Hosato saw they had been at work dismantling a security robot. Beyond it, several bodies lay on the floor.
“Who’s there?” a shaky voice called out, and Hosato heard the quick scrabble as the man changed positions after speaking.
Stepping back into the corridor, out of their line of vision, Hosato broke the seals and rearranged his Ninja suit as he replied. “Hayama,” he called. “I’ve got my robot with me, but she’s stable and functioning normally.”
“Come on ahead, Hayama,” came a new voice Hosato recognized as Rick Handel’s. “It’s all right, you guys. I know him.”
By the time Hosato reentered the room, two of the men had resumed their work with the fallen robot, leaving only Rick to greet him.
“Hayama, do you know anything about what the hell’s going on?”
“I was just about to ask you. It looks like you’ve had a firsthand taste of the action here,” Hosato observed. “All I know is, somehow Turner’s security-robot plans backfired, and now we’ve got a pack of robots taking the place apart and killing anyone who crosses their path.”
“Turner, huh. Well, that’s one bit of information we didn’t have. We got a call a while back that there were a couple of malfunctioning robots headed for the president’s office wouldn’t respond to commands, they said. We sent a team out on the hustle, then got another call saying those 'bots had just broken into some high-level meeting and killed everybody in the place, including our section chief. We were trying to raise our team on the beepers to warn them off before they walked into a bad situation, when Mr. Personality there burst through the door and started burning everybody in sight.”
He jerked his head toward the downed machine.
“Lucky for us, it could shoot in only one direction at a time, and it picked the wrong direction to start. Doc, there, has had some combat training and smashed in its front with a crescent wrench before any of the rest of us could move. We’ve been trying to find out what makes it lock instead of tick, but so far we can’t figure it.”
“Well, you haven’t got much time,” Hosato observed grimly. “The things are in the main corridor to the mall.”
“Oh, lord!” Rick exclaimed, his eyes widening.
“That’s right. Sasha and her security team are trying to stall them, but they can’t hold them for long. We’re trying to work out an evacuation plan, but we’ll need your help. The spaceport’s gone, so we’ll have to use the sand crawlers. Where are they?”
“Through there.” Rick pointed to a door at the rear of the shop. “There’s an airlock at the far end of the garage that gives direct access to the surface area, but only one crawler is operational. The other one’s half apart for preventive maintenance. It’s scattered all over the garage.”
“How fast could you put it back together?”
The mechanic gnawed at his lip. “Half an hour if I had isome help,” he said. “But—”
“Suzi,” Hosato said, turning to his partner. “Go with Rick here and help him as much as you can.”
“Hey, I can’t take tune to train a Class Two…”
“I am a Class Eight robot,” Suzi replied coldly. “And am more than capable of following simple orders.”
“A Class Eight?” Rick looked at her speculatively. “Say, Hayama, what are you doing with a Class Eight?”
“Sshh!” Hosato held up a hand for silence, then beckoned the mechanic closer.
“What’s through that door?” he whispered, pointing to the ruined metal door af the side of the shop.
“The new corridor,” Rick whispered back. “It runs past the main computer building and comes out—”
Hosato motioned him to silence again, and they listened. Coming from the door was the muffled whine of motors moving toward them down the corridor.
“Get to work on the sand crawler.” Hosato whispered the order as he started sealing his Nirija suit.
“But what are you?” Rick began, then for the first time focused on the blaster in Hosato’s hand. “Hey, where did you get the blaster. And what’s with the funny outfit. Who are…?”
Hosato finished sealing the suit and vanished.
“I suggest we do as he says,” Suzi said to the stunned mechanic. “I’m sure he will explain later, if we get the time.”
Hosato didn’t delay to see the final resolution of Rick’s dilemma. He moved across the room in a smooth glide and stepped through the ruined doorway into the corridor.
There were three of them moving slowly down the corridor. He had never seen a robot try to “sneak” but guessed this was their attempt to duplicate that form of motion. At these speeds, their motors were next to noiseless. If Hosato had riot already been alerted and nervous, it is doubtful he would have heard them at all.
Instead of opening fire immediately, Hosato took a moment to plan his attack. In theory, he should have nothing to fear. His suit gave him invisibility and therefore invulnerability. If the robots’ camera eyes did not register a human form, they would not fire. Even his blaster was rigged to establish contact through his palm, and shared the same light-relay mechanism as his suit. He was totally invisible and safe—in theory. Of course, relying on theories was a sure way to guarantee an early retirement.
There was always the possibility that cameras were not the robots’ sole means of sensory input. Heat sensors, movement detectors, any one of a number of devices could detect his presence, and then he would be in a shoot-out with three machines that didn’t miss.
The robots were a scant fifteen feet away. His plan of action set, Hosato opened fire.
Standing off-center to the right of the corridor, he fired point-blank at the lead robot. Dropping to one knee, he fired again immediately at the robot at the rear of the formation. Not waiting to observe the results of his first two shots, he dived to his left, rolling to the side of the corridor, and from a prone position fired again at the final robot.