Sigma’s mind is stretching around the world. It’s balanced between the computers at Tatishchevo Missile Base, the control unit of the T-90, and the electronics inside DeShawn’s evil twin.
Pioneer 6A comes closer, still scanning the area. Within seconds it’s less than fifty feet away from me. Although my torso is covered with debris, my turret is exposed, and the electronics there are warm enough to show up on an infrared scan. Frantic, I turn off my camera, hoping the device cools down quickly. I keep my acoustic sensor on, though—it doesn’t give off much heat—and I hear 6A’s footfalls in the rubble.
The robot marches in a determined way, homing in on its target. Its strides are firm and even, and they’re getting louder. When I analyze the echoes I realize it’s heading straight for me. The Pioneer is forty feet away, then thirty feet. Then twenty. I start to wonder how the robot will trash my circuits. Will it keep pounding on my torso until the steel gives way? Or will it drive a spike through the seams in my armor and peel me open like a can? Either way I won’t feel any physical pain, but the mental anguish is already unbearable. My friends are in danger, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll never see Brittany or Shannon again. Or Dad. Or my mother.
I want to cry out, “No!” and I almost do. But instead I hear someone else’s voice, coming from twenty feet away. It’s another of Hawke’s soldiers. Before the nuke exploded, he was standing guard in the corridor outside my door.
“No, please…don’t hurt me…don’t—”
I hear the sickening crunch of the robot’s fist against the man’s skull. Then I hear the whir of the Pioneer’s motors as it retracts its arm and turns its turret, resuming its search for warm bodies. After a moment it takes a tentative step, then another. Then it marches off to the right, heading for the other end of the cavernous space. When it’s far enough away I turn my camera back on and see the Pioneer barge through a gap in the wreckage and disappear into another section of the ruined base. Within thirty seconds I can no longer hear its footsteps.
I should be relieved, but if anything I feel worse. I know the robot will return. Once it kills all the soldiers, it’ll focus on finishing off the Pioneers. It’ll keep hunting until its batteries run out.
“Oh God,” I whisper, setting my speakers at their lowest volume. “God, help me.”
Then I hear an answer. A whisper comes from the darkness several yards away. But it’s not God. It’s my father.
“I’m coming, Adam.”
He crawls toward me, emerging from a hiding place under a concrete slab. He’s wearing a pair of infrared goggles, which allow him to see in the dark. His legs are injured, maybe broken, but he grips the rubble with a bloody hand and pulls himself forward. In his other hand he holds a long slender pole.
“Dad! You’re alive!”
With an exhausted grunt, he drags himself next to my turret. His chest is heaving. “You have to…move fast. Get to the surface…before that Pioneer comes back.”
I don’t understand. Dad knows I can’t go anywhere without my arms and legs. “No, Dad, listen. You’re the one who has to leave. There’s a ton of radiation here. I think a nuke hit us.”
“Yes. I think so too.” He lets out another grunt and brushes the bits of debris from my turret. “I couldn’t sleep…so I was wandering the halls…when the explosion happened. And luckily…I was near the supply room.”
“That’s where you got the goggles?”
“Yes. And also this.” He holds up the slender pole, which has a dozen crossbars along its length.
“Wait a second. Is that an antenna?”
Smiling, he inserts the thing into my turret and screws it in. “Now you can transfer…to another Pioneer.”
As soon as he installs the antenna, my wireless functions come back online. It’s amazing, a miracle. My circuits sing with joy. Dad saved me, and now I can save him too. “Okay, go back to your hiding place and wait,” I say. “Once I’m in another robot, I’ll come back here and get you.”
Dad shakes his head. “No, it’s too risky.”
“Too risky? Are you crazy?”
“Don’t worry about me, Adam. Just save yourself.”
I’m about to raise my voice and start arguing when I hear a distant scream. It’s coming from the section of the base where Pioneer 6A went.
“Go back to your hiding place!” I hiss. Then I activate my radio transmitter and start searching for an available Pioneer.
The search isn’t easy. Radio signals don’t travel well underground. Most of the waves from my transmitter bounce off the piles of wreckage surrounding us and ricochet back to my antenna. But there are lots of gaps in the wreckage, and some of the waves are snaking through. I send more power to my transmitter, making the signal as strong as possible, and after several anxious seconds I get a response. My waves have reached a Pioneer whose circuits are unoccupied.
I start the data transfer. Once again I feel the stretching sensation, but this time it’s excruciating. My mind is being strained through a thousand jagged holes. I have to find my way through a maze of debris, my data packets scattered among the fallen beams and slabs. And because the wreckage obstructs so many of my radio waves, it takes forever to complete the transfer.
Finally, after nearly a minute, my packets reassemble inside my new Pioneer. The first thing I do is turn on my camera and survey the area. I’m standing in a room that’s relatively undamaged. Although the ceiling is gone, three of the walls are still intact. I test my motors by taking a step forward and swinging my arms. My legs work fine but my arms seem oddly heavy. When I train my camera on them, I get a big surprise: there’s a circular saw attached to my left arm and an acetylene torch hanging from my right.
Whoa. Am I inside Zia’s Pioneer?
No, that can’t be right. After Zia attacked me in the gym, Shannon and DeShawn grabbed Pioneer 3 and tore off her torch and saw. But then I remember there’s another robot with the same equipment—Pioneer 3A. That’s where I am, inside Zia’s evil twin.
I get another surprise when I turn on the Pioneer’s acoustic sensor. I hear a loud clang, steel against steel. Then another clang, even louder. The noise is coming from nearby, the room next door. Underneath the ringing blows I hear a familiar synthesized voice shouting the foulest words in the English language. It’s Zia, and she’s furious.
In three strides I step around the intact wall and rush into the neighboring room. Pioneer 6A—the robot controlled by Sigma—stands in the center of the room, its camera turned away from me. The robot looms over two dead soldiers sprawled on the floor and a limbless Pioneer 3 lying on its side. In 6A’s right hand is a thick steel bar, which comes crashing down for a third time against Zia’s torso. The blows have already dented the armor around her circuits, but they haven’t stopped the stream of curses flowing from her speakers. And that’s a lucky thing, because Zia’s voice drowns out the stomping of my footpads as I charge toward Pioneer 6A from behind.
At the last possible moment I turn on the saw and fire up the torch. Pioneer 6A hears the noise and starts to turn its turret, but I’m already swinging my left arm in a wide, whipping arc. It’s the same move Zia used on me in the gym, and it works just as well now. The circular saw slashes the knee joint of 6A’s leg, and the robot topples to the floor.