But instead he raised his rifle and loosed a burst. The bullets struck right in the face of a Model Eight, who peered tentatively around a pockmarked wall. But the bullets seemed to have little effect.
"These full metal jackets don't penetrate enough to 'em!" Hoblenz reported from the other side of Laura. The two newly arrived soldiers were working their way across the room to get a better shot down the corridor, overturning tables along the way for cover.
"Look out!" one of the soldiers yelled as he opened fire.
Laura stared as a metal desk spun end over end through the air. It flew over her head and crashed into the wall behind her.
Laura barely even ducked. In shock, she marveled at the strength of the robot — at how much force it had imparted to its projectile.
Hoblenz groaned, wincing as he held his ribcage. "Are you all right?"
His grimace served only to make him look angry. He struggled to his knees, favoring his right side. "I'm just fine," he said through bared teeth.
"We've gotta pull back!" Gray shouted as Hoblenz reloaded.
"Can't! They got one of my men." Gray and Laura both looked at the two broken bodies. Hoblenz had come down with three men. "We were ready when the doors opened, but they were standin' right there. They jus' reached in and grabbed 'em. I couldn't do too much. Didn't wanna hit my men."
The robot leaned out into the open momentarily, almost daring the soldiers to shoot. When the torrent of rifle fire arrived, it darted back behind the corner.
"Save your ammo!" Hoblenz yelled. "That one's just been playin' hide-and-seek since we got down here. The nail gun is just a toy, I think. He even shot himself in the leg with it."
"What happened to them?" Laura asked, nodding at the dead men sprawled on the concrete.
Hoblenz shook his head. "Their bones were broken like dry sticks. You could hear 'em. The robots didn't do too much to 'em."
He looked out at the piles in black uniforms. "But it don't take too much to kill a man."
Gray's eyes were on the bullet-riddled face of the Model Eight.
It stood almost totally exposed now that it was not drawing fire from the soldiers. "They must be toddlers," Gray said, his voice drained of inflection. "Mr. Hoblenz, how did they move? Did they seem agile, or ungainly?"
"Well, they weren't exactly graceful. This place here was mostly torn up when the doors opened."
"They're toddlers," Gray concluded, "between two and four months old." He looked at Laura. "They wouldn't have completed tactile training."
Laura nodded slowly.
"Well," Hoblenz said from behind Laura, "whatever the hell that means, they took my man Tran down that way." Hoblenz pointed down the corridor from which the robot taunted them. "We gotta go get him."
Gray nodded, checked his rifle, and rose from behind the table to walk into the open. "Bring the explosives," he said without taking his eyes off the robot. The two of them stood facing each other across the cluttered room. The Model Eight disappeared down the corridor.
Without warning Gray walked out into the maze of overturned furniture.
"Joseph!" Laura shouted.
"Hold your fire!" Hoblenz ordered.
Gray got down on one knee beside the bodies. With his fingertips he checked the arteries on the men's necks. In his other hand was the assault rifle's pistol grip.
Suddenly, the young robot rounded the corner. He held a metal filing cabinet that he appeared ready to sling one-handed.
The robot froze — staring at Gray, who rose to stand not ten meters in front of it. Even from where Laura crouched behind the table she could see the holes in the toddler's face and the deep indentations in the metal plates that covered his chest.
"Mr. Gray," Hoblenz said loudly, not taking his eye from his rifle sight, "I would advise you to back off without making any sudden moves!"
Laura glanced at the other two soldiers, whose rifles were also raised. She belatedly picked her own up and rested it on the table.
It made her nervous just thinking she might have to shoot, but she held the pistol grip as firmly as she could and aimed it in the general direction of the robot's head. "Put that butt hard up on yer shoulder," Hoblenz muttered quietly like some drill instructor. "It kicks like hell." Laura complied, more nervous than before.
The Model Eight held the filing cabinet in one hand, but its other arm hung limply by its side. Its shoulder was pierced by a tight grouping of holes.
Gray approached the robot gingerly. It was probably too young to understand spoken language, Laura reasoned. Gray moved closer, careful not to topple anything along the way. The robot appeared transfixed by the scene — by Gray.
When he was almost within reach of the robot, Gray held out his hand. With a loud crash the filing cabinet dropped to the floor.
Gray stood completely still, his hand extended to the Model Eight.
The robot's good arm rose, its three-fingered end effector wrapping around Gray's outstretched hand. Gray said something to the robot, nodding down the corridor.
The robot turned very carefully. It appeared to make certain not to move too quickly for the human. They headed off toward the control room Laura had visited earlier. The robot was stooped over and holding Gray's hand with obvious care.
Laura, Hoblenz, and the others quickly followed. She skirted the two dead men — silent reminders of the dangers they faced.
The Model Eight was unsteady on its feet. Several times it scraped the walls with an awful grating sound. And when the robot lost its balance, it almost dragged Gray off his feet. They finally arrived in the temporary control room, and the robot let go of Gray's hand.
Most of the consoles and chairs lay on their sides, and there were loose cables crisscrossing the large cavern.
"Mr. Gray, I can't promise I can hold this area," Hoblenz said. He was pulling hand grenades out of a sack that he carried, lining them up on an overturned console.
Laura joined Gray at the observation window, where he stood rubbing his hand. They peered down at the captive soldier curled into a ball on the bare floor of the tactile room. Five robots stood around him in a circle. One robot was stroking the soldier's back, his hand carefully guided by another.
Hoblenz appeared beside them at the window. "Jesus Christ," he said, then he began to inspect the window and the frame around it.
"Sir, I can take this thing out with some C4. That'd give us a good angle for direct fire. I'll grab a man and head down. I would take two, but we need to keep an eye on this one." He shot his thumb toward the robot that had led them there, which hadn't moved an inch since Gray pulled his hand free. "Unless, of course, you let me do him right now."
"No," Gray said as they watched the Model Eight in the tactile room pull his pupil's hand off the soldier's back. Another robot then proffered its hand and waited. The teacher grabbed its wrist and slowly, carefully, laid the hand onto the man's back. The soldier flinched but made no move to uncover his head. He was playing dead.
"Is that 'no' to wasting this one, or 'no' to my plan?"
"No to both," Gray said, putting his rifle down. "I'll go down there and get him. You have your men check for signs of drilling, although I don't think you'll find any."
Hoblenz heaved a loud sigh of frustration. "Mr. Gray, you may be a walkin' human calculator, but brilliant tactician you're not. I just saw two of my men get snapped to pieces by those goddamn things. Now you wanna go down there by yourself, unarmed, while I split my men up and send them off to look for something you don't think they'll find?"
"There are only five robots down here," Gray explained, "four toddlers and one holdback — a robot we're planning to reprogram."
"Now how do you know that?"