Thick growth rushed by the windows and wove together into a living roof above the road. The constant turns allowed only brief glimpses of what lay ahead.
The car finally burst out of the jungle onto a coastal plane, which rose slowly up the outside of the mountain. She caught a glimpse of the airport's single runway jutting out into the water far below.
Frothy waves crashed onto black-sand beaches, and the azure sea spread unbroken by reefs to the horizon beyond. The roadbed was carved out of the dark rocks of the steep volcanic mountain. There were no other signs of man or machine anywhere in sight.
The world fell dark… then the car emerged from a tunnel into the light. Before Laura lay a part of the island she'd never seen before.
The [garbled] was covered not with thick jungle but with tall grasses and drooping ferns. A primeval forest, she thought. A glimpse into the earth's past.
The car began to slow as it ascended an inland hill. The faint whine made by the electric motor wound down, and the car pulled to a stop at the crest of a ridge. There was nothing but the thin ribbon of concrete for as far as the eye could see.
The door opened to admit a stiff wind. Laura was fearful she'd be abandoned if she got out, but after a few moments, she exited tentatively with her laptop. She leaned inside and said, "Don't leave, okay?" The car didn't move. It didn't even shut the door, as if sensing Laura's anxiety.
The air felt noticeably cooler. Laura guessed she was a few thousand feet above sea level as she looked down at the trackless expanse of ocean far below. As good a place as any, Laura told herself, and she climbed a few meters to a flat ledge that had been gouged out of the hillside above. Erosion had washed the bedrock bare and worn the surface of the black lava stone smooth. The notch was about the size of a large beach blanket and it formed a pocket sheltered nicely from the wind.
Laura settled in after confirming that the car still waited on the road. She opened the laptop, but almost immediately her eyes were drawn to something odd. She couldn't have seen it from the road, but her higher vantage gave her a clear view. There was a flat terrace nestled into the hillside about halfway down the mountain below. The grass was trimmed, and the yard was bordered along its open end by a high concrete wall. Squinting and shielding her eyes from the sun, Laura could make out objects of various sizes strewn all about the terrace. There were large balls and cubes and cylinders and ramps and cones.
They looked just like the objects in the robot nursery she had toured with Gray.
Something moved on the steep hillside above the terrace. The tops of a fern had shaken out of sync with the gentle swaying of the tall grass.
With a rising sense of unease, Laura stared at the slope, which rose to a small plateau covered in white blossoms.
A man climbed slowly into view up the mountain. He wore heavy protective gear like a space suit, and he labored under the weight of a heavy load. But he was too large, Laura realized. His movements were too mechanical and uncoordinated. Her skin began to crawl, and she felt her world suddenly depressurize — the air sucked from her lungs.
For it was not a man in a cumbersome suit, she admitted to herself finally. It had two arms, two legs, and a head, but it was not a man at all… and it was frightening beyond description.
The robot rose slowly to full height but then tripped and fell flat on its face. Laura's panic was eased by her laughter, and what remained was intense curiosity. She watched the mechanical monster push with one arm, then the other, succeeding merely in rocking itself from side to side. It rose to the push-up position, and then lowered itself — finally kneeling on both knees to look around.
The robot had to be young. But its "baby-proof" terrace was hidden. It was a nursery for the new anthropomorphic robots — Gray's latest, greatest, and most secret.
Laura rose to her feet to get a better view. She could see no structures that might house the robots' facilities. That could mean only one thing. Those facilities had to be inside the great central mountain buried, hardened, and secure.
Questions ricocheted through Laura's mind at a dizzying speed. Why are the new robots being kept secret? Why is the computer facility built like a fortress? Why are there nuclear power plants, and launch pads and strange goings-on all around?
How could I have been so naive? she chided herself angrily. Gray doesn't keep secrets because of some quirk or eccentricity! He keeps secrets because what he doing is wrong! And I'm helping him, she concluded with a start.
The robot below finally struggled to its feet. When it rose to full height and resumed its climb, Laura saw that the machine was enormous.
And it was not alone. Two clones of the juvenile walked out onto the terrace. But they moved quickly and [garbled] with a grace and ease not shown by the robot on the hill. Once in the open, the new arrivals stopped side by side and looked up at the struggling juvenile.
It's escaping, Laura thought. The two others were its more responsible elders! At least that seemed a reasonable working assumption.
The escaping toddler had reached the plateau, and it had knelt in the tall grass on one knee. It held its hand out at waist level, and began running it in slow circles through the brush. The robot seemed so intent on its project, that Laura squinted to try and see what it was doing. The wind blew, and the white blossoms beneath the robot's palm swayed gently through the air.
"Do you know where I am?" Laura typed. She leaned back against a smooth outcropping of rock. The computer was nestled snugly in her lap. A bloated red sun now hung low over the dark waters, and Laura felt the first hint of a chill in the gusts that lapped at her perch. It made her glad for the warmth of her portable.
The main computer's reply was still sluggish.
<No. Where are you?>
"But I came here in a Model Three. Don't you know where the car took me?"
<I told you, I'm not feeling well. You're using a laptop, but I can't tell where.>
Laura felt a rush of anxiety on reading the computer's response. "You didn't send a car for me.
<Am I not making myself clear? N-O.>
The whistling wind sent a rush of goose bumps across Laura's skin, and she hugged her elbows tight against her sides as she typed.
"I'm on the side of the mountain opposite the Village," Laura typed, "and I'm looking at some sort of new-model robots. They're anthropomorphic, and appear to be about twice the size of a human."
There was no response.
"Hello?" she typed, and hit Enter several times.
<Please wait one second,> the computer replied. The word [PROCESSING] appeared, and it flashed for much longer than a second.
The computer finally said, <Are you on an overlook? A small rock ledge just above the road that looks down onto a flat terrace?>
"Yes. And the terrace has a high concrete wall and simple geometric objects like in the Model Sevens' nursery."
<You're on the "empty quarter," at Mr. Gray's favorite spot on the island. He sometimes watches sunsets from there. But you're not supposed to be in the empty quarter, Laura. It's getting dark. You need to get back over the mountain.>
Laura agreed with the computer completely. Her sweater glowed in the reflective light of the laptop's screen. Plus, she remained troubled by the issue of the cars.
"Can I ask you something?" she typed, "This morning Mr. Gray and I jogged down to the reactor. When we were returning, I got a cramp. A car arrived out of the blue, and I was wondering whether you sent it?"
<Yes. Cameras provide full coverage of all the island's roadbeds so I can model them for use by the robots. I saw you and sent a car because of your obviously severe muscle cramp.>