Kurt looked her in the eyes. He hoped to see fear, doubt, and nerves, but he saw only coldness and anger.
“Get out of the way, Kurt.”
“Tired of being alone,” he said, repeating her words from the night at the hotel. “You pull that trigger, you’ll be more alone than you can possibly imagine.”
“He killed my brother, and if he’s not going to tell us why, I’m going to even the score,” she said. “Now please, get out of my way.”
Kurt didn’t budge.
“Listen,” Marchetti said nervously, “I didn’t have anything to do with your brother’s death. But maybe I can help you find out who did.”
“How?” Kurt asked.
“By tracking down those with knowledge, those with an understanding of the process,” Marchetti offered. “Obviously you don’t just pick up a screwdriver and a soldering gun and put these things together, it’s an extremely complicated endeavor. Someone connected with the initial design had to be involved.”
As Marchetti spoke, Joe began circling in behind Leilani as quiet as a cat. “Keep talking, Marchetti,” Kurt said.
“There might be nine or ten people who know major parts of the system,” he stammered, “but only one guy knows as much as I do. His name is Otero—and he’s right here on the island.”
“He’s lying!” Leilani said. “He’s just trying to blame someone else.”
As Leilani ranted, Joe pounced. He knocked the gun away and grabbed her arm, twisting it up behind her back in a half nelson.
A loud bang rang out, and for a second Kurt thought the pistol had discharged. “Everyone all right?”
Marchetti nodded, Joe did the same, Leilani appeared upset but unharmed.
“What was that noise?” Kurt asked.
No one knew, but when another clanking sound reached them Kurt caught sight of movement in the back of the darkened lab. The acrid smell of electrical discharges came next. The welding robots had become active. They were standing up on their feet, knocking items out of their way and discharging blue arcs of plasma from their appendages.
Kurt turned to Marchetti. “Let me guess,” he said, “Otero’s your master programmer.”
Marchetti nodded.
“I have a feeling he’s been watching.”
The welding robots began moving toward the humans. Two of them had small tracks like a tank’s to roll on. A third had clawlike feet that were scraping on the metal deck.
Joe released Leilani. She turned to Kurt, apologizing.
“I’m so sorry, I just—”
“Save it,” Kurt said, his eyes on the menacing machines.
Marchetti raced for the bulkhead door. He twisted and pulled the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Watch out,” Joe shouted.
One of the machines had begun to zero in on Marchetti. It charged forward on its tracks with one appendage reaching for him and a second arm spouting blazing white plasma.
Marchetti ducked and scampered to a new spot. The machine tracked him and began to close in again.
Kurt looked for the gun and spotted it across the room. Before he could move, a fourth machine came alive and stepped in his path.
He backed up, putting the couch between him and the walking machine. Joe and Leilani retreated as well.
“How do they operate?” Kurt shouted as one of the robots reached the table and carved it in two with a circular saw.
“Either autonomously or guided from a remote site,” Marchetti said. “They have pinhole cameras for eyes.”
The machines lumbered toward them like sleepy animals. Each time they reached something solid, their actuators spun and their claws extended. A chair was flung out of the way, a couch set on fire with the welding torches.
Kurt noticed that their movements were odd, only one machine at a time seemed to do anything out of the ordinary. “Could Otero be at that remote site right now?”
Marchetti nodded. Kurt turned to Joe. “Now would be a good time for a suggestion.”
“I’d say, let’s pull the plug,” Joe replied, “but I’m guessing they have batteries.”
With that, he grabbed a chair and hurled it at the closest robot. It caromed off the lumbering machine, rocking it backward a bit, but other than that it seemed to have no effect.
By now Kurt had been forced closer to where Marchetti stood. Joe and Leilani held a different spot. But the machines, or Otero, seemed intent on herding them together.
Kurt made a break to the right, but a blast from a welding torch stopped him. He went the other way, relying on his quickness.
The machine pivoted and released another blinding flash of plasma, but Kurt was already inside the machine’s reach. He felt the heat singe his back but not directly. He grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on and yanked until it broke off. Then he found another protrusion that looked like a camera and bashed it sideways.
The welding torch flared out over his shoulder again, and some other arm began to move.
“Do these things have an off switch?” he shouted.
“No,” Marchetti said. “I couldn’t imagine wanting to shut them off manually.”
“I’m guessing you can imagine it now.”
Kurt reached for what looked like a trio of hydraulic lines only to receive a blow to the chest that sent him flying off the machine. Some type of hammer used to drive rivets had extended and struck him in the ribs.
He landed on his back, only to see a saw blade dropping toward him from a second machine. He rolled out of the way and ended up against the huge circular window, beyond which the turquoise hue of the sea loomed.
Marchetti was there as well, and Joe and Leilani had been successfully herded into the same general vicinity.
“I have an idea,” Kurt said.
He lunged for the same machine he’d just been on, careful to avoid the appendages. The torch flashed again, almost blinding him. The hydraulic hammer came out again, but Kurt twisted his body to avoid it.
The machine lumbered forward with Kurt clinging to it. It pushed him back, banging him against the window like the captain of a football team might bang a geeky freshmen against a locker. The torch flashed again, carving a line in the acrylic window. A second swipe left another scar.
Kurt tried to push the machine back, but it shoved him against the window. He felt like his ribs were cracking from the pressure.
“I hope … these things … aren’t waterproof,” he managed.
He reached for the hydraulic lines again. Right on schedule, the battering ram of a hammer fired just as it had before. But with Kurt’s body twisted out of the way, it slammed into the huge oval window.
The eerie sound of cracks traveling through the acrylic caught everyone’s attention. They turned just as the window, designed convexly with all its strength focused outwards, failed from the inside.
The water blasted in like a crashing wave, hitting everyone and everything at once. It swept the people, the furniture, and the machines across the room, slamming all into the far wall.
Kurt felt several jarring collisions and struggled to free himself from the welder. Even as he got loose, the swirling water pinned him against the wall and held him down like a vicious wave might trap a surfer. He pushed off the floor with one foot and broke the surface.
Foam and debris were being blasted about by the gushing water. Kurt felt himself being pushed up by the rising flood as the room filled with liquid. As he neared the ceiling, the trapped air slowed the process, but it must have been leaking out somewhere because the space was collapsing.
Kurt looked around. Joe was there, holding Marchetti with one hand and clinging to the wall with the other.
Leilani popped up and grabbed ahold of a pipe that ran along the ceiling, which was now easily within reach.
“Any sign of the robots?”
“I never taught them to swim,” Marchetti said.