Edge of Danger (41 page)

 
“In further developments in the suicide bombings in London this morning, we turn to our overseas correspondent, Chandler Landry—” Eden’s grip on Gabriel’s arm tightened. “Rewind it.”

 
The film immediately scrolled backward until she said hoarsely, “Stop.” She bit her lower lip, her gaze fixed up at the TV.

 
Together they watched a group of adults and children leave the large, air-conditioned bus and walk to the guardrail to observe one of the active geysers. From the left of the screen the child in a red baseball cap appeared, and, hanging back a little, joined a small group of kids on the observation platform. CNN had a lighted oval around the child in the red baseball cap.

 
Gabriel narrowed his eyes as he watched it. At the end of the piece he started it again. He turned to glance at Eden. She looked devastated. He put his arm around her, rubbing her skin beneath her short sleeve. “I didn’t see a robot.”

 
She licked her lower lip. “It’s the boy in the red cap. The unidentified child
is
Rex.”

 
He rewound again. Looking at the monitor he said grimly, “Jesus. It looks completely human.” He turned to her. “You invented a soulless, calculating machine with the capability of doing untold harm to mankind? Jesus fucking Christ, Eden! You made an invincible goddamned killer robot look like an innocent
child
? What the
fuck
were you thinking?”

 
He couldn’t be half as disgusted and appalled at what she’d done as she was herself.

 
“Don’t—” She put a hand up to stop him from speaking again. “You know that
anything
can be made into a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. I’m not defending my actions, Gabriel,” she told him quietly. “I believed what I wanted to believe because I wanted to, no,
needed
to, prove to myself that I was just as good as they said. I—” She swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “I let my ego blind my common sense.”

 
“Hell, sweetheart,” he said less harshly. “You have a Nobel Prize, and more awards and accolades than twenty people. What in God’s name were you trying to prove? You must have known that no good could come of something like this.”

 
“I never intended to make this advanced technology public. You have to believe me. It was just for my own gratification that I went as far as I did. I had no idea—”

 
“Water under the bridge,” Gabriel said grimly. Frowning, he started pacing the small lab. “What is the son of a bitch up to?” Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. “Why steal a robot and let it roam around Yellowstone dressed like a tourist kid on a day trip?”

 
Eden raked her fingers through her hair. “He was dressed like that before,” she said absently, thinking back to the last time she’d seen her creation sitting on the floor of the lab playing ball with Marshall.

 
“Well, except for the backpack.” She watched Gabriel in the dim glow from the television screen.

 
“Which has nothing to do with its superhuman strength,” he murmured as he returned to pacing. “Yellowstone has to have some sort of merit as a target. So far, nothing Verdine has done has been random. I don’t think he’d start now.”

 
The silence was heavy between them as they watched the screen.

 
“Rex just took off the backpack,” Gabriel noted. “Not for comfort. I’m assuming he can’t feel pain?” He was only being halfway facetious.

 
“No. When I designed him, I was thinking about the stamina to fight a fire for days on end. Or perform surgery for hours and hours. I was only thinking about the positive aspects of invincibility.”

 
“Why Yellowstone?” he asked himself out loud.

 
“Rex is strong,” Eden answered, eyes fixed on her monitor, fingers flying over the keyboard. “He can dig. He can climb. In. around. Over. Up.” She paused, brow furrowed in concentration. “He doesn’t really need any equipment to perform. Everything is built in. The only reason for the backpack would be to carry something too unwieldy, or too large for him to hold.”

 
Gabriel jerked his hand away. “My God. The son of a bitch is going for the water supply.”

 
“What?” Eden frowned. “Why? To
poison
it?” When Gabriel nodded, she swiveled around on her chair to fully face him. “What would he hope to gain? Why use a robot to poison people? Couldn’t your garden variety suicide killer do that? There are dozens of ways to terrify, even kill people, that don’t require a robot. Especially one of Rex’s capabilities. It’s as if he’s showing off for the world to—what?” She demanded when Gabriel had the look of a man having a lightbulb moment.

 
He held up a hand, and used the other to open his phone and punch in three numbers with his thumb. “The robot is in Yellowstone Park,” he said into the phone. “The missing kid report is our bot,” his eyes pinning Eden in place.

 
Not that she needed pinning. She was frozen with fear and overwhelming guilt. Was Rex supposed to drop something into the water supply in the park? And if so,
what
?

 
God. It could be absolutely anything. Rex could handle chemicals and compounds that not even another robot could handle.

 
“Verdine is going for the aquifers in the park,” Gabriel said into the phone as if he were reading her mind. “He’s using Yellowstone as a staging area,” he told Sebastian, but his eyes fixed on Eden’s horrified gaze. “My guess is he’s giving potential buyers a taste of Rex’s capabilities to jack up the price.

 
“He’s sending in the bot to taint the water supply. The aquifers in, around, and under Yellowstone National Park feed into virtually all the natural water sources that supply the western United States.”

 
Listening to his side of the conversation, Eden didn’t agree. “Overkill,” she told him. “That’s like killing an ant with an atomic bomb. Dropping poison down a geyser doesn’t require an indestructible robot.”

 
Gabriel acknowledged her observation with a wait-a-second lifted finger. “What chemical compounds have been reported missing worldwide in the last thirty days?” he barked into the phone. “No. Stronger than that DZ7 stolen from the Chechnian rebel camp. Stronger than that as well. We’re looking for a powerful liquid nerve toxin or bio weapon. Something so powerful it couldn’t be handled by a normal robot…Look for unlikely components that have this potential when combined. Substances that are out of the norm. Yeah. I’ll wait.”

 
“Tell me more about this damn thing,” Gabriel demanded flatly, still holding the small phone to his ear.

 
Eden swallowed nausea. Just because he’d extracted the data from her didn’t mean he’d had time to look at it. And even if he had, Eden doubted anyone but an AI scientist could make out anything more than the overview.

 
“It has a simple and efficient algorithm using configuration space to execute collision-free motions. In other words—nothing is going to stand in his way.”

 
“What else?”

 
“To perform everyday tasks, Marshall and I had to teach it everyday physics. Rex learned concepts and theories. It can identify and reason about physical objects that break apart, come together, or mix. Rex—Oh, God.
It
knows its chemicals, Gabriel. And it knows what to do with them. It comprehends motive, and—it learns from experience.”

 
She pressed her arm against her midriff where nerves fluttered uncomfortably in her tummy. She’d thought herself so damn clever.

 
“But not emotion?” Gabriel demanded tightly. “The damn thing can’t reason nor does it have common sense. Is that right?”

 
“Correct.”

 
“Yeah,” he muttered into the phone. “You do that. Make it fast.” He snapped the phone shut. “You told me nothing can destroy this thing.”

 
“Yes.”

 
“Are you one hundred percent sure?”

 
She shuddered, remembering all the tests they’d run at each phase. “I’m one hundred percent positive.”

 
“Nothing?”

 
“Another bot. One that’s exactly the same. But stronger. Or magic?”

 
“Yeah. I have to go,” he said grimly.

 
They couldn’t wait for Rex 2 to be finished. They’d run out of time. At least they knew where the first bot was located.

 
With magic Gabriel could destroy Rex before it did anything. “I know,” she told him. Wishing he didn’t have to go anywhere
near
whatever was happening at Yellowstone.

 
“Don’t leave this room for any reason. Lark? Simon?”

 
“As if—” Eden flinched when both Lark and Simon materialized beside Gabriel.

 
“Hey,” Lark said cheerfully.

 
“The others will meet you there,” Simon told Gabriel, walking up to the computer monitor. “Amazing feat of engineering. Glad to have you on our team, Doctor,” he told Eden, who was ignoring both of them, her entire attention fixed on Gabriel.

 
He touched her cheek, then teleported to Yellowstone.

 
He’d hardly left and he was back again. She looked shocked to see him back so quickly. “I didn’t see you there.” She pointed at the TV.

 
“We kept out of range,” Gabriel said flatly. He encompassed Lark and Simon in a glance. “Verdine has a protection spell on the damn thing. We couldn’t get close enough. We tried our entire bag of tricks. Not a damn, fucking
thing
worked. Couldn’t even get the backpack away from it.”

 
Lark went pale. “That’s impossible, Gabriel. You know it’s impossible. It’s a man-made object. It can be destroyed by magic.”

 
“Verdine’s imbued the damn thing with his powers.”

 
“Is that
possible
?” Simon demanded sharply.

 
“I would never have believed so. But yeah. Not only possible. But a done deal. There were four of us, using our considerable combined powers, and nothing made a dent in the shield around it.”

 
Lark glanced at the TV monitor, and then back to Gabriel. “Want us to stay, or get back to the think tank?”

 
“Go. I’ll call if I need you again. Thanks.”

 
Eden blinked as they shimmered and disappeared. “I will
never
get used to that!”

 
“We duplicate it as planned.”

 
“Fine, but how is the second one going to be able to get through that protective shield, if you guys couldn’t?”

 
“We’re working on that. How far are we?”

 
She glanced over at the blinking cursor on the monitor. “I still have to go through all—” She glanced back at him and took a shuddering breath. She bit her lip. “If magic didn’t destroy hi—
it,
what makes you think another one can?”

 
“We’ll give the good guy some magic of its own. But first it needs to be completed, and sent in. Keep working,” he told her tightly. “How close?”

 
“Four hours. Minimum.”

 
“Make it two. Sit down and get the job done.”

 
Eden slid into the chair, and concentrated on focusing. Her hands were shaking. If it wasn’t bad enough that her bot had fallen into the wrong hands, it had been snatched by a
wizard
. A wizard who had managed to increase its indestructibility.