Fuzzy (15 page)

He grabbed one of the arms and ripped it from its socket. He swung it hard, bashing away another arm, then jammed it between two of the riot shields, preventing them from completely closing him in.

He tried to force himself through the gap. He
increased the power of every motor in his body to 100 percent. Ahead he could see the racks of computers and hard drives that were Barbara. If he could just get to them . . .

Another arm popped from the wall—this one tipped with a crackling bolt of electricity. It was a Taser meant to be used only if a student's behavior was criminal or life-threatening.

It could also fry a robot's brain.

Deep within their digital brains, both computer and robot were now running the same subroutine: SurvivalMode().

15.2
DETENTION ROOM
2

The door opened.

Max was glad. She couldn't stand waiting any longer.

Ms. Brockmeyer was on the other side of the door.

“Maxine? What happened? I thought you were going to try to do better for me.”

Max sighed. This was going to be rough. A load of hooey from Brockmeyer and then an endless amount of fuss from her parents.

Apparently, her thoughts were reflected by her silence. “Well, that attitude isn't going to help,” said Brockmeyer. “Let's go in and find out how serious this evidence is.”

Max shook off the arm Brockmeyer tried to put around her shoulders. She stepped through the door into
a room with a few plastic chairs and a big wall screen. Principal Dorgas was there, and so were her parents. She wanted to run to them and let them hold her and protect her, but they both started shouting at her right away.

Finally, Dorgas cleared his throat and suggested that they all sit down.

“Vice Principal Barbara, we're ready to see your evidence.”

The huge screen flicked on. Max flinched in fear and disgust and hate as Barbara's big face appeared. She didn't want to see all of her “evidence” again, especially not with her parents watching.

And she didn't have to.

“Mr. and Mrs. Zelaster, thank you for coming in today to talk about Max.”

That's odd
, thought Max. Barbara never called her Max, it was always M. Zelaster.

Barbara's voice continued: “Max is a model student. We are happy to have her at this school. We regret that a computer error caused you to receive incorrect reports about Max. All erroneous conduct points and infractions have been erased from her records. I'm printing out a revised list of her corrected test scores, citizenship
rating, and her overall Constant Upgrade score. As you can see, she has a bright future.”

Her parents looked at each other in surprise. Brockmeyer actually looked a little disappointed. Dorgas started tapping at his own qScreen for answers.

And Max was totally blown away.

She knew Barbara would never call her Max, would never admit to erroneous points, and would never, ever say she had a bright future. Only Fuzzy would say something like that. Could he have taken control of Barbara?

Barbara's voice spoke one more time:

“Max, please report to Room 43. Immediately!”

The room's windowless security door whooshed open.

“It's okay to run. Fuzzy needs your help. Really badly! Room 43. He's—”

Then the screen did something funny. Barbara stopped talking and seemed to look around the room blankly for a minute. Then the screen went dark.

Max was sure Fuzzy was behind this, and she was just as sure that he was in big trouble.

“I've got to go,” she said to the baffled adults.

But suddenly the screen was back on again. Barbara was also back and talking very fast.

“Student M. Zelaster has 687 discipline tags. Student M. Zelaster plotted to cheat on today's science test. Student M. Zelaster is not UpGrading! Student M. Zelaster is DownGrading! Student M. Zelaster must be expelled. Student M. Zelaster—”

But student M. Zelaster had already bolted out the door.

15.3
ROOM
43

Fuzzy had scored an early victory when he dodged Barbara's Taser-tipped arm and then shoved it into one of her own processors.

The lights flickered. Sparks flew. Wires melted.

All of the qScreens went black.

Fuzzy thought Barbara was beaten.

Then he saw a monitor turn itself back on. In tiny type at the bottom of the screen it said:
BARBARA
5.6
REBOOTING
. . .

She wasn't beaten, but it would give him a moment to HelpMax() before she could come back online.

He analyzed the room full of equipment in front of him. Instead of being stuffed into a robot body like his
own processors and systems, Barbara's were carefully installed on a series of racks and shelves, with miles of cables connecting all the boxes.

He made an educated guess at which box would be most useful and yanked out a fistful of cables. Then he flipped open his fingertips and plugged himself in.

Fuzzy found himself in a sea of computer code, students' records, and building controls.

A human could have scrolled through it for years without getting anywhere, but it all made sense to Fuzzy. In milliseconds he was in control of Barbara's communication.

Now he could see through every camera in the school at once. He instantly analyzed the faces and found Max, looking pale and frightened, in Dorgas's office.

He heard Dorgas saying, “Vice Principal Barbara, we're ready to see your evidence.”

Yes!
He had gotten through just in time.

He turned on the screen hanging over Dorgas's desk and then fired up Barbara's avatar and voice subroutines.

“Mr. and Mrs. Zelaster, thank you for coming in today to talk about Max . . . ,” he began, and then he told
the assembled listeners that Max was a model student, and that the infractions on her record had been in error.

Meanwhile, another part of his lightning-fast brain was actually finding Max's records. He updated her test scores and completely removed her from the discipline tag database. Then he sent the new data to a printer in room OfficeRM7.

“As you can see,” he went on, “she has a bright future.”

Something struck him from behind so powerfully that his main hard drive crashed. And then came the shock—a megawatt-strong power surge that ripped through his wiring, burning out servos and glitching out microchips.

Barbara was back online.

15.4
ROOM
43

Fuzzy had made a mistake. A big mistake. If only he had attacked Barbara's robotic systems first instead of helping Max. He had assigned HelpMax() an even higher priority number than SelfPreservation(), and now he had paid the price for it.

But now that he had completed HelpMax(128), SelfPreservation(127) kicked in.

He switched to his backup hard drive and diverted all processing power to SurvivalMode().

“Max, please report to Room 43. Immediately!” he said hurriedly. “It's OK to run. Fuzzy needs your help. Really badly! He's—”

Barbara blocked him from the communication
modules digitally and then set about disconnecting him physically, too.

Powerful claws clamped down on him and began dragging him away from Barbara's processors.

He struggled to stay connected, but three of her tentacle-like arms began pulling on him in different directions. First, he felt his connection to Barbara's computer sever, then he got an error message:
LEFT ARM DISCONNECTED
.

No pain accompanied the injury, but it reduced Fuzzy's defensive capability and left him slightly unbalanced. He was just barely able to dodge as Barbara flung his own arm at him.

He decided to focus on defeating Barbara's tentacles one at a time. Chopping at one with his right hand, he was able to rip it loose from the wall.

Unfortunately, Barbara seemed to have an unlimited number of those Hydra-like arms, while he now had only one.

But he still had two powerful mechanized legs. Fuzzy fought his way to the center of the room, trying for a position to avoid the arms coming at him in all directions. He had to spin in a fast circle to accomplish this,
kicking and flailing to keep the arms from grabbing hold of him.

He was keeping Barbara at bay, but barely. She had her own power supply, with backup generators just in case.

He was surviving only on battery power . . . which was dwindling fast as he overclocked and overpowered every motor in his body just to survive.

He reconnected to Jones's computer.

“Help me!” he begged.

16.1
HALLWAY B

Max ran into the hallway and smashed right into Biggs and Simeon—who had been waiting outside the office, trying to decide what to do. She bounced off and kept going.

They raced to catch up. “Max! What's—”

“No running in the hallways,” chanted Barbara. “A discipline tag has been <
static
> to J. Biggs. A discipline tag has been awarded to Record.Not.Found. Please <
static
> the hallways safe and Null Pointer Error 876.345. Another discipline tag has been . . .”

“Don't stop!” Max yelled over her shoulder. “Ignore her! We've got to save Fuzzy!”

“But he's trying to save
you!
” hollered Simeon.

“And me!” added Biggs.

“He did! But now we've got to save him! He's in Room 43! Go get Jones and tell him to come help Fuzzy!”

“No!”
came another voice.

It was Krysti. Sprinting down Hallway B.

“No running in the hallways,” said Barbara. “A discipline tag has been awarded to <
static
>. Please keep the hallways <
static
> and clear.”

“Oh, shut up,” snarled Krysti. “Guys, we've got to save Fuzzy
from
Jones! Jones and this army guy are going to wipe Fuzzy's memory.”

Max, already zooming past Krysti, skidded to a stop.

“What?”
she gasped.

“Yeah! Wipe it out! I heard the whole thing. Army man wants Jones to clear Fuzzy's memory for some mission to Mars! And Jones is going to do it! Nina says it's the same as killing him.”

“We won't let them do it!” yelled Biggs. “Let's tell him to make a run for it!”

“Yes! But first we've got to save him from Barbara!”

“What's Barbara doing—” started Krysti.

But she was interrupted by a building-shaking clang from down the hallway.

“Sounds like she's smashing him!” cried Simeon.

They ran down the hall, followed by Barbara's garbled warning messages, occasionally dodging one of her padded arms, which seemed to be popping out of the walls at random.

A lot of things were happening at random. Doors were opening and closing. Strange announcements were playing. A trash can wheeled itself down the hall, then suddenly stopped, tipping over and spilling its contents on the floor.

Simeon ran right into the trash can, but Max, Krysti, and Biggs jumped over the spilled garbage and kept going until they got to the unmarked door.

“This is it!”

“Look, you can see where the door's been damaged!”

“Yeah, and now it won't open!”

A series of four sharp bangs came from inside. Then loud, shrieking static.

“She is smashing him!” groaned Max.

“What are we going to do?”

A screen turned on nearby. It showed Barbara . . . but she looked all wrong. Jerky and blocky, like one of the old-timey video games Max's father liked to play.

“Please keep the hallways safe and <
static
>. Discipline tags have been assigned to Null Pointer Error, Record. Not. Found. <
static
>.”

“I know what to do,” said Max.

16.2
ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ

One of the technicians was trying to interrupt Ryder, but it wasn't easy.

At last, the colonel paused for a breath.

“Er, excuse me? Dr. Jones,” called the technician. “We just got a message from Fuzzy.”

“What's it say?” said Jones, Nina, and Ryder as one.

“It says, ‘Help me!'”

“Oh zark,” cursed Jones, whirling back to his own qScreen.

“Jones, if that robot is kidnapped again, I'll—” roared Colonel Ryder, but for once Jones ignored him.

“He sent his GpX location! He's still in the building! Room 43. Let's go.”

16.3
HALLWAY B

Max, Biggs, and Krysti heard a new sound—the chime that signaled a class change.

Biggs glanced at his watch.

The halls quickly filled with students, all moving in orderly fashion as usual between classes, stepping around the spilled trash and politely waiting for waving padded arms to retract before moving on to their next class. Everyone knew something was wrong, but no one would risk getting an unnecessary discipline tag.

“This is perfect!” shouted Max. “This is how we can help Fuzzy.”

“What is?” Biggs demanded.

“We've got to distract Barbara from clobbering Fuzzy.
She's already glitching. We can overload her the whole way.”

“How?” asked Simeon, who had finally caught up.

“Duh,” said Krysti. “By keeping her busy giving us dTags!”

“Like this,” said Max, and she started running down the hall yelling, “Barbara's busted! Everybody go nuts!”

“One <
static
> tag has been assigned to File.Not.Found. <
static
> hallways clear and <
static
>.”

“Or like this,” said Krysti, and she grabbed Biggs and kissed him on the lips. Then she took off down the hall after Max, yelling and whooping.

“Well, that was nuts, all right,” said Simeon.

Biggs, for once, said nothing.

“Public displays of affection <
static
> not allowed. One <
static
> to <
static
>. One disci<
static
> . . .”