The Blue-Haired Bombshell (31 page)

HARV bent down and got all defensive. ‘‘Just throwing out a suggestion,’’ he said. He processed for a few nanos, pondering his own words. Slapping himself on the head, ‘‘DOS, we have been hooked together too long!’’

HARV pointed to the empty parking lot. ‘‘The good news is you have plenty of parking.’’

‘‘You’re grasping at straws now, buddy,’’ I said, pressing down on the accelerator.

‘‘Just trying to look on the bright side,’’ HARV offered.

‘‘Can you see inside the building?’’ I asked.

HARV shook his head. ‘‘Nope. They took their computerized cameras offline. I can have them back online in five minutes and twelve seconds.’’

‘‘Too slow,’’ I said.

The car raced forward.

‘‘Ah, Zach, I know your driving may be a bit rusty, but it’s customary to slow down on your approach to parking.’’

‘‘Not parking,’’ I said, flooring the pedal.

The car sped up, the building drew closer faster. The ape guards pulled their weapons.

‘‘This car will fit through those doors . . . right?’’ I asked.

I drove the car off the road and up the ramp leading to the building. HARV made a few fast computations.

‘‘Yes, you have two centimeters on both sides if we hit the doors in the middle,’’ HARV told me.

‘‘Good,’’ I said.

The guards took aim.

‘‘Carol.’’

‘‘I’m on it, Tió.’’

Carol pointed at the apes then waved her hand to the side. The apes’ weapons flew out of their hands. Three of the apes, now realizing my intentions, cleared the area. Without their weapons they knew they didn’t have any chance of stopping me. Truthfully, even with the weapons they wouldn’t have had much of a chance.

The one lone ape stood in the car’s path, defiantly holding his hand out in the universal stop position.

‘‘Not a bright ape, is he?’’ I said.

‘‘Just doing his duty,’’ HARV said.

‘‘Carol.’’

‘‘On it!’’

Carol lifted her arm up. The ape went flying up over the car just as we crashed through the doors into the Convention Center’s main exhibition room. It was a huge room, easily large enough to house hundreds of exhibitors and their booths. The thing was the room was empty—well almost empty. The walls of the room were lined with containers that looked like a cross between human-sized tubes and electronic coffins. Each one had a body in it. I didn’t like that at all.

There better not have been in those tubes what I was pretty sure there was in those tubes. I kicked the door of the car open and got out, Carol by my side. I looked around. Coffin-sized tubes and more tubes as far as I could see. I put two and two together and came up with trouble.

‘‘These people better be alive,’’ I snarled.

‘‘I am picking up faint life signs from all of them,’’ HARV said. ‘‘They are in cryo-chambers, in suspended animation.’’

‘‘That would explain the dreams I was picking up,’’ Carol said.

We moved towards the cryo-chambers lining the room.

‘‘Let me guess, there are five thousand of them,’’ I said.

‘‘Actually, five thousand and two,’’ HARV corrected. ‘‘Most of them, forty-five hundred, have women inside. Five hundred have men and two are empty.’’

I didn’t know what worried me more, the five thousand that were occupied or the two that were empty.

‘‘Electra is in one of them, I assume,’’ I said, popping GUS into my hand.

‘‘Affirmative,’’ HARV said.

HARV appeared from my wrist communicator and pointed forward, ‘‘She’s on the north wall in receptacle oh-two-two-two.’’

I stormed toward the direction HARV pointed. ‘‘She better be okay, or else.’’

‘‘Don’t worry, she’s fine,’’ a familiar voice said from across the room.

Carol, HARV, and I turned. There at the entrance stood Bo Sputnik, Melda, Lea, Aprill, Windee, and seven other blue-haired women of various sizes and ages. They were backed by twenty or so heavily armed and armored apes. Those were backed by a couple of heavy-duty eight-armed battlebots. This was basically the same group used to take Elena out. In a way, I was honored. Of course, in a bigger way, I was angry. I was determined to keep my wits about me. Like my old mentor would always say, ‘‘Keeping your wits means keeping your ass.’’ She had a way with words.

‘‘Not exactly a good way to treat your guests,’’ I said, motioning to the rows of cryogenic chambers with one hand, keeping my weapon trained on the others with the other hand.

‘‘Actually, I don’t consider them guests,’’ Sputnik said with his crocodile smile.

‘‘What do you consider them?’’ I asked.

‘‘Residents of the Moon,’’ he answered dramatically.

‘‘Well, in that case it’s actually worse,’’ HARV said.

Sputnik started rubbing his goatee, which was now blue. ‘‘Truthfully, they’re more like breeding stock.’’

‘‘You can’t just take people and keep them for your own use!’’ Carol shouted at him.

Sputnik smiled and started rolling his handlebar mustache (that he must have waxed for this occasion). ‘‘Oh, I think they will thank me,’’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘‘I don’t see that happening.’’

Sputnik slowly inched closer to me. As he moved, the entire group behind him followed. I let him come toward me. After all, if they had wanted us dead they could have taken us out without warning.

‘‘I know it may not seem like it now,’’ Sputnik said, ‘‘but I am doing them and the Moon a favor.’’

‘‘Them and the Moon?’’ I asked.

Sputnik’s smile broadened. He may have been mad, but he was sincere. ‘‘I realize the Moon is a beautiful place; one million hand-picked people living equally and in perfect harmony.’’

‘‘Yeah, yeah,’’ I said. ‘‘Nice speech. All you need is sappy theme music playing in the background, like that ancient cola commercial.’’

No sooner did I get done speaking when friendly, upbeat music starting playing throughout the building. It was freaky, surreal, and made me kind of thirsty.

‘‘Is that better?’’ Sputnik asked, drawing ever nearer.

‘‘Strangely, yes.’’

Sputnik continued. ‘‘Like I was saying, the Moon is a wonderful place, but we are a closed environment. Even I know there is no such thing as the totally perfect society. We are always striving to improve.’’ He paused for a moment, then waved at the chambers. ‘‘That’s where these people come in. They are the best Earth has to offer. They will help seed our population long after Earth is a dead decaying rock.’’

Even the snappy theme music didn’t make that last part sound good.

‘‘From what I understand, Earth has a few billion good years left in her,’’ I said.

‘‘Actually, Zach, the exact number of years, not taking into account any new global warming . . .’’

I cut HARV off. ‘‘Big picture here buddy.’’

Sputnik wiped a fake tear from his eye. ‘‘Sadly, Earth is going to die a premature death.’’

‘‘How premature?’’ I asked, despite my better judgment.

‘‘It dies today,’’ Sputnik said. I felt the ice in his words. ‘‘The Earth showed its true colors by refusing to grant us our freedom.’’

A couple questions immediately sprang to mind. Actually, my first question was going to be, ‘‘Are you nuts‘? But I figured, one, he probably was, and two, that wouldn’t help the situation. So I went with a less obvious question.

‘‘Just exactly how do you plan on destroying Earth?’’ I asked.

Sputnik stopped advancing and gave me a toothy grin. ‘‘I’ll let you figure that out for yourself, my friend.’’

‘‘I’m not your friend,’’ I said.

‘‘Believe me, Mr. Johnson, I am about to be Head Administrator of all that’s left of humanity, a new and better humanity. You want me to be your friend.’’

I pondered his words. I examined his expression. I looked over his followers. It hit me.

‘‘You’re going to force the ZAP asteroid into Earth. Aren’t you?’’ I said.

‘‘You see, Zach, that’s why you’re still alive. You will make a good addition to our gene pool. You are a bit rough around the edges . . .’’

‘‘A bit?’’ Carol interrupted.

‘‘More like completely jagged around the edges,’’ HARV added.

‘‘Hey, whose side are you guys on?’’

‘‘Yes, you certainly have your flaws,’’ Sputnik agreed. ‘‘But they will just help make us a better place. I am wise enough to understand that we learn just as much from our mistakes as we do our successes. You will help us all learn.’’

I hate it when I’m not sure if I’ve been complimented or insulted.

‘‘Just curious, Sputnik, how would you have justified this if Earth had voted for your freedom?’’

He stopped his advancement. His trailing mob stopped too.

‘‘Come again?’’

Now it was my turn to point to all the chambers. ‘‘Surely you had this planned for a long time. You wanted Earth to turn you down. This gave you an excuse to get violent.’’

‘‘Please, I knew the people of Earth were too stubborn and pig-headed to give us what we wanted, to do the right thing.’’

Now the picture was finally zooming into focus. These psis had to be blurring my mind. That’s why I didn’t figure it out sooner. I saw why the Mooner killed the council members. I saw Sputnik’s endgame. It was a nasty one.

‘‘You even goaded the Earth by killing the council members. You might have convinced your blind sheep that that was for the best, but you’re a politician, you know how politicians think. You knew those murders would galvanize them to be totally against you. You also knew they wouldn’t blame you at first, they’d go for the easy patsy, Shannon Cannon, giving you time to plot your plot.’’

‘‘Plot your plot?’’
HARV said in my head.

I paused to let what I said sink in. I knew I couldn’t get through to Sputnik but I thought I had a shot at the others. If I could turn them we’d have a chance here.

‘‘You don’t want freedom, you want genocide. That’s all you’ve wanted all along. You want to destroy the Earth so you and your perfect little society can create the perfect people.’’

Total silence.

‘‘Daddy, is this true?’’ Lea asked.

‘‘Take out the girl and computer. Johnson is mine!’’ Sputnik ordered.

To say all hell broke loose right then and there would be one of the greater understatements of my career.

Chapter 31

Sputnik leaped ten meters, tackling me to the ground. That caught me off guard. Not that he could tackle me but that he could jump so far so easily. The really scary development was that I tried to fire at him but nothing happened. Sputnik and I rolled over and over.

‘‘You are currently being pummeled,’’
HARV answered bluntly.

‘‘Sputnik wants to capture you but for some reason not kill you,’’
HARV answered.

‘‘I gathered that
.’’

‘‘No, that’s not it,’’
I said.

Sputnik and I continued our rolling tussle.

‘‘Oh that!’’
HARV said as if he was the Japanese intelligence in WWII and he had just broken the Navajo codes.
‘‘That’s easy to answer!’’

Sputnik and I exchanged a few punches, in between grappling on the ground.

Guess I should have seen that coming.

I managed to flip Sputnik off me and pushed myself to my feet.

‘‘HARV, do you have the hiccups?’’

‘‘Ah, no, hic.’’ There was a slight pause. ‘‘Then again maybe I, hic, do,’’ he said out loud.

I ducked under a lightning fast left hook thrown by Sputnik.

‘‘What the DOS is going on?’’

‘‘I’ve built up defenses against them shutting me down,’’ HARV sang. ‘‘So they’ve worked around them. Their battle bots may have, hic, hic, had, hic, a backdoor virus, making me, hic, for the lack of a better, hic, word, hic, hic, drunk.’’

Sputnik caught me with an uppercut to the solar plexus that sent me flying, crashing down near the chambers. If it wasn’t for my body armor the blow would have done serious damage to my insides.

I pushed myself up off the ground again. ‘‘HARV, how is Sputnik able to toss me around so well?’’

‘‘He’s, hic, wearing, biometric armor just, hic, like you,’’ HARV sang to the tune of ‘‘Three Blind Lab Mice.’’ ‘‘Probably stole the design from Randy’s, hic, hic, lab, hic, hic, hic, hic,’’ HARV added, this time to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth.

‘‘Great,’’ I said.

‘‘Actually, Zach, that’s, hic, not great, it’s, hic, bad.’’

HARV’s chips were so scrambled it wasn’t worth me wasting the energy explaining the concept of sarcasm to him. I had to concentrate on Sputnik. I couldn’t worry about Carol right now. I had to hope she was holding her own, though outnumbered as badly as she was, I didn’t see how she could. I had my own problems to worry about. I was battling a man who was mad in more ways than one.

Sputnik leaped at me again. This time I was ready. Just because I didn’t have access to GUS’ computer interface didn’t mean I didn’t have other options. I quickly pushed the manual override switch and pulled up on GUS’ tip, stretching him out to bat size. Swinging GUS hard, I used Sputnik as the ball. My blow landed square on his head, knocking him to ground. He was dazed but still conscious.

‘‘How’d that blow not put his lights out?’’ I asked HARV.

‘‘He’s, hic, using a, hic, computer interface to, hic, modify the energy in his, hic bo-dy to de-flect the blow.’’