‘‘We don’t want our fellow apes hurt,’’ Priscilla reminded me.
‘‘Yeah, I haven’t forgotten.’’
I looked at HARV. ‘‘How long until the big push?’’
‘‘I can give you twenty more seconds.’’
‘‘Gee thanks.’’
‘‘Eighteen seconds.’’
I looked at Priscilla, anxiously looking at me. It’s never comforting to see an ape fidgeting, itching her back with her foot, scratching her head and fiddling with her PIHI-Pod. The PIHI-Pod . . . That was it.
‘‘All you apes wear PIHI-Pods, correct?’’ I said.
‘‘Yes,’’ Priscilla replied.
‘‘Of course,’’ Maurice added.
‘‘Twelve seconds,’’ HARV counted down.
‘‘Push it out of the way now, HARV.’’
HARV’s eyes flashed red for a nano or two. ‘‘Done.’’
‘‘You have the specs to the Pods, right?’’
HARV just stood there fists on hips, head shaking disappointedly back and forth.
‘‘I’ll take that as a, yes of course I do.’’
I turned to Priscilla, ‘‘Tell your people to remove their PIHI-Pods.’’
Priscilla scratched her head and smiled.
‘‘You heard the man,’’ she said to Maurice.
Maurice signed to the apes. Each relayed the sign to another.
‘‘HARV, apes have more sensitive ears than humans, correct?’’
HARV nodded, then smiled. ‘‘You want me to broadcast a high frequency pitch over the PIHI-Pods.’’
I touched my nose. ‘‘Vingo.’’
‘‘I can generate and broadcast a tone over the PIHI-PODS that will put apes out of commission but it’s going to hurt all the neutral apes too.’’
‘‘Serves them right for standing on the sidelines,’’ I said.
I looked at Priscilla who nodded in agreement.
HARV smiled. ‘‘I can do you two better,’’ he said with a wink that was, frankly, a little disturbing. ‘‘I can also make it so the tone really upsets the psis and scrambles the battlebots’ logic circuits.’’
Now it was my turn to pat HARV on the shoulder, ‘‘Who says supercomputers can’t be useful?’’
‘‘Surely no one with even a quarter of a brain.’’
I turned to Carol. ‘‘Remove your PIHI-Pod,’’ I said.
Carol opened her hand to show that she had already removed hers from her ear lobe. ‘‘One step ahead of you, Tió.’’
‘‘As always,’’ HARV and I both said.
I centered my attention on HARV. ‘‘Zap ’em.’’
Outside of a barely noticeable increase in HARV’s smile I didn’t see any other changes.
‘‘Did you do it?’’
HARV pointed to the apes ringing the complex. They were all rolling on the ground clutching their ears. The psis behind the apes were frantically pulling at their ears. I took that as a yes. The three battlebots were spinning on their wheels, doing 360s, waving their tentacles and loudly humming ‘‘Three Blind Lab Mice.’’ Yep, they were zonkers.
I pointed forward. ‘‘Let’s take out the psis and grab the building.’’
I looked at Maurice. He shook his head no. ‘‘Sorry, Zach, I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of ape. Actual fighting is so not my style.’’
I patted him on the shoulder. ‘‘I understand.’’
Maurice gave me a toothy grin. ‘‘Don’t worry though. I will make sure all my kin stay out of the fray.’’
We stormed the building, Carol, Elena, HARV, a squad of apes, and me. The opposition apes were in too much pain to put up any opposition at all, so we glided past them. A couple of the psis tried to put up a fight but HARV’s tone really tossed their brains for a loop and tied them into knots. They were all easy pickings to be taken out by stun blasts.
The bots were so entertaining, dancing and jiving that I was tempted to just leave them alone. Priscilla though, being smarter than I am, destroyed them each with a heavy blaster.
‘‘It’s been my experience that battlebots can be dancing one minute and trying to dissect you a minute later,’’ she said.
Smart great ape.
We reached the door to the complex without losing anybody. Of course that was the easy part. Elena and Carol had both noted the initial psis were all young and still low level. I felt something. A vine had grabbed my arm, pulling on me.
Looking around, I saw a couple of the apes backing me up. Carol and Elena also were getting entwined in vines. I noticed that the entryway to the building had been lined with grapevines.
‘‘Ah, I see Randy’s and Melda’s defensive grapes have been put into practice,’’ HARV said.
‘‘Defensive grapes?’’ Carol asked.
‘‘It was my aunt’s idea,’’ Elena told her, pushing a vine off of her. ‘‘They are an organic defense mechanism designed to stop intruders.’’
‘‘You’re joking,’’ Carol said, as another vine started wrapping itself around her legs.
Elena shook her head no.
The apes were easily pulling their vines off themselves. The plants clearly weren’t intended to stop gorillas.
I pointed GUS at the base of the vine that was holding me.
‘‘I know how to deal with these,’’ I said.
‘‘So do I,’’ Elena said.
Elena clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. Waves of energy rippled out from her body. The vine encased around Carol’s legs loosened then dropped to the ground. It shriveled up and wilted. All the other vines in the area did the same.
‘‘Never been a big fan of semi-intelligent plants,’’ Elena said.
Nudging Carol I said, ‘‘I told you she’d come in handy.’’
We proceeded to the door.
‘‘An analysis of the door shows it is not locked,’’ HARV said. ‘‘How do you want to proceed?’’
I spun toward to Priscilla, ‘‘You and ten of your men follow Carol, Elena, and me in. Have the rest secure the area.’’
Priscilla gave me a little salute. Not sure if I liked it or not. She tossed me a little kiss. I was sure I didn’t like that.
I turned to the door and kicked it in.
‘‘Ah, the subtle Zach-lite approach,’’ HARV said with way more than a hint of sarcasm.
I led the charge into the Moon’s Asteroid Tracking and Blocking Station.
Chapter 40
Sputnik was frantically working away at the main control panel in the middle of the room. Well, he wasn’t so much working as barking orders at Melda. Lea stood behind them, eyeing us.
Sputnik’s other daughters were spread throughout the building. They had removed their PIHI-Pods and were converging on us. A good many of the younger psis were lying on the ground. Apparently our initial attack had taken them out. Despite that, there had to be at least a dozen other children and wives of Sputnik ready to stop us at all costs.
One of our apes fired a stun blast at three young psis. The blast swerved past them. It hit a plastic wall, harmlessly fizzling out. The psis pointed at the ape. He and two of his compatriots stopped their charges. They went rigid then flew backward into the wall. They crashed to the ground, out cold.
Our other ape allies weren’t faring that well either. Without the element of shock and awe on our side the psis were able to avoid most of the apes’ shots. The apes weren’t so lucky. General Tang was leading the defense against the apes.
‘‘How dare you betray me!’’ she shouted to two apes who had grabbed her by the arms. Both apes went flying off her smashing into the walls.
Elena and Carol though, were another story. Elena hated Sputnik and was showing it by mentally pummeling his offspring and spouses. She made a beeline toward Sputnik, taking any psi who crossed her path out with a single glare, reducing them to a quivering, fetal position.
Tang, having shed herself of the apes, ran over, blocking Elena.
‘‘Sorry, young one, you won’t get past me,’’ Tang shouted, pointing at Elena.
With that Elena ran right past her without seemingly giving her a passing thought. Obviously though, Elena did shoot a bit of her attention at Tang. The moment she passed her Tang fell over stiff, locked in the pointing position.
‘‘Impressive,’’ HARV commented. ‘‘Elena took Tang out as an afterthought.’’
Carol covered my and Priscilla’s backs. She wasn’t as flamboyant as Elena but she was just as effective. She was aptly deflecting any mental or physical attacks that would come my way. She too was reveling in her own power, her hair crackling with energy as it danced around her shoulders. It was scary and inspiring at the same time. (Just as long as I didn’t think about it too much.)
With Carol as our cover, Priscilla and I were splitting the room in half. I took the right, using GUS to pick off any of the psis that Elena missed. Priscilla used her hand and foot weapons to clear the left side.
So far, we were winning the battle. The problem was the war wasn’t over yet. Sputnik’s biggest guns, Lea and Melda, hadn’t even entered the conflict. I wasn’t going to let that bother me though. I
couldn’t
let that bother me.
Now that we had taken out the excess psis it was time to concentrate on Sputnik. I was actually a bit perturbed that he didn’t even seem to be worried that we were storming the room.
‘‘HARV, any idea what Sputnik is up to?’’
‘‘Yes, of course.’’
‘‘And?’’
‘‘He is trying to regain control of the deflector beam and push the asteroid back into Earth.’’
Nope, that wouldn’t do. I aimed GUS at Sputnik. I pulled the trigger. Bolts of energy flew from GUS. One directly into Elena’s back. One into Carol. One into Priscilla. The three of them fell to the ground.
‘‘GUS, that wasn’t what I wanted!’’ I said.
‘‘Sorry,’’ GUS said in Melda’s voice. ‘‘That’s what I wanted.’’
GUS flew from my hand into Melda’s.
‘‘Oh, this is so not good,’’ I said.
Chapter 41
The only people or animals left standing in the room were me, Sputnik, Melda, Lea, and Aprill. We had come so close, but I was starting to worry that it wasn’t close enough.
I was outnumbered and outgunned. My only hope was I wasn’t outsmarted.
‘‘HARV, are you still with me?’’ I thought.
‘‘Of course, my programming and defenses are significantly more robust than GUS’. I’ve learned much after our little encounter at the North Pole last year and the earlier incident at the Convention Center.’’
‘‘Can’t you ever simply say yes?’’
‘‘Obviously I can, but I choose not to.’’
Verbose or not, I was glad that I had HARV in my assets column. For all his many flaws, HARV is an incredible ace up my sleeve (or more accurately stuck in my brain).
‘‘Has he managed to get control of the deflector beam yet?’’
‘‘No, of course not,’’ HARV said confidently. Then, ‘‘Oops, didn’t see that coming . . .’’
‘‘Didn’t see what coming?’’ I asked.
Sputnik looked up from his control panel. ‘‘I’ve activated the backup deflector beam on the other side of the Moon.’’
DOS! Double DOS! HARV really should have seen that one coming. Figures the World Council would have a backup the one time it really messes up things.
‘‘HARV, how come you didn’t know there was a backup?’’
‘‘Because it’s not in any of the specs,’’ HARV answered.
Melda patted Bo on the back. ‘‘That’s because the council didn’t have the foresight to envision the need for a backup.’’ She patted herself on the chest. ‘‘That was my idea.’’
Well, at least now my universe made sense again. Everything else had failed. It was time to try a desperate move . . . I needed to try to reason with a politician.
‘‘Listen Sputnik, it’s not too late,’’ I said.
‘‘It is too late, for Earth!’’ he shouted. He waved his hand over the control panel. He looked up and grinned. ‘‘I pushed the asteroid back into Earth’s path.’’
‘‘Then you are dooming the Earth and the Moon,’’ I told him.
‘‘What are you talking about?’’
‘‘Shara has tipped off the Earth and they are retaliating.’’
Sputnik took a step back from the control panel. He inhaled and exhaled quickly. In his egotistical rampage, he never conceived that somebody would betray his cause.
‘‘Damn that bitch!’’ he shouted. ‘‘No wonder I never slept with her.’’
‘‘Ah, she’s my sister,’’ Melda reminded him.
‘‘So?’’ Sputnik shot back to her. ‘‘How does that affect me?’’
‘‘I’m just saying you shouldn’t call her a bitch,’’ Melda said. ‘‘It’s degrading.’’
I shook my head. Only I could get caught in between a family scrabble while trying to save the world.’’
‘‘People, can we please try to concentrate on the task at hand here,’’ I shouted to Sputnik and Melda.
Sputnik and Melda both turned their attention back to me. ‘‘Oh right, destroying the Earth,’’ Sputnik said.
‘‘Push the asteroid back away from Earth and I will contact them and have them stop their missiles,’’ I told them.
Sputnik stood there, motionless. His face turned red with a mix of anger and frustration.
Lea looked up at the dome observatory. ‘‘I do see missiles coming in from Earth.’’
Sputnik remained motionless. I couldn’t tell if he had snapped, was deep in thought, or both.
‘‘It’s not too late,’’ I repeated.
Sputnik slowly shook his head no. ‘‘It is too late,’’ he said sullenly, ‘‘for humans.’’ He turned to Melda. ‘‘My escape shuttle is ready?’’
Melda nodded slowly.
‘‘Then my family and I will survive. All is well. Actually, this is even better than I had planned. The new, new world we build will be totally pure.’’
‘‘Sorry to burst your dream of Adam and Eve and Eve and Eve, but building a world with just your progeny is no way to start a new civilization.’’
He pointed to me looking over his shoulder at Melda and Lea. ‘‘Squash him like the bug he is.’’
Melda took a step back, distancing herself from her husband. Moving toward him, Lea curled her hand into a fist.
‘‘You lied to me,’’ she said coolly, eyes fixed on Bo.
‘‘Lie? Me? How?’’
Wow, witty retort, I thought. ‘‘HARV, can you push that asteroid past Earth again?’’