The Winter of the Robots (19 page)

“The robots had rules,” she said. “They’re supposed to protect the perimeter of their territory and lay low. They let people come and go, but don’t let them take anything. They’re programmed to stun, not to kill.”

“What about Ted Whaley?” They’d not only killed him, they’d left their territory to do it.

“That’s what they were
programmed
to do,” she said. “But I think after being feral for so long, they’ve … evolved. They’ve reprogrammed themselves.”

“They adapted,” I said. Just like the robots Rolf had talked about.

“That’s what evolution is,” she said. “Adaptation.”

A chorus of police sirens sounded, speeding down Osseo Road. We watched them pass, not trying to talk over the noise. The sirens faded as they went south.

“I didn’t tell you about my field research,” she said. “I spent the day there, today, hiding and watching.”

“Like Jane Goodall?”

“I don’t know if Jane Goodall was ever shot at by chimps, but otherwise, yeah.”

“You were shot at?” An icy wave passed through me.

“Don’t worry. They missed.”

“You shouldn’t have gone there alone,” I told her. “It isn’t safe.”

“It wasn’t safe for you or Dmitri, either. Anyway, you don’t know the worst of it.”

“Why? What did they do?”

“Not what
did
they do,” she said. “What are they
doing
. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I swear they’re building a robot of their own. A big one.”

Oliver looked more than ever the mad scientist. His hair was a lopsided bird’s nest, his shirt was buttoned wrong, and his glasses were smudged and dusty.

I wasn’t one to talk. I’d barely slept myself.

“I was up late finishing and testing the actuators,” he said. “Are you done with the code?”

“Mostly,” I said.

“We’ve got news,” said Rocky. “And it might change everything.”

We went up to Oliver’s room. Rocky took some pens and scratch paper from the desk, moving Danny the stuffed bear out of the way so she could sketch.

“Nighttime can be scary, but it doesn’t last forever,” Danny said in his deep, calm voice. “Be brave, Junior. Try to sleep and dream good dreams.” He started to hum a lullaby. I’d never heard that loop before, and I’d heard everything else the bear did a thousand times.

“What’s that all about?” asked Rocky.

“Nothing,” said Oliver. “Power off, Danny.” The bear fell silent.

“Nice toy,” she said.

“It is,” said Oliver. “So what’s your news that changes everything?”

“There’s a robot we didn’t know about,” said Rocky. She drew as she talked. “It’s a big box with arms and legs. Lots of arms, with fists.” She drew a square, radiating long arms, and cube-like fists at the end of each arm.

“When I saw them, they were just dangling there, but if they work …” She shuddered.

“Where did you see it?” Oliver asked.

“In the first building. The one that’s wrecked.”

“You went inside?”

“Yeah. I had to.” She finished drawing the robot and passed him the paper. “It didn’t have a head, at least not yet. And it was already three stories high.”

“If it’s that tall, how did they put it together in an old office building?”

“They ripped holes in the floors,” said Rocky. “The floors are like scaffolding now.”

“Did you see any of the robots actually working on it?”

“Yes. That’s the only reason I was able to sneak in. They were distracted. Do robots do that? Make other robots?”

“Sure,” said Oliver. “Robots can do anything you program them to do.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked. “We programmed our robot to fight little robots, not a great big Goliath robot.” Or a golem robot, as Ted had called it.

I had a second thought I kept to myself: The robots had come after Ted. He hadn’t taken anything, but he had seen their golem. Now Rocky had seen it, too. My hands were shaking. I shoved them in my pockets.

“Cutie won’t be able to beat a giant,” I said. “We need explosives or something.”

“A better strategy is to finish Cutie before they finish making this thing,” said Oliver.

Rocky’s phone beeped. She dug it out of her pocket and frowned at the message. “Sergei’s been arrested.”

We piled into Oliver’s mom’s car to go see Dmitri. She wasn’t excited about running a taxi service first thing on a Sunday, but we talked her into it.

Dmitri had the door open before we got up the front walk.

“The police came early this morning and woke everyone up,” he told us. “It was scary. Alex had a seizure, right in the living room, while the cops were stomping around.”

Rocky laid a supportive hand on his arm. He looked like he hadn’t slept. He was a good match for the rest of us.

The house was askew. It was obvious the furniture had been moved around, the drawers rummaged through. Dmitri told us the police had charged Sergei with multiple counts of grand theft auto, but didn’t tell any of us what evidence they had. They just cuffed him, read him his rights, and dragged him away.

“I guess I’ll ask about the elephant in the middle of the room,” said Oliver. “Dmitri, is Sergei guilty?”

Dmitri took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“You don’t
think so
?” Rocky asked. “You don’t know if your own brother is a car thief?”

“It’s complicated,” said Dmitri. “There’s stuff about him I never told you.”

Mom and Dad were waiting for me when I got home.

“What’s going on?” I hung up my coat. “I was just at Oliver’s. I left a note.”

“For starters,” said Dad, “you ask for
permission
when you leave. You don’t just scribble something on the board and take off.”

“Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“For another,” he said, “we called Oliver’s house and you weren’t there. His mother said she’d just dropped you off at this—what’s his name?”

“Dmitri.”

“Whom we already know is mixed up in something,” said Dad. “He goes missing, and the guy who finds him is dead. And now his brother is in jail.”

“What? You know about that?” Had it been on the news?

“I talked to Bob,” said Dad. “He called me because he knows you’ve been hanging out with those boys.”

“Just with Dmitri,” I said.

“Is Sergei the tow-truck driver who gave you and Penny
a ride home one night?” Mom asked. “The same boy you keep going to see, working on that muscle car?”

“Yeah, but he just saw us that one time and gave us a ride. And he is rebuilding a car, but we just watched. And he’s probably innocent.” I remembered the Audi in his backyard, which might have been Peter’s car after all. “Even if he’s guilty, it’s got nothing to do with Dmitri.”

“I don’t want you spending time with hoodlums,” said Dad. “I don’t want you taking rides from them, or going to their houses, or …”

“Or inviting them to our house,” Mom added. “This Dmitri seems to be mixed up with a lot of questionable things.”

“Fine,” I said. “I have so many friends, I might as well tell one to go stuff himself.” I started up to my room.

“You don’t talk like that to us!” Dad yelled.

“I do when you’re wrong,” I shouted back. I went in my room and slammed the door. I would have understood if Dad stomped up the stairs after me and shouted for an hour, but this time he didn’t.

“Do you have the key to the storage shed?” Oliver asked Dmitri at lunch the next day.

“No,” said Dmitri.

Oliver leaned in. “Did Sergei have it on him when he got arrested?”

“I don’t know. It’s not the main thing on my mind.”

“Maybe it should be,” said Oliver. “If the police have the
key, they’re going to go check out the unit. They’ll find Cutie.”

“The police searched his room,” said Dmitri. “They must have the key.”

“We can’t wait, then,” said Oliver. “We have to get the robot before they find it.”

“What are we supposed to do,” asked Rocky, “break into the unit?”

“I don’t know, but this is a really bad development.” Oliver stabbed up some peas with his fork.

“Well, I’m bored with robot games anyway,” said Dmitri. He shoved his untouched tray of food out of the way and left the table.

“It’s not a game,” Oliver said, too late for Dmitri to hear him.

I found Dmitri in the library, checking his email on the computer.

“Hey.” He acknowledged me, but went on reading his email. I pulled up a chair.

“Updates?” I asked.

“Mom says they can’t make bail,” he whispered. “Not unless Dad sells the Caddy.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“If Sergei was stealing cars for real, we’d be loaded,” said Dmitri. “They fix it so only the criminals can get out. Makes a lot of sense, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, no.”

“Do you think he’s innocent?”

“Sure.” I
wasn’t
sure, but I didn’t see the point in arguing. “Look, I’m sorry about your brother. But we can’t give up on what we’re doing. It’s important.”

“I’m not going to make any more trouble for my family,” he said. “Sergei is gone. Alex has regressed about two years. Masha is having trouble at school. I can’t add to everyone’s stress.”

“But there’s stuff you don’t know,” I whispered. I told him about the golem. “Ted saw it, and they came after him. Now Rocky’s seen it, too. What if they come for her?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“We don’t know that,” I told him. “Look, I don’t want you to make more trouble for your family. Just help us get the key back.”

He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead. “I do care about Rochelle,” he said.

“I know.”

He opened his eyes, lowered his hand. “They have a key machine at the service station, for people who want to copy car keys. The storage-locker keys say ‘Do not copy under penalty of law,’ but Sergei makes his own rules sometimes.”

He reached in his pocket, came up with an oval green-and-gold Packers fob dangling a single copper-colored key.

“You guys do what you need to do.”

Oliver and Rocky installed the actuators. Rocky worked the tools while Oliver explained how to rig up all the cables and controllers. I rolled up and down the lot of the Nor-Stor-All on my barely-used skateboard while they worked. If a car turned into the lot, I would roll over and tap on the door so they’d quit making noise. So far, there hadn’t been any cars.

Most of the snow had disappeared from Minneapolis over the past few weeks, but people who grew up here know better than to get their hopes up and assume winter is done. Sure enough, a brisk snow started falling. I kept up my skating charade, even though it meant getting a faceful of icy crystals.

A police car turned into the lot. I rolled by the storage unit door, tapping on it as I passed. The cop car tootled along slowly and stopped next to me. The officer rolled down the window.

“Aren’t you Willie Knox’s kid?” It was Bob the policeman.

“Um. Yeah.”

“What’s up?” he asked, friendly and light, but I suspected he wasn’t asking as a friend of my dad’s. He was asking as a cop who knew I’d been hanging out with suspected felons.

“Skating,” I said. “This is a good place to practice.”

“There’s a sign back at the entrance. No skating or biking.”

“Oh. I didn’t notice. Sorry.”

“I hate to bust your chops about it,” he said. “Tell your dad I said hi.” He rolled up the window and turned the car
around, parked in the lot and went into the manager’s office. I rapped a bunch of times on the door so Oliver and Rocky knew the coast still wasn’t clear, then skated past the police car. I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to still be there when he got back. I hid behind the farthest row of storage units and waited. I raked snow out of my wet hair with my ungloved hand. I’d left the hood to my parka at home, plus my scarf.

Officer Bob came back out a few minutes later, sat in his car, and radioed someone, then sat around some more. I texted Rocky.

She texted back.

The snow slowed the evening traffic on First Street to a halt. A train was going by, backing up the cars for two or three blocks. Bob sat in his car, and sat in his car, and sat in his car.

Why? I wondered, and Why now?

Two more police cars were just across the tracks, waiting for the train. I caught glimpses of their flashing lights in between the boxcars.

A driver waiting on our side got tired of waiting, veered
into the left lane to do a U-turn, and floored it. The car skidded on the fresh snow and sailed past a stop sign. Bob flipped on his siren and was gone.

I sent a text.

The traffic gate went up as the train chugged on into the snowy night.

Oliver and Rocky hurried out of the storage unit, slammed the door, and ran across the lot to join me. The two cop cars turned into the lot and idled, wipers on.

“Do you think they have Sergei’s key?” Rocky asked. “Is that why they’re here?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Bob drove back into the lot, talked to the two other cops through the window, handed them something, and drove away. The police parked their own cars and climbed out. They went to one of the units and tried a key in the lock. After wiggling and jiggling, they moved on to the next unit.