Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom, page 27
Mr. King directed their column into a much narrower one that began to funnel into the maintenance tunnel. The robotic and human persons filed in while, just beyond, the Transport Tube doors continued to admit a few evacuees with a hiss open, and then a hiss closed, at intervals of about a minute.
By the time the end of the column had entered the tunnel there was no line left. It looked like this whole neighborhood had been emptied.
SATURDAY, 6:33 PM
Dash wanted to leap out of the cockpit. This would have been spectacular, if only Nola hadn’t been sitting on his lap.
So he waited while Officer da Cunha set down carefully on the floor of the excavation that was also a roof for Pitt’s construction site. He climbed out with some care, remembering that Nola and Rusty had found the footing unstable.
The cracks they’d described were now just faint patches of cement; it looked like someone had covered up the damage before it could be seen. So he trusted the rippled stone surface with his full weight and double-checked the contents of his back pack. “Yep, all set.”
He looked up. “You folks be real careful, okay? If Pitt’s got more of those security robots guarding the switchboard you might be in for some trouble.”
Officer da Cunha did not actually roll her eyes. Nola and Rusty waved. “You, too, Dash. Watch out!” Nola called. Then the rocket’s upward-facing jets sputtered out and its inertrium hull began to rise. A burst of thrust shot it out past the lip of the excavation until Dash couldn’t see them anymore.
He tried to remember the layout of that gigantic room down below. Pacing off the distance, he found himself about fifteen feet from one side of the excavation. There he pulled his pistol from the pack and adjusted its beam until the rock glowed and began to smoke in a circle at his feet. The slim line grew red; it started to crackle; and a two-foot circle of stone dropped out of sight. He heard it strike something almost immediately. Dash listened, but he didn’t hear anyone complain.
So he fastened his rope to the excavation’s wall with a triangle of pitons and tied off there. It seemed pretty solid. Dash grasped the rope lightly and backed up until he could abseil down the hole.
He came to a floor much sooner than he’d expected. It looked like he’d broken into a vent of some kind, part of a whole network of air vents that must supply the construction site. It was almost tall enough that he didn’t have to stoop. Dash turned in the direction of the Projectile and stepped over the stone circle, which still lay where it had fallen. He decided that his gun might as well stay out.
SATURDAY, 6:40 PM
Viewed one way, this was a perfect adventure for the world’s smallest giant robot. It had subdued two captives and it had plenty to do, what with watching them, and threatening them, and making sure that there were no attempts at escape. It was a good day. Viewed one way.
But on the other hand there didn’t seem to be any end to this constant surveillance in the land of the giants. Shouldn’t subdued captives be … well, detained, at the end of the day? Deposited someplace? And although it could not be conscious of this—would not have been conscious of it, even if its brain had not been damaged—the simple existence of this huge world was a constant irritant.
That’s because the world’s smallest giant robot was a giant robot, through and through. Giant robots are giant. Their whole purpose, which is to smash and stomp and subdue things, assumes that they are very much larger than the stomped, the smashed, and the subdued. But it had been about eighteen hours since the world’s smallest giant robot had been able to tower over anything.
Giant robots loom. They dwarf. They intimidate through their sheer vastness and the ponderous, unstoppable terror of their giganticism. This was the whole nature of giant robots, as opposed to their purpose (the stomping, the smashing, and the subduing).
The rats had been nice while they’d lasted. Mind you, they were still too tall for the looming, but at least they hadn’t cast their terrifying shadows over the world’s smallest giant robot, unlike the bobbing head of the human-shaped giant on whose shoulder it rode. Every time they passed a flickering lamp in the tunnels, the shadow of that giant’s head cast darkness over everything. It wasn’t natural.
Giant robots are not given to reflection. So it was on a completely subconscious level that the world’s smallest giant robot was experiencing fear. It had been frightened before, in a way that was more self-aware, during that strange episode earlier when it became very much smarter for a little while. This was something else. This was a fear that swelled up from someplace deep inside. This was the kind of fear that bends and distorts us without its even mentioning to us that it’s there.
So like any other creature that longs to smash, but is afraid, the world’s smallest giant robot was beginning to get … mean.
* * *
Engineers are unlike giant robots in most particulars, even apart from the obvious question of size (because even very heavy engineers have problems when they try to loom). Engineers enjoy a good smash now and then precisely because, for the rest of the time, engineers build things instead of destroying them. For an engineer, smashing is more a way to blow off a little steam on Friday nights. It’s not a vocation.
At this moment Abner was steadily building up steam. He didn’t have a plan. He was aware that he was powerless, really, since the world’s smallest giant robot was watching him very closely. But through an unexpected coincidence Abner was now en route to the very center of Howard Pitt’s scheme; and now that Abner knew what that scheme was, he was more determined than ever to put a stop to it.
His only ally was the robot called G-94VA, and G-94VA had definitely seen better days. The big robot was the slowest member of their party even though his damaged legs were easily twice as long as Evvie’s or Evan’s. And even at the best of times Abner knew that getting G-94VA’s help against his Master would have been a delicate matter.
But Abner chose to believe that when they reached the Projectile a solution would become apparent.
In fact G-94VA had led them into an offshoot of the Tube Transport system which seemed to be leading them toward their goal: from far ahead Abner could now hear the sounds of heavy machinery at work. They must have nearly reached the site.
Abner eyed G-94VA. “How are you doing, friend?”
The big robot lurched forward with unsteady steps. “I believe that I will require some significant repairs.”
“We’ll get it all sorted out when we arrive,” Abner assured him. “I’m certain we will.”
SATURDAY, 6:42 PM
No matter how she squirmed—though Mrs. Broadvine would never have admitted to squirming—most of what she could see was the sweeping chest of one Big Lug or another. There was so little room in the maintenance tunnel that she’d been squeezed between the big robots who were determined to protect her.
So it was her ears alone that told her Mr. King had opened the hatch by some violent means. Undoubtedly he and Mr. Roy were now peering in at the switchboard, or something like it. Then silence … until the robot President’s voice boomed out: “PLEASE LET MRS. BROADVINE ADVANCE.”
She felt her shoes leave the ground. The Big Lugs lifted her gently and passed her along, Lug to Lug, all the way to the open hatchway. What had recently been the hatch itself was far inside the room. It was still smoking.
“Harry, I fully expected that it would be locked,” the robot was saying.
Mrs. Broadvine stepped forward and then, before anyone could stop her, she crossed the threshold and paced down the switchboard where a row of robots, each one a duplicate of Iris, was busily taking care of their clients’ Info-Slate requests. Mrs. Broadvine walked up the line and let no hint of approval show on her face. She was a professional.
At the end of the line she turned and started back. There were only eight seats at Pitt’s switchboard, hardly enough for a full shift, she felt; but at the moment they were doing an admirable job of keeping up with a load of two or three Info-Slates at each seat.
“Rather low demand at the moment,” she told the room. “I suppose it’s the evacuation.”
Mr. King and Mr. Roy had followed her into the switchboard room with their eyes shooting from wall to wall: probably expecting an attack, she thought. But all was quiet in here until the mass of robots and human people started to jostle their own way in.
“Operators first, I think,” advised Mr. Roy. “Let’s get an idea what’s going on in here.”
Mr. King had eyes now only for the robots at the switchboard. “No legs, and probably very limited personalities,” he said quietly. “Their labor is the only life they know.”
He turned to Mr. Roy. “This should be all the proof we need,” he said. “It’s a matter of record that Pitt is the architect of the new switchboard. Only he can be responsible for this. It’s time we notified the authorities.”
Then, to the ranks of robots: “I need photographs of everything in this room before it’s been disturbed,” he said.
Six mechanical persons stepped in with their camera eyes snapping. They worked their way through the room.
“Mrs. Broadvine!” Mr. King called. “When they’re done, I suggest that you and your ladies should take control of the switchboard.”
Harry Roy leaned out the hatchway and called for his technicians. “We need some adjustable wrenches and some lubricating oil, if anybody has some.”
All along the hallway, a hundred and seventy-four robots raised their hands.
SATURDAY, 6:54 PM
The children, accompanied by the world’s smallest giant robot, Abner himself, and Robot G-94VA, emerged into what had to be the largest indoor construction site in the history of things bigger than a very big thing.
It was surprisingly quiet in there now. It looked as though a single crew of riveters was finishing work on the last section of the hull while the rest of the crew was quickly detaching Transport Tubes from their many mounting plates on the surface. Along the way Abner could hear a few of those Tubes discharging their cargo. But it looked like the Projectile was nearly ready for launch.
Abner grabbed G-94VA by the arm. “We have to do something!”
G-94VA stepped out into the room, and that motion drew the gaze of all the construction robots nearby. “I require assistance,” said the poor wounded robot, and then he fell to the floor.
Dozens of big construction robots moved toward him.
The eyes of the Campbell children narrowed into slits. Evan looked at the tiny robot on his shoulder.
“Make them surrender!” he commanded.
* * *
The world’s smallest giant robot looked back and forth at the mass of robots, each larger than any giant robot it had ever heard of, and it made two decisions.
First, it looked Evan in the eye and it said:
“NO.”
Then it jumped off his shoulder and ran straight at the towering giants who were stomping, more or less, in its direction.
“YOU WACK ALL BE DISTRINKED!”
Its cannon started a rapid, random fire. Its little chest swept across the entire line of the advancing giants and then swept back again, writing a red beam of terror and rage across everything in the room.
* * *
Abner watched in stunned admiration.
“NO MORE! I GACK STACK ANY MORG!”
Guns blazing, the tiny titan ran in between the immense feet of its enemies and disappeared beyond them. But Abner could see startled robots leap off to the right and left, and so he knew that it was still going, somewhere out there.
The approaching robots stopped in their tracks to stare at the little smoking lines that had appeared on their chests and limbs. Several of those limbs fell to the floor; a moment later, so did a few robots.
“What … was that?” one of them wondered.
Abner turned to look down at the Campbells. They looked back at him. He could see them rearranging their ideas about prisoners and interrogation.
Then they lit off down the wall of the construction site into the darkness.
Well, thought Abner. That’s a load off my mind.
“I want to talk to your foreman,” he told the robots.
Out across the site he could hear the sounds of robots tumbling out of the way of the world’s smallest giant robot. Then he saw the slender beam of its disintegrating ray write a line of destruction across one of the scaffolds. There was a weary groan of stressed metal, and the scaffold collapsed.
It looked like the catwalk was going to be next.
SATURDAY, 6:59 PM
It had to be now.
Pitt had no idea what kind of attack had been mounted on the Projectile but he did know that its destruction was imminent. He couldn’t credit the ruthlessness of his adversary. Who would actually kill all the people inside the Projectile? It would be murder on Pitt’s own scale, though murder hadn’t been what he had in mind.
He swept up his slide rule and made some adjustments based on this new launch window. It wasn’t a very large change, but at these distances …
Yes. If he launched immediately, this should do it.
Pitt ran to the wall console and removed its safety cover. He entered the new parameters and started to throw the levers that would position the launcher and release the restraining chains that held the buoyant Projectile in its place.
Oh, he’d deal with his hidden nemesis. That would come soon. But the essential thing was that the plan would go forward.
How many people had he missed? He’d have to assign his security robots to round them all up. He’d figure out what to do with them later.
SATURDAY, 7:02 PM
The robot foreman was designated Robot R-54KG. R-54KG, though his model was unfamiliar to Abner, was clearly a multipurpose construction robot with speech and a personality suited to supervision.
He was a little busy at the moment.
“Find that little creature!” he was yelling. “Get it before it damages the Projectile!”
All over the underground site other robots were doing their best to follow R-54KG’s orders. But they were large, sturdy robots whose dexterity, Abner knew, was limited to their digits. They were not making very good progress. A widening wake of confusion and destruction drew its way across the floor of the site.
A claxon sounded. It was so very loud that its blast shook the catwalks and scaffolding, already weakened by the furious onslaught of the world’s smallest giant robot. At the first blast Robot R-54KG straightened in horror.
“The launch! The launch is imminent!” the robot shouted. “Everyone to the tunnels!”
And without even a pause for a hello, R-54KG swept Abner up under one arm and his big, weighted feet pounded for one of the exits. Behind them the wounded robots were lifted and hauled away by teams of their co-workers. In a moment, the whole floor of the site was empty.
The last of the Transport Tubes detached from their mounts and swung slack from the walls. Explosive charges released the first of the restraining chains. The Projectile strained upward.
Far above, the roof began to crack.
SATURDAY, 7:04 PM
That siren’s sure making a racket, Dash thought while he negotiated another junction in the vent system. He had no idea what the alarm meant except that it couldn’t be anything he was going to like.
He was sure that by now he had to be nearing the floor level of the site. It felt like he’d been climbing down forever.
He dropped to the new vent’s floor just in time to nearly get trampled by a bunch of robots who seemed to be fleeing the site.
One’s head swiveled to point at Dash as the robots ran past him.
“Plumber? Plumber! You must run!”
Dash hugged the wall until the mob had disappeared. From the direction of the Projectile he heard a small tapping sound like little metallic footsteps. Which was, as it turned out, what they were.
The world’s smallest giant robot came thundering, on its personal scale, down the vent in its pursuit of the other robots. It spared Dash one disdainful look on its way by. Despite their respective heights, Dash had a distinct sense that he was beneath the notice of the world’s smallest giant robot.
Dash waited while it stepped, with tiny, fateful steps, in pursuit of its destiny.
A flash of red fire lit up the duct in the direction it had gone.
“Okay,” said Dash.
He turned and ran toward the claxon’s terrible screech.
SATURDAY, 7:06 PM
“Pardon me,” Nola said again; “Excuse me, please. If I could just…”
“Coming through!” Maria yelled.
That was exactly what it took to part the crowd of robots, if only just enough that Nola and Maria could squeeze in between them and work their way down the maintenance tunnel for another twelve or fifteen feet. Then Maria had to shout again.
“This is really not what I expected,” Nola apologized.
“We’re not there yet,” Maria said. “I don’t think any of these robots look like switchboard operators, do you?”
And they sure didn’t. Nola could tell that these robots, unlike Pitt’s, were stock models built for construction and office work. She was beginning to question the message they’d got from the ornithopter.
“I’m just not sure…” she started, while Maria yelled the way clear for them.
“… that we’re actually at the switchboard site.”
Up ahead, near an open hatchway, a man with a clipboard turned around to stare. “You’re looking for the switchboard? Who are you?” He turned into the room. “Somebody out here is looking for the switchboard!”
Maria coughed. “Okay, so much for our element of surprise.”
She pulled out her ray gun.
All around them the robots turned and stiffened. Nola saw that most of them were carrying big hand tools, and that a few even held long poles with typewriters fastened to their tips. What had been a clear passage to the door now rearranged itself into a tightening wall of defense.
