I’m glad to see her but a little confused. “Wait a sec. How did you know—”
“I came into the gym while you were downloading the video. That’s the first thing I intercepted. I caught it with this thing.” She points one of her mechanical hands at the antenna sticking out of her turret, a slender pole with a dozen crossbars along its length. “When I saw what you were watching, I decided to join the fun. You don’t mind, do you?”
I turn my turret, first clockwise, then counter. “Not at all. That was a great catch. You’ve got some mad skills, sister.”
“And believe it or not, I wasn’t much of an athlete in my former life. It’s amazing what a few hundred pounds of hardware can do for you.”
Shannon is as cheerful as ever. From the moment she became a Pioneer she’s been in a surprisingly good mood. She’s so grateful to be alive, I guess, that nothing seems to bother her. Best of all, her good mood is infectious—just spending time with her has helped me a lot over the past few days. I want to thank her for being so positive and tell her how much I appreciate our friendship, but I’m afraid it’ll sound corny. Instead, I pick up the football from the floor and point at the new sensors in my legs. “Check it out. I made some improvements to my machinery.”
“Yeah, I noticed the sensors. My antenna picked up the wireless signals they’re sending.”
“They’re incredible. You gotta try it. I still have the welding equipment in my room. If you want, I can put some sensors on you.”
Shannon doesn’t reply. It occurs to me that maybe I said the wrong thing. Maybe she doesn’t want me touching her legs.
“Or you could put them on yourself,” I quickly add. “I mean, if you’re uncomfortable about me, um…”
“No, no, that’s not it. I just think you overlooked something, Adam. Because the signals from the sensors are wireless, anyone could jam them. Or worse, they could transmit a computer virus on the same wireless channel and inject it into your circuits. You’ve made yourself vulnerable.”
She’s right, of course. I wasn’t thinking about vulnerability when I installed the sensors. And I don’t want to think about it now either. Lifting my football high in the air, I do a fancy backward shuffle. “Hey, I’m not worried. I’m living on the edge. I’m Mr. Bad-Boy Pioneer.”
A synthesized sigh comes out of Shannon’s speakers. “General Hawke won’t like it.”
“Who cares? He doesn’t own us.”
“Actually, he does. Who do you think paid for these robots?”
Thinking about Hawke irritates me. It’s spoiling my good mood. “So we’re his slaves now? We have to do everything he says?”
“No, we’re his recruits. We all signed the papers. We volunteered.”
“Really? The only alternative was staying in our bodies and dying. You call that a free choice?”
“Come on, Adam. Forget about yourself for a minute and think of the big picture, okay? We have a job to do. We have to confront Sigma.”
“I agree, one hundred percent. I just don’t think Hawke is the best person to lead us.”
“Well, he’s the guy the Army chose for the job.”
“And why is the Army in charge, anyway? Why can’t—”
The sound of clanging footpads interrupts me. A moment later two more Pioneers stride into the gym. The one on the left (with the big 5 on its torso) is Marshall, and the one on the right (with the big 3) is Zia. I notice right away that they’ve modified their robots since the last time I saw them. Marshall has added another camera to his turret, positioning it opposite from the original camera so he can see in both directions at once.
Zia’s modifications are more radical—she attached a circular saw to one of her robotic arms and an acetylene torch to the other. What’s more, she used the torch to cut markings in her robot’s steel-plate armor. Above the big 3 on her torso is a crudely etched snake, very similar to the tattoo she had on her scalp before she underwent the procedure.
Zia heads straight for me, raising her modified arms. She halts a couple of yards away, close enough that I can see the glinting teeth of her saw. “What’s wrong, Armstrong?” she booms. “You don’t like the Army? Scared of fighting maybe?”
Marshall stays a little farther back. He aims one of his cameras at Shannon. “I’m good at interception too. We overheard your conversation.”
I step toward Zia. Her transformation into a Pioneer did nothing to improve her temper. She’s still a bully, but now I won’t let her push me around. I stand right in front of her, ignoring the circular saw and the welding torch pointed at my torso. “I’m not scared of fighting. And I’m not scared of those handyman tools on your arms either. Where’d you get them, The Home Depot?”
“Don’t change the subject. I heard what you said to Shannon.”
“And I’ll say it again. I don’t see why we have to follow Hawke’s orders.”
A chuckle comes out of Marshall’s speakers. I’m surprised he can do this. I haven’t figured out yet how to synthesize a laugh. For some reason it’s a lot trickier than ordinary speech. “Aren’t you just a teeny bit grateful, Adam? Your father couldn’t have saved you without the Army’s money.”
“Sure, I’m grateful. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything the Army does.” I gesture with the football, pointing it at Marshall’s turret. “I think Hawke’s making a mistake. He wants to kill Sigma by destroying its computers, so he’s going to train us for combat. But he’s not even considering the other options.”
“Other options?” Marshall’s voice is full of synthesized sarcasm. “Pray tell, what are they?”
“Communicating with Sigma. At least we should give it a try before we go to war.”
“The Army did try, but Sigma refused to talk. Hawke mentioned this at the very start, when we first came to Pioneer Base. Perhaps you weren’t paying attention?”
“No, Adam has a point,” Shannon interjects. “All the Army can do is send radio transmissions to Sigma, and the AI is ignoring them. But the Pioneers have a better chance of communicating with it. We have the same kind of circuits that Sigma has, and we can think just as fast. We can get its attention.”
I’m glad Shannon is backing me up. I was a little worried she’d side with Zia and Marshall. “Yeah, exactly,” I say. “Remember how I communicated with Jenny when I was inside her circuits? If we can make contact with Sigma that way, we might learn something. We’d see how Sigma thinks and how its programming has changed since it was created. And once we get enough information, we can figure out how to handle the AI. Maybe we can work out a compromise with Sigma instead of fighting it.”
“HA!” The blast from Zia’s speakers echoes across the gym. It’s not really a laugh; it’s a roar of disdain. “You think Sigma is gonna let you get close to his circuits? You think he’s gonna just sit there while you plug your cable into his computer?”
Marshall chuckles again. “You have to admit that it’s a bit far-fetched.”
“Hey, I never said I had all the answers.” I keep gesturing with the football, focusing on Marshall rather than Zia. Although the guy’s a weasel, I feel like I have a better shot at convincing him. “I’m just saying it should be an option. Hawke should be training us for that kind of mission too, instead of concentrating only on combat.”
Zia suddenly extends one of her arms and knocks the football out of my grasp. It goes rolling across the gym’s concrete floor. “You know nothing, Armstrong. General Hawke is our commander. He makes the decisions for the Pioneers. That’s the way the Army works.”