“Coming right up.”
An instant later I’m reviewing them. DeShawn has written a program that alters the flow of thoughts in our circuits, funneling them into a rapid stream of data that can be transmitted back and forth between two Pioneers. Because their circuits are linked so closely and share so much information, the two robots think and act as one. A single mind occupies both machines.
Without saying another word, I load the program into my own circuits and start copying my files. Then I turn my turret toward Pioneer 1A and transfer the copies. I feel the stretching sensation again as the copied files move in waves toward the other robot, but this time the sensation doesn’t end when the transfer is complete. Instead, it gets more intense. I feel bigger, taller, towering over everyone. I feel like I’ve taken a huge stride across the gym and now I’m standing, a bit unsteadily, on two robotic stilts.
I see why DeShawn called it a balancing act. Now I have two of everything. My two cameras provide me with two views of the gym. I have to combine the perspectives to make sense of the data. Same thing with my acoustic sensors and radar systems.
Maneuvering both Pioneers is also a challenge. At first they do everything simultaneously, their movements perfectly mirroring each other, but after a while I figure out how to send a different order to each robot. It’s kind of like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time—it requires some concentration. While I raise Pioneer 1’s right arm, I order 1A to bend his left leg. Then I order Pioneer 1 to punch the air while 1A throws a kick. Then I get the robots to stride toward each other and bump fists. This is cool!
“Not bad,” DeShawn says. “Now do something crazy. Go wild, dude.”
I have an idea. I go to my memory files and retrieve “Power,” my favorite Kanye West song. While blasting the song from the robots’ speakers, I order Pioneer 1 to fold his arms across his torso and rock up and down. At the same, Pioneer 1A swings his arms back and forth while hopping from one footpad to the other. I’m trying to imitate the dance moves I’ve seen on Kanye’s music videos. I think I’m doing a pretty good job, but DeShawn turns his turret clockwise and counter.
“No, no, stop,” he says. “Sorry, Adam, but you’re the worst dancer I’ve ever seen.”
“Come on, give me a break. I’m just getting warmed—”
“Armstrong!”
It’s Zia, of course. She’s only ten feet away. She must’ve crossed the gym while I was dancing. “What are you doing?” she shouts. “Playing games again?”
I switch the music off and turn both my turrets toward her. Now that I think about it, I’m glad Zia interrupted me. She needs to know what DeShawn has done. This new ability he’s discovered could change everything. “Okay, you’re not going to believe this, but I’m inside both of these—”
“Didn’t I tell you to get back to work? That was a direct order, Armstrong.”
“Yeah, I know, but I got something to show you. We should get Hawke down here too.”
“Are you deaf? You’re disobeying a direct order!”
This is frustrating. Can’t she see what’s going on? To make things as clear as possible, I order both my robots to stride toward her, Pioneer 1 from the right and 1A from the left. “Look, Zia. Just shut up for a second and look what I can do.”
I expect her to be impressed, but instead she gets alarmed. She takes a step backward and raises both her arms, pointing her acetylene torch at Pioneer 1 and her circular saw at 1A. “Get back!” she yells. “I’m warning you, Armstrong! Don’t mess with me!”
“Hey, calm down. I’m trying to tell you something important. We need to show Hawke what DeShawn figured out. It could give us some new options for the Tatishchevo mission and—”
“I said get back!” Zia screams. Then she turns on her circular saw and fires up her torch and charges toward Pioneer 1.
What’s wrong with her? In an instant she’s turned into a homicidal maniac. Both my cameras focus on the jet of blue flame shooting out of her torch. According to my infrared sensors, the flame’s temperature is 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit, twice as high as the melting point of steel. As Zia rushes forward she thrusts the torch at the exact center of Pioneer 1’s torso, aiming for my neuromorphic circuits.
My survival instincts kick in. I order Pioneer 1 to leap to the right and Pioneer 1A to grab Zia from behind. But I’m still learning how to move the two robots at once, and my reactions aren’t as fast as Zia’s. Adjusting her course, she angles to the right and slams into Pioneer 1. I tumble backward and crash to the floor with Zia on top of me, her weight pinning me to the concrete.
I can’t move my left arm. It’s trapped under my torso. I start to swing my right arm, but before it can hit Zia’s turret, she brings down her left, jamming her circular saw into my shoulder joint. The saw’s titanium carbide teeth bite into the softer metal of the joint, and my right arm goes dead.
But I still have Pioneer 1A, which strides toward the two robots grappling on the floor. With 1A’s camera, I see a shower of sparks erupt from the side of Pioneer 1’s torso. Zia’s using her acetylene torch like a knife, cutting into the armor surrounding my electronics. Molten steel pours from the cut and puddles on the concrete. Frantic, I hurl 1A at Zia, hoping to knock her off Pioneer 1. But as I reach for her, she twists her torso and swings her left arm around, telescoping it to its full length. The circular saw sweeps through the air like a cutlass and slashes 1A’s left leg at the knee joint. The robot loses its balance and crashes to the floor.
The other Pioneers rush toward us from all over the gym. DeShawn hollers, “Stop!” and lunges at Zia, but she forces him back with another swipe of her saw. Shannon and Jenny are coming too but they’re twenty yards away. They won’t get here in time. Zia’s torch has already cut through my armor. The jet of flame is melting my circuits, erasing my memories, terminating my thoughts. My mind is roaring with the random noise of fear, which drowns out all my other signals.
I have one option left. Within the circuits of Pioneer 1A, I use DeShawn’s program to funnel my remaining thoughts into a tight, furious stream. Then I fire this stream at Zia’s antenna and plunge into her mind.
As soon as I enter her circuits, everything grows still. Zia’s mind is a marvel of quiet efficiency. All her thoughts are fixed on one thing, destroying my Pioneer. She’s so focused on this task that she doesn’t even notice my presence in her electronics. Racing forward, I dive into her neatly arranged files and try to disrupt her concentration. In a thousandth of a second I plow through her earliest memories—fuzzy images of her mother and father, a veterans’ hospital, a military funeral. I see the faces of foster parents and child-welfare workers, all the strangers who took over her life after her parents died. Then I see a long, cold walk down an empty street at night.
These memories are full of confusion and sadness, and Zia has walled them off from the rest of her files. But there’s one memory that’s so powerful it shapes everything in her electronics, warping the circuits around it like a magnet. It’s an image of Zia at twelve years old, facing two older boys in a deserted alley. One boy is tall and pale, and the other is hideously fat, and they’re both leering at her.
I see the fat boy step toward her from the left and the tall boy swoop in from the right, and now I know why Zia attacked me. There’s a link between this image and the memory of what happened a few seconds ago, right before she went crazy. When I ordered Pioneers 1 and 1A to approach Zia from both sides, I unintentionally reminded her of the worst moment of her life.