Blaine grabbed Ainsley’s hands before he could press any more switches.
“Not now, Professor!”
“What are you saying?”
“That they’re not concentrated enough for Seven to do us any good yet. He’ll get a few of them, and then they’ll get him.” Blaine paused. “Just like Obie One.”
Ainsley stiffened. “We can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t. Stick with the plan. Bunch them up, force them together, and then sic Obie Seven on them.” McCracken, Belamo, Patty Hunsecker, even Johnny let their eyes wander in the direction of the professor’s — out the rear of the truck, toward the menacing shape of Obie Seven.
“You’ll tell me when,” Ainsley said to Blaine.
“I’ll tell you, all right.”
Reluctantly the professor wheeled himself back to the main control console, where a flashing yellow light alerted him that Obie Four had locked on to the position of another pair of disciples.
“We’ve got scores to settle now,” he said to the two machines still active in the park.
Having completed their assigned sweep, Thomas and James moved down Duke of Gloucester Street with twin automatic rifles leveled before them. They saw none of the other disciples and knew, as the rest of the survivors did, that their number had been cut by at least a third. They were on the defensive now, searching for machines as well as men, the hunted as much as the hunters.
Against his better judgment, Thomas raised the communicator to his lips.
“Abraham,” he called. “Abraham…”
No response came. Could the best of their number have been killed in one of the two blasts that had come just minutes before? No. Much more likely, he was merely keeping radio silence. The reasons didn’t matter. Thomas and James would keep it as well.
The sweeps of the disciple team were concentric in nature, designed to bring them together near the end of Duke of Gloucester Street. If McCracken and the Indian had not been found by then, there would be precious few places left they could be, and these few could be better covered in larger groups. Thomas and James walked toward the rendezvous point uncertain and uneasy, the scent of smoldering wood still thick in the air.
Obie Four surfaced twenty yards behind the pair of disciples as they proceeded along Duke of Gloucester Street between Colonial and Botetourt. Reston Ainsley checked Obie Three’s position and nodded happily. “Got you, you bastards,” he said out loud.
“Where’s Obie Three, Professor?” McCracken asked.
Ainsley had the snakelike head of Obie Four pan to the right and asked for a close-up. An old-fashioned picket fence sharpened into view between a pair of buildings just across Botetourt Street.
“Coming up on this spot,” Ainsley announced. And, as if on cue, the boxy shape of the demolitions droid rolled onto the scene.
The professor pulled the picture back to capture the approaching disciples once more.
“Perfect,” Ainsley muttered. “We’ll get them here.”
Ainsley repeated the series of instructions he had issued in front of Brush-Everard House, telling Obie Three to plant another of his charges. A sudden beeping filled the cramped confines of the truck’s rear.
“Oh, no!”
“What is it, Professor?” McCracken asked from behind his shoulder.
“His top doors are jammed. Must have been damaged by debris from the last blast.”
“Check out the screen, Doc,” Sal Belamo urged.
Obie Four’s picture now showed the pair of disciples to be twenty yards from Obie Three’s position.
“Pull Obie Three out of there, Professor,” said McCracken.
“No, I can’t….”
“We’ll get another shot.”
The old man’s hair flew wildly about his face as he swung around in his wheelchair. “You don’t understand. I really can’t. One of its wheels is jammed on something. The advisors were worried about this sort of thing. It was one of the reasons the project was—”
“Yo, boys,” Belamo chimed in. “I see two Frankensteins almost to the corner.”
Professor Ainsley hesitated no longer. He turned his attention back to the console and hit a single button set apart from the rest at arm’s length. A large red bulb began to flash. The computer screen showed a countdown beginning at fifteen in huge LCD figures. “I’ve just ordered Obie Three to self-destruct.” A strange smile crossed his lips. “A suicide mission, that’s what this has become. My God, he would understand. I know he would.”
The countdown had reached seven.
“Professor—”
Before McCracken could speak further, a large figure charged into the picture being broadcast by Obie Four. He came from the side of the picture, rushing in from behind the pair of disciples five seconds before their deaths. The pair swung, weapons ready, as the figure leveled an M203 behind the fence where Obie Three was perched. A charge thumped out with a trail of smoke. When it cleared, a large section of the picket fence was gone — along with whatever had been behind it. The LCD countdown on the computer monitor was locked at two.
“Fuck me,” Belamo moaned.
“The explosives wouldn’t have been armed until the sequence was complete,” Ainsley said distantly. “He died for nothing.”
“Uh-oh,” moaned McCracken, his eyes back on the screen.
The group in the truck watched as the same large figure that had destroyed Obie Three grew in size, charging straight toward Obie Four in its exposed position on the other side of the street.
“No!” Ainsley screamed, working his keyboard feverishly.
He succeeded in turning Obie Four around, the screen’s picture spinning with him. But suddenly the picture filled with tremors, shapes rushing past in a blur as the snakelike reconnaissance droid was grabbed and pulled upward.
A face with a twisted half-smile, straw-colored hair, and the coldest eyes McCracken had ever seen filled the screen.
“Abraham,” Wareagle said. The big Indian’s stare searched out the deadliest disciple, certain Abraham could see him as well.
The face stayed centered for an elongated moment, as if Abraham could indeed see through and beyond the screen. Then everything turned to fuzz, and the signal was lost.
“Goddammit!” Ainsley shrieked.
He propelled himself across the truck’s cab, over to the console controlling Obie Seven. Blaine caught his trembling hand before it could reach the keyboard. “Not yet, Professor.”
“Get your hand off me!”
“No. You’re playing into their hands!” he said, looking at the screen which had become staticy. “You’re playing into his hands.”
“I can’t just sit here!”
McCracken tapped the old man’s wheelchair. “Yes, you can. You’ve got to.” His eyes turned to Wareagle, who had hoisted a crossbow he had made for himself years ago out of a duffel bag stowed in the corner. “Leave this to me and the Indian.”
“I’ve got a stake in this, too,” Ainsley said more quietly. “They were like my…”
“I know. The thing is the two of us specialize in settling scores.” His eyes turned in Obie Seven’s direction. “When the time’s right, he’ll get his chance.”
“What exactly are you planning to do?”
“Give Abraham exactly what he wants.” Blaine looked at Johnny. “Us.”
Chapter 33
Abraham had smashed the snakelike robot’s camera eye with his fist, then had twisted its steel frame into a monstrous knot. Still not satisfied, he proceeded to tear it apart with fingers that were steellike themselves. The ease of it amazed him. Somehow moments like these inevitably brought back memories of just how inadequate he had been before the jungle. Mere scraps of memory now, as distant from him as a normal man’s recollections of the limitations of early childhood. He turned back to Thomas and James.