I inserted the tube into the reader terminal. A screen extended from the desk as the tube downloaded its information. I scanned through a portion of the data Doctor Zarg had provided. There was a lot to go through. Zarg had given me blueprints, delivery schedules, access points, surveillance and security system data. Though I was certain the Dissenters had already changed their access codes and put security on high alert, there was still plenty of useful data in this tube. Maybe even enough for a smart bot like me to come up with a plan. But I was still only one bot.

I pushed the intercom b.u.t.ton. "Eve, I need to make a call."

"Third switch on your right."

I flicked the switch and a phone popped out of the desk.

"Phone book is in the bottom left drawer," she said. "If the red light on the phone starts blinking, it means someone's either tracing the line or listening in."

"Thanks."

"My pleasure." Although her vocalizer didn't make the words sound like they were remotely pleasurable.

I didn't need the phone book. The numbers were already logged in my memory matrix. I grabbed the phone off the desk and dialed. I half-expected an answering machine, but after three rings, a groggy gorilla picked up.

19.

Grey's worm was barely a hiccup in my directives now. I could go to the cops and download all the data I'd recorded in the last couple of days. Irrefutable proof of an alien conspiracy to play back for all the world. I didn't know how deep this conspiracy went, how much control the Pilgrims or Dissenters had over the inner workings of Empire City's government. I was willing to trust Sanchez who, if he was in on it, would probably do the right thing with the information. But he was only one cop, and without some heavy-duty backup, he was in no better a position to handle this mess than I was. I didn't need another unknown variable. So Sanchez was out for now, and I was left with only two ent.i.ties I could trust at this point.

Jung occupied half my office couch. Humbolt took up another third.

"Nice setup, Mack," said Jung. "Could use a few decorations."

"I'm not keeping it," I said.

"Of course you will," remarked Eve. My secretarial auto rolled in with a pot of coffee in one hand and an extra large mug in the other. Jung needed a lot of coffee to get going in the morning. She poured him a full serving.

"Here you go, sweetie," she said. "Need anything else? Perhaps something to nosh on?"

"No, this'll do." Jung slurped down the giant mug, and Eve refilled it.

"I'll leave the pot, sweetie."

He grunted, raising the mug to his lips.

"My pleasure. Need anything else, boss, I'll be-"

"At your desk. I know."

"So what's this all about, Mack?" asked Jung.

It took four minutes to tell him everything, and after I finished, he didn't bat an eye.

"Martians, huh?" he said.

"They're not Martians."

"To-may-to, to-mah-to." He set aside his eighth cup of coffee. "Sounds like a messy situation."

"It's messy all right," I said. "If you don't want to get involved in this . . ."

"Seems like I'm already involved, Mack. Seems like the whole city is involved."

"I've run risk ratios based on Zarg's data. Statistically, you're smarter to take your chances risking severe mutation than helping me out."

"You know me, Mack. I'm a biological." He shrugged. "We don't pay any attention to statistics."

"I'm in, too, Mack," said Humbolt.

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me. Thank the boss. She's the one who issued the dictate to help you out in any way I can."

"So do you have a plan yet?" asked Jung.

"Not yet, but I'm working on it. Humbolt, we might need something big if we're going to have a shot at pulling this off. Does Lucia have any weapons that fit the bill?"

"How big are we talkin'?"

"Lots of collateral damage," I replied. "Big and noisy and effective. But portable."

"I got just the thing. Back at the lab. She's been tweaking it for the government, but it was too effective. Thought it might be a bad idea to hand over to the G-men in the end."

"Sounds perfect. Can you bring it here?"

"Yeah, sure. Like I said, whatever you want. That's the lady's orders."

I set the illusion suit to charcoal black and switched on my mutant hologram. "I'll be back."

"Where are you going?" asked Jung.

"Reconnaissance."

"I'm going with you."

"Smarter to stay put," I said.

"Probably." Jung grabbed his hat and coat off the rack. "But I'm going with you."

Twenty-one minutes later, Jung and I stood on the corner of Dodecahedron and Pythagoras. Eleven after nine in the morning, and the Nucleus was picking up for the new day. We were just two more guys in a swarm of pedestrians, although a wide-shouldered gorilla and a bulky bot took up more than our fair share of the sidewalk. We were a bit of an obstacle since we weren't walking.

He studied Carter Centre, a block of gla.s.s and steel. "So that's a secret lab for Martian invaders?" he asked.

"They're not Martians," I said. "And they aren't invading. But yeah, that's it."

There was nothing eye-catching about it. Just a seventy-six-story block of a building. Any structure less than one hundred and fifty stories was positively quaint in the heart of the Nucleus.

"The first fifty floors have been leased to unwitting human businesses," I said, "to throw off suspicion. Only the top twenty-six and a secret bas.e.m.e.nt are actually used by the Dissenters."

We pa.s.sed twenty minutes circling the block while I slowly scanned the exterior.

"So how's the plan coming along, Mack?" asked Jung.

"Well, the good news is the data Doctor Zarg gave me is accurate."

"And the bad news?"

"The information Doctor Zarg gave me is accurate. He didn't overlook anything. At least not on the exterior. Which means it's probable that the interior details are all correct, too."

"No plan then?"

"Oh, I've got a plan," I replied.

"Great. You can tell me all about it. After I buy a hot dog." He loped across the street to a sidewalk vendor cart.

I scanned the building. Getting inside wouldn't be that hard for a determined bot, but last time I'd nearly been sc.r.a.pped. I'd gone in unprepared, lacking both proper armaments and necessary data. Even knowing what I was up against now and having some time to ready myself for it, my difference engine advised me to abort this mission. There was no reason why I shouldn't. I wasn't a biological. However the Pilgrims sorted out this mess, there was no reason to get myself sc.r.a.pped. Didn't make sense, but here I was, getting ready to throw myself onto the junk heap. While my logic lattice struggled to understand the irrational dictates I was feeding into my mission parameters, a robot latched onto my shoulder.

It was Knuckles. The oil line in his neck joint had been patched, and he had a few more dents than I'd previously recorded. But he was as strong as ever. The Mark Three beeped.

Grey stood beside him. "h.e.l.lo, Mack."

My threat a.s.sessor marked the biological as an immediate threat, and I tried to knock his head off right in the middle of the crowd before he could employ his electrokinetic talents. His eyes flared, and my fist stopped an inch from crushing in his nose. I was not surprised, but I'd had to try. He put a finger on my hand and pushed it gently down to my side.

"Well, aren't you the master of disguise," said Grey. "Nice hologram. Get it from your girlfriend?"

"How'd you find me?"

He tapped his temple. "Built-in tracker. Usually isn't this easy finding one rotorcar out of thousands or locating a specific television set. But it's duck soup to track down a machine of your . . . whaddayasay . . . uniqueness. Even that hologram can't fool me."

Jung stood across the street, waiting for the light to change. I shook my head at him. He hung back, and Grey didn't seem to notice.

Grey started walking. "Come with us, Mack."

I took a reluctant step but managed to override his control of my servos to not take another. He looked surprised by that.

"Yeah, you're unique hardware," said Grey. "Don't make much difference now."

The glow in his eyes brightened, and my legs moved on their own. I hadn't purged the worm he'd implanted in my programs, but I'd gained enough mechanical control to slow my walk to a crawl. Maybe in another twelve hours or so I'd be completely free from his influence. In the meantime, I could only follow. Knuckles took offense at my chosen pace and nudged me along with all the gentle care of a zip train. Our fellow pedestrians sensed the trouble, but rather than get involved, they all held their eyes down and gave us a wide berth.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Don't worry, Mack. It's not far."

Eighty-four reluctant paces later, Grey and Knuckles steered me into an alley. There were three b.u.ms who'd made a home behind a Dumpster. Grey tossed them a few bucks and told them to scram. A lot of unpleasant things happened in this city's alleys. It was a fair hypothesis that the b.u.ms had perfected the art of scramming for money.

"You've gone and made Greenman very angry," said Grey. "Haven't ever seen the boss so . . . what'sthatword . . . piqued."

I tried taking a step toward Grey and succeeded. But it was a slow, ponderous step, and I wasn't going to catch him off guard. Didn't help any that Knuckles had a manipulator clamped on my arm like a vise wound two inches too tight.

"Don't you know what's going on?" I asked.

"Don't really know." Grey shrugged. "Don't really care. I just got a job to do, and that's what I'm gonna do."

"People are going to die."

"People die every day." He nodded to Knuckles. "Make our guest more comfortable, would you?"

Knuckles kicked my right knee joint hard. It wouldn't have knocked me down normally, but with Grey s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with my systems, I dropped to one knee.

"You know what I don't get, Mack," said Grey. "You're a smart bot. Who cares if a few thousand schmucks grow a heart out of their backs? Like it matters? n.o.body in this town gives a s.h.i.t about anybody else." He pointed to the end of the alley and the crowded street beyond. "Do you think any of them would stick their necks out for you? Even if all they had to do was turn their head and look? No, it's a cruel world, and everybody but you seems to have figured that out. And now, I guess it's your turn."

He pulled a blinking metal square from his pocket and put it on the ground. A hologram of Greenman materialized. It was life-size, but it hovered so that Greenman and I were eye-to-optical.

"Abner, you hypocritical b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I said.

His face remained expressionless. "Forgive me if I fail to take moral advice from a malfunctioning robot. Shall we get on with this, Grey?"

Grey snapped his fingers. Knuckles clocked me across the cranial unit. With my joints locked up, I fell over.

"I'm aware that robots don't feel pain the same way we biologicals do, and that your cha.s.sis is formidable," said Greenman. "But I do hope you experience humiliation."

Knuckles started pounding me. He brought his arms down with the steady beat of jackhammers against my alloy. All that clanging was a h.e.l.l of a racket, but Grey was right. No one in the street even spared a glance. Three minutes later, I lay sprawled across the ground with a thoroughly dented cha.s.sis. He hadn't done much real damage, although he spent forty seconds on my left shoulder joint, reducing effectiveness by a few degrees.

Greenman finally got bored with the show. "Enough, Grey."

I tried standing. Knuckles was nice enough to help me up and shove me roughly into a wall.

"I saved your life, Abner," I said.

"Your mistake," he said. "Sc.r.a.p him."

Grey smiled as his eyes burned green and sparks danced on his fingertips. "Don't worry, Mack. You won't feel a thing."

Knuckles clamped onto my arms and pushed me back to my knees. I didn't have the leverage or motion capabilities to do anything but kneel there and wait to be permanently deactivated.

A streak rocketed suddenly down the alley. It was big and fast, and it plowed into Grey. Before he could react, Jung lifted him in the air and threw him against a wall. Long buried instincts filled the gorilla. He beat his chest and howled. Grey went for something in his coat, but he never got the chance. Slavering with every bit of primeval savagery he usually kept hidden, Jung jumped on Grey, who started screaming. I expected Jung to plunge his fangs into Grey's throat, but instead, he jammed the psychic with a disruptor. Grey went limp. The whole thing was over almost before it began. Four seconds. And it would've been less if Jung had decided to kill Grey instead of stun him.

Knuckles released me and charged Jung. The disruptor wouldn't do anything to a robot, so Jung tried throwing his bulk into the auto. Knuckles budged an inch, but clocked Jung. The formidable primate fell stunned, and Knuckles prepared to finish the job.

I sucker punched him, and he stumbled to one side.

Disruptors scramble a target's nervous system. Not only do they render their victims pa.s.sive, they also impair psychic abilities.