Robot Trouble Read online

  Wendy could be demanding and difficult. Yet Hap was extremely fond of her. For one thing, she made him laugh. But right now she was starting to drive him out of his mind.

  “Will you settle down!” he snapped.

  “I can’t!” said Wendy. “This electronic tutor thing is such a plasmagorically revolting development that if I have to hold still, I’ll blow up!”

  “You can’t be that surprised. I’ve been expecting it for weeks now. When my father accepted Dr. Hwa’s offer to stay on Anza-bora after the Air Force pulled out, the main condition he and Mom insisted on was that my education be provided for.”

  “You’ve been getting an education,” said Wendy tartly.

  Hap laughed. “That’s for sure. But it’s not quite what they had in mind. They’re getting a little tired of spies, plots, and life-and-death situations.”

  “It’s better than being bored to death,” said Wendy. “Which is exactly what’s going to happen to me if I’m forced to use that tinker toy tutor.”

  Suddenly a three-foot-high collection of loose parts known as Norman the Doorman went scuttling past them. “Welcome!” it cried as it pulled open the door of the abandoned house the A.I. Gang used as a headquarters. “Welcome!”

  “Thanks, Norman,” said Rachel. She stepped into the room. “You’re doing a good job today.”

  Roger came in after her, carrying the leather bag they used to transport Paracelsus.

  “Welcome,” said Norman again.

  Roger crossed the room and took Paracelsus out of the bag.

  “Welcome,” said Norman for the third time.

  “I take it you both got the bad news this morning?” asked Roger, turning to Hap and Wendy.

  “Welcome,” said Norman.

  “Oh, chips!” cried Wendy. “Sometimes I wish Ray had never pulled you out of that trash heap, Norman.” She crossed the room and thumped the robot soundly on the head.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Norman. It turned around three times, then rolled back to its closet.

  “We got it,” said Wendy. “My heart still hasn’t recovered.”

  Rachel started to reply, but was interrupted by the door swinging open again. The six-foot-plus frame of Trip Davis loomed in the opening. “Where’s Norman?” he asked, looking around.

  “He’s not feeling well,” said Roger. “And what are you smirking about? Didn’t you get your own private schoolroom this morning like the rest of us?”

  “Sure did,” said Trip. “And I got a little something along with it. I don’t know if it’s good news or bad news, but I bet you’ll find it interesting!”

  “He’s not kidding!” exclaimed Ray, ducking in under his friend’s arm. “Show ’em, Trip!”

  Trip held up the message he had printed out a short time earlier. “I found this when I turned on my machine.”

  “What is it?” asked Wendy. “A ransom note for your brain?”

  Trip shook his head. “Our mysterious friend is back.”

  Ray decided he was glad he had run into Trip along the way. If he hadn’t already read the note, he would have been lost in the small mob scene now going on. As it was, he sat on his basketball and watched while the others clustered around their towering friend, demanding to see the message.

  “Ah-ah!” cried Trip. He held the note over his head—which put it completely out of everyone’s reach. “Why don’t we run it through the optical scanner. Then Sherlock can put it up on the big screen and you can all read it at the same time.”

  “Sherlock” was a special program the gang had been working on for the last several months. Its name came from the fact that their initial plan, suggested by Roger, had been to write an artificial intelligence program that could act as a detective for them. The idea had been prompted by Ray’s discovery of a small spy microphone on Rachel’s collar after the first meeting of the Project Alpha scientists and their families.

  The frightening realization that the bug must have been planted by one of the seventeen adults at the meeting had given urgency to Roger’s idea. But the gang’s project had rapidly grown to something much greater when they had deduced what Project Alpha was really about: an attempt to create a thinking computer—a computer that would actually be aware that it was thinking, aware of its own existence.

  In short, their parents and the other scientists were trying to create a machine that could say “I am” and have some idea of what those simple but utterly mysterious words really meant.

  Once they understood the adults’ quest, the gang had decided to see if they couldn’t beat them to the punch. It was an undeclared race—the adults had no idea what the kids were up to. But the gang took it very seriously. And now their work was beginning to pay off. Whether or not ADAM (the adults’ name for the main computer) was actually approaching consciousness, the gang’s Sherlock program had become a useful tool.

  Roger, the group’s unofficial leader, dashed across the room and switched on the scanner they had attached to their main terminal a few months earlier. “Be my guest,” he said, bowing to Trip and gesturing to the operator’s seat.

  Trip exasperated the others by ambling slowly across the room, then acting particularly fussy about inserting the message into the scanner.

  No sooner was the paper in position than a small green light began to flash, indicating Sherlock had “read” the message. Trip flipped the display switch, and the message appeared on the main monitor—an oversize screen designed by Wendy and constructed by Hap.

  Date: October 25

  To: The A.I. Gang

  From: A friend

  Re: Our Mutual Enemy

  Congratulations on thwarting Black Glove’s attempt to use your rocket to send a transmitter into space when you launched Dr. Weiskopf’s robot. Your work on that affair was outstanding.

  “Outstanding!” snorted Roger. “Half the point of that project was to set a trap for Black Glove. Three of us nearly died in the process, and all we managed to find out from it was that B.G., whoever he or she is, has black hair!”

  “Shhh!” said Hap. “I’m reading!”

  I am sorry I am not able to reveal myself to you. It is impossible at this time. I can, however, tell you this: I am fairly certain I know Black Glove’s identity. Unfortunately, I cannot act without positive proof. You must continue to be wary. The enemy is desperate—and dangerous.

  I want to share a clue I uncovered recently—a scrap of paper with the following symbols:

  !A @ @% ## )!$ #& @(

  I am sure this is significant, but I can’t make head or tail of it. Perhaps you will have more success with it than I have.

  Good luck.

  A friend

  “Looks like a bunch of comic-strip cuss words,” said Wendy, squinting at the screen.

  “Could be a substitution code,” said Ray.

  “Could be,” agreed Roger. “Let’s feed the symbols into Sherlock. After all, that’s the kind of thing we initially intended him for.”

  “Already done,” said Rachel. “It happens automatically with anything that goes into the scanner.”

  “Great,” said Wendy. “Now if we can just ask Sherlock the right questions, we might actually get somewhere with this.”

  “I have a possible solution,” said Sherlock, about forty minutes later. The computer spoke through a voice simulator programmed to sound like Basil Rathbone, the actor who had played Sherlock Holmes in so many movies.

  “Display!” said Roger.

  A red light began to flash on the monitor as Sherlock listed the results of its long series of calculations.

  Wendy scanned the screen and let out a low whistle. “Sherlock, you are a plasmagoric genius. In fact, you’re almost as smart as me!”

  “Thank you,” said the computer. “Actually, it was elementary.”

  Paracelsus was sitting on a shelf above the computer. Now the bronze head opened its eyes and muttered, “Smart-aleck machines give me a headache.”

  “Thank you,” repeate
d Sherlock. “Actually, it was elementary.”

  No one heard. The gang had already barreled out of their headquarters and was sprinting toward the trio of dune buggies they had checked out of the motor pool.

  “I don’t get it,” said Ray, scrambling over the side of the buggy he shared with Trip. “How did the code work?”

  “Later!” yelled Wendy, from her own duner. “If Sherlock is right, Black Glove’s probably got a transmitter in place already. It could be spilling Project Alpha’s secrets to G.H.O.S.T. right this minute!”

  The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

  “Take the west beach, Roger,” called Hap Swenson as he settled in beside Wendy. “Then cross the island when we get past the motor pool.”

  “Got you,” said Roger. “Hang on, Sis,” he added to Rachel as he switched on the duner’s electric engine. He slammed his foot onto the pedal. Current flowed into the silent engine and with a spray of dust the dune buggy shot forward.

  Rachel, the wind whipping through her outrageous flame-red hair, clutched the side of the buggy. It looks like there might be a real storm brewing, she thought, glancing at the sky. Her stomach was already jumping with that peculiarly pleasant excitement that accompanied the chase. A good storm, if not too severe, would add to the fun.

  The dune buggy bounced over a rock and Rachel tightened her grip. A grim smile touched her lips. Where else could a pair of twelve-year-olds have this kind of vehicle at their disposal?

  She glanced over her shoulder. The others were close behind, with Wendy in the lead. The look of fierce joy that lit the Wonderchild’s face made Rachel laugh.

  “What’s up?” asked Roger.

  “I was just remembering how Wendy drove her parents’ Volkswagen through the doors of the computer center the night we saved the island from blowing up.”

  Roger smiled. “Did it ever strike you what a backward kind of luck that was?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, in a way we owe a lot to the maniac who tried to blow us all up. If not for that bomb, we would never had found Black Glove’s first transmitter—in which case it might still be sending Project Alpha’s research straight to G.H.O.S.T.!”

  Rachel glanced at her hands, which still bore a slight scar from the burns they had suffered when the transmitter had self-destructed while she was holding it.

  The gang had first become aware of G.H.O.S.T. through their friend Dr. Stanley Remov, a code expert who had worked for numerous spy agencies before turning to pure research. He swore the mysterious initials stood for “General Headquarters for Organized Strategic Terrorism,” a secret group out to take over the world. The problem was, the group was so secret most people refused to believe it even existed!

  That was the case with Dr. Hwa. “Sheer nonsense,” was his response whenever the question of G.H.O.S.T. came up. It was a hard charge to refute. The first transmitter the gang found had self-destructed before they could show it to anyone. The second, located in the rocket they had prepared to take Dr. Weiskopf’s robot Euterpe into orbit, had actually been seen before it disintegrated. But since the rocket had also been tampered with by another spy—the notorious foreign agent Ramon Korbuscek—it had been easier for Dr. Hwa to blame the transmitter on him than to believe that it came from G.H.O.S.T.

  Dr. Hwa’s reluctance to believe in G.H.O.S.T. didn’t really surprise the gang. Despite his responsibilities as director of Project Alpha, the diminutive scientist preferred to dedicate his time to the technology required for the project, and hated having to give attention to non-research problems. That tendency, combined with the fact that the government itself refused to acknowledge the existence of G.H.O.S.T., made it possible for Dr. Hwa to convince himself there was no problem on the island.

  The gang knew better. Dr. Standish and Ramon Korbuscek had been distractions. The real enemy was still undiscovered—and still trying to find a way to smuggle information from Anza-bora Island to G.H.O.S.T.

  But with any luck, we’ll derail this scheme as well, thought Roger as he cut his wheel to the right.

  Following Roger’s lead, Trip gave his own wheel a sharp spin and began heading east across the island. His increasing skill as a driver pleased him—especially since he still carried unpleasant memories of the very first day he had been allowed to use one of the dune buggies and had nearly collided with Hap Swenson!

  “Where are we going?” asked the Gamma Ray, picking himself up from the effect of the rapid turn.

  “To the marina, I assume,” said Trip.

  Indeed, even as they spoke, Roger was turning into the circular parking area that fronted the island’s docking facilities. Several boats of various sizes were moored in the harbor, rising and falling gently with the waves that rolled in from the Pacific.

  “I hope The Merry Wanderer is available,” said Hap.

  Wendy smiled at the thought of the beautiful boat. When Anza-bora had been a fully operative Air Force base, the gang would have been hard-pressed to get their hands on something like that. Military regulations would have made it impossible.

  But the government had already decided to close the base when Dr. Hwa approached the Department of Technology for assistance with Project Alpha. With the help of his powerful political connections he had convinced the President that the artificial intelligence project was a perfect use for facilities that would otherwise go to waste. So the government had agreed to grant him use of Anza-bora. In return the Feds had insisted on keeping a small security force here. The reason was simple: While Project Alpha was an independent effort, the government felt the results might be important, even vital, to national security—which was one of the reasons it was willing to help to begin with.

  Despite the security force, Anza-bora’s rules were far more relaxed than those of an ordinary military base; the gang was allowed access to almost all of the island’s resources without ever being questioned.

  This was partly Dr. Hwa’s doing; he didn’t want bored children distracting his scientists.

  Actually, boredom has been the least of our problems, thought Wendy as she brought the dune buggy skidding to a halt behind the others. Some days it seems as if just staying alive heads the list!

  “I’ll grab a couple of sets of scuba gear,” yelled Hap, jumping over the side of the buggy without bothering to open the door.

  “I love an eager beaver,” said the Wonderchild as she watched her husky blond companion sprint for the storage shed. The remark sounded sarcastic, but the glow on Wendy’s face showed her true feelings: She couldn’t wait for the fun to start.

  Less than five minutes later the gang was climbing aboard The Merry Wanderer. Rachel took the controls, and they headed out of the small harbor.

  Hap came to stand next to her. “God, I love the smell of the sea air,” he said, taking a deep breath.

  Rachel smiled, enjoying the way the wind tousled his blond hair.

  “Have you got that current detector, Ray?” asked Roger.

  “I think so.” The Gamma Ray began pulling stuff from his pockets, searching for the homemade device that had already served the gang so well by revealing the microphone that had been planted on Rachel’s collar.

  “You should get a purse,” said Rachel, turning her attention from the open waters to survey the rapidly growing pile at Ray’s feet.

  “Too much bother,” said Ray, pulling two quarters loose from an unwrapped caramel in which they had become embedded. “I’d probably forget it every time I put it down.”

  “It looks like you never forget anything,” said Roger, who was continually amazed by the amount of garbage Ray could stuff into his pockets. “What do you need that for?”

  “Emergencies,” said Ray, dropping the large rubber lizard that had prompted Roger’s question onto his stack of stuff. “Ah, here’s the current detector. New improved version, actually. I suppose you could call it the current current detector.”

  He held out a small, square device that had several wires protrud
ing from it. “Dad and I added a couple of new twists that really extended its range,” he said proudly. “This baby can pick up the electricity in a hearing aid at thirty paces.”

  “Well, climb up on the front of the boat and see if you can pick up Black Glove’s latest transmitter,” said Roger. “If Sherlock is right, it must be planted somewhere near the mouth of the harbor.”

  Ray looked at Roger nervously. “I’m not the world’s greatest swimmer.”

  “I’m not asking you to swim. I just want you to use the scanner to see if you can spot the transmitter. You understand how it works better than any of the rest of us. But if you want one of us to go up instead…”

  “I didn’t say that!” protested Ray. He glanced around at the others. “I’ll go. Just make sure you pull me out if I fall in.”

  “Of course,” said Trip. “If we don’t, we’ll be stuck taking care of all that stuff you had in your pockets.”

  “Yuk-yuk,” said Ray. Bracing himself on the windshield, he climbed around onto the prow of the boat. Then he lay on his stomach and extended the current detector in front of him.

  While Trip and Hap went below to change into the scuba gear, Rachel began steering the craft in long sweeps back and forth across the front of the harbor.

  Half an hour went by. The wind grew stronger. Rachel began to have trouble keeping the boat steady as it crested the increasingly stiff waves.

  “If we don’t spot the transmitter in a few minutes, I think we’d better head in,” she said nervously. “I don’t think I can control the boat much longer.”

  A light rain began dappling the waves.

  “I hate to turn back without finding it,” said Roger. “Who knows what information Black Glove might get off Anza-bora between now and tomorrow?”

  Hap cleared his throat. “I don’t want to be a wet blanket—”

  “You won’t have much choice if this rain keeps up,” said Wendy, interrupting him.

  “Cute, Wendy. But if we’re lucky, the storm will be like you.”

  “Exciting?”

  “No. Short.”

  Roger, well aware of Wendy’s low tolerance for short jokes, grabbed her shoulders to keep her from jumping at Hap.