Robot Trouble Read online

  It was impossible for her to speak above the babble that erupted at this statement.

  “All right, everybody shut up!” shouted Roger. When the gang finally fell silent, he turned to Wendy and said, “Do you have the message?”

  She snorted in disgust. “It disappeared, just as you would expect. But it also burned itself into my brain. I feel like Rachel; I can repeat the thing by heart.”

  “Go ahead,” said Roger.

  Wendy cleared her throat, and began to recite:

  Miss Wendell:

  This is a warning.

  The people I work for have suffered enough from your foolish interference. You and your friends will stay out of my affairs, or suffer the consequences.

  If you question this, let me review a few points for you.

  You know I exist, but you cannot convince anyone else that I am real. Even worse, you have no idea who I am. You do not know where to find me, or how to fight me.

  I, on the other hand, know who each of you is.

  I can contact you by computer anytime I wish. Much of the time I can see what you are doing.

  At times I can even hear you.

  I have power. You do not.

  Until today, I have been taking it easy on you. But I am not playing any longer. Cease to bother me, or be prepared to suffer the consequences.

  Remember: I am watching.

  And I may watch one of you die.

  —Black Glove

  When the Wonderchild was done a heavy silence hung over the group.

  “He’s bluffing,” said Roger at last.

  “Or she,” said Wendy. “And I don’t know if I agree with you. We’re playing in the big leagues here.”

  “Agreed,” said Roger. “But if the main thing on Black Glove’s mind is getting information off the island, then he or she can’t do much unless there’s information to get off. If something happened to one of us, even accidentally, it would blow this place apart. The least that would happen is that things would slow down. More likely it would actually cause some of the scientists to leave. I’m pretty sure Dad would want to get away from here if anything happened to Rachel or me.”

  “I think my folks would feel the same,” said Trip. “And that could bring the project to a standstill. These people are the best in the country—in the world, most of them. It wouldn’t be easy to replace them.”

  “My point exactly,” said Roger. “I just don’t think Black Glove will want to take that chance.”

  “Great,” said Hap. “That means if the enemy starts feeling cranky, I’ll be number one on the hit parade, since my folks don’t really make much difference to the success of the project.”

  “Maybe we should just drop the whole thing,” said Rachel, who had been chewing on the back of her thumb.

  “No,” said Hap firmly. “We can’t do that, either.” He stood up and began pacing. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about this project lately. Frankly I’m not sure the thing is such a good idea to begin with; I get a little scared just thinking about what this computer might be able to do. But I doubt I could convince Dr. Hwa to call things off. So the odds are there really is going to be a computer that can think. If that’s the case, I sure don’t want it in the hands of G.H.O.S.T.! And since we can’t get anyone else to take this seriously, that leaves it up to us. Risky? You bet. But I don’t even want to think about the alternative.”

  “Then I’d say it’s time to get busy,” said Wendy. She pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, then blinked and said, “What should we do first?”

  “Finish the optical scanner?” suggested Trip.

  “Already done!” said Hap. “I finished it last night. Would have had it done earlier, but I had to cobble up some substitutes for the parts that we couldn’t get from the warehouse because of Brody’s robots.”

  “I hate to say this, but those robots should probably be our first project,” said Ray. “Until we handle that situation, we can be seriously slowed down any time we need a spare part.”

  “Don’t forget Dr. Weiskopf’s rocket,” said Rachel. “We promised to build that, too.”

  “I don’t know,” said Roger. “It seems to me that’s one project that can go on hold for the time being. We’ve got more important stuff to—” he paused, and a strange but familiar look appeared in his eyes. “Wait a minute! Stand back, everyone! I think I’m about to be brilliant!”

  The rest of the gang looked at him nervously. Roger’s brainstorms were known to be hazardous to other people’s health.

  “Oh, this is great!” he cried, looking at the ceiling. Then, turning his eyes back to the others, he said, “It’s time we tracked down Black Glove and put a stop to this mess.”

  “But that’s the purpose of Operation Sherlock,” said Hap.

  “I know,” said Roger. “And it was a darn good idea.”

  “You’re only saying that because you thought of it yourself,” said Wendy.

  “High self-esteem is essential to a happy life. Now shut up and listen. Sherlock is supposed to crack the case and figure out who the enemy is. The problem is, we might all be dead before we get the program in shape to do that.”

  “I love an optimist,” said Paracelsus.

  “Shut up,” hissed Rachel, “or I’ll disconnect your power source.”

  “Abuse!” cried Paracelsus. “That’s all it is. Abu-u-u—awk!”

  An uneasy silence filled the room. The others turned toward Rachel, who had done exactly as she threatened and disconnected Paracelsus.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” she ordered, blushing. “It’s not like I killed him. I’ll turn him back on later.”

  “Machine-icide,” said Trip sadly. “The crime of the future is with us today.”

  “Oh, be quiet or I’ll pull your plug, too! Roger, finish what you were saying.”

  “Thank you,” said Roger as Trip shrank from Rachel in feigned horror. “The point I was trying to make was that we should consider switching tactics. Right now we’re on the defensive. Black Glove acts, and we respond. Let’s reverse the process.”

  “What are you suggesting?” asked Ray.

  “I think we should set a trap for Black Glove. What’s more, I think Dr. Weiskopf’s rocket could be the perfect bait.”

  He waited for the noise to die down before he continued with his plan. “What’s the one thing B.G. wants most in life?”

  “Disregarding personal quirks, I’d say it’s to get information off this island,” replied Trip.

  “Correctamundo! Now, since we recently succeeded in thoroughly screwing up his method for doing that, it’s reasonable to assume he’s a little desperate—especially given Brody’s security crackdown. All right, let’s imagine a perfect way to get secret information from here to somewhere else. How does a satellite sound? A satellite launched from this island and designed to circumvent the electronic shield that cuts us off from the rest of the world, since there should be no problem just sending information back and forth between Anza-bora and the satellite. Let me tell you, as soon as Black Glove finds out what we’re up to, he—or she—is going to spot the possibilities immediately. A little fiddling with the system, maybe plant a special device in the rocket, and Bingo!—our enemy has a new way to communicate with G.H.O.S.T.!”

  “We can’t take that kind of a chance with Euterpe!” cried Rachel.

  “But don’t you see, Rach? That’s exactly what we were going to do! We just hadn’t realized it yet. The only thing I’m suggesting is that instead of blindly letting Black Glove take advantage of what we build that we turn the tables and use it to take advantage of him. And, frankly, it’s the only reason I can think of to take the time to build that rocket right now. If we use our brains, we can build two things at once: a rocket to launch Euterpe, and a trap to catch a spy.”

  The Brain Ceil

  Trip and Ray sat in Dr. Armand Mercury’s kitchen, watching him beat the living daylights out of a half dozen egg whites. After a while the portly sci
entist put down the bowl, peered inside, then dipped a stubby finger into the contents.

  “This is going to be superb,” he pronounced, licking the goo from his fingertip. “I hope you can stay and have some.”

  “What is it?” asked Ray.

  “Right now? Nothing. When I am done? Ah, when I am done it will be a superb chocolate souffle with Grand Marnier and fresh orange slices.”

  Looking at Dr. Mercury’s rotund figure, Trip thought that the man had probably already had enough souffles to last him a lifetime.

  The scientist poured his concoction into a springform pan and carefully placed it in the oven.

  “Actually, I’m making this for Dr. Remov. He’s coming over when he’s done at the Brain Cell. I’m sure he would be glad to see you if you can stay.”

  “The Brain Cell?” asked Trip.

  Dr. Mercury’s eyes grew wide and he put his fingers to his full lips in mock chagrin. “Silly me!” he said, making a little snort. “It’s the secret name for the central command center for Project Alpha. It’s supposed to be classified—but unless you’re like Stanley and believe in crackpot theories about Black Glove and G.H.O.S.T., I can’t figure out what difference it makes.” He winked at them. “Just don’t tell anyone you heard it from me, all right?”

  “You’ve got our word,” said Trip.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” said Dr. Mercury, putting his hand to his heart. Realizing that his fingers were covered with flour, he began wiping them on his lab coat, asking as he did, “So what is it that brings you two here? Despite my charm and wit, I have a feeling this is not merely a social visit.”

  Trip glanced at his partner. It was the Gamma Ray who had pointed out that until they got the matter of the security robots under control their other work could be stymied by lack of materials at any time. That was why they were here now, on what was, for them, a most unusual scrounging mission. Instead of scouring the warehouses, they were actually going to ask to borrow something. Trip felt almost as if they were breaking the rules of the game.

  Unfortunately, with Brody’s robots still in action, they had no choice.

  When Ray didn’t speak up, Trip finally said, “We’re working on a little project, sir. We know you specialize in sound command systems, and we were wondering if we could borrow a pair of synthesizer guns.”

  Dr. Mercury’s keen eyes seemed to burrow into Trip’s skull. After a moment he pursed his lips and pressed his chubby hands together. “Do you know exactly what a synthesizer gun is?”

  “Sure,” said Ray. “Sound engineers use them to create precise tones for audio control systems. You can dial up virtually any form of sound wave and direct it at a target.”

  “And what what would you want something like that for?”

  “We’re working on a robot control system,” replied Trip, remembering Roger’s oft-repeated dictum that truth was the simplest disguise.

  Dr. Mercury chuckled. “Sounds like an interesting project. Give me a minute, I’ll see what I can dig up for you.”

  Trip’s eyes followed the scientist as he waddled away from the table and disappeared into another room.

  “He knows what we’re up to!” he whispered. “I could see it in his face. And you know what that means.”

  Ray shrugged. “I guess it means he doesn’t care if we screw up Brody’s robots. Which could mean—”

  “One of two things,” interrupted Trip. “Either (a) Dr. Mercury is really Black Glove and wants the robots out of commission for reasons of his own, or else (b) he’s like most of the rest of the people here and would be glad to see us make a monkey out of Brody.”

  Ray smiled. “Either way, we get what we need,” he said. Then a troubled look replaced his smile. “Though he is short enough to be Black Glove.”

  Trip nodded. “I know. I’ve been trying not to think about it, because he’s such a nice guy. But when you come right down to it, all the suspects seem pretty decent. The problem is, one of them isn’t.”

  Ray shivered. “If he really is Black Glove we might be playing right into his hands.”

  “Here we are!” boomed Dr. Mercury, heaving himself back into the room. “I knew I had a couple of these things around here somewhere.”

  He held out a pair of the sound guns and gave the boys a big wink. “I want you to promise you’ll make good use of these.”

  Then he began to chuckle.

  “Well, that’s the last of them,” said Wendy, drawing the still warm stack of papers out of the machine. She pushed back one of her pigtails and passed the pile to Rachel.

  “That thing is amazing,” said Hap, referring to the state-of-the-art crystal-based printer Wendy had borrowed from her parents. It could churn out a five-hundred-page book in less than three minutes.

  “The printer is okay,” said Rachel. “It’s Wendy’s password program that’s boggling my mind.”

  “Aw, shucks,” said Wendy, batting her eyes. “Twarn’t nothin’, ma’am.”

  Secretly she was pleased by Rachel’s praise—especially since the program had nearly turned out to be a total embarrassment. After assuring the others that she could easily tap into the mainframe’s secret files, she had discovered that the computer’s security system was more complex than she had suspected. For weeks the thing had blocked all her attempts to milk it for data. Cracking its security code had taken considerably more work than she had anticipated.

  She suppressed a shiver. Given this morning’s message from Black Glove, she had succeeded just in time.

  Roger glanced through the stack of papers and let out a low whistle. “I think we’re playing with fire this time, guys. If the adults ever find out we pulled this stuff out of the mainframe, we’ll really be in the stew.”

  Rachel pressed one of the stickers she had been preparing onto a folder, labeling its contents. “Desperate times require desperate measures,” she said primly. “By the way, here’s Dad’s file.”

  Roger took the sheaf of papers and began leafing through it.

  They had created seventeen folders in all, one for each major suspect. Inside the folders were the hard copy versions of the ultra-secret personnel files that Wendy had called up from the computer.

  “I didn’t know Dr. Clark liked to water-ski,” said Hap, flipping through one of the files. He tried to imagine the tall, chestnut-haired woman skimming across the water behind a powerboat, but the picture didn’t make sense. He shook his head. “She seems too dignified for something like that.”

  Before anyone could answer, the door swung open, revealing two masked figures.

  “All right, everybody!” shouted the taller one. “Hit the floor!”

  “That means now,” said the shorter one, pointing a strange looking gun toward the center of the room.

  Rachel’s initial surge of fright was immediately replaced by one of righteous indignation. “If we weren’t stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I’d call a rest home to come get you two,” she said angrily.

  The taller figure peeled off its mask to reveal the grinning face and sandy brown hair of Trip Davis. “Sorry,” he said. “We couldn’t help ourselves.”

  “Aren’t these guns neat!” enthused Ray, waving his in the air.

  “Neat,” said Roger. “Now get your basketball and come here. We’ve got work to do.”

  “All right, all right,” said Ray. “Don’t get hyper. You’ll have a heart attack and end up in the infirmary with Dr. Clark’s icy fingers wrapped around your wrist.”

  “Infirmary!” cried Hap. “That’s what I wanted to tell you guys. With everything that’s been going on today, it slipped my mind.”

  “Care to explain what you’re babbling about?” asked Roger.

  “Well, to begin with, I got up early this morning.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Wendy sympathetically. “Another year or two and we’ll have you on civilized hours.”

  “Usually I take kind of a cross-country path to get here,” continued Hap, ignoring the
interruption. “This might not mean anything, but… as I was cutting past the infirmary this morning, I saw a guy letting himself into it.”

  Ray shrugged. “So maybe he needed a Band-Aid.”

  “Could be. Like I said, it might not mean anything. But a few things about it bothered me. First, the building isn’t supposed to be open at that time. Second, the way he was looking around gave me the impression he had no business being there. Third, while I couldn’t really study him, he didn’t look like anybody I’ve ever seen here before.”

  “Plasmagacious!” cried Wendy. “Another mystery! Just what we didn’t need.”

  “It was probably one of Brody’s new men,” said Roger. “He was supposed to have a whole crew on the last plane. Those guys probably have access to every building on the island.”

  Hap shook his head. “What you’re saying makes sense. But something about the way this guy moved made me suspicious. I don’t think he even saw me, and he was still acting spooky.”

  “Okay, we’ll put it in the Sherlock files,” said Roger. “Right now, Operation Scramble has to be our main priority. If we’re going to capture one of Brody’s robots, we’d better get busy. Come on, let’s see if we can figure out how to use these sound guns.”

  An hour later they had come to the painful conclusion that two guns would be insufficient; they needed four to do the job.

  “Could we build a couple?” asked Trip uncertainly.

  “Possible, if we had two months,” said Ray gloomily.

  “That, and free access to the warehouse so we could get spare parts,” said Wendy. “But that’s the whole point of this project to begin with.”

  “Do you need four guns, or just four sound sources?” asked Hap.

  Roger looked up from his pacing. “Why?”

  “Well, I think I might be able to make some extensions for these things.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Rachel.

  “I think I could wire an extra speaker to run off of each of these guns. Would that do what we need? You couldn’t make different sounds, of course. But from the way you were talking earlier, I got the impression that what we really needed was four different sources for the sounds.”