"GABE. Are you AWAKE YET, Gabe? ONE bark for yes, NO BARKS for NO."
In the ensuing silence Borous took the time to input the splice code for another military-grade robodog. Already he had a whole kennel full of them yipping, yapping and sniffing at each others' exhaust ports, but the more they had the more effective the assault would be. In teams of five he had to send them out to Y-17 to receive conductive dampening around their mouthparts. As soon as the five returned he would send more.
"GABE. Please respond. OUR FUTURE depends on it. In case you don't recall, Gabe, we're in the clutches of a foe even more HEINOUS than those locked away in the deepest dungeons of my brain. WE NEED you. The FACILITY needs your WOOFING MIGHT. I have assembled a team of LOYAL HOUNDS to assist in your mission."
"mrrrrrwwwrrrrrrrooooFFF. HUFF. OOF WOOF. WOOF!"
Gabe's tired panting and snorffling followed.
"YES. YES, Gabe. GOOD GABE. I've left a SNACK for you in the main room. You've GOT to be starving after that decramulation. It's got EVERYTHING YOU NEED to get you in FIGHTING CONDITION. Protien! Carbohydrates! Military-grade weaponized stimulants! You'll feel at your best and most DANGEROUS with this power-packed chow. GET THE TASTY, boy. Shake off that MED-X FUNK and go get to snacking."
He listened intently as Gabe dragged himself out of the Auto-Doc, plopping to the floor with a smack-clunk. His groggy whines ensued for a little while.
"POOR BOY. They must have dosed you up INTENSELY for that decramulatory operation. THOSE ARE THE DANGERS of gluttony. Every researcher of genetic interference learns THOSE DANGERS. Usually in high school. Oh, you think it's a GRAND IDEA to make STEAK-DINNER FLAVOURED APPLES. When you're so bloated with apple that you can't MOVE and you're eating the POISONOUS SEEDS because they taste the most like SWEET MUSHROOM GRAVY. Then, you try it out on your WORST ENEMIES, but no! Their claims of eating steak-flavoured apples just get them detention for suspicion of PSYCHOTROPICS use. NOT AS SATISFYING."
"Are we ready yet?" Klein's voice on the intercom, "Time is of the essence."
"Aren't you in danger of being murdered, Klein?" 8 asked, "I thought I saw Dala just a minute ago through my binoculars at the front entrance. She was holding a cosmic knife and it looked like she meant business. Deadly business."
"I'm perfectly safe, what are you insinuating? That I can't protect myself from something so banal as murder by laceration? She'll never be able to get in the Think Tank. I've got it locked down tighter than the singularity point of a primordial black hole. Nothing's getting in here. And the Plebeiantologist is in the attic chattering with household appliances, I think. An acceptable place for him to be boring in until we can figure out some new method of putting him into harm's way."
"Why aren't we sending him in rather than Gabe, again? Isn't this a golden opportunity to watch him be molecularized?"
"Mobius' insistence upon his well-being has convinced me that it'll have to truly look like an accident. As much as I'd like him to have the grand tour of the genocidal fish it'd get Mobius all flustered and upset and complain-y. Only thing worse than having Mobius around is having him actively never around, mopey, locked up in X-42 developing new security measures and projects without my guidance and oversight. That's how that whole Y-0 thing truly happened, and don't let him tell you any different. Mobius was sad due to having his conscience violated because I wasn't being ethical or some hogwash and got careless. Pah! Feelings. There's no room for such endochrinal spurtings in the pursuit of progress."
"EVERYONE! Gabe is AWAKE AND ALERT."
"BrrrrOOOF! WOOF WOOF!"
Gabe's snacking noises ensued. The more he snacked, the more vigorous his barking got. The more vigorous his barking got, the more evident it was that the chems in his bowl were doing the trick. Soon he was snarling, growling and woofing like it was the beginning of a war.
"GOOD DOG, Gabe. GOOD. You're a drug-addled TERROR of Science!"
"Had to recloate by the way," 8 said, "This crater is getting more and more dangerous by the minute. I don't have quite as much control from where I am now but it's better than nothing. Still can get us all surveillance access to Doctor 0's lab. Get whatever spare monitors on your stations turned on and tuned to . . . emergency surveillance channel Epsilon."
"Without DELAY," Borous said as he tuned his workstation to display the correct feed.
"All right. Which button does the . . . monitor . . . things. This one? Ah, yes. No. Not that one. That's the air-conditioning. Ah, here we are. Cleverly labeled 'Monitor things' as I'd expected. Alpha, beta . . . yes, yes. Epsilon? Epsilon! Ah, that's the lab right there, fish and all."
"Both of you have video feed? Borous, didn't Mobius dismantle the X-8 remote access terminal?"
"HE DID. He split it up into DIFFERENT ROBOTS. What he didn't count on, of course, was the fact that having it converted to roving robot form was EXACTLY what I needed to begin splicing more MILITARY-GRADE CYBERDOGS. I'm currently operating off of no less than FOUR loyal Cyberdogs. The controls may be a bit FURRY and SALIVA-COVERED at times, and my ability to fully monitor the situation may be compromised by the occasional trip to the BACKYARD, but I'm still operating at 89% efficiency. My consoles are PACKED FULL OF TREATS and highly functional. NOW. LET US ASSESS."
The walking eyes showed that the lab itself was sheathed in a thin layer of holotech lightwaves. The two entrances were sheathed in it. Spattered in a halo around the lab was a corona of Cram bits. Jeffy's avatar hovered with menace, occasionally glancing in one directon or another before spinning around to face the other way. His shouts were constant and repetitive: the researchers had adjusted their instruments to accept his broadcasts on a single frequency which they'd all turned down in order to discuss the matter uninterrupted.
"Hrrrmph. Yes. Very . . . tricky. I propose . . . that . . . we listen to 8's plan," Klein said.
"My plan?"
"Yes, your plan. The one you're about to inform us of. The plan for penetrating these troublesome defences and disabling the fish once and for all."
"I don't have a plan. I figured that you'd have a plan. You're the ideaologist."
"Hmmmm. Y-yes. Very . . . much so. Borous! Tell us the plan that I told you earlier, but put it into your own words. I want to hear your version. Different perspectives. Yes."
"I was NOT told of a plan. As far as I know, the PLAN was to PENETRATE JEFFY's horrible FISH FORTRESS and NEUTRALIZE HIM with a MINIMUM of harm to Doctor 0, assuming there still IS a Doctor 0."
"Right! So, tell us: how were we planning to, ah, go about it?"
"I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA. I wasn't focused on ANYTHING but building up a reserve of military CYBERDOGS and getting GABE fighting fit. I left the details of attack vectors and general logicstics up to YOU, Klein."
"Typical. Absolutely typical. Do I have to do everything myself around here? Looks like it. Fine, since it's come to this I'll have to put my Plan C into action."
"But what about plan A?"
"Already exhausted. Plan A was going forth with your plan, and beyond that was plan B. Which, by the way, is also in shambles since it consisted of going forth with Borous' plan. In the absence of either of those plans I'd kept plan C as a failsafe."
"Well, okay then. Give us plan C."
"Fine. I will, since I'm forced to show my hand at this injunction. Plan C it is. Yes."
Borous looked over the small sea of panting and whirring Cyberdogs looking for any remaining splicing subejcts. There were none, so he began tallying up the numbers on his forces.
"Well?" asked Doctor 8.
"Well what?"
"Plan C!"
"Okay! Very well! Plan C! Oh, for the love of . . . I can't believe I'm forced to resort to Plan C."
"Klein, we have VERY LITTLE TIME LEFT before Big MT becomes the next CRATER LAKE. I've seen the first Crater Lake: it's a TOURIST TRAP. I recall us DISCUSSING the finer points of tourism EARLIER TODAY."
"I understand that, Borous. Plan C it is."
Borous counted thirty-two Cyberdogs. It wasn't an army but it was more than nothing. Four of them had to remain behind as dedicated terminals. Keeping a steady watered-down stream of Med-X pumping through them along with piles of electric blankets ensured that they wanted to do nothing but sit and nap while the spare electronics he'd assembled for a workspace took advantage of their robotic subsystems and compatible input boards.
"Klein, we'll need to be informed of the details of Plan C if we're going to crack into the lab."
"If that's the case, it's already failed so I don't see the point in continuing with it. Another plan, ruined. Plan C was an attempt to cloud the fact that there was no particular backup plan in store were plan A or B to fail. Good work, 8. Now we're completely without a plan."
"Blast!"
"Except for plan D, of course."
"EXCELLENT TIMING," Borous said, "With the failure of plan C I was concerned we might be truly ALL OUT OF PLAN. INFORM US, Klein."
"Plan D, yes. Plan D. I've been working on plan D for . . . almost a quarter of a minute now. It's still a rough plan, mind you. The doors on the facility, are they pressure sensitive?"
"Like all lab doors."
"Then, once the holotech barrier is weak enough there'll be no issues with Gabe entering the lab. I assume the Stealth Boy radiation fluid is still coursing through his veins rendering him more light-resistant than usual?"
"It has worn off SLIGHTLY, but YES. He is a GHOST of a dog."
"Then the way is clear: we need to adjust the streams of the hologram field away from one of the entrances. Gabe presses his cold, sticky wet nose to the pressure plate and enters. Then he only need navigate past whatever as-of-yet unknown internal security measures, find the correct wires feeding power to the emittors and gnaw on them incessantly until there's no more fish overlord. Then we'll just stroll in, butter a pan and fry him until he's tasty with a side of wild rice. Doesn't a Stealth Boy field bend light? He should be able to just walk right through the holofield."
"Logically? YES. Practically? NOT QUITE. A weaponized holofield, given my rudimentary understanding of it, is somehow composed of a weak remotely-projected BIOELECTRICAL BARRIER upon which the hologram particle wavelengths ride, like welcome FLEAS. Moving organic beings cannot penetrate it."
"Borous, you must have misunderstood the basic principles of holotech," 8 said, "Because that's . . . impossible. First of all, remote-projection forcefields are massively unstable. Secondly, there's no such thing as a bioelectrical barrier. How could the hologram field distinguish between bioelectricity and . . . electricity?"
"ASK MOBIUS."
"I can't. He's disappeared from his lab for the time being."
"Then it will remain an ANNOYINGLY NONSENSICAL MYSTERY."
"So," Klein interjected, "We don't know the nature of holotech's substantiality, eh? Mobius have his information monopoly on that too? Typical in how typical this kind of behaviour is of him. Unimportant: we'll penetrate the lab by force and guile alone. What's our usual way of disabling force fields?"
"Why, I've got the solution for that. The Sonic Emitter was having serious issues with causing extreme warp modulation to force field systems during testing. Totally fries most of them, so, it might work on a composite holotech force sheath. I don't think it'll do much to the hologram itself but it might create an instability in the field big enough to permit a dog to muscle through. Won't be comfortable for Gabe but it's our only shot."
"Excellent!" declared Klein, "Then Plan D is complete, short of a distraction to occupy Jeffy's laserbeam gaze of murder."
"UNDERWAY. These new Military-grade Cyberdogs won't be able to resist the scent of CRAM on the air once the door to X-8 has been opened and their hyperactivity countdown ends. Their FEEDING FRENZY will draw Jeffy's fire long enough for Gabe to sneak through the door. Although it HURTS ME to know I'm sending good dog soldiers into the line of fire, I trust that Gabe will work QUICKLY ENOUGH to minimalize casualties. I've turned off any desire of his to eat any manner of food, temporarily of course. No! That's a bad X-8 console! Do NOT attempt to copulate with OTHER PARTS OF THE CONSOLE!"
"Excellent," 8 said, "Now, we just need someone to fire the Sonic Emitter at the holofield and weaken its integrity at one of the doors."
"Simple! I assume the range on the Emitter is sufficent to fire it from the Dome roof?"
"I . . . well. No. It has an effective range of about ten yards."
The three of them sat in silence, considering this.
"Meaning we'd need to . . . go outside? Into the CRATER? Where there's THINGS?"
"Isn't there a less direct way of weakening force fields? Some code or password or . . . or centerfuge-based long distance plasma barrage? Why don't we just get a securitron to do it? There's plenty out there. Why, there's one now hiding behind a rock! It isn't even doing anything useful!"
"Incompatible manipulators."
"Ah."
Another long silence.
"I'm not going out there."
"Neither am I."
"NOT A CHANCE."
"I'm sure that Doctor 0 isn't busy with anyth- oh yes, right. We're infiltrating his lab. Hmm. Oh, of course. Is Dala still skulking about trying to get inside here and perform unsuccessful surgery on me? Ah, yes. There she is. Oh, clever! She's melting through the door with a superheated cosmic knife. Halfway done, eh? 8, can you have the Emitter delivered to her with the message that Doctor 0 has stolen her precious statue thing and that the only way we'll be able to get in and get it back is to have her blast one of the doors with the thing? She might buy it. It'll get us access and I won't have to take any extra efforts to avoid being murdered."
"TWO CALLUSES with ONE PLASMID."
"Yeah. No problem. It's being delivered as we speak."
While they waited Borous rallied up the Cyberdogs into a circular huddle around the exit to X-8. He went around adjusting their various settings: hyperactivity thresholds cranked to the maximum, pack-order and alpha heirarchy recognition deactivated. They'd run wild, floppy and disoraganized with erratic movements and no unit cohesion. Targeting them wouldn't be simple for a fish whose instincts were based on operating within the group-based movements of unified schools. Then he set about hooking up the command dampening time-locked protocol. Once they were free from the lab there'd be a buffer countdown of fourty-five seconds for them to start going mad with puppy-like glee. Fourty-five seconds was enough to get them to the rendez-vous point: the Cram zone around the fish-dominated lab. Then they would be leaping about wagging their tails and sliding across the grease-soaked earth, near-impossible to predict.
"Hey Borous, Dala's getting the Emitter. Patching you in."
Once again the noises from the crater, including the fish repeating his maniacal gloating off in the distance, could be heard through the securitron's ambient microphone input.
"Doctor 0 has stolen my Adonis?" Dala was saying.
"Correct, ma'am. According to my sources, Doctor 0 is in possession of the object in question."
"What sources?"
"My corrupted data stores are unable to log my sources of information, ma'am."
"Of course. Silly me. Here I am, so distracted by the loss of that which is most infinitely precious to me . . . and, er to science, more importantly. I've forgotten that you're incapable of remembering. What would Doctor 0 possibly want with my Adonis?"
"I am incapable of calculating the worth of this object to another member of the facility, ma'am."
"Of course you are. The worth of my Adonis cannot be calculated in mere coinage. It cannot even be calculated in terms of sentimentality. It is an impossibly incalculably valuelessly valueable object representing the absolute balance of all human qualities."
Klein's voice popped in as a whisper over the channel,
"I told you all, didn't I? This 'formological project.' It's secretly an arts and humanities project."
"NOW NOW," Borous said, "No need to go SAYING THINGS we can't take back if she were to OVERHEAR them."
"Klein? Borous? Why are you speaking quietly in the background of this securitron's voice modulator?"
Doctor 8 sighed, "The signal was 2 way. I thought you'd passed basic telecommunications, the both of you?"
"Blast it all! Well, there goes Plan D, down the toilet like an omnicidal fish."
"DALA. You must understand: we didn't actually say ANYTHING relevant about any alleged ARTS AND HUMANITIES projects. We were simply MUSING on how HORRIBLE the arts and humanities are by comparison with the BEAUTIFUL SCIENCE you perform daily in your laboratory and workshop. The science . . . OF BEAUTY, in fact! It's very scientific, I AM CERTAIN."
"Why are you eavesdropping on me through a securitron? 8? You too? Spying, when we already have a spy on our hands?"
"In all honesty we're just trying to help. Doctor 0 has your project in his lab along with . . . things. Things we need. Plus, that fish on top of it is going to kill us all if we don't hurry up."
"So, Doctor Klein does not in fact possess my Adonis in any way, shape or form."
Klein *pfah'd* through the microphone, "Please. If I wanted to steal someone's project for myself it wouldn't be a statue. It'd be something with much brighter lights and more impressive mechanical parts. Something like a roboscorpion army or a . . . a military-grade microwave beam emitter-slash-cooking device. Note to self: military-grade kitchen appliances. Yes."
"Everyone, everyone. The way is utterly clear," 8 declared, "Dala is the only one of us outdoors enough to administer the sonic emitter blast that will allow Gabe to ram his way through the field of utterly improbable and theoretically impossible force to open the door to Doctor 0's mysteriously heavily fortified laboratory in order to thwart the diabolical plans of Borous' estranged pet fish while surrounded by prancing and frolicking dogs."
Said Cyberdogs were getting restless. Borous' attempts to distract them with squeaky toys were rapidly decaying.
"WE MUST MOVE QUICKLY. The dogs want WALKIES, and they want them IMMEDIATELY. If we don't take action they might start to frolic in the safety of X-8 and Dala will be . . . uh . . . INCONVENIENCED MILDLY by the lack of DECOYS distracting away Jeffy's beams of horrible dea- er, UNKINDNESS."
"Is that fish yours, Borous? His rantings have been giving me aches and pains in my branial area."
"He is merely a speck in the majestic opera of GENETIC MANIPULATION. A speck that has COMMAND of deadly hologram technology, but still a SPECK. Oh, wouldn't he be MAD if he heard that? This signal isn't broadcasting beyond these secure frequencies, is it?"
8 clicked his tongue, "Shouldn't be."
"A SPECK! Dala, you'll have the protection of my loyal Cyberdogs. Yes, the fish MAY have the command of some MILDLY THREATENING death rays from its NOT AT ALL DANGEROUS eyes, but as long as you move quickly no SERIOUS harm should come to you."
"My Adonis is in danger. He is captive, screaming for release. I do not fear death, gentlemen. I fear the loss of progress. I fear the death of innovation. I fear the death of our natural and needful instincts to explore the natural world and expose all of its secrets and wonders to the open air. Besides, we have an experimental matter recombinator somewhere in Y-17 that recombinated the ash of a few test rats and they came back mostly functional. Perhaps head-bumpy and uncoordinated, but alive."
Everyone settled into their postions and prepared themselves for what Klein began calling "Operation: Second Flush." Borous led the dogs with pack of heavily-scented buffout-laced milk bone treats to the front exit and waited for the word to release them.
"So, I fire this . . . emitter at the door? That will permit entry into the lab?" Dala asked.
"Yes, but not for long. Just barely enough for Gabe to force his way through what I'd call an 'localized uncertainty event' in the holofield. It won't fry the field itself. It'll just create a thinness of sorts. You've just got to aim, fire and then I'd suggest hugging the outer wall of the facility. Fish can't see you there, what with floating just above it and all."
"Enough! We're short on time, statues and backup plans as we dally with these details. Emitterate the holothing so that Gabe can dogify the light-carrying electrotubes!"
"Ready, Borous?" 8 asked.
"PREPARED."
"Release the hounds!"
Borous released them. They did not stampede out of the door. In fact, they stood panting right in place at the threshold of the barrier.
"HOUNDS! Release yourselves AT ONCE!" he shouted. They looked up at him, heads cocked, walking in circles. They had absolutely no incentive to rush out and activate their hyperactivity countdown. Instead they just stared at his bag of tasty treats.
"GO! GO!" Borous bellowed, throwing treats out of the door. They followed leaping over each other to snap at them. The more he tossed, the more Cyberdogs flooded out of the building and the faster the treats were eaten up. So Borous began running across the crater in the general direction of the fish tossing treats in front of him surrounded by a cloud of Cyberdogs. Halfway to Doctor 0's lab their countdown finished and they sped off towards their input co-ordinates frolicking and zipping about like mad. Borous watched them go, disturbed by the fact that they had to skirt the steaming lip of the moat. Gabe stayed within the middle of them hiding amongst the rest to avoid being singled out due to being largest.
"WHAT DO I SEE IN THE DISTANCE?" Jeffy roared, "A FOOL PRIMATE WANDERING MY KINGDOM? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH. I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH LAUGHTER! IT IS A LUNGS-BASED ACTIVITY AND LUNGS ARE NOT WELCOME IN MY NEW WORLD. WHAT? IT CAN'T BE . . ."
The fish's red eyes were focused upon Borous. The distance between them was considerable but not too far for comfort.
"BOROUS. MY TORMENTOR. MY FLUSHER. MY MOST WORTHY FOE! I DECLARE YOU ANATHEMA. I WILL BURN YOU AS YOU DROWN! YOU WILL NOT LIVE TO SEE THE DAY THAT I DOMINATE THE OCEANS FROM A CASTLE MADE OF PASSABLY-REALISTIC IMITATION CORAL! DIE!"
As Jeffy blared his warnings Borous was already running at top speed back to X-8. A searing wave of heat fell over him as he darted back in through the doorway and hugged the wall behind it. The door snapped shut as Jeffy's eye beams scored across the lab heating it considerably. The front door was beginning to turn red with heat.
"Borous? Borous, was that you getting hit by those death rays?"
"My coat is STILL SMOKING. Fortunately the range had allowed them to lose CONSIDERABLE FOCUS. I may need some HAIR REPLACEMENT, yes, but NO HARM DONE. Assuming, of course, that my INTERNAL ORGANS haven't been FLASH BOILED and the shock hasn't yet set in."
"It was brilliant, Borous," 8 said, "Jeffy had his eye on you the entire time you were out there. Dala's already almost within range and the fish is completely ignoring the dogs. In fact, he's completely content in trying to melt down the exterior of X-8. Won't work, naturally. I, uh, think. Check your visuals."
On the small viewscreens Borous had plugged into his dogs he saw Jeffy flashing red menacing light. The beams were focused on X-8's front door while dogs circled and pranced around in the field of Cram remains. Dala was hesitant to move in too closely. She hug obstacles to keep herself out of sight. As soon as she was close enough she poked her head out and fired a test shot at the barrier. Gabe, already standing by at the door, tried to poke his head in through the holofield and was repelled as if he'd headbutted a sack full of jelly.
"Dala! Don't pussyfoot around this! It needs a direct shot within the proper range!" Klein shouted, "The fish only wants Borous now! Go zap the door already so we can start getting prepared for a seafood dinner!"
"Klein, the fish is only focused on Borous because identified his cruel progenitor. I don't think he'll allow me to simply stand out in the open and erode his defences."
"Well, do something besides flap at it!"
"How about you come down and fire the gun, Klein? After all, I'm not entirely convinced that you didn't hand my Adonis over to Doctor 0 in order to shift the blame for its disappearance."
"Run in firing, Dala, and then flatten yourself against the building," 8 suggested, "The worst he can do if you're there is maybe scorch the tips of your work shoes. It won't be long before Jeffy realizes Borous was just the distraction."
Dala made a sort of "euh" noise before leaving cover. She made it about five strides, fired two blasts at the barrier, and then threw herself towards the lab. Jeffy reacted immediately by turning towards the wounded side of his holofield and flashed quick but intense blasts from his eyes around the area. Dogs went flipping in all directions, tails smoking. Dala did not stay stuck to the wall but instead ran for the door into the lab. Gabe had managed to open the door and wormed his way through the field halfway. She collided with his rear sending him squirting into the lab like a dart while the weakness formed in the holofield behind him closed up. Jeffy's holographic floating form began to slowly move away from its seemingly fixed position above the lab, like a zeppelin, to angle its eyes down to where Dala was. She blasted the field again and again with the emitter hoping to weaken its integrity but somehow the field wasn't weakening.
"TRYING TO DESCALE ME, ARE YOU? HA HA! IT WON'T WORK! MY HIDE OF IMPENETRABLE LIGHT IS UNDEFEATABLE BY MERE STICKS AND STONES. FOOL TOOLS OF FOOL PRIMATES! BOROUS MAY HAVE ESCAPED, BUT THIS BRASH FEMALE MONKEYSPAWN WILL NOT!"
"No! Dala! It won't work! The field appears to be . . . scabbing up, uh, somehow, to compensate for the earlier tear. I don't even know how this is happening, but you're not getting in that way! Run! Get out of there! Move around to the other side of the lab! Its eyes are going to be able to spot you!"
As he spoke she was already circling around to the other side of the lab. As soon as she reached the auxilliary entryway she took the emitter to it at once. Forcing her arm through the field she slapped the pressure pad to unlock the door. It didn't budge. It was not only shielded from force but needed a key for access.
"WHERE ARE YOU? HOVERING ABOUT THE OTHER SIDE, EH? HA HA HA! NO PLACE TO HIDE NOW! I SHALL SLOWLY AND DELICIOUSLY TURN MY GAZE IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, AND WHEN I DO YOU WILL BE REDUCED TO THE DUST WHENCE YOU CAME!"
"I . . . well, I suppose this is an excellent stress-test for a long-standing hypothesis of mine, now confirmed with one-hundred percent certainty," Dala said.
"A hypothesis? Do go on," Klein replied, "Might as well tell us before you're disintegrated. Part of your partnership research on the circumstances which bring about catastrophic failure with certainty?
Jeffy had turned back around and was slowly looming towards the side of the lab Dala was huddled against.
"Yes, quite related. You see, part of that study was predicting and observing the fates of various individuals and/or groups when put under the advisory guidance of certain sample figures of authority or learnedness. As part of building various scenarios to test these theories I had to come up with lists of specific authorities or mentors. I had compiled a comprehensive list of chances of survival for an individual of average, above average and below average intelligence depending on their guides. Eventually, after running some field tests, I was able to extrapolate percentage chances for certain individuals in groups or alone. I recall now that there was a 91.9% certainty that the three of you working in unison would lead any human being of any level of intelligence to their death."
"Ah."
"YES."
"Well done," 8 commented, sounding impressed.
"Too bad I remembered these numbers only moments ago, otherwise I'd already be in the Dome testing the limb-removal effectiveness of my knife here. Speaking of: Klein, can you double check the status of the organic matter recombinator we were working on? I may need it if fleeing isn't sufficient."
"I, er, yes. Should be somewhere down in storage. Might have to wipe the dust off of it, but-"
A harsh burst of static flared across the crater as a series of deep thuds shook the earth. The rumbling sound was coming from the direction of X-42 and intensified as something gigantic hauled itself out of a hidden chasm beneath the ground near the waste disposal station. At first it appeared to be a gigantic yellow tentacle. It lingered in the air for a moment, waving back and forth, the appendage to an octopus larger than the Dome itself. Then the rest of it ground its way, claws snapping, out of the crater floor and into view.
"Ah, uh, very good then. We have articulation, mobility, all systems are stable," Mobius' voice rasped out, "Is this thing on? Oh my, yes it is! Hello! Hello, everybody! Oh, lovely evening isn't it?"
For a good twenty seconds, nothing in the crater moved or made a sound except for the gleeful snuffling and yapping of exuberant dogs. Jeffy, who had just managed to creep his deadly eyes over the edge of the lab's roof, turned to look at the gigantic roboscorpion that had just emerged from under the ground. He then turned back to Dala who was staring at the roboscorpion, and then back to the roboscorpion.
"Yes yes, I know!" Mobius said, "I'm impressed too! It's much bigger than even I thought it would be! I must have added a millimeter or three to the initial drafts. I thought that it sounded a little big, but then again I don't suppose it's called a 'seismoscorpion' for nothing! Ha ha!"
"Mobius? Are you . . . inside that thing?" Klein asked.
"Ha ha! Oh no! Not even close! Why would I be inside of it? Perish the thought! It's very much remotely controlled. If I were inside of it what would happen to me when it exploded violently upon death? Nothing good, I can assure you of that! M-oh my!"
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS TRICKERY?"
"Oh, a fish! Very interesting. I'm certain that this wasn't here earlier. Klein? Klein, are you there in the Dome? Is Beedle around? He really should be seeing this? Did the inspector arrive? He should see this too! In fact, everyone should be seeing this! It's the first test-run of my new line of impractically gigantic robots!"
"I . . . Beedle? Oh, yes. Beedle! I'll . . . have him called down!" Klein said, "I'll inform the Sink Central Intelligence to direct him right out there, yes! Right out into the open where he can see it. In fact, how about right between your giant so-called scorpion and Jeffy there? Front-row seat for the goings on and explosions. Laser blasts. Yes."
"And the inspector?"
"The inspe- who? Oh, him. Borous, is there an inspector anywhere around there? He was sent over to Y-17 and I haven't seen him since."
"NOT HERE. Unless he's been added to the splicing pool. THAT would mean he WAS here," Borous checked his logs, "The human SPLICING POOL is completely empty. He is NOWHERE in X-8 unless he's HIDING like a communist rat, and WHY would a proud Department of Defence military projects inspector hide from US? Mere SCIENTISTS?"
"Well, find him! It'd be a shame if he missed my seismoscorpion in all of its mobile and functional glory. The paint job alone should be enough to get us another contract!"
"HOW DARE YOU ALL IGNORE ME! DO YOU THINK MERELY BECAUSE YOU POSSESS THE MIGHT OF A COMMON DESERT ARACHNID THAT I AM NO LONGER A SYMBOL OF THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN?"
"An Auto-Doc in Y-17 appears to have performed an operation some time ago," 8 said, "Can't quite tell where the patient was deposited, though. Oh, nevermind! The inspector is still inside the Auto-Doc. Something seems to have gone wrong with the surgery. It's unclear what the problem is to me, it's in medical jargon. Dala, what is a 'cerebrospinal fluid repressurization malformation error?' Are you familiar with this?"
"Oh, that's bad."
"How bad?"
"Do we have any spare biogel?"
"No," Mobius said, continuing to speak through the giant scorpion instead of normal communications channels, "It's all gone! Someone took it and did something with it. I'm guessing that this fish may have something to do with that. Just a hunch, though!"
"FEAR ME! FEAR ME, AND BURN BEFORE YOU DROWN!"
Jeffy began blasting Mobius' seismoscorpion with a focused barrage of laser. Dala took the opportunity to flee the lab towards a nearby military cargo truck which she crouched behind, well out of sight.
"B'oh! What's this? The hull is heating up! Klein? Borous? Is that fish comprised of militarized hologram technology or am I just hallucino-extrapolating again? I mean, really, it would be a fascinating test run of the seismoscorpion's combat effectiveness to have it run up against a deadly hologram, but I need to know if I'm just seeing things or if this is really happening! Oooh! That's getting too hot too fast! Evasive action!"
The seismoscorpion lifted its claws and began sidestepping around the lab. Unfortunately it was far, far too slow to outmaneuver Jeffy's vision as he simply roated in the air continuing to focus his beams on the central chassis.
"Yes, Mobius, the fish is a killer," Klein said, "Borous informed us all about it. He's planning to drown the whole crater with that water there, see? I'm surprised you weren't already aware of this, given your usual attempts to overshadow everyone else in every possible way. Mobius, finally unaware of something that could be a threat to him? Preposteous."
"Water, you say? Would be lovely for cooling off. If the temperature in this thing gets too high it'll blow right up! How about . . . this!"
The scorpion raised its claws to block the beams off. Jeffy persisted in blasting away, confident in his mighty holographic arsenal. The claws began absorbing the heat from the blasts but instead of steaming and scarring they simply soaked it up like a cosmic knife.
"Ha! Saturnite claws, you bubble-blowing menace! How do you like them manner of, er, fruits? Bananas? Grapes? Grapefruits? I think it was grapefruits. How you you like them grapefruits? I'll put up a fight, I will!"
"SILENCE! MELT QUIETLY BENEATH MY GAZE! YOUR PRATTLING IS INCESSANT AND WHOLLY UNWANTED! I DON'T LIKE LISTENING TO ANYONE BUT MYSELF SHOUT ABOUT HOW SUPERIOR THEIR TECHNOLOGY AND RIGHT TO POWER IS!"
Borous attempted to ping Gabe once, twice, thrice and nothing returned. The lab was shielded and the signal distance between Doctor 0's robotics lab and X-8 was just a hair too great.
"I can't tell what's happening to GABE. He's OFF MY RADAR. I sincerely hope he isn't DRINKING from any TOILETS right now instead of carrying out his mission. Any moment now Jeffy's avatar-like form should FADE OUT of existence. ANY MOMENT NOW."
Jeffy continued blasting away at the seismoscorpion whose claws were now nearly white hot. While the claws seemed to be handling the heat fine, the servos connecting the claws to the front arms were smoking and beginning to glow themselves.
"Wh-where are the emitters for this fish? I'd look myself but I'm trying to keep track of all of these test variables. Note to self: heat-absorbing claws . . . must be connected . . . to . . . equally . . . heat dissipating . . . servos . . . or else . . . they will . . . melt . . . off . . . oh, I should have known that in advance. Anyway, can anyone do something about this fish before it causes any more damage?"
"We have NO IDEA where the emitters are. In fact, we suspect they may be shielded and therefore IMPOSSIBLE TO REACH."
"The devil you say? I suppose we'll have to see about that," Mobius said, and the seismoscorpion's tail began to crackle and fizz with mounting energy, "Diverting power to the atomic laser stinger! I'll show you how to cause collateral damage!"
"THERE IS NO WAY TO ESCAPE MY WRATH! I AM INVINCIBLE WITHIN THIS FORTRESS OF UNFATHOMABLE SECURITY!"
"Oh wow! What a sight!"
Beedle, still fully clad in his trauma harness, had found his way out into the crater and was walking right towards the conflict.
"Yes. Yes!" Klein couldn't contain himself, "He's found his way outside, Mobius. There's Beedle, just in time for your demonstration!"
"Beedle? Oh, Beedle! Hello, Beedle! Nice of you to come out! I'm about to test-fire this seismoscorpion's laser tail, hopefully before this humongous fish melts it down to a puddle of ore and scrap electronics!"
"WHAT? WHO DARES INTERFERE!" Jeffy kept one eye beam on the seismoscorpion while his other eye struggled to maneuver around and look at whoever Mobius was talking about, "IS THERE YET ANOTHER FOOL WILLING TO CHALLENGE THE MIGHTY DELUVIAN FISH GOD?"
"Why, this must be the zoo," Beedle said, his voice coming in very faintly through everyone's intercom.
"ZOO? I AM NO ZOO MAMMAL! BURN, PITIFUL CREATURE!"
Jeffy began firing his left eye beam wildly in the direction of Beedle, who seemd to be shielded by some kind of force field of sheer dumbfoundedness. Every single blast shot wild as Jeffy struggled to aim at two spots simultaneously.
"I'LL HAVE YOU YET, YOU . . . YOU . . . WHAT? wHAT IS THIS? WHAT'S HAPPENING? WH- bad dog! That's a . . . a very bad dog! Those aren't for eating! I have some Cram in the back if you want, not all of it went into the bomb!"
All of a sudden Doctor 0's voice was crackling through Jeffy's avatar.
"Bad dog! I- whoa, I mean, no mean to, ah, get aggressive now. I'd really prefer it if you didn't chew on those wires, Gabe. It's not like they were easy to install in a rush or anything. I mean, fine, whatever. Just . . . rip them up, then. I'm not going to argue with an animal a good 50% plus my mass or anything. Was it Klein who put you up to th- INTERFERING WITH MY SYSTEMS! WHO DARES TO ASSAULT MY INSIDES! TREACHERY! DECEIT! A THOUSAND CURSES UPON- chew toy? Oh, sure, pee on it too!"
Jeffy began to flicker and blink in and out of phase. His heat beams wavered with intensity.
"100% charge! Seismocorpion, FIRE!"
The moment that Mobius gave the command Jeffy vanished. A great spark of energy had coalesced at the tip of the tail and, with a crack, it broke into a beam.
"Did someone turn on the overhead li-"
Beedle never finished his sentence. The atomic blast struck the roof of the lab at an angle, devestating it. The concussive force of the blast sent the decoy Cyberdogs flying towards the Dome. Most plopped into the moat, which had cooled down enough that it was only as hot as a cranked-up jaccuzi, and the rest went sprawling across the dirt and rocks before getting up to hop around some more with their tongues flapping about. Beedle caught a piece of flying rebar and concrete with his torso and went flying off, followed by a rushing cloud of dust from the entire above-ground section of the lab collapsing in on itself. For a few moments static dominated all communcations channels.
"Hooo! Did you see that, everyone?" Mobius finally came in crackling, "I didn't expect for the blast to be so . . . blasty!"
"I . . . explosi . . . . on . . . what . . . commun . . . tions?"
"What? Oh, dear, I forgot about the EMP shockwave."
" . . . ypical, Mobius. Blowing things up without . . . yone's approval," Klein came in, his transmission clearing up.
"Success!" declared 8.
"I'm honestly impressed," Dala said, "I'm still alive. A little irradiated, yes, but alive. I didn't expect that."
"We must MOVE IN ON THE LAB, gentlemen," Borous declared, "We haven't a MOMENT to waste. JEFFY may have contingency plans, and it is CERTAIN that he's manipulating the magnetohydraulics pumps from WITHIN the lab."
"And my Adonis, no less."
All of the Think Tank members with the exception of Mobius left their stations and began moving in on Doctor 0's lab. Dala arrived first, of course, with Borous jogging along towards the smoking wreckage a few minutes later. The two of them examined the ruins of the lab cautiously, making sure not to disturb any more dangling bits of concrete that might fall from the remains of the walls.
"The majority of his lab was underground, correct? Doctor 0 hasn't been crushed? I'd hate for him to die like that: unpunished for his thievery."
"I ASSUME SO. I can see a SEALED DOOR back there behind all of this rubble. It's UNLIKELY that Doctor 0 is responsible for anything, Dala. If he were behind this it would already have COLLAPSED triumphantly. Jeffy is probably holding him ransom right now with electrodes glued to every spot on his body with HIGH CONCENTRATIONS of NERVE clusters."
"For the sake of the Think Tank, I hope you're right Borous. I do not want to have to be judge, jury, executioner, or any sort of judicial grim reaper. I just want my work back in the palms of my hands, between my fingers, my skin pressed against it's . . . uh, progressive significance."
Doctor 8 appeared from out of nowhere carrying a toaster which he'd rigged his Knobulator to.
"Whew! Well then, everything looks to be in order. Is the lab secure? Borous, come in. Has Gabe sent any confirmation of the status of the inside of the laboratory? I thought I picked up Doctor 0's voice for a moment back there, unless that was some Sierra Madre interference."
Borous fussed about with his communications device.
"Gabe? GABE, COME IN," he frowned at it, "GABE? Are you available? Are you CHEWING on TASTY WIRES? PLEASE RESPOND."
He shook the communicator, tapped it, then fiddled with the knobs on it.
". . . when an irresistable force such as you . . . meets an old immovable object like me . . ."
Borous flipped it shut.
"NOTHING. The lab seems to still have some shielding or interference, which means we need to CLEAR THIS RUBBLE IMMEDIATELY. Mobius? MOBIUS, you're the one with the SEISMOSCORPION. Can you clear this rubble without making MORE RUBBLE?"
The gigantic machine, its claws smoking badly, jittered and shuttered in place.
"I, m'uh," Mobius stuttered, "There seems to be some issues here. It's not responding properly to my commands at present. I think I can jimmy out the kinks and spook the gremlins away . . . lets see . . . diagnostics systems . . ."
"I'll call the securitrons," Dala said keying something into her own comm device, "They're fully capable of moving rubble of this weight. I think."
They came streaming in over the hill six in all and set about tossing bits of rubble aside.
"One's missing. At least one," Dala said with her eyebrows narrowed, "And I called for all of them."
"Is that who keeps battering himself against the Dome door?" Klein asked.
"Aren't you supposed to be here instead of THERE, Klein?"
"Ha! I'm supervising. There's nowhere I'd rather not be than anywhere near an atomic laser-bearing seismoscorpion designed and operated by Mobius nor Doctor 0's shamefully cluttered excuse for a laboratory. Glorified workbench, more like it."
"Er, gentlemen? And Dala?" Mobius sounded perplexed, "The, ah, seismoscorpion isn't . . . feeling well. Diagnostics aren't coming back with anything but horribly alarming warnings. I would suggest heading, er, indoors. Immediately. You do have a 'doors' to head into, don't you?"
Both of the seismoscorpions' claws abruptly cracked free from its arms and fell to the earth, where they began melting slowly through the sand turning it to black glass. Sparks fired out of where they'd dropped off like 4th of July fireworks. Somewhere deep inside of its hull a sharp twanging noise sounded one, twice, three times before a large chunk of plating popped off with a horrible ripping sound.
"Oh me oh my, that system wasn't what I'd call 'non-essential.' Lets see if I can reroute the . . . oh, silly me! Ha ha! The power redirection channels fed right through that! Well, call that an oversight in design. If my calculations are correct, and they always are, the seismoscorpion will explode violently enough for them to hear the boom in New Vegas unless I can get it back into its loading bay within the next eighty seconds. Please, ah, be indoors as soon as possible! I'd hate for all of your careers to end so prematurely! Lets see, five out of six legs still work . . ."
Mobius began steering it away at an achingly slow pace, one step at a time. The securitrons had managed to clear the upper half of the lab door, but the lower half was still covered by several gigantic pieces of cement.
"FASTER, MACHINES! Our LIVES, and by that extension YOUR lives due to your only purpose being to SERVE US, are at stake here!"
"Can't they use their lasers or something?" 8 said, fingers drumming against the toaster, "Use . . . grenades? Anything? It's like watching an elderly woman try to assemble a jigsaw puzzle without her glasses on."
"Enough," Dala waved the securitrons away from the door, "Begone. Clear the area."
"DALA. Where are you SENDING our ONLY HOPE FOR SURVIVAL?"
She ignored Borous, unsheathing her still blindingly hot knife from its insulation sheath and slid it straight into the door. Wrenching it sideways she slashed right through it as if it were heavy clay. At the corner she struggled for a moment to twist the knife perpendicular but managed and cut downwards. After a few moments she'd cut a rectangle into it.
"Cheap Vault-Tec construction. They trust doors made of these pitiable alloys to protect them from nuclear war. I wouldn't trust them to keep out a summer breeze. Can one of you administer a percussive blow to the door, please? It needs a little love tap."
8 awkwardly picked up a chunk of concrete, stared at it, and then looked at Dala.
"Does this work?"
"It should, primitive as it is."
The seismoscorpion began making a loud, terrible whining sound as it attempted to mount an abrupt crest of rocks.
"Climb, you! Climb!" Mobius shouted through it, "At this rate you won't make it past the waste disintegration platform before you erupt in a magnificent kablooie!"
"I feel so . . . indigenous," 8 grimaced as he reared back with the rock and threw it in a clumsy arc at the door. The piece she'd cut fell right in leaving a dark hole rimmed with red.
"Inside. Quickly. Try not to burn yourself. I suggest a reckless leap headfirst."
Dala did so, flinging herself very unscientifically through the hole neatly avoiding the edge. Borous burnt himself three times before finally getting the courage to just leap in. 8 grabbed two more pieces of cement to protect his palms and flung himself inside. His foot caught on the outer edge searing his pants before Borous and Dala yanked him inside and they all bolted down the hall away from the aperture.
"Hmph! Well, so much for the science of preservation. I suppose the science of explosive demolitions will have to-"
When the seismoscorpion exploded it did so with such violence that the remaining walls of Doctor 0's lab were leveled. A gigantic slab of concrete slammed right through the blockage and door before ripping through the opposite wall leaving a yawning hole wide open to the crater where there once was a ground floor. Borous, Dala and 8 had already retreated down the stairs to safety but their ears were left ringing from the blast.
"Klein? Klein, come in!" 8 shouted into his Knobulator.
"Mrrzhzhrrrfrrzzl . . . ? Brrrforrrzzzzlzll!" was all that came out.
"Klein! Oh, hell. The signal dampening. If the Verbal Assault Turret was shaken apart at all by that explosion we're going to be quite possibly fatally off-schedule for the pending nuclear attack."
The stairs descending into Doctor 0's primary workspace were nearly non-navigable due to all of the spare scrap skirting the steps. More than once on the way down they slipped and nearly fell the rest of the way due to a stray ball bearing or chromed piston. Once they'd reached the bottom of the stairs the three of them entered with their weapons at ready: Dala with her knife, 8 holding the Sonic Emitter Dala had dropped, and Borous with his incredibly loud and officious voice shouting,
"JEFFY! Do NOT attempt to resist. We're here to END your REIGN OF PROBLEMATIC ANNOYANCE."
Doctor 0 looked up from his work bench, confused.
"Dala? Klein? Borous? I . . . what? How did you get in here? Are you here for Gabe? He totally messed up a bunch of my super important stuff just a second ago. I mean, it still smells like dog markings in here and I used enough abraxo on that corner to kill a mutated elephant. Oh, don't tell me: you're here because Klein put you up to it?"
The three of them halted in place. Doctor 0 was sitting right in the middle of the room, completely unmolested, surrounded by robot parts and junk as if nothing was wrong.
"Klein. I'm sure it was Klein. He hates it whenever I do anything great! I mean, here I am, surrounded by some of the most sophisticated security I've ever seen here in the dome and he still manages to get your dog, Borous, to come and wee-wee on it. He's shamelessly egotistical! He's not listening to this, is he? Klein? Are you there, you lunkhead? You . . . you big bully? I hope not. You're not invited to my lab today!"
"Doctor 0 . . . I . . . we thought you'd been taken hostage by Jeffy."
"Who?"
"JEFFY, the most EMBARRASING MISTAKE in my otherwise SPOTLESS career of PLAYING GOD with the very building blocks OF LIFE."
"I don't have a clue who you're talking about. I'm the only one here besides the fish."
"YES. THE FISH."
"His name is Jeffy? I mean, he has a name? I just needed his brain to run a couple of the external systems."
"He nearly destroyed the entire crater, 0."
Upon hearing this Doctor 0 rose from his seat and threw his hands up in the air,
"That name! Always, that name! I'm through with that name! Let me show you exactly what I think of that stupid letter you keep calling me. I've fixed that. I've fixed it once and for all! Now it's my chance to yell that word all of you just love shouting whenever you come up with something amazingly great and innovative! It's my turn to say it! Don't even try to take it away from me! Are you sure Klein isn't listening? I'd really like him to hear this. I mean, I know I said I was glad he wasn't around but I take that back: he should really hear this."
Doctor 0 walked over to an object covered with a cloth lounging amongst half-deconstructed robots and swept the shroud from it. Its lower half appeared to be that of a Mister Handy. Where the main globe of its upper chassis would normally be placed was instead a glass globe. Swimming angrily around inside of what appeared to be a thinned mixture of biogel and saline solution was an ordinary sized goldfish. Doctor 0 flipped a panel open, pressed a few buttons and then shut it again.
"Klein? Klein, are you there?"
"Eh? Who is this? Doctor 0, is that you? I thought you were being hilariously tortured into submission by a creature some hundredth your size."
"Not today, Klein. Behold! Yes, that's right. I said it! Behold!" he reached over to his pressing machine and grabbed something, "My new NAME TAG."
He attempted to clip it on in one deft motion but it ended up hanging at a steep angle.
"Be . . . behold! I say! Beho- uh, one second," cursing, he fumbled with the pin before getting it straight, "Behold!"
Dala, Borous and 8 leaned in close to get a better look at it.
"Is that made out of . . . tin can?" asked Dala.
"Made of- stop it! The slash! Look at the slash!" 0 exclaimed.
"Hmm."
"Hmm!"
"QUITE."
"What? What are you all looking at?" Klein said.
"It's right there!" 8 said.
"That is DEFINITELY not an 'O.'"
"Exactly! I am, henceforth, to be known solely by the name of DOCTOR ZERO."
Klein scoffed through the radio.
"Preposterous. Your name tag, 0. There's no slash. We all saw it."
"No no, Klein. It's a zero. There's a slash and everything. I mean, you really need to have a look at it yourself. There's no doubting it."
Doctor Zero beamed as they finished examening it. DOCTOR ZERO (with slash), HEAD OF ROBOTICS. The metal pressed to make it was tarnished and rippled by contrast with the rest of the team's smooth tags, as well as having the Tri-radii-oscillator symbol on the wrong side, but it looked enough like a name tag to count.
"And you thought I'd been taken captive? Look at me, walking free and easy with a brand-new lease on my title. I corrected what horrible mistake Mobius made and all of you, especially Klein, can take your words, inscribe them onto the genome of some vegetable you despise, and eat them right up."
"What we're going to be having for dinner remains to be seen, Zero. I don't believe you'll be eating anything if you don't relinquish my work," she held up her knife, "Give me back my Adonis."
"Your what?" Zero asked, looking incredulous.
"My Adonis. All intelligence pointed to the fact that you've taken it. That Mister Gutsy there, the one you've turned into a fish tank: that was the Saturnite Facility's former front door security. It's proof that you're responsible for that break-in that caused all of my . . . previous experiments to fall into a pit of molten slag due to a malfunctioning laser. After that, my workstation in Higgs had its security measures compromised and my Adonis was stolen away from me. None of the other members of the Tank have seen it. Given your already suspicious behaviour, including the intensive security you've built up around your lab for some unknown purpose, it's evident that not only are you the thief but it is also likely that you're operating under the orders of the infiltrator we're still allegedly looking for. So, Zero, return it to me or I'll be forced to abandon the last remaining moral event horizon standing between myself and theoretical conscienceless madness."
Zero began backing away from the waves of heat the knife was radiating, his hands up in protest,
"I . . . what, tha-tha-that statue you've been working on? I, what? You . . . oh, you think I took that? I don't have anything to do with a statue. I don't even know what it looks like. Are those the things you had down in the mineral harvesting area where the laser was? Because-"
"So you admit that the laser was your fault?"
"No! I mean, well, ah . . . yeah. Look, I needed it for . . . the . . ." he stuttered, "Okay, okay! I tried to modify my original nametag and it exploded everywhere and I didn't need the laser for any robot fists at all! I just wanted to be named properly! I fell over myself in the break room trying to avoid your door security, who by the way you never instructed to give me clearance to the facility, and then he blew up because I couldn't remember the correct failsafe command to get him to stop trying to kill me! I didn't want its chassis to go to waste and I didn't want you thinking I was a spy so I stole it and brought it here and turned it into a fish tank. So what? I just wanted to be Doctor Zero! Is that too much to ask, Dala? And I don't have your stupid Adonis! I don't even know what it looks like! Statues are meaningless to me. They don't have any articulated joints or servos or pistons or hydraulics or anything neat about them. They just . . . stand there! What good is a big thing made out of metal if it doesn't walk around firing some big laser gun or shooting missiles? Even Robert House turned that floozy actress obsession of his into a harem of sleazy sexbots instead of just having some beret-wearing drug addict carve up some dull and lifeless statues. Oh, that reminds me Dala: I'm not a robosexual! Never was! I've never thought about creating the perfect robot girl who would say 'wooooow' at everything I did even when it went horribly wrong! I have never, not even once or twice in the middle of the night after a bad day of dismantling House's stupid, horribly designed boltbucket robots considered doing that. So . . . so there!"
Dala paused, narrowed her eyes, and then glanced around the room before turning to Borous and 8.
"If he were to hide a picturesqe apex of the human form somewhere in this laboratory, where would he put it?"
Borous and 8 scratched their heads, looked at each other, then back at her and shrugged.
"He PROBABLY doesn't have it, Dala."
She glared at Borous.
"You told me he'd stolen it."
"Yes, under the ASSUMPTION that he was enslaved by either a spy or Jeffy. It doesn't look like EITHER of those things is PARTICULARLY true. The SP part, debatable. However, JEFFY is clearly under ZERO'S control."
"Also," 8 chimed in, "Klein was the one who told us to tell you, so, if we're wrong it's really his fault."
Dala looked at them, then back at Zero who was wiping sweat from his brow, then at the fish, then at her knife, then at the ceiling.
"Nobody. Nobody knows where it is," she sighed.
"Nope."
"Not really."
"If you're not hiding it here, Zero," she said, "Then why all of the security measures? What did you have to hide, if not something dreadfully important and quite possibly stolen?"
Zero waited for her to sheath her knife before relaxing.
"I needed to protect my project. At first I thought it'd be safe enough since nobody really visits the lab here at all, but then I realized that the mind control thing could make any of you do anything you normally wouldn't. For example: visit my laboratory for any reason other than to scold me for not 'cleaning up the mess.' My lab, my rules by the way! I figured the best solution to keeping the mentally enslaved from getting inside would be to confuse them with the sudden disappearance of the lab itself. There was a pre-existing framework in X-13 for using a hex-count configuration of Stealth Boys as a method of concealing something larger than a humanoid. Lifted that, applied it to the lab: problems! Not enough 'computing power' to manage the field . . . or something, the terminal was vague about what it wanted. So I needed a better computing framework, right? Had to lower myself to imitating House," he spat into an upturned dome of armour plating, "And reverse-engineer the Robobrain tech along with compliments from Borous' Cyberdog cerebral networking. Took the Y-17 biomed gel that nobody was using and thinned it out with some saliene solution and just a pinch of Nuka-Cola Victory. Bingo! Conductive brain fluid! Then I had to find a brain: big problem. Brains aren't as hot of a commodity here in the crater like when those war protestors from Hopeville showed up."
"Those WERE productive times," sighed Borous.
"Besides, I didn't want a human brain. They think too much, make decisions for themselves. Requires, uh, knowing neurology to make them not be so uppity about being stuck in a jar and used as a glorified CPU. Why not a fish? I already had a broken Mister Handy and an XXXXL Repconn space suit helmet. Figured my best chance to find a fish would be the nearest source of water and the only water in the facility was either in the hazmat testing grounds or magnetohydraulics, and why would we possibly have fish in the hydraulics? It'd be fish-cakedraulics. So I put on my radiation suit and went to Hazmat and poked around in the glowing green pseudoliquid for anything living. Eventually I found Jeffy after stumbling across some . . . other things. Tried to return him, got sidetracked by deathbots, nearly killed by a cazador, made it back. Filled the fish tank with the conductive brain fluid, tossed in a little bit of mentat powder for flavour and then suddenly he was online."
"That would explain the sudden disappearance of the lab. But why the hologram emitters?"
"Huh?" Zero furrowed his brow, "How'd you know I was using holotech?"
"Why do you think we showed up here?" 8 said, "Jeffy had manifested himself above your lab as an improbably gigantic fish. He's been flooding the crater with water from magnetohydraulics and blowing up everything within range of his laser eyes."
"What? But . . . oh. I suppose that makes sense. He did keep swimming in funny patterns from time to time. He figured out how to turn himself into a gigantic militarized hologram? I mean, the day a fish who never even graduated basic algebra knows more about how to run your own anti-infiltration devices is . . . a . . . normal day for me, in all honesty. He didn't blow up anything important, right?"
8 brought his Knobulator over to Zero's bench, fiddled with the knobs and showed him video feed of the blackened and smoking remains of the top of his own lab. Some yards away the smoking upturned remains of Mobius' seismoscorpion sat buried under a pile of charred rubble. Zero whistled.
"Guess my, uh, plan worked better than I ever could have designed it on my own. Don't know whether to be proud or cringe."
"But what were you actually protecting, Zero?" Dala asked.
"Protecting? What do you mean?"
"What project were you hiding from us? The one you were afraid would be sabotaged?"
"Oh! Uh, well, um . . . the security measures, of course. They were a big, complicated mess to figure out. Nearly got killed, even. Now that is dedication. Has Klein ever almost died from something he was trying to do?"
"Stubbed his toe once during Auto-Doc development," 8 said after some thought.
"Compare that to nearly soiling yourself running from a cazador! Zero, 1. Klein? Negative, like, fifty."
"JEFFY," Borous said, his face warped huge and toadlike by the glass bowl, "Just look at him. Treading water, trying to murder me with his UNBLINKING GAZE. There's no more security systems he's conencted to, RIGHT ZERO?"
Zero went over and fiddled around with the braink tank's console.
"Nothing major. He can still access magnetohydraulics, apparently. Let me fix that before we're all- ah! killed! Whew. Okay, he's isolated from that now. Most he can do now is turn on and off some of the stairway safety lights. Why didn't you tell me he was draining the reactor coolant?"
"Is there a F66 input on this thing?" 8 asked as he looked over the tank.
"Uh . . . th- um. I usually press these buttons here when I want it to make, er, stuff happen," Zero pointed to the panel he'd been using. 8 squinted at it, made some adjustments and then plugged a spare wire from his Knobulator into it and began knobbing.
"There we . . . go. Reactor's not so hot anymore. Eh? By the- these magnetohydraulic routing systems are all sorts of inefficient. Just let me tweak this one here and . . . ew, those flow intersections are so . . . so asymmetrical. Straight lines, straight lines. Nice and . . . straight. Those explosions have ruined their patterns."
Dala examined the mess of wires twisted like spaghetti from Jeffy's tank leading to every corner of the room and out.
"You mean to tell me, Zero, that you put together a multiple-layer experimental jury-rigged security system assembled from various leftover lab projects; the security system that was so lacking in security that it was easily taken over by its own operating system, was all put together for the purpose of protecting . . . the security system that you put up in order to protect itself from what it was protecting itself from."
"My nametag was also here!" Zero protested, jabbing a finger at it, "What if the spy wanted everyone to call me that horrible letter? Drive me mad?"
"COME NOW, Jeffy," Borous trawled a fish catching net through the semi-viscious liquid trying to nab him, "Theres NO WAY OUT of this. You're coming BACK TO THE LAB where we can genetically isolate the EXACT CAUSES of your inner demons and RUTHLESSLY eliminate them with a proton gun."
The fish kept ducking into the deepest edges of the bowl where the net could barely reach.
"How about just FLUSH THE TANK, Zero?"
"But the brainial fluid is-"
"Eh? Dala? Borous?" Klein came in over Borous' communicator, sounding nervous, "Are you done laughing at O's attempts to pretend he can design things? Because I need your . . . consultation. In person. Immediately. At the Dome."
"Don't listen to him," Zero said, "He's probably just lost his pencil really far back underneath his terminal and wants someone to bend down and grab it for him. I've had to retrieve those for him five times since I was hired here. Five! Never again, not once. Teach him to keep a ruler around like everyone else does. And he'd call these incidents "emergencies." Ha. Mild inconveniences."
"Zero? Pardon me for saying so, but you're useless at distinguishing an emergency from a mild inconvenience. Those were legitimate pencil-oriented emergencies and not to be discounted. This . . . this is a much bigger emergency. It's person related, I think. Someone's knocking on my door and I don't know who it is. Whenever I try to ask "who's there" they don't respond with their name, occupation or even juvenile wordplay. They just make this . . . soggy, moaning and breathing sound. If I had any weapons I'd just vapourise the door and them, whoever they are, but I'm both unarmed and the most important member of the staff. So, do something. It sounds like it might be at least partially human."
"ON OUR WAY," Borous said into his communicator, "Zero, I SUGGEST you follow. If we're forced to get into a . . . a . . . you know. One of THOSE."
"A what?" Dala asked.
"One of those THINGS that you do when two human beings contend for DOMINANCE over the other by implementing a variety of HARMFUL measures to body and mind."
"A fight?" Zero suggested.
"DON'T SAY IT AGAIN," Borous said through his teeth, "FIGHTS are the WORST things imaginable. I've seen them, peeking out from slightly ajar bathroom stall doors while standing on the toilet rim in order to keep my Ralphie the Robot red sneakers out of sight. Fists. Bloody NOSES. INDIAN BURNS. It's BARBARIC. I won't let us get into one without having at LEAST a three-to-one advantage, especially if whoever's menacing Klein took AFTER-SCHOOL KARATE CLASSES. Oh, how they LAUGHED when they found out I was in the CHESS CLUB. I LAUGHED TOO whilst pouring REFINED STINGING NETTLE EXTRACT into the freshly-dried HIGH-SCHOOL GYM LAUNDRY."
8 unplugged his device and they all made their way out of the lab, the lights on the staircases egomanaically blinking on and off. Once on the surface they fled the washed out ruins of Zero's lab across the bridge to the Dome. The water was draining visibly as they crossed back down into the depths of the reactor system. High above the sky was starting to turn purple with the evening and red with the ominous possibility of nuclear death.
Some many yards from the Dome they stopped after 8 waved everyone behind a concrete barrier. Someone was standing in front of the door to the Tank dressed in medical scrubs. They appeared to be leaning against the door, forehead against, slapping its surface with their limp palms.
"Who could-"
"Shh," 8 put his finger to his lips and then fumbled around in his coat until he found a tiny set of headphones. Putting one bud into his ear he plugged into the Knobulator and pointed its antenna at the strange figure. He made a face, then handed it around.
"Muuhhhhh . . . oooooohhhhh . . . GHAkkkl . . . uhhhhhHHHHhhH . . . UNH . . . ehhhhhehehehehhh . . . ooooeeeeHOOOOO . . ."
Glances and shrugs went all around.
"I haven't got all day, alleged colleagues," Klein barked through Borous' reciever. All of the jumped in shock as he juggled it and muted it. The figure at the door spun around just as Zero flung himself on top of all three of them in an attempt to hide behind the waist-high barrier.
"nnnnnnnggggGGGGGGGGG . . . aaahhHHhhHhhhhHHHHH . . ."
Sliding footsteps along the concrete, meandering to the left and then to the right. All four of them had a magnificent view of the blue grass as they huddled in a pile. The footsteps stopped.
" . . .nnnnnNNnnnnnnnnnmmmmmmma. AHHhh. HGN?"
It barked out a few more noises and continued shuffling in their direction.
"What do we do?" whispered Zero.
"I'm considering excreting urine in attempt to frighten it off with the smell," rasped Borous.
"Anyone have any weapons?"
"I have the knife," Dala muttered, "I was planning to threaten Klein with it but I don't really know how to use it unless whoever I'm planning to dissect is utterly immobile and lying on a flat surface. This, um, thing. Flesh thing. It's not immobile. It's walking towards us."
"Purely theoretically," 8 whispered, "And bear with me here, please. Theoretically, holding the knife by the handle and sort of, er, moving your arm while you try to get the sharpened side of it to connect with whatever you want to hurt is supposed to work. I mean, I've read about it in books before. Sounds messy."
"Do you think I could just hold the knife straight out in front of me and it would, uh, jump on it? It can't be that smart, can it?"
"GHHHHHHHHHHRUH- snnnnnRFFFNFNFNNNnnnnnnn hhhhhoooooooohhh . . ."
Zero poked his head up a little bit to get a look. The thing had its back to him but wasn't more than two or three yards away.
"It's. Right. There," Zero gasped under his breath. All of them immediately went still as corpses.
"GHNNNNNNNnaaaahhhhhh . . . HHRFFF . . ."
Its uneven feet stumbled closer. Both of its hands slapped down hard on the concrete as its wet exhaling grew closer and closer. Borous felt something brush against his leg and he instinctively jerked it back, striking Zero in the inner thigh with his knee. Zero yelped.
"GNNNAAAHHHHHH!" the thing screamed, its saliva misting down on their cowardly pile. Zero felt it grab his coat with both hands and pull. He was lifted, kicking, off of the rest and came face to face with a bald-headed and scarred stranger.
"Greetings! Greetings everyone!"
Mobius' incredibly loud voice boomed out over the crater. The thing's gashed and sneering face looked up from Zero towards the sky before dropping him back onto the grass.
"Does anybody know where I left my signature glove? I just can't seem to find the thing anywhere and I have to do some electrical work! Hello? Anyone?"
Hearing a voice boom out from the sky seemed to startle the monster long enough for Zero to get up on his knees and, with a cracking falsetto of a "nyahh!," shoved it with both arms outstretched. Caught by surprise, it tumbled backwards onto the ground. All four of them rose to their feet and ran towards the Dome door as quickly as they could all while panting like athsmatics. Once they got to the door they began pounding on it as hard as they could, yelling and yammering.
"OPEN THIS DOOR AT ONCE, KLEIN," bellowed Borous.
"Oh NO it's getting up," moaned Zero.
"What? Is that you?" Klein said, "Is it still out there?"
"YES," they all screamed in unison.
"Then why, pray tell, would I want to open the door?"
" . . ." the thing growled as it got to its feet.
"If you don't open the door, Klein," Dala gasped, "I'm going to tell everyone about that project."
"Wh-what thing?"
"That project with your name on it that may or may not have been your idea."
Klein made an unpleasant noise.
"Oh, you wouldn't. We discussed this."
"I would, Klein. In fact, I will. Everyone, I'd like you to know that Klein's-"
"Enough! Enough! Get inside, you miscreants! The things I do in the name of science."
All of them fell tumbling through as the door suddenly slid open. It closed just in time for the moaning thing to slap against it uselessly.
"If we didn't all have indefinite tenure without the possibility of dismissal," Zero said as he brushed himself off, "I'd vote for Klein's immediate tar and feathering."