The Truth Of The Matter Part 7

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Time Running Out

The world seemed to spin around me. I thought the jolt was going to overwhelm me. Waterman dead. Executed by the Homelanders while I lay unconscious and undiscovered in the Panic Room.

And all the others? Gone. Escaped? Dead? I didn't know.

I stood up and staggered back to the door. I leaned heavily against the frame.

Waterman was dead. My contact. My ally. The only ally whose name I knew. Even if I managed to get out of this death trap alive, where would I go now? Who would I turn to for help?

A wave of hopelessness washed over me. I felt as if all my strength had drained away. For a second or two, I actually thought I wouldn't be able to move again.

But there was no time for that. No time to indulge that sort of emotion. The bomb was ticking. I had to keep going, had to. Waterman was dead. All right. That's the way it was. He had died trying to protect America from its enemiesa"trying to protect liberty from its enemies. A lot of people have died that way in a lot of places over the years. G.o.d knows their namesa"every one of thema"I believe thata"but they're beyond my help. The only thing I could do was go on, never give in, keep fighting the fight they fought.

I pushed off the door. I forced down my dizziness and sickness. I felt something flaring up inside me, a new heat, a new fire of determination. I knew I had only minutes to live. But I was going to use every one of them. I was going to do everything I could to get out of here, to find help, to find someone who would believe me when I told them about the Homelanders, to find someone who would help me stop them, help me bring them down.

A new bolt of pain went through my head, and for a second I was afraid another memory attack would knock me over. I couldn't let that happen. I ma.s.saged my brow with my fingers, trying to think. My eyes went to Waterman's body one more time. The pool of blood. The outstretched hand . . . I wondered . . .

As much as he could, Waterman had tried to watch out for me, to think of me and my safety. He had brought me to this bunker in the hopes of evading the Home-landers. He had hidden me in the Panic Room so I wouldn't be discovered during the memory attacks. He had left me the symbol so I could escape if he was captured or killed. And now . . .

I looked at the pool of blood on the floor. The trail of blood leading into the room. The second pool beneath Waterman's head.

He had been shot in the doorway. He had struggled to get into the room. He had managed to position himself before he was shot againa"position himself with his hand outstretched, pointing . . .

I turned and followed the direction of Waterman's hand. He was pointing to the slim section of wall beside the doorway. That's all it was, a slim section of wall between the door and a metal shelf. Blank wall.

I went to it. I raised my palm. I traced the shape of the house against the blank wall. Instantly, there was the sound of a motor. A panel slid back. A small panel this time. A hidden cache about the size of a paperback book.

I reached into the cache and at once my hand touched a metal object. My fingers closed over it. I drew it out.

I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. It was the little gizmo Milton One had been holding when I first came into the compound. The little control panel the size and shape of an iPhone. It was the thing Milton One had used to control Milton Two, that flying security robot that had blasted me when I tried to escape from Waterman and Dodger Jim.

I looked from the little device back to Waterman's body where it lay on the floor.

"Thanks," I whispered to him.

The Homelanders had killed hima"and now they were trying to kill me, to make sure there was no one left who could stop them.

Well, they could try. But at least now I had a weapon. Waterman had left me a weapon.

And I wasn't going down without a fight.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

The Battle Begins

Four minutes thirty-three seconds . . . 4:32 . . . 4:31 . . .

I was glad to get out of that room of death. But the moment I moved back to the main part of the bunker, I saw the bomb again and the seconds ticking away. I stood in front of the device, holding the small controller to Milton Two in my hand. Four minutes twenty-five seconds now . . . So little time.

I tore my eyes away from the red numbers and looked down to study the controller.

At first, the little screen was blank. But I found a b.u.t.ton built into the top of the device and pressed it. The gizmo's monitor light came on. The small screen showed a terrain map with a green dot blinking on it and several blinking red dots as well. There was also a series of numbers up in the right-hand corner. More than anything, it reminded me of a PSP video-game screen.

Which was a good thing. I was always a pretty decent gamer. Not a game-dork or anything: I didn't sit around getting fat on Pop-Tarts while fragging Covenant Grunts for fourteen hours at a time or anything. But when a cool new game came out, whether it was an old-fas.h.i.+oned platformer or a full-blown shooter, I was usually the first among my friends to get the hang of it. For some reason, I had a knack for figuring out a level even while escaping a horde of zombies through an underground storage facility. My dad sometimes said kind of bitterly that my generation had developed some new sort of DNA that helped us understand gamesa"but I think he was just jealous because he usually got killed while he was still lifting up his eyegla.s.ses in order to see which b.u.t.ton on the controller was which.

So, forcing myself to stay calm, to ignore the dwindling red numbers on the time bomb, I did a quick study of the controller's readout.

I could see right away that the terrain on the screen was the terrain outside: the trees were dark green patches and the buildings were shapes outlined in red. The green dota"that was probably M-2 himself. The red dots were probably bio-heat readingsa"the Homelanders. There was no way to identify what the numbers were, but I was guessing they were probably M-2's speed, height, blast energy, and number of tear-gas shotsa"something like that.

I glanced up. I couldn't help myself. The timer was ratcheting rapidly down to 4:00.

Come on, I told myself, concentrate.

I looked down at the controller again.

According to my reading of the map, Milton Two was lying on the ground at the very edge of the ruined compound outside. When I tilted the controller, the green light stopped blinking and the numbers changed: M-2 was rising off the ground and taking flight. I quickly found I could move him by either tilting the device or touching the screen. And more. The moment he started moving, a small square window lit up in one corner of the screen. It was videoa"the point of view from the camera in M-2's single eye: it showed what M-2 saw in front of him. There were also two red b.u.t.tons that lit up on the bottom of the controller. The one on the right was to fire electronic blasts. The one on the left let loose tear gas.

Again, I couldn't stop myself from looking up at the clock: 3:56 . . . 3:55 . . . 3:54 . . . I seemed to feel every second dying inside me as it ticked away.

I glanced over at the monitors on the wall. I could see the Homelanders there. Three of them had stopped moving now. They had taken up positions, standing with their guns propped on their hips. They were guarding the area, waiting for the explosion that would destroy the bunkera"and me, if I was still inside.

Okay, I thought. Okay. I needed a plan of attack. What would give me my best chance at getting out of here?

My first thought was to send M-2 after the guy near the entrance in the brick cylinder. I remembered the pain of getting hit with M-2's blaster: it paralyzed me, knocked me right off my feet. If I took out the entrance guard, maybe I could break out and make a run for it. But then I thought: No. Once the blasting started, the others would be alert. They'd come running in the direction of the fight. If I hit the entrance guard, they'd converge on the doorway, closing off my escape.

So the best idea was to strike away from the entrance first and hope the guard outside the brick cylinder abandoned his post so I could get away.

I studied the wall monitors quickly. All the Home-landers were at their positions now. They were communicating with one another through microphones clipped to the shoulders of their khaki jackets. The leadera"the killer I knew as Waylona"was posted off at the perimeter, about as far from Milton Two as he could be. Waylon, I could see now, was a big man, tall and broad shouldered, with heavy, sagging features and a scruffy black beard. He had deep-set eyes that were always moving, watchful. I doubted M-2 could cross the facility and reach him before he or one of the other Homelanders spotted him and possibly shot him down.

I looked at another monitor where another man was standing beside a broken column of stone. This guy was younga"maybe my age. Tall and skinny with light blond hair and a long, narrow face. His eyes looked angry and mean. I looked down at his feet. The morning mist curled around his hiking boots. But as the mist moved and cleared in patches, I could make out Milton Twoa"the little device shaped like an Xbox controllera"lying in the gra.s.s about twenty feet away from him. Then the mist closed again and M-2 disappeared behind it.

I looked at the ticking clock on the bomb.

3:00 . . . 2:59 . . . 2:58 . . .

There was no more time to think this over. I had to attack.

I tilted the controller. Reading the alt.i.tude numbersa" looking up at the monitora"looking at M-2's point-of-view screen, I could keep my little electronic pal low to the ground, hidden in the mist. I tilted the controller forward and M-2 began to fly at that low alt.i.tude, brus.h.i.+ng through the gra.s.s as he approached the knees of the blond Homelander standing guard nearby.

M-2 moved silently. The blond Homelander didn't hear him coming. But if I was going to get a good shot, I was going to have to come up higher. I tilted the controller forward. The numbers ratcheted up as M-2 lifted into the air, up around eye level. Now I could see the blond guard's face in M-2's POV screen.

I glanced over at the monitor. The blond guy still didn't see M-2 coming.

Just a few more feet.

I stole a glance at the clock: 2:30 . . . 2:29 . . . 2:28 . . .

Then: "Hey!"

I nearly jumped out of my sneakers. The voice had come directly from the controller in my hand. I looked. I could see the blond guard in M-2's POV screen. He had sensed M-2 approaching. He had turned. He had seen the little device flying through the air straight at him and had cried out, his voice caught on M-2's microphone.

Now the blond guard pulled his machine gun off his hip. He was turning around to face M-2.

I pressed the Fire b.u.t.ton.

The electronic blast shook the controller in my handa"just like the vibrating function in the Xbox controller. The flash of electricity hit the blond guard smack in the forehead. He gave a cry and went tumbling backward, the machine gun flying out of his hands. Then he was downa"and M-2 was still hovering near the place where he'd fallen.

But now I saw on the controller map: the red dots were on the move. I could hear voicesa"shoutsa"coming through the controller's speakers. Not only that: I could see by the readout that M-2's blast had depleted his energy and the numbers were lowa"though they were already climbing back up as he recharged his blaster from his energy source.

I glanced up at the monitor. Waylon was barking orders into his shoulder mike. The other Homelanders were charging toward the place where the blond guard had fallen. They were bringing their guns to bear on M-2.

All of them, that is, except the guard at the bunker exit. He had lowered his machine gun and was standing at the ready, but he stuck to his position, blocking my route of escape.

The three other guards converged on M-2. I had to keep him moving or they'd blow him out of the sky.

I looked at the clock on the bomb.

2:20 . . . 2:19 . . . 2:18 . . .

The Homelanders kept closing in on M-2. The clock kept ticking down.

2:17 . . . 2:16 . . .

Two-minute warning.

I had to get out of here. Now.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Race for the Trees

I looked down at the controller. The red dots continued closing in on the green dot. Now they were near enough so I could see the guards advancing in M-2's POV screen as well. Grim, determined faces getting closer and closer. Guns raised, pointed right at my little flying ally.

I held the controller steady. I let M-2 hover there in the air. The clock on the bomb approached two minutes.

The three charging Homelanders steadied their machine guns as they charged toward M-2.

I tilted the controller, wiggling it left and right at the same time. M-2 flew straight at his attackers, ducking this way and that as he came.

The three Homelanders opened fire, blasting away with their machine guns. The noise of it reached me distantly through the controller's tiny speaker. I saw the coughing flame from the barrels in the POV screen.

But M-2 was a small target, moving fast and dodging back and fortha"up and down now too. He got closer to them without getting hit. Closer, zipping and zigzagging through the hail of bullets.

And now, I heard the Homelanders cry out, cursing in frustration as M-2 zipped right into the midst of them, making it impossible for them to shoot at him without killing one another. One of them swiped at the flying device with the b.u.t.t of his gun, trying to knock it out of the sky. It was a near-miss, but I c.o.c.ked the controller and M-2 levitated above the swinging gun.

Then I pressed the b.u.t.ton to release the tear gas.

Instantly the view through the POV screen went foggy white as the gas was released. I saw the Homelander guards for another second. I saw them clutching their throats. I saw their tongues coming out as they started gagging and coughing. Then they reeled back every which way, stumbling off into the smoke, where they vanished.

Now M-2 and I were both moving at once. I started for the bunker exit, working the controller even as I went. I guided M-2 through the smoke, out into the open air. I found the red dot standing outside the cylindera"the guard just outside the bunker entrance.

M-2 flew at him. I flew at the door.

Now I was standing in front of the wall. I worked the controller clumsily with my left hand as I raised my right hand against the place where the hidden door was. I glanced down at the controller, tilting it this way and that to keep M-2 flying at the guard by the brick cylinder. Now I could see the guard on the POV screen: a short, thick-necked bull of a guy with dark skin and bright, wicked eyes. He had his gun at the ready and was staring in confusion at his friends where they reeled and choked in the tear gas. I could tell by the look on his face that he hadn't spotted M-2 coming at him yet. Those bright eyes of his were scanning the sky, searching for the flying security device.

I tilted the controller and sent M-2 right at him.

Then I turned to the door. With my free hand, I quickly traced the lines and diagonals on the wall. I had a moment of panicky doubt: What if it didn't work? What if the code was different for this door than it was for the door of the Panic Room?

But no. The engine made its grinding noise. The panel slid back. I stepped out into the dark antechamber at the bottom of the cylinder's steps.

And thena"gunfire.