Absolute Power. Michael Carroll

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       5

      EVEN BEFORE DANNY and Renata reached the machine room, they could hear a loud pounding sound echoing through the building. They opened the door and stood on the gantry, looking down at Razor and four other technicians as they worked on what appeared to be the framework of a three-metre-tall bipedal robot.

      “All right,” Razor said, standing back from the exoskeleton. He brushed his long hair back from his face. “Everyone get clear…Let’s try that again.”

      The robot’s motors whined as it straightened itself – then, after a moment, it tilted slightly to the right, then stomped its left foot forward. The robot tilted to the left, then moved its right foot.

      Danny grinned. “It’s walking! Finally!”

      “Shutting down,” Razor said. “Take the readings, Mitch.” He glanced up at Danny and Renata, and beckoned them down.

      Danny was instantly standing in front of the machine, staring up at it. “It’s looking good, Raze. Got it flying yet?”

      “We’re getting there,” Razor said. “It can’t carry enough fuel to fly more than a hundred metres. That’s ‘cos it weighs almost a tonne.”

      Renata arrived next to them. “Razor, how on Earth is someone supposed to fit inside that thing?”

      “There’ll be a lot more space when we tidy all the cables away.”

      “Maybe someone doesn’t need to be inside it. You could fit it with cameras. Then the new Paragon won’t even have to go into battle himself.”

      “We thought of that, but the General feels that the public will have more confidence if Paragon is a person, not a robot.” Razor scratched at the three-day stubble on his chin. “That’s one of the things we’re arguing about. Piers wants the helmet’s face-plate to be transparent, so everyone can see there’s a person inside. But that’ll seriously weaken the helmet’s integrity, which is not a good thing considering that the armour will be equipped with shock-bombs.”

      “What’s a shock-bomb?” Renata asked.

      “Another of Max’s inventions. It’s a grenade that only explodes in one direction. You could hold one in your hand when it explodes – they’re about the size of a can of soda – and it wouldn’t do you any damage, as long as the business end was pointed away from you. And there’s no shrapnel.”

      “Let’s see one!” Danny said.

      Razor’s hair flicked about his face as he shook his head. “They’re way too dangerous to fool around with. How did the mission go? Find the weapons?”

      “There weren’t any weapons. It was food.”

      “Food? That seems…strange. Do you think Impervia knew?”

      Renata shrugged. “It’s hard to say. She didn’t want us going into the building, so maybe she did know. We can’t ask her, because then we’d have to tell her how we found out. You know what she’s like about us breaking the rules.”

      Razor asked, “Are you still thinking about leaving?”

      “If I had somewhere to go, I’d leave in a second,” Renata said. “We should all go. Except Bubbles. But we can’t take Mina with us, and I really think that one of us should be here for her, if she ever wakes up.”

      “I talked to Warren,” Razor said. “They’re no happier here than we are, but they won’t leave. He says that this is the best chance they’ll have to find Colin. There’s something else bothering them, but he wouldn’t say what it was. He did say that Sakkara is probably the only place that’s safe from Yvonne’s influence.”

      Renata said, “Much as I despised Josh, at least when he was in charge we had some say in the way this place was run. Now if we want anything we have to go through Impervia.”

      Razor noticed the expression on Renata’s face. СКАЧАТЬ