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  “I’ll bet you don’t know what your father might think,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning forward to whisper, “since you haven’t spoken to him since you escaped prison, have you? And you know that he’s disappeared… .”

  Her words had the same effect as if she’d jammed an electric prod into my chest. Only the top people in the Combat Force of the World United Federation knew about my dad. Or that he’d been put in prison as soon as he’d arrived on Earth.

  “How do you know about my—?”

  She put one finger over her lips.

  I stopped speaking.

  She leaned over farther and put her face up to my ear. She spoke softly as I held my breath, trying not to gag on the smell of her perfume. “There’s a reason I’m whispering. You need to assume that electronic devices are set up to listen to whatever you say. To anybody at any time. Not everyone in the Combat Force is on your side.”

  I pushed my face close to hers. Loose hairs from the platinum wig tickled my nose. “My father?” I asked in a whisper to match hers. “If you know where he is—”

  “What I know,” she whispered back, “is that the World United Federation won’t be able to keep your robot-control abilities secret from the world any longer. Not after the nuclear plant.”

  “My dad. What do you know about—?”

  “Even the Terratakers within the Combat Force realized they couldn’t put all those millions of lives at risk to protect the secret of this new technology. A hundred lives, sure. A thousand. Maybe even 10,000 lives. But not the entire Los Angeles basin. When it came down to deciding between keeping you under wraps or stopping the blowout, they made the right choice. But that means you are now in great danger.”

  As if that was news. For the past nine months somebody had been trying to kill me. And I knew the rebel faction, the Terratakers, was involved, because of Dr. Jordan, who had tried to kill Dad, Ashley, and me by sending our shuttle into the sun. The Terratakers had spies everywhere, and they fought hard against the World United Federation. Unlike the Federation, which worked to find solutions for Earth’s growing population, such as making planets like Mars suitable for humans, the Terratakers were a terrorist organization that worked against the colonization of Mars. Instead they claimed the Earth’s population should be reduced. Fewer babies should be born. And when humans had outlived their usefulness, they should be put to sleep.

  What the Terratakers believed was pretty scary. Because if you followed what they believed, it meant I wouldn’t be alive. To them, someone in a wheelchair with useless legs isn’t worth enough to use valuable water and food.

  “My dad,” I insisted. It seemed weird enough to be a dream. All of our conversation was in a low whisper. Although this woman had on enough makeup to be a clown, I had no choice but to take her seriously because of what she knew.

  “Remember, the Combat Force has too many Terrataker traitors inside it. That’s why they were almost able to storm the Summit of Governors.”

  The Summit of Governors! Where all the world leaders gather each year to deal with international problems.

  She straightened and stared at me to see if I understood what it meant that she knew about the summit. The surprise on my face must have shown.

  “I know,” she whispered, leaning forward again. “The attempt on the governors’ lives was supposed to be a secret too. You can’t imagine the steps the Combat Force took to bury that. And the danger of robot soldiers controlled by an army of kids. Except now they’ll decide to show you off to the world. And put you at great risk.”

  “You can’t know this!” The Summit of Governors in New York City had been meeting to talk about whether or not to continue the funding of the Mars Project: the colonization of Mars. And it had come within 30 seconds of ending with all the leaders being shot by robot soldiers controlled by the Terrataker faction. Yet the world didn’t know about it. The newspapers had reported the commotion around the summit as a Hollywood stunt for the promotion of an upcoming movie. To the public, it was as if nothing had happened.

  “I do know this. Which should tell you that all the rest of what I’m telling you is true.”

  “My dad. What about—?”

  Someone knocked at the door. It was another nurse. Much younger, with spiked red hair and a nose ring.

  “Hello?” The red-haired nurse seemed confused. “This is my room on the duty chart,” she said to the older nurse at my bed. “I didn’t know another shift had started.”

  The nurse in front of me straightened out the sheets of my bed. “Obviously there’s been a mistake. Why don’t you check at the front desk?”

  “But—”

  “Don’t mess with me, girl. Just go to the front desk and make sure you got that duty chart right,” the platinum blonde nurse said. She’d been talking to me in a normal voice. Talking to this new nurse, suddenly her voice was high and whiny to match the way she looked. Who was this woman with the bad lipstick?

  “Okay,” the red-haired nurse said after a second. “I’ll be right back.” We could hear the soft sound of her shoes padding down the hallway.

  “Time to go,” my perfumed nurse said. Her voice was normal again. “And remember what I said.”

  I wanted to know about my dad. “Don’t go,” I pleaded.

  We heard the distant sounds of shoes in the hallway. Headed our way from the front desk.

  “Can’t stay,” she said simply. And with that, she was gone. Whoever she was.

  Gone. With whatever else she knew.

  CHAPTER 3

  A tall, broad-shouldered man nodded at me and sat down beside my bed. A man in Combat Force uniform. General Jeb McNamee, known as Cannon, had a face ugly enough to scare little children—a square face, bent nose, and shaved head. He was the kind of man you wanted on your side.

  Listening devices, the mysterious nurse had said.

  If they were here, it wasn’t because of this military man. After all, he had sent Nate, who’d been part of Cannon’s elite unit in the Combat Force called the EAGLES. And Nate had helped Ashley and me flee the Florida Everglades. Then Cannon himself had helped us find and rescue the pod of robot kids in Arizona. But was the nurse in the hospital right? Could no one be trusted? Did the infiltration of the Terratakers extend even to people like Cannon, who seemed to be on my side?

  “Good to see you bright-eyed,” the general said in his gruff voice. “For a while there, I thought we’d be giving you a 21-gun salute.”

  “Twenty-one-gun salute?”

  “A military tradition. An honor at funeral ceremonies. Twenty-one shots fired in the air. The total of one and seven and seven and six. It started as an American tradition, and now all the Federation military in the world follow the custom.” He squinted at me to see if I would figure it out.

  “One seven seven six,” I repeated slowly. “Seventeen seventy-six.” I got it. And grinned. “The year the United States declared its independence from England.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cannon said. “Glad to see your brains are still intact.” He patted my shoulder.

  Terrataker traitors are everywhere in the military. But I can trust Cannon, I told myself. Yet I didn’t like the little bit of doubt in the back of my mind.

  Yes, I decided, I would trust Cannon. Chad, his own son, was still among some of the missing kids who had been kidnapped at a young age to be operated on for robot control. And, in searching for his son, Cannon had been the main person responsible for stopping the Summit of Governors assassination attempt. He’d helped save my life.

  Surely he couldn’t be one of the high-level traitors inside the World United Federation’s Combat Force.

  I wanted to tell Cannon about the strange woman. But if there were listening devices …

  My dad was out there. Somewhere, needing help.

  To be on the safe side, I decided to wait to tell Cannon about the nurse with the strange message. Or about the red-haired nurse coming back and saying no other nurse was supposed to be on
duty. That had convinced me the strange message hadn’t come from a real nurse but someone dressed up to look like a nurse. Who was she, really? That question burned inside me.

  “Tyce, I’ve got some exciting news,” Cannon said.

  “My father?”

  “Not yet. But don’t worry. We have the resources of the entire Combat Force at our disposal,” he assured me. Then he continued. “It’s about Mars. Now it looks like we can push the colonization schedule ahead by 50 years.”

  “Fifty years! That might save millions of lives!”

  Mom and Rawling would love to hear this, if they hadn’t already. After all, they’d been working for that very thing for the past 15 years. The establishment of a dome under which people could live on Mars was only Phase 1 of a long-term plan. Phase 2, which the Mars colony was now in, was to grow plant hybrids outside the dome so that more oxygen could be added to the atmosphere. The long-range plan—which could take over 100 years—was to make the entire planet a place for humans to live outside the dome.

  People on Earth desperately needed the room. Already the planet had too few resources for the many people on it. If Mars could be made a new colony, then Earth could start shipping people there to live. If not, new wars might begin, and millions and millions of people would die from war or starvation or disease. Even now countries verged on war because of the diminishing amount of resources.

  “Fifty years,” Cannon repeated. “The irony is that we’ll be using a method that would never be welcome on Earth: pollution. At least, pollution in the form of carbon dioxide.”

  Cannon explained. On Earth, too much carbon dioxide caused the greenhouse effect. Light from the sun entered Earth’s atmosphere and was not able to bounce back into outer space. Carbon dioxide trapped heat. That was not good on Earth, but on the cold planet of Mars, it would be great. Yes, most of the atmosphere of Mars already consisted of carbon dioxide. But there wasn’t enough atmosphere. If billions of tons more could be added, then finally Mars would start absorbing heat.

  “Scientists have had the plans in place for building the generators and even for shipping them in pieces to Mars. But until now it was impossible to assemble them except at too great a cost.”

  “Carbon-dioxide generators.” I imagined clouds of white gas mushrooming and vanishing on the barren surface of the red planet. Mushrooming and mushrooming for years and years. And plants could live in the thickening atmosphere, breathing in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen that wouldn’t drift into outer space because finally there would be enough atmosphere to hold it in.

  “What’s truly made this possible is you,” Cannon continued. “You in particular. And all the others with robot-control abilities. Let me explain.”

  Again, I listened.

  “Because there are enough kids like you, who can volunteer to assemble the generators easily on the surface of Mars. Technicians need bulky space suits, which can rip far too easily. Kids safe inside the dome, though, can handle robots outside the dome. Robots that don’t need air or water. Those robots can work 100 times faster than humans. We can get the generators up and running in a matter of months. Kids who volunteer will be amply repaid by the government. The important thing now is that Tyce Sanders gets support from all Earth countries to undertake this next phase.”

  “Me?” I asked, stunned.

  “This will sound cold, Tyce. But you are the perfect public relations opportunity. Many of the highest-ranking Combat Force officials were determined to keep robot control a secret as long as possible. They were afraid the world would see only the negatives. Especially if they found out about the soldier robots. But now they can see the positives. We are going to introduce you to the world as the hero you are. And people won’t be afraid of robot control.”

  It was strange. Throughout my life I’d always thought of myself as just a kid. A kid in a wheelchair. And now the very thing that had put me in a wheelchair—the surgery that had inserted a plug in my spine so that I could control robots—made me a hero. Weird. Well, I guess it was true what Mom always said: God does use our disabilities for good.

  The words of the mysterious nurse came back to me. “The attempt on the governors’ lives was supposed to be a secret too. You can’t imagine the steps the Combat Force took to bury that. And the danger of robot soldiers controlled by an army of kids. Except now they’ll decide to show you off to the world. And put you at great risk.”

  What she predicted was happening right now.

  It was almost as if Cannon had read my suspicious thoughts—thoughts I didn’t want to have about him.

  “I apologize,” he said. “In a way, we are using you. I hope you’ll allow that, however. We desperately need approval of robot control in public-opinion polls all over the world. With that approval, politicians will support the next phase of Mars development. Without it, opposition will ground us. And the Terratakers will win.”

  “I’ll do what I can to help,” I finally said.

  “Thank you.” He spoke with dignity. “We’ll immediately set up a media conference at the World United Federation Center in New York. And after that …”

  I waited. I didn’t like the concern etched into Cannon’s face.

  “… I think you’ll need to go to the Moon. There’s that last pod of missing kids. They need our help.”

  “Yes, sir,” I agreed.

  “There’s more. Lots more.”

  “Sir?”

  He stood. “The doctors tell me you’re ready to go. Let me explain the rest of it on the way back to New York.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Tantalum.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  It had taken barely a half hour to get in the air. A helicopter had flown us from the hospital to the runway, where a jet waited. So Cannon and I now sat in a military jet, traveling 30,000 feet above the ground, headed back to New York at 600 miles an hour. The shades on the windows had been pulled down, and a projector was set up between us.

  “It’s a rare metal,” he answered from the darkness. “So rare and precious that it shouldn’t be a surprise that kids like you have been put into slavery to mine it.”

  Slavery. Kids like me. Able to control robots. But unlike me, unable to control anything else in their lives.

  “Let me back up a second.” He clicked a button on his remote, and a photo of the Moon’s surface appeared on a screen in front of us. At least I guessed it was the Moon. In the darkness beyond it was the familiar blue and white ball of Earth that I had watched so often from a telescope on Mars. In the foreground of the photo, beyond small craters of the gray soil, was a platform buggy—four wheels that support a deck, covered by a dome—about to enter a low, flat building.

  “In its purest form, tantalum is a rare gray-white metal. Melting point at about 3,000 degrees Celsius and boiling point at well over 5,000 degrees Celsius. Pure tantalum is extremely flexible. It can be drawn into microscopically thin wires. At normal temperatures, it’s almost impossible to corrode with any acid. Its chief use is in computer components.”

  “I think I understand,” I said. The hum of the jet engines forced me to raise my voice. “Computers are everywhere, so if tantalum is rare …”

  “Exactly. The more computers, the more it is needed. The more it is needed, the more it is worth. Right now, it has about 100 times the value of gold. Historically, it was mined in Africa and Canada. Those mines are basically depleted. But major deposits were recently discovered on the Moon. In the sector controlled by the Manchurians.”

  “The Manchurian Sector …” I knew some history. Manchuria was a province in China. Although the area itself had not expanded over the last 50 years, its political influence had gone far beyond China.

  General Cannon clicked his remote again. A new photo flashed onto the screen. This one was not of the surface of the Moon. It was an interior shot—I guessed the inside of the building in the photo before. It was like a large warehouse. Lights hung from overhead. Men in space
suits tended to a platform buggy. But in the background were …

  Another click brought the background closer and into full focus.

  Robots! Just like the one I controlled. I didn’t have to say it. Cannon wouldn’t be showing me this unless it meant the pod of missing kids was involved.

  “Once again, let me back up,” the general said. “You probably know enough about Earth politics to understand that each country within the World United Federation is independent.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But the world population crisis forced the countries to work closer together and form an alliance. Just like different states within the United States work together. But the Terratakers wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.” I shivered slightly.

  Cannon leaned toward me. “I want to let you in on a military reality and the war no one will admit is being fought,” he said. “Publicly it’s believed that the Terratakers consist of individuals from each country who believe in a cause. Much like the environmentalists of the previous century.”

  “It’s not true?”

  “No,” the general grimly answered. I strained to hear over the noise of the jet. “When the World United Federation formed, there were two military superpowers that balanced each other—the United States and China. Late in the 20th century, the Russians fell by the wayside as their economy collapsed. As Russia fell, China stepped into the vacuum and began to dominate until it almost rivaled the United States. It was a peaceful rivalry, until the Manchurians came to power.”