Oxygen Level Zero Mission 2 Read online

  Scientists had created mutant flies.”

  “Wow.”

  “Then in the 1990s scientists learned how to clone animals, and suddenly genetics became scary. It was possible to literally create new species.”

  “Could they do this to humans?”

  Mom rubbed her face. “Yes. Even before the year 2000, the technology to do this was possible. And then the worst happened.

  An unethical scientist not only cloned humans but also

  experimented on them to make them taller and stronger. They nicknamed him ‘the new Dr. Frankenstein.’ He made a mistake, however, and his clones were born without arms. That was in 2010

  A.D. It made such an uproar that the government finally stepped in.

  Very strict laws were created and enforced.”

  “But,” I said, “it is possible to try to create new species.”

  “It’s possible. For the last thirty years, however, continuing public outrage has made it difficult for scientists on Earth to get funding for any genetic experiments of that type.” She smiled.

  “Plant experiments are one thing, but on animals, no way. Just like smoking in public places or drinking and driving, it has become unthinkable.”

  “On Earth,” I said thoughtfully. “Unthinkable on Earth.”

  She snorted. “Unthinkable anywhere in the solar system. If anyone tried it on Mars and the public on Earth found out, it would threaten the billions and billions of dollars of government support needed to keep this project going forward.”

  “Thanks,” I told her.

  “Why are you asking all of this?”

  “Curiosity,” I answered. “And you’ve been a big help.”

  She had been. Genetic experiments to create an animal that would survive on Mars would be top secret.

  Now I had to find a way to prove that those experiments

  existed.

  &+$37(5

  “Greetings, Earthling.”

  I had found Ashley in the same spot I always went when I wanted to be alone. Up at the telescope.

  She jumped. “Bruce!”

  “Yes, Earthling. You remember me, then.”

  I was in the robot body, of course. Back in the computer lab, in my wired jumpsuit, I had set up the software by myself. My own body was in the wheelchair, with the blindfold and headset I’d put on myself. The only risk I was taking was that I might move in the wheelchair and break the connection. If that happened, I convinced myself it would not damage my body. I hoped. And I also hoped that Rawling wouldn’t stop by the lab during the time I was hooked up to the robot’s body.

  “Remember you? Certainly. You promised me a tour of the

  dome.”

  “You will have your tour, Earthling,” I continued in my cheesy robot voice. “However, I wish for you to help me first.”

  “Sure. It’s not like I have anything else to do.” Ashley put her hand on my robot shoulder. “That kid Tyce was talking about you.

  Do you know him?”

  “Yes, Earthling. A very fine human specimen. Smart.

  Handsome. Witty. You would do well to spend much time with him.”

  “Huh. Last time we talked, he ran away.”

  “It must have been important business,” I said. “Perhaps later tonight you will see him.”

  “Well,” she said, smiling, “there is a reason I was waiting up here. Not many guys I know can talk science like he does.”

  “Perhaps you find him to be, as you humans say, appealing in a handsome way?”

  “What kind of robot are you?”

  I decided to change the subject. “One in need of help. Please.”

  “Back to that again. What would you like me to do?”

  I explained in my finest nasal robot voice.

  She agreed.

  &+$37(5

  Five minutes later, I was on the Martian landscape.

  I had needed Ashley to help me leave the dome. Alongside the large doors that allowed platform buggies to come in and out, there was a set of small doors to give entrance or exit for men and women in space suits. Ashley had punched in the number sequence on the control pad and promised to wait to let me in when I returned.

  I did not expect it to take long. I needed five minutes to get to the greenhouse, five minutes to return, and however long it would take me inside to accomplish my mission.

  My wheels whirred along the hard-packed sand. The Martian sky was dark. A ghostly white object whizzed overhead. Phobos—

  one of the Martian moons. I knew if I waited outside, soon I would see Deimos, the other moon, whizzing in the opposite direction.

  But I wasn’t going to wait.

  I had a small cage in one hand and a container of water in the other.

  I was gambling that I knew why the alien creatures stayed in the greenhouse. I believed they needed the oxygen given off by the plants to survive, as well as the water that came down from the automatic sprinklers.

  If I was right about a few things, it wouldn’t take me long to capture another one.

  And I was right, at least about one thing.

  There were more of them inside. Or at least one.

  Within a minute of going inside, among the darkness of the plants, my infrared spotted a tiny red glow. It was exactly where I’d left behind the second alien earlier. As if it was waiting for its friend to return.

  Would I be right about my second guess?

  Since the robot body gave off no heat and no human smell, I hoped the creatures wouldn’t be afraid of it.

  As for my third guess, I’d find out as soon as I opened the water container.

  I set the cage down, opened the water container, and set it inside the cage.

  I did not back away from the cage. If my second and third guesses were right . . .

  My infrared showed the second alien moving closer, at first slowly, then quickly. Had it smelled the water?

  Yes!

  It came out of the darkness of the bamboo-corn and into the open.

  Would it be afraid of the presence of my robot body?

  No!

  It moved almost to the cage, so close that I could have bent down and grabbed it.

  I didn’t, of course. I wanted it in the cage.

  Ten seconds later, it stepped inside and began to lap at the water.

  I saw the red glows of other creatures approaching, drawn by the water they must have sensed as it evaporated quickly in the dry atmosphere.

  All I needed, however, was one. This one. The friend to the one I had captured earlier.

  I snapped the cage shut before the creature could back away from the water.

  I had it!

  The first step of my plan had gone off without a hitch.

  Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of what I needed to do during the rest of the evening.

  &+$37(5

  “Perhaps, Earthling, we shall tour the dome later.”

  I was back inside, with my robot body carrying the cage. But Ashley wasn’t listening to Bruce. Her attention was on the cage.

  “What is that?” she asked, pointing.

  “A lost, lonely Martian animal,” I said.

  “An alien!”

  “A lost, lonely Martian animal. Are you deaf?”

  Ashley shook her head in evident disgust at the robot and the robot voice. “Whoever it was who made you smart enough to talk to people should have done something about that voice.”

  “Earthling is not funny,” I said.

  She was ignoring me again, trying to look in the cage.

  Fortunately, it was midevening, and most of the scientists and tekkies were in their mini-domes. I had counted on that.

  “Please take this to the kid named Tyce,” I said. “You will find him at the ramp that leads up to the second level.”

  I handed her the cage.

  “Earthling, do not open it,” I said.

  “And I’m tired of this ‘Earthling’ stuff. My name is Ashley.”

&
nbsp; It was my turn to ignore her. I spun around and wheeled away.

  “Hey!” she said. “Come back here!”

  Too late. I was gone.

  Ã

  I blinked open my eyes in the wheelchair in the computer lab.

  I had parked Bruce the robot at his power charger. Later tonight, I’d plug him in. But now I had to make it to the bottom of the ramp as quickly as possible.

  I gripped the wheels of my chair and shoved forward. My legs might be useless, but any of the scientists or tekkies who arm-wrestled me always lost. I worked my arms hard as I raced to meet Ashley at the bottom of the ramp.

  I could see her ahead in the dimness of the lights set at evening level. She stood near the ramp, looking in all directions. The cage was at her feet.

  Seconds later, I pulled up.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Oh hello, Mr. Rude,” she said sarcastically, her hands on her hips. “Going to take off on me again without any warning?

  Between you and that dumb robot, it’s enough to—“ She stopped as she noticed what I was doing.

  “Hey! Bruce told me not to open the cage. You can’t—“

  I’d already done it—opened the cage.

  The little Martian creature crawled forward. It paused for a second, then scampered away.

  “I can’t believe you just did that,” Ashley said. “Now what are we going to do?”

  “Follow,” I said calmly. “Think you can keep up with me?”

  “Sure, but how are you going to follow it?”

  I grinned and pulled a handheld computer unit from my lap.

  “It’s called a g.p.u.”

  “Geepeeyew?” she parroted back.

  “Global positioning unit. Works off satellites that circle Mars.”

  “Great. What are you going to do? Throw it at that thing? It’s long gone.”

  I flicked on the switch. Immediately, it began beeping.

  “Come on,” I told Ashley. “This should be fun.”

  &+$37(5

  It was fun.

  While I was in the robot body, crossing the Martian sand from the greenhouse tent back to the dome, I had attached an emergency tracking device onto the back of the furry, little Martian koala. It meant that now I’d be able to track it wherever it went in the dome.

  I hoped that if it was able to smell water, it would also be able to smell its partner, the little guy I’d taken away from it.

  Beep-beep-beep-beep.

  I left the g.p.u. in my lap as I wheeled forward. Ashley stayed close behind. The signal grew louder as we neared the laboratories at the far end of the dome.

  “What’s this about, anyway?” Ashley asked.

  “I’m not 100 percent sure,” I said. “But I think it’s about illegal experiments and some people trying to hide those experiments.”

  I kept pushing as I spoke. I thought about the rod in my spine—

  and how the operation that had placed it there had left me crippled.

  “Someday I’ll tell you what it’s like to be experimented on when you aren’t given the chance to decide for yourself.” Just as I suspected that someone was experimenting on the Martian koalas.

  Beep-beep-beep-beep. The signal grew louder and quicker.

  We were almost there. We faced a row of laboratory doors.

  Beep-beep-beep-beep.

  “Look!” Ashley exclaimed.

  I looked where Ashley was pointing.

  At the far end of the row, the little Martian creature scratched at a door.

  I pulled up.

  The sign on the door had big bold letters: Authorized Personnel Only.

  “Try the door handle,” I suggested.

  “I’m not authorized.”

  “Neither is the little guy trying to get in.”

  “He’s got an excuse. He can’t read,” she fired back.

  I liked her. She was quick. “Fine, then,” I said. “Neither can I.”

  She sighed and tried the handle. It was locked.

  I leaned forward and knocked on the door.

  “Go away,” a voice shouted from inside.

  I knocked louder. This time, no voice answered.

  “Inside that room,” I told Ashley, “are things that aren’t supposed to be happening. For all we know, the person inside is trying to kill and/or hide all the experimental animals.”

  “Who can we report this to?” Ashley said, shocked.

  “No one,” I answered. I felt bitter and sad about Rawling McTigre. By now I’d figured that he was involved somehow. “The director of the Mars Project isn’t even interested in stopping this.”

  “Who else knows about it?”

  “You and me.”

  “Do you think,” she asked, “if more people knew what was inside, we could stop this?”

  “Maybe,” I answered. “Should we try to break down the door?”

  The little creature at our feet clawed and scratched to get in.

  “No.” She grinned. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  She tilted her head back and screamed, louder than I knew any person could scream. She screamed as if a madman were chasing her down. She screamed as if she were in a spaceship headed directly for an asteroid. She screamed as if a huge alien had pulled off one of her arms.

  I plugged my ears.

  She kept screaming.

  It worked.

  All across the dome, lights began to flick on.

  Within thirty seconds, dozens of people were running toward us.

  She finally stopped. And grinned. “Not bad, huh?”

  I grinned back. “Not bad at all.”

  &+$37(5

  By the time I was ready for sleep, I wasn’t ready for sleep.

  Sure, the clock said it was late, but I was still too excited from all the things that had happened since Ashley screamed to the world.

  I’d already explained everything to my parents. Now they were asleep, and the mini-dome was quiet.

  That left me one thing I could do—write in my diary and

  explain it to the old man I would someday become. I fired up my computer and began to tell the rest of it.

  Ashley’s scream brought dozens of people. Many of

  them wore pajamas because they’d been asleep or

  were getting ready to sleep. The little Martian

  koala was still trying to get inside the door, and

  that was all the proof we needed to convince

  everyone that inside the lab we’d find at least one

  more.

  It turned out there were dozens in plastic boxes

  that had been their homes. By the time we got the

  door open, most of them had been crammed into a

  storage box.

  Dr. Jim Harrington, the head scientist on the

  illegal experiment, had figured he’d been caught

  and was trying to get rid of the evidence. We’d

  stopped him just before he was about to load the

  genetically altered koalas on a platform buggy and

  drive them miles and miles away from the dome. He’d

  planned to leave them to die, trapped in the box.

  Now it’s going to be up to the director to decide

  what to do.

  I finished my keyboarding.

  What would the director do?

  In the morning, I was going to find out. Because I intended to sit in Rawling’s office until he told me everything else.

  I shut off my computer and wheeled over to my bed. I pulled myself out of my wheelchair and got under the covers, then reached over to shut off the light.

  I laid awake in the darkness, thinking about everything.

  But I wasn’t alone.

  Happy mewing sounds came from a basket in the corner of the bedroom. The two little Martian koalas the robot had captured were snuggled against each other.

  I wasn’t quite sure what to name them yet. I was just happy that they were finally back togeth
er.

  Five minutes later, they began to snore.

  Wonderful.

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  I found Rawling McTigre at his desk. He lifted his head as I rolled in.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “If you say so.”

  He nodded. “You have every right to be mad at me.”

  “Why should I be mad? Just because you suddenly pretend I don’t exist? And that the alien I found doesn’t exist? I thought that’s what friends always did to each other.”

  Rawling sighed and stood. He took a piece of paper from his desk and walked it over to me.

  “My letter of resignation as director,” he said, handing the paper to me. “Take a look at the date.”

  I scanned the letter. It was very short and very polite. It was dated yesterday.

  “So?” I asked.

  “I wrote it and signed it yesterday afternoon. Before you found the experimental lab. Not after. You probably don’t trust me anymore—and I don’t blame you—so I can bring up the computer file and show you the last time I worked on the letter to prove I’m not lying.”

  I gave him back the letter.

  “Tyce,” he said, his voice softening, “it’s important to me that you know I resigned because of what was happening. I was on my way over to explain to you last night when all that screaming brought us to the lab.”

  Rawling returned to his desk, sat down, and faced me. “Here it is in a nutshell. Yes, unethical secret experiments had been performed with the blessing of the previous director, Blaine Steven. Dr. Harrington’s goal was to take an Earth species and genetically alter it to survive on Mars. He picked koalas because they survive on vegetation and have a relatively low consumption of energy. His ultimate goal was to create a creature that needs low oxygen, builds a thick layer of fat and fur to protect it against cold,

  and will eat the bamboo-corn that will be planted around the planet.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Dr. Harrington claims the koalas are intended to be a future food source. But I’m not sure I believe him.”

  “Because . . . ,” I said slowly as I processed this information.

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. It’s one of the reasons I resigned.

  But I want to explain what they were doing out in the cornfield.”