Read Online Oracle by David Wood, Sean Ellis - Free Book Online Page B

of view.
    Professor stopped dead in his tracks, stunned speechless. Shelob, the anchor for the rope that would get them out of the cavern, had just fallen out of the shaft. Now they were stuck here, at least until Hodges could rig something else up. He held the walkie-talkie up and keyed the transmit button.
    “Brian, your robot just burned in.”
    No reply.
    Duh! The robot had also been relaying the radio signals through the coaxial cable which had evidently broken or come unplugged. Now they were stranded and incommunicado. It never rains …
    Jade ’s hand clamped tight against his forearm. Her other hand was again pointing at the golden sphere…No, at something scuttling out from behind it.
    “ That,” she said in a grave voice, “is what I saw.”

SIX
     
    Jade had experienced déjà vu before, but nothing like this. When she’d come to, she had been unprepared for the shock of seeing Professor and the others alive and uninjured, when she had, only moments before, watched them die… and died with them.
    And now, it was all happening, just as it had in her…dream?
    No way. No way was that a dream. I saw the future. I don’t know how, but I did.
    Paul Dorion knew, too.
    I’ve seen you before. It was in a dream, I think.
    Now his bizarre manner during their first meeting made a little more sense. He hadn ’t been attempting to flirt and failing miserably; he had been serious.
    She was going to have a long talk with Paul Dorion, if, of course the robot spider shuffling toward them didn ’t kill them all first.
    “ What the hell?” Professor took a step toward the robot. “I can’t believe it’s still working. That was a fifty foot drop.”
    Jade grabbed his arm again and pulled him back. She again felt the surreal mental dislocation of déjà vu, except this time instead of the sensation that she was reliving a moment, she was acutely aware of the differences between her premonition and what was happening. “No. Keep away from it.” She turned back to the other three men. “Get back. You don’t want to be anywhere near this thing.”
    The robot kept advancing, its eight legs moving with a steady mechanical rhythm. It was less than ten yards away and moving directly toward them. There was nothing particularly menacing about its movements, but Jade remembered all too clearly what would come next. Except this wasn ’t how it had happened.
    This isn ’t how it happened.
    We were just starting to climb when it dropped down on us and then there was a flash….
    “It’s going to blow up!”
    “ That’s crazy,” countered Professor. “It’s a computer on legs, not a walking IED.”
    “ I think you should take her word for it,” said Dorion, unexpectedly. “She has lived this before.”
    Wonderful, thought Jade. Leave it to the creepy guy to back me up.
    Professor wisely yielded to her exhortation and the group retreated together, running all the way to the Earth stone. Shelob could not keep up, but a backward glance showed its single head-lamp, steadily getting brighter with its approach.
    Acosta seemed to remember that he was supposed to be in charge. He turned on Professor. “What is happening to the robot? Why is it chasing us?”
    “ It’s in autonomous mode,” Professor said. “It came unplugged. Maybe its default program is to come find us. But it can’t hurt us and it certainly isn’t going to blow up.”
    “ Why did it fall? Is it malfunctioning?”
    “ I don’t know. Brian is the expert.”
    Jade felt her grip on the strange premonition slip away, exactly like a dream on waking. The door to whatever it was she had experienced was closing, and yet her sense that the robot was dangerous remained. Maybe Prof was right. Maybe I do have a phobia.
    The one image she could not shake was the flash, and the oblivion that followed.
    She turned to Professor. “Give me the walkie.”
    He passed it over. “You won’t get a signal out,” he warned.
    “ I’m not trying to.” She keyed the