Read Online Final Battle by Sigmund Brouwer - Free Book Online

whom? The Terratakers? What did they intend to do with her? Or was she even still alive? I didn’t want to consider that possibility.
    â€œHeadset next,” Nate said.
    â€œRight.”
    I was on a bed in a safe room somewhere deep in the Combat Force base. In a pinch, I could do this in my wheelchair, but the bed was more comfortable. Nate had already strapped me to the bed. With the blindfold came total darkness. Soon, when he finished pulling a headset down over my ears to block all sounds, the only sensory input to my brain would come from taste and touch and smell. But there wasn’t much around to smell and taste, and since I couldn’t move, my brain had already accustomed itself to the sensation of the straps that bound me in place.
    All of this was important. I needed as few distractions as possible, for I was about to enter robot control. My head was propped on a large pillow so that the plug at the bottom of my neck did not press on the bed. This hookup had been spliced into my spine before I could walk so that the thousands of bioplastic microfibers could grow and intertwine with my nerve endings as my own body grew. Each microfiber’s core transmitted tiny impulses of electricity through my spinal plug into a receiver. Then that receiver transmitted signals to the robot’s computer drive. It worked just like the remote control of a television set, with two differences. Television remotes used infrared and were limited in distance. Just like with cell phones, this receiver was capable of trading information with a satellite that in turn bounced and received signals to and from anywhere in the world. And all at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. Since the world was only 25,000 miles around, it meant almost instant communication.
    â€œLet me run a checklist past you,” I said, facing upward in total blindness. It was something Rawling had always done with me on Mars. He said it was very important, for the same reason that pilots run checklists before flying—safety. Nate didn’t need the checklist; it was more a reminder for myself. More than that, it felt familiar. I needed that right now, when everything in my life seemed up for grabs.
    â€œFire away,” Nate encouraged.
    â€œNo contact with any electrical sources. Ever.” Any electrical current going into or through the robot would scramble the input so badly that the signals reaching my own nervous system could do serious damage to my brain.
    â€œCheck,” Nate said.
    â€œSecond,” I said, “disengage instantly at the first warning of any damage to the robot’s computer drive.” My brain circuits worked so closely with the computer circuits that any harm to the computer could spill over to harm my brain.
    â€œCheck.”
    â€œFinal one,” I said. “Robot battery at full power.”
    â€œUm …”
    â€œI don’t know either. But it’s part of my checklist. Ashley’s got the ant-bot. I can only assume since she intended for me to use it that she made sure it would be ready.”
    â€œThis ant-bot,” Nate began. “You’re not making this up. Right?”
    In the darkness beneath my blindfold, I laughed. “Not making it up. If a person can control a full-size robot, why not a miniature one?”
    That was one of the many exciting possibilities for robot control. No computer ever built could rival the human brain. Through robot control, the brain gave commands to machines. Big robots. Microscopic robots. I’d once controlled a space torpedo. There was no reason robot control couldn’t be extended to aircraft or submarines. “Robot control,” Nate said. “Antbot. All of this really messes with my mind. You know, when I was a kid, virtual reality was still a primitive type of game.”
    â€œYeah,” I said, grinning from my bed, “but that was ages ago … back when people listened to someone like