'What was it doing in there?' Gray asked.
'Well, it was right at the opening on the other side. It looked like it was keepin' an eye out up toward your house. It was pressed to one side, a coupla legs up over the rail on the sidewalk.'
'Wait a minute!' Laura interjected. 'If you came up on it from this side, and it got startled, why'd it come running out this way? Why didn't it run out the other end of the tunnel away from you?'
No one replied, but in the glances Hoblenz and Gray exchanged Laura guessed the answer. The Model Seven was more frightened of what lay beyond the tunnel than of the puny weapons of the humans behind it.
'Let's go,' Gray ordered, and they mounted the jeeps.
Hoblenz took the lead, pulling slowly off the sidewalk and up to the mouth of the tunnel. He hesitated there, searching through the smoke into the semidarkness ahead. He then let the clutch out and jammed his foot on the accelerator.
The jeep passed into the mountain. Instead of open air all around Laura there was now concrete. The enclosure focused her, channeled her concentration like a funnel. There was no threat from the other side anymore. All her attention was directed now on the road — on the tight beams their headlights cast along the curving wall not thirty feet ahead.
All at once, they burst out into the open. Laura savored the liberating night air. Gray's mansion rose over the low stone wall on the right, visible only as a dark mass blotting out the starry ocean horizon behind it. The tires squealed as they turned through the gates — the two jeeps careening into the courtyard at high speed. With one long screech they both skidded to a stop. Hoblenz and the unwounded men raced toward the front door, and Gray and Laura loped up the front steps behind them. Everyone had their weapons raised.
Once inside the foyer, all was quiet. The soldiers lay prone on the marble floor. In the dim light Laura could see that the [garbled] into the dark corners and doorways all around.
'Which one is Janet's room?' Hoblenz whispered.
'I'll go get her,' Gray said, and he dashed for the stairs.
'Miller, Delucia — go!' Hoblenz barked, and the two men ran off after Gray.
When the three men disappeared at the top of the stairs, all was still again.
'Why don't we turn on the lights?' Laura asked, her low voice sounding like a shout in the silent foyer. Hoblenz didn't bother to answer her question. 'No, really,' she persisted. 'They can see us with those thermal things. We're the only ones who can't see in the dark.'
Several moments passed, then Hoblenz shouted, 'Hopkins! Hit the goddamn lights!'
When the lights came on, they revealed an absurd scene. The burly soldiers all lay on the marble floor of Gray's magnificent foyer.
Laura, on the other hand, leaned casually against a thick column just inside the front door. Hoblenz was the first to rise, and the others quickly followed.
Janet's voice came from the upstairs hallway. She apologized profusely for all the trouble she had caused and was escorted out to the jeeps by a soldier. Hoblenz then led a team of three others to check the rooms on the first floor. They worked quickly and in good military fashion, their backs to the hallway wall before they spun into the rooms with their weapons leveled. When Hoblenz returned, there was a faint sheen of perspiration on his brow. 'We've checked everything on this floor but the kitchen. If somebody'll tell me where the hell it is, I'll clear it, too.'
'We'll all go,' Gray said, leading them to the nearly invisible door set flush with the wall by the dining room.
Instead of the usual squeaking from her running shoes on the polished floor, Laura heard a gritty crunch. 'Hey,' she said. 'You know, there's sand or something on the—' The kitchen door burst open, and Hoblenz and his soldiers scattered. Gray grabbed Laura and pushed her off to the side. Gunshots rang out as a Model Eight waddled out of the kitchen. It stood still for a moment despite the gunfire peppering its chest, then skittered across the marble, almost losing its footing.
The robot walked awkwardly under the hail of bullets, heading into the study with a stiff-legged gait. It was gone before Laura even remembered that she held a rifle.
'Cease fire!' Hoblenz shouted, and there followed a silence that seemed startlingly abrupt after the thunder of the ferocious weapons.
A great crash from the study was followed only by the tinkling of glass and the ringing in Laura's tortured ears. Hoblenz and Gray led the group to the study door. The window and large parts of the frame on the wall behind Gray's desk were gone. The fence that enclosed a small garden outside lay on the ground, and the jungle branches beyond it still shook.
'Lord God Aw-mighty,' Hoblenz said. 'I think that one got a hold of some PCP.'
'Come on,' Gray said, and he headed to the kitchen. Weapons were raised and ready to fire, but when Gray turned on the lights, it was clear the kitchen was empty.
It was also a complete mess. Food from the walk-in refrigerator and freezer was all over the floor. Every cabinet was open, its contents in disarray. The walls on which pans usually hung from hooks were empty, the shiny copper cookware strewn about the floor like toys in the robots' tactile rooms.
Gray reached down amid the mess and picked up a black sliver of what looked like rock. He held it in his fingers and twisted it in the air. It crumbled easily. He carefully prodded the debris on the floor with his toe and found several other shards of black rock. The kitchen was filled with loose black dirt that crunched under the soles of Laura's shoes.
'What's that,' she asked.
'Lava stone,' Gray said as he knelt on one knee, rubbing the black dust between his fingers. He rose, and everyone followed him back to his study.
Hoblenz stuck to his side and said, 'Do you mind me askin' what's goin' on?'
'That lava stone has been drilled,' Gray replied as he rounded his desk and sat. 'The robot we just ran into tracked in the cuttings. Since they've got the run of their own facility, they must be drilling toward something else. The only other facility in the mountain is Krantz's nuclear lab.'
'Jesus,' was all Hoblenz said.
Gray picked up the telephone and dialed quickly. Cold wind drifted in through the shattered window. 'Laura,' he said, motioning her over to the terminal on his desk, 'You log on and find out what the computer knows about any tunneling. Mr. Hoblenz you get on that one over there,' he said, pointing to another computer beside the sofa. 'Pull up a schematic. I want to know how close the Model Eight facility is to the nuclear labs at the closest point.'
'Phil,' Gray said into the receiver, 'I'm going to put you on the speaker.' He punched the button so all could hear. 'Where the hell are the Model Eights right now?'
'They're all over the reactor. They've apparently broken out a portable recharger — one that we had for remote construction sites — and managed to power it up. They can move that charging station around — tie up to electrical substations and not have to go all the way back to the mountain for a recharge.'
Laura looked down at the screen and read, <Will somebody please tell me what's happening?>
'This is Laura. There was a Model Eight in Mr. Gray's house.'
<The bastards! I told you not to trust them.>
'Laura,' Gray said, interrupting Griffith's report, 'Ask about the drilling.'
She typed, 'Do you know anything about what's going on in the Model Eight facility?'
<No, but I know they've gone around the island destroying security cameras and microphones. They're out of control.>
'What about the nuclear lab?'
<I don't know anything about the facilities inside the mountain. I know the entrances to the Model Eight facility are sealed tight with their heavy storm doors. I know there's a portable charger at the reactor. It can charge ten at a time.>
'Mr. Gray wants me to ask you about drilling. Have you detected any drilling?'
<Well, now that you mention it, I detected some low, subsonic vibrations through my motion sensors. With low-frequency sound, it's hard to determine the direction of the source, but the sensors were all in the vicinity of the mountain. It's possible that there is drilling somewhere in there.>
'Could Model Eights drill through to the nuclear facility?'
