Further Into The Future!

Chapter 26

"Well, why don't you get those robots?" Jack fumed out his tightly clenched jaw.

"Yes sir," Tiberius said. He walked back to the square of robots calmly.

"Carl! Tibs! Come out here!"

The formation of robots stirred with the sound of clicking plastic and then righted itself as two identical robots walked out the right side. They were short and hefty. Unlike with most robots, I didn't feel that I could lift them up. I doubted I could even have pushed them over. They were striped yellow and black, with orange helmets on their heads and orange triangles on their chest and back. They had no neck, their square heads popping right out their shoulders. Their arms grew thicker and more layered near the end. As one of them walked he extended his arm, each layer sliding out successively until it was almost as tall as he was.

He stuck this arm out the bars to Jack, who ignored it.

"Tibs," the robot said.

"Carl," said the other.

"We used to be construction workers," Tibs said.

"Can you cut through this lock?" Jack asked.

Tibs retracted his arm, moved it over a few bars then re-extended it and picked up the lock.

"Looks like a twenty millimeter stainless steel bar," he said to Carl, his mouth hole lighting up slightly on every word.

"I'd say more like twenty-five," Carl said. His voice was more raspy than Tibs'.

"Nah, I'm pretty sure that's a twenty," Tibs said. He rotated the lock with his arm. "Yeah, that's definitely a twenty." His blockish head moved up and down in a nod.

"Can you cut through it?" Jack yelled.

"Yeah, we can do it," Tibs said. "Just give it some time."

"We don't have time," Jack said.

"Well, we can't work miracles here," Tibs said. "It'll be at least three minutes."

"OK, just get it started." Jack was becoming more nervous, looking over his shoulder and yelling more.

Tibs retracted the last extension of his arm and a new one popped out. It had a sharp-bladed saw at the end. He turned it so the saw was perpendicular to the steel loop. It spun loudly with the high-pitched sound of scraping metal. Sparks spun off the blade as it sliced into the bar.

"Sorry about the noise," Tibs yelled, turning his head as much as he could toward us. "Been a while since I greased my gears, you know?" A superficial sounding recording of a chuckle issued from his mouth.

Jack strode nervously around the lock, leaning forward and back to get a better view of their progress. With the constant fear of a Corrupt Cop waking up and finding us, the minutes seemed to stretch on forever. Our sense of hearing was obscured by the metallic squeal so we watched the door warily.

I turned around when I heard some yelling over the noise of the saw. Tony, the No-Good Greaser leader, was stomping around their jukebox. When he reached the wall he kicked it with his boot, leaving a dent. The other Greasers were sitting on the jukebox with their hands wedged as far as they could go into the tight pockets of their jeans. One of them freed his hand from its pocket and used it to comb his hair slowly, mournfully.

"What's wrong?" Susan asked.

"There's a crack on the jukebox, that's what's wrong," Tony said. He was bouncing up and down with anger. "If I run into a Corrupt Cop on our way outta here he might get a crack or two himself," he said, pointing at Susan menacingly.