“Who’s got tape?”
“Hold on.” ck jumpsuit reached inside a large toolbox A man in a bla and tossed a roll of tape to someone else. This person tore off several strips of it and secured the receiver to the cradle of a plain black phone in a box firmly held in the robot’s grippers. his is Benton Wesley. I’m “Lucy,” Wesley spoke. “T
here.”
“Hi,” she said, and I could feet her nervousness.
“As soon as you get the phone to them, I’m going to start talking. I just want you to know what I’m doing.”
“Are we ready?” she asked, and she had no idea I was there.
. “Let’s do it,” Wesley tensely said.
She touched a button on her glove and Toto came to life in a quiet whir, and the one eye beneath his domed brain turned, as if focusing like a camera lens. His head swiveled as Lucy touched another button on a glove, and everyone watched in hushed anticipation as my niece’s creation suddenly moved. It plowed forward on rubber tracks, telephone tight in its grippers, the fiber optics and telephone cable unrolling from spools.
Lucy silently conducted Toto’s journey like an orchestra, her arms out and gently moving. Steadily, the robot rolled down the road, over gravel and through grass, until he was far enough away that one of the agents passed out field glasses. Following a sidewalk, Toto reached four cement steps leading up to the glass front entrance of the main building, and he stopped. Lucy took a deep breath as she continued to make her telepresence known to her metal and plastic friend. She touched another button, and the grippers extended with arms. They slowly lowered and set the telephone on the second step. Toto backed up and swiveled around, and Lucy began to bring him home.
The robot had not gotten far when all of us could see that glass door open, and a bearded man in khakis and a sweater swiftly emerged. He grabbed the telephone off the step and vanished inside.
“Good work, Lucy,” Wesley said, and he sounded very relieved. “Okay, goddamn it, now call,” he added, and he was not talking to us, but them. “Lucy,” he added, “when you’re ready, come on in.”
“Yes, sir,” she said as her arms coaxed Toto over every dip and bump.
Then Marino, Wesley and I climbed steps leading into the mobile command post, which was upholstered in gray and blue, with tables between seats. There was a small kitchen and bath, and windows were tinted so one could see out, but not in. Radio and computer equipment had been set up near the back, and overhead five televisions were turned to the major networks and CNN, the volume set low.
A red phone on a table started ringing as we were walking down the aisle. It sounded urgent and demanding, and Wesley ran to pick it up.
“Wesley,” he said, staring out a window, and he pushed two buttons that both taped the caller and put him on speakerphone.
“We need a doctor.” The male voice sounded white and Southern, and he was breathing hard.
“Okay, but you’re going to need to tell me more.”
“Don’t bullshit with me!” he screamed.
“Listen.” Wesley got very calm. “We’re not bullshitting, all right’? We want to help, but I need more information.”
“He fell in the pool and went into like a coma.”
“Who did?”
“Why the fuck does it matter who?”
Wesley hesitated.
“He dies, we’ve got this place wired. You understand?
We’re going to blow you fucking up if you don’t do some thing now!”
We knew who he meant, so Wesley did not ask again.
Something had happened to Joel Hand, and I did not want to imagine what his followers might do if he died.
“Talk to me,” Wesley said.
“He can’t swim.”
“Let me make certain I understand. Someone almost drowned’?”
“Look. The water’s radioactive. It had the fucking fuel assemblies in it, you understand?”
“He was inside one of the reactors.”
The man screamed again, “Just shut the fuck up with your questions and get someone to help. He dies, everybody dies. You understand that?” he said as a gun loudly went IL