Micro - Michael Crichton [151]
“Peek-a-boo, I see you,” said Drake.
The two micro-humans heard him perfectly on their headsets. He was using a squirt radio. Rick said to Karen, “Launch.”
They powered up the aircraft and fell off Eric’s arm, diving, the props ramping up.
Drake didn’t seem to care what they did. He aimed the gun and light into Eric’s eyes, standing with his body turned sideways and his gun arm held straight out. Drake held up the bot controller in his other hand. Its screen made his hand glow. He touched a button with his thumb and said, “Your bot controller doesn’t actually work, Eric. Only mine does.”
Rick banked his micro-plane and circled over Eric’s head. He couldn’t see Karen. He called to her on the radio: “Stay close to me.”
“Rick—can Drake hear us?”
“Of course I can hear you,” Drake’s voice came on their radios. He swung the gun around suddenly, and the laser beam dodged around their planes, and they saw his vast, leering face. For a moment Rick thought Drake would fire the gun at them, but then he realized that the bullet probably wouldn’t hit their planes. They were too small, dodging around too fast.
Drake kept the gun pointed at Eric’s head. He held up the bot controller, pressed a button. “There,” he said.
“What did you do?” Eric said, looking up.
Drake looked around and smiled. “I activated the bots.” He took a step backward, waiting.
“You’ll be attacked by them, too—” Eric said.
“I don’t think so.” Drake lunged forward and hit Eric in the face with the butt of his gun. Eric groaned and fell to his knees.
“What is it about you Jansen brothers? You seem to require beatings on a regular basis,” Drake said. He kicked Eric in the ribs. Eric gasped and went down on all fours and began to crawl.
“Where are you going, Eric? Looking for something?”
“Go to hell.”
Drake kicked him in the side of the head, viciously. Eric slumped down and curled up, and seemed to lose consciousness, while Drake’s pistol light danced over him.
Eric tried to struggle to his feet, but couldn’t.
“Well, Eric, there’s something you don’t realize. The bots ignore my body scent. They’ll go after anybody except me.” He chuckled. “They respect me.”
Eric put his hand up to his face, then took it away. His hand was spotted with blood. A small razor cut had opened on his forehead.
“Too bad, Eric. Looks like one of them found you.”
Eric crawled toward Drake, who darted backward and smiled. Eric began swatting at his hair, at his ears, shaking himself.
“Trying to get the bots off, Eric? Can you feel them crawling on your face? In your hair? Soon they’ll be in your bloodstream. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. You just watch yourself bleed.”
As Drake worked on Eric, Rick flew toward the door to the generator room. That’s where he and Karen had to go. He circled in close to the door, and he made a slow pass near it. He saw a small vent at the top of the door. It might be big enough for a micro-plane to pass through; he couldn’t tell. He backed away and flew up close to Karen, until their wings nearly touched. He switched off his radio, and shouted at her: “He can’t hear us when we shout. Fly toward the door to the generator room. Looks like there’s a way through.”
He got some altitude above the vent in the door, and ran up to full power, and dove at the slot. His wings clipped the slot as he went through, and he ended up inside the generator room, spiraling out of control. Karen followed him a moment later. Rick recovered, got his plane under control. He flew straight toward the center of the generator chamber, the pattern of hexagons below him. He picked out the central hexagon and banked, looking down. He could see a small white circle in it, far below: it marked the location of the control panel. He could see Karen King flying off his right wing. “I’m going to land by the circle,” he shouted to her, hoping his voice carried over the rushing wind as his plane flew.