B. E. V. Read online

  We walked down the corridor and Kat toed the boxes. They skidded across the floor, empty. I strolled farther along and noticed an elevator at the end of the hall. The light was on.

  "Hey, Kat, come here," I pointed. "Everything's supposed to be off. What's this doing still working?"

  She hurried over. "Well, what do you know." Kat approached the door and her finger hovered over the single button pointing down. "Push it?"

  I didn't want to appear chicken in front of her. "Go ahead, let's see what happens."

  She stabbed the button and we waited. A minute went by and another – the door slid silently open.

  "Let's go." Kat stepped inside and waved me to enter. "Wanna take a ride?"

  "I don't think this is a good idea." I took a few hesitant steps inside the cage and studied the walls. Behind Kat was a big sign stenciled across the back of the elevator, which read, "Authorized Personnel Only" in huge red letters. I tugged on her sleeve and pointed. "I don't remember any of the other elevators with this."

  "Chicken." She stuck her tongue out at me. "Scaredy cat."

  "Don't stick it out unless you intend to use it," I quipped. "What happens if it gets stuck? This thing hasn't moved in years."

  "Double chicken – little girl with diapers," she said with a smirk.

  I said something I'd been taught never to say in front of anyone, especially girls, and studied the panel. I saw two buttons; one marked "Main Level", the other, "Sub-basement – Restricted" with a strange symbol etched on it showing a devil's head with a pitchfork. We were already on the main level; without asking Kat, I pushed the button reading "Sub-basement" and the door closed.

  "Where do you think we're heading?" Kat said as we felt ourselves grow light and the seconds ticked away.

  I pointed to the panel. "If this is any indication, a place no one knows about. Pop always said the basement was the lowest level."

  We rode in silence the balance of the way until the elevator stopped with a soft clunk! and the door slide open, revealing a dimly lit corridor. We stepped out and hesitated.

  "DUCK!"

  A metallic ball zipped toward our heads. Before we could hit the deck, it came to an abrupt halt and a light sprang out, playing over us. I felt a tingling along my scalp and my hair stood on end. I glanced at Kat – her red mop was weaving around the same as Medusa's snakes.

  As quick as it began, the light snapped off. The globe scrutinized us again, and made a beeline down the hallway, disappearing around a corner.

  "Stop it!" Kat sprinted off in hot pursuit, bag slapping against her side, her sneakers squeaking on the floor as she raced after the globe.

  "Hey, wait up!" Running was not my best sport. I hobbled after her and caught a glimpse of Kat and the sphere swinging right into another passage. I huffed along and heard a scuffle up ahead out of sight.

  "AHHHH!"

  If possible, I hurried faster and slid around the bend coming to a screaming stop. Kat was in the clutches of a – thing.

  Chapter Two

  The top half of a man sat strapped in a floating chair. Hips and legs disappeared below the seat in a mass of wires and tubes. Fluid flowed through the hoses, while the smell of rubbing alcohol and oil permeated the hallway.

  Long white hair sprouted from his skull in wisps; burning black eyes, a pale complexion, and a dirty bleached lab coat made him a ghost. The flying sphere zoomed around his head.

  He clutched Kat, gazing down at her with shocked surprise, while she kicked, punched his seat, and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  "Hey – put her down." I scrambled to the chair, grabbed Kat by the back of her shirt, and jerked her away as hard as I could.

  "Kat – help me pull," I gasped as the buttons on her shirt began to pop off. "Fight him – fight." My sneakers slipped on the floor as I tried tugging her out of his grip.

  The creature jerked his head up, his mouth gaping open revealing gnarled yellow teeth, and released Kat. She collapsed against me, and we landed on our bottoms with a muffled "Ouch!" The bloodshot eyes studied us as a praying Mantis studies an insect before it strikes.

  "Another?" He said in a clipped British accent. "Two of you? This is quite improper you know. Children are not allowed on this level." He paused, thinking. "Where did you come from?" he asked.

  "We rode down the elevator, and we're from the valley, where else?" I said, glaring back at him while helping Kat struggle to her feet. "Who are you, and how'd you get here?"

  "Me?" The strange man acted confused, clearly not expecting someone to question his right to be in an abandoned building. "I am Doctor Krumboton, who else would I be?" He spread his arms wide as if it was obvious, "I work here."

  Doctor Krumboton? Never heard of him, but more to the point, he was lying. "You can't work here, no one works here," I retorted. "This place has been deserted for years." I didn't know what this guy was trying to pull, but I knew for a fact the only people who walked out alive after the Greys' attack was Kat and I, and our fathers. I watched Mr. Brennan and Pop bury our moms and the rest of the lab's personnel.

  "Are you sure?" The doctor said, sounding stunned. He glanced up and down the hallway searching for others whom he knew should be there. His eyes widened in surprise when he realized the corridor was empty. "I did notice a few years ago no one else was about, but I thought they all went for pizza."

  He checked again to assure himself he hadn't missed someone and whispered to us in a confidential tone, "They never invite me anywhere." He put his finger to his mouth. "Where did they go?"

  Kat gave me a sideways glance with a tilt of her head, which told me this dude, or machine, I guess you'd call him a cyborg, was nuts.

  "Ah, Doctor Krumboton," I said, "The Greys killed everyone, attacked our cities and this lab with a paralyzing ray. They're all dead. No one's been here for ten years."

  "Hmmm . . . this would explain everything, wouldn't it? What did this ray do?"

  "Uh, my pop said it stopped the muscles from working, your heart and stuff," I said. I thought of my dead leg.

  "How interesting." He took out a pad and pencil from the arm of his chair. "Greys attack – muscles stopped functioning," he said as he wrote. "Ten years ago, you say?" He scribbled again. "I must remember these things." He tucked the paper away in his breast pocket.

  The ball settled in his lap. He gave the sphere an affectionate stroke and said, "No help for it then." He tossed the ball back into the air. "Scoot, back home," he ordered – it spun off down the hallway. The doctor's floating chair swung around and drifted after the globe. "You two may come along, also," he called over his shoulder.

  "Should we follow?" I asked Kat dubiously, as the back of the chair moved away. "Or should we make a run for it?"

  "I don't know," she replied as we hurried to catch up. "What do you think?"

  "He seems a nice geezer, daft in the head, but harmless." I hoped he was harmless and not some axe murder who was hiding down here. He reminded me of a senile old uncle I'd seen in the movies. "Let's see what else he has to say. I'm beginning to enjoy this guy."

  We caught up to the chair and fell in beside it. "Uh, Doctor Krumboton? Now you know everyone's dead, don't you want to leave?" I asked out of breath, "or, at least go up to the surface and check around?" He didn't act the least bit interested in what happened.

  The doctor chuckled. "Lad, I arrived here twenty years ago, I doubt I have returned to the surface four times. Sun comes up?"

  "Ah, yeah. Sure."

  "Oceans still rising?" he asked with a smirk.

  "Florida's gone," put in Kat. "I saw what it used to be on my computer – all disappeared now except a small sliver down by Mobil Island."

  "I thought so," he agreed with a nod. "I have not missed much. What I find much more intriguing is this ray you are talking about – opens up a whole new line of investigation for me to explore."

  He halted at a panel and withdrew a card from the hand rest of his chair. He swiped it in a slot and a door
swished open. He said to us, "This reminds me, if everyone is dead topside, what are you two doing alive?"

  "Well not all of us died, a few survived," I replied. I peered into the room, "It's not so rough out there. We get by; we're rebuilding."

  The doctor touched a button on the side of the wall as we entered. The lights in the hallway behind us dimmed and blinked off. "There, this will keep the nosies away," he said with satisfaction. "I forgot to cut the power last time I went out. Silly me, I leave the lab so infrequently I sometimes forget. I guess I am becoming absent minded in my old age."

  "You mean we're stuck down here now?" gasped Kat as she twisted around, watching the door swish shut.

  "Oh, yes," agreed the doctor, "we are quite unreachable until I switch the power back on in the outside hallway. Watch it, young man," he cautioned as I tripped over something, "you are going to step on Oscar."

  I stared at my feet. A small mechanical rat was sniffing at my sneaker. I leaped backward, stumbled into Kat, who was in the process of dancing out of my way and watching the rodent at the same time. We both tumbled to the floor. The rat scampered away.

  "Do not worry, he will not hurt you." The doctor's chair hovered close to us. "In fact, nothing here will." He waved to the room.

  "Thanks for telling us now," I grumbled, struggling to my feet. I hauled Kat up too. "What is all this stuff?"

  The room was large, but seemed tiny because of all the machinery stuffed inside. Besides the equipment, creepy-crawly things writhed, slithered, or flew around the room and floor in an endless pattern. Our old friend, the flying ball, zipped at our heads again, paused, and wandered off on a mission to investigate a metal squirrel. The shadow tail, in turn, pretended to eat a plastic peanut while scrutinizing us intently with beady little eyes.

  "In the main, surveillance," Krumboton replied with a neglectful wave of his hand, "some covert ops." He pointed to the squirrel, which shifted its gaze to the doctor. "This one sits and watches. Everything it sees and hears feeds back to the operator. Who would suspect a squirrel was a secret agent?"

  "No one, I guess," said Kat. "I wouldn't. It would be weird."

  "You are right, young lady," the doctor agreed. "Now Oscar –" the rat ran up into his lap at the mention of his name –" chews wire. Do you want to take a computer system down? Need to terminate the power to one section of a building without disturbing the rest? Do not worry about cyber-attacks, missiles, or sneaking in a spy. Let Oscar and his brothers go and rip up the power lines of whatever you want to infiltrate and nothing will work." He spread his arms in a proud sweep around the room. "I invented all of these."

  "Wow."

  The old geezer had reason to be proud, but then again, I suppose with no one else to talk to, what else did he have to do? He also possessed ten years of pent up conversation to catch up on, and now he had a captive audience (literally). He was eager to talk. The doctor whizzed around in his chair, pointing and rattling on about every small machine, detail, and the way he created each, most of which neither Kat or I understood.

  By the end of an hour, we were ready to scream, Doctor Krumboton was worse than my chemistry teacher when he talked about solutions.

  "What happened to the rest of your body," Kat asked, pointing to his chair and trying to change the subject. "You weren't born without legs, were you?"

  "Oh, no." The doctor chuckled and studied the wires, tubes and chair, which made up half his body. "I lost my legs and hips in a lab explosion a long time ago. Spent some time in a wheelchair, and then I conceived the idea for this." He waved to himself. "Been improving on the concept in little ways ever since." He glanced down at my leg. "I noticed you have a problem, young man."

  "Yeah, well, I guess when the Greys attacked, their ray nicked my leg – at least this is what my Pop thinks. Doesn't work now," I shrugged, "stiff as wood. I suppose I was lucky."

  "You certainly were!" he exclaimed. "You would have missed out on all the fun." He withdrew his pad again. "Would you mind if I took a tissue sample, so I could examine the muscle? I promise it will not hurt."

  "Sure if you want," I said, "but don't worry about hurting me, I can't feel a thing."

  Doctor Krumboton let out a laugh. "I guess it would not, eh?" His eyes brightened and he snapped his fingers. "Do you want to see my latest invention?"

  Before we could make up an excuse to miss another lecture, he took off again and waved us to follow. "Come along, I'll show you a real treat." Doctor Krumboton's chair bobbed around his creations, and drifted toward another door at the far side of his lab. Kat and I ran after him, giving each other little groans of agony the doctor appeared not to hear. He touched a button on his chair and the door dilated into three parts, disappearing into the wall.

  The next room was half the size his lab, but held only one machine. An oblong cylinder, which reminded me of a shiny silver caterpillar, rested in the middle of the floor. The doctor sailed over to it and gave the metal hull a solid thump.

  "My latest masterpiece!" he exclaimed. "Meet B.E.V."

  Kat and I wandered around the machine studying the contraption from all angles. This was more interesting than the lectures the doctor leveled at us, and the mechanical side of me wanted to start pulling it apart to see how the guts worked.

  The surface was featureless except for an occasional eyelet, broken into segments identical to a centipede, and lacked wheels. The length was about thirty feet, but it was hard to tell, the body shimmered in and out of focus.

  Kat said, "This is a Bev?"

  I asked, "Does it do anything?"

  "Not Bev," scoffed the doctor. He drifted close and bent over, pronouncing each letter in our faces. "B-E-V." he spelled: "Battle Evasive Vehicle – the latest in Artificial Intelligence." He nodded to himself. "No doubt the reason why this facility was attacked. The Greys were afraid of her; she rivals any technology they have." He said in a whisper as if letting us in on a secret, "I even gave her a special coating of my own design for extra personality."

  "You're kidding, right?" It seemed far-fetched to me. No one in town knew about this secret project. The people who worked in the lab weren't aware the sub-basement hid Doctor Krumboton, or a lower level existed at all. How could the Greys have learned?

  I strode around the monstrosity again and started a detailed investigation, tapping as I went. I was searching for a hatch, a hood, where the engine or power pack was located. I discovered none, and couldn't figure out what this chunk of metal did. After another circuit, I asked, "Battle Evasive? Does it roll away when it's time to fight?"

  "This whole building was constructed by the government to hide my experiments, young man," the doctor said and wagged a finger at us. "Top secret, need-to-know basis."

  "Hey, Doc," I put up my hands, "I didn't mean to be a wise guy, but it just sits there, and I don’t see any gun barrels or anything."

  This mollified him. He continued in a quieter tone, "The government wanted me to build the ultimate in war machines. One-on-one, B.E.V. can outfight anything on the planet, or go into stealth mode and avoid detection, infiltrate enemy positions, or whichever is necessary at the time and place. Give me a hundred of these and I could defeat the world's armies."

  "There aren't many armies left, Doctor, just scavengers and skels," said Kat.

  Krumboton appeared thoughtful. "Hmmm . . . if what you tell me about the world is true, I suppose this would be the case, young lady."

  "Besides," I added, "I don't see how this could defeat anyone. You forgot to add one thing to Bev."

  "Dear me, what?" the doctor asked, worry in his voice as he glanced anxiously at his war machine.

  "A door?"

  "What – what did you say? A door?" He sputtered to us in confusion, "Of course there is a door – why would I build this and not put in a – watch." He floated to the side and pushed on the surface. A hatchway slid into focus. "There," he exclaimed, pointing, "a door."

  "Huh?" I did a double take. "How'd you manage to – I
didn't see anything before."

  "Part of the stealth mode," he explained. "I have her in low power right now to keep the systems active. Light bends around B.E.V.; everything bends around her in fact, light, sound. She is truly invisible. My hand unlocked a palm lock." He preened like a cat catching a tasty mouse.

  "Bend light? How do you twist light? No one can make something totally invisible, can they?"

  Doctor Krumboton brightened. "I am glad you asked this, young man. I discovered the secret. You see –"

  "Maybe you had better save it for later, Doctor," Kat put in quickly, her eyes raised in alarm. "We don't have a lot of time. What else does she do?"

  The doctor nodded in understanding and added with a troubled voice, "You cannot use her offensive weapons when she is in stealth mode, though. The same energy bending the light also unstabilizes the discharges leaving her – would not bother anyone entering or leaving the inside of the vehicle." He swung to the lip of the doorway and waved inside. "Go and see."

  When I heard this, I hurried to the hatch and peered inside the door, trying to get a better view of the interior. Kat stood next to me, rising on her toes, staring around in awe.

  "As for what else she can do, young lady, why, about anything except dress you in the morning." He pointed at the strange gadgets lining the walls.

  "Gee!"

  When Doctor Krumboton saw our expressions, he asked with delight, "Do you want to walk inside and explore?" he offered. "Go ahead, it is perfectly safe."

  "Yeah, sure," we agreed. I bowed to Kat. "Ladies first."

  She dimpled and curtsied. "Why thank you, sir."

  The hatch led into a cargo bay lined with lockers. As we entered lights sprang on, illuminating the inside in a soft warm glow. A small dining area, kitchen, and lounge area with couches, which I figured transformed into foldout beds, cluttered the rest of the interior. The color scheme, though, liver red and orange, left me nauseous. In the nose, I spotted four plush reclining couches set in front of a control board. Knobs, dials, and buttons lined the panel, reminding me of a middle guard jet fighter.