Learning to Dance

take a short break, clear our heads? We’ll reconvene in
fifteen and discuss Dr. Claw’s suggestion.”
Up was the first to leave, his hands shaking and his mind
coming up with a thousand retorts, none of which sounded
quite as good as what Dr. Claw had left them with. Blow up
the entire Headquarters and everyone in it? What kind of
plan was that? They’d never agree to it, they couldn’t
possibly-
He stopped short as he passed the bunker’s garage,
where the land vehicles were kept. Someone was moving
around in there. He pulled out his zapper.
“Ensign!”
Pedro turned around guiltily, one foot already in a
camouflaged Jeep. “Oh, hi, Commander.”
Up was at the end of his rope. “Planning to go for a
joyride, were you? You know that we’re deep in robot
territory, Ensign. No one is to leave the bunker, it’s not safe
for humans to be out there alone.”
Pedro opened his mouth, then closed it again. Up crossed
his arms and waited.
“It’s Taz,” he said finally. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” Up said dangerously.
“I went to visit her and I let it slip that we’d landed in
Mexico,” Pedro said, very quickly, his hands half raised as
if to defend himself from an expected attack. “When I went
back a half an hour later, she wasn’t in her room. I checked
the ship’s log and she’s not on board.” He pointed at a set of
tell-tale tire tracks heading toward the bunker’s garage
door. “And there’s a Jeep missing.”
“You told her we were in Mexico?” Up said, raising his
communicator to check the logs himself. They confirmed
what Pedro said – Taz was not on board the Cazadora. If
she had checked the navigation and realized that they
weren’t more than twenty miles from her obliterated