The Adjusters Read online

  Henry shrugged. “So?”

  Fox gave him a look that said he was being slow. “I fed the names of all of the Malcorp High students into the tracker. They’ve been scattered all over the country. Some of them have even been given new names. But a few are starting to show up. This Stephen Lehane is…”

  She scrolled down to a picture at the bottom of the story. It was a blurry shot of a cop shoving a handcuffed kid into a cruiser. Henry recognized him immediately.

  “It’s Steve,” he said.

  Fox nodded. “Once a soldier, always a soldier.”

  “But his SPIDIR was fried by the electric shock from the lamp,” Henry said. “Wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” Fox said. “Maybe not. Remember, the deactivated SPIDIRs were left in the brains of Mallory’s adjusted kids, right?”

  Henry nodded. “Because it was too dangerous to try removing them.”

  “So what if Mallory’s Initiator didn’t deactivate them fully. Maybe they’re still following orders.”

  Henry looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps Mallory embedded some deeper programming in the adjustment process. Who knows what he was planning to do with his little army of robots? But now he’s not there to control them, perhaps that programming is going a little haywire. Hence our friend Steve here – planning to kill his classmates and teachers.”

  “They could be a bunch of time bombs waiting to go off,” Henry said quietly.

  “And nobody knows when or where.”

  They sat in silence, staring at the screen for a moment. Finally, Henry said, “Show me what else you’ve found.”

  ANDREW TAYLOR was born in New Zealand and grew up in East Anglia. He studied English Literature at Sheffield University and teaching at Cambridge. For the last ten years he has worked as a teacher in England, South Korea, Poland and Australia. He currently lives in Melbourne with his partner, her whippet, his Italian greyhound and numerous computer games consoles. He has not been adjusted (yet).

  (WRITING AS A. G. TAYLOR)

  METEORITE STRIKE

  ALIEN STORM

  ENEMY INVASION