Page 13 of Wild Oblivion

She groaned. “Have you tried a system reboot?”

“Yes.”

“Disconnect his battery, wait a minute, then try again.”

“Did that. Nothing.”

She sighed. “Bring him in next week, and I’ll take a look.”

“The bomb will have exploded by next week.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, let me make some calls and see if I can get a tech out to you. I’d come myself, but I’m out of the country.”

I thanked her, ended the call, then updated the team.

Every second that ticked by felt like borrowed time.

Alexis called me back a few minutes later and said a guy was en route. He showed up 20 minutes later and pushed through the crowd. He had a hard time getting past the deputies at first. They didn't want to let anyone near the area.

Alexis had given me a description of Jared, and I spotted him as he tried to push past the barricade. I jogged down the sidewalk and waved him through.

Jared was a tubby guy with curly brown hair and thick black glasses. A few days of stubble lined his jaw and double chin. We greeted each other with a handshake, and I said, "Thanks for coming."

He looked a little tentative about the whole situation. "Is the bomb live?”

"Yes.”

A hint of fear rounded his eyes. "When is it supposed to go off?”

"Hopefully never, if we do our job right.”

That wasn't too reassuring for him.

"Relax. We’ve got a little over 22 hours, in theory.”

I escorted him to the robot and introduced him to the team.

Jared took a look at BOB and ran through the standard protocols. He disconnected the battery and tried to reboot the robot.

It didn't work.

He tried a few more things with the same result.

After another 20 minutes of fiddling with it, he gave up. "I don't know what's wrong. I'm gonna have to take him back to the lab and pull him apart.”

We all grimaced. That wasn't what we wanted to hear.

"Is it possible he could have been hacked?” I asked.

Jared shrugged. "Anything is possible. But we put a crazy amount of security into these things now.”

"Nothing is foolproof.”

"What do you want me to do? Leave the robot with you, or take him in now?”