In Over Their Heads

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Eryn saw something whipping around in Ava’s hand. A cord. The cord she’s grabbed from Jackson’s neck.

  Is it possible? Eryn wondered. Is there still a chance?

  A wonderful plan bloomed in Eryn’s mind. But everything depended on Ava being able to hear Eryn.

  And Ava trusting Eryn enough to follow the plan.

  “Ava! Transfer your thoughts and memories into the killer robot’s brain!” Eryn screamed. “Do it now! Make them understand everything you understand!”

  FORTY-NINE

  Ava

  Ava saw that Eryn’s eyes had locked onto hers, that they followed Ava even as the killer robot whipped Ava’s body back and forth through the air. Ava was barely managing not to throw up, but she could tell that Eryn was screaming something at her.

  Probably “It’s all your fault! Yours and Jackson’s! I never wanted stepsiblings anyhow!” Ava thought bitterly.

  But Ava had enhanced vision, enhanced hearing. Even as the angry robots closed in on Nick and Eryn, Ava could make out some of Eryn’s words, half by lipreading, half by ear: Transfer . . . now . . . Make . . . understand . . . She could see Eryn pantomime punching something into Nick’s neck.

  And then the robots circling around Nick and Eryn blocked Ava’s view. She looked instead at the cord dangling from her hand.

  Does she mean . . . ? Ava thought. She remembered when she was in the FOR ROBOT ACCESS ONLY room, how she’d thought that she wanted to share her knowledge with other robots and humans. But she hadn’t known then that there were still killer robots around; she never would have thought of sharing with them, too. It took a human brain to make that leap.

  Does it matter? Ava wondered. Will this make any difference at all?

  She had to try. For Nick and Eryn’s sake. For the sake of humanity.

  And for the sake of all robots, too.

  As the killer robot swung Ava higher, Ava plunged one end of the cord into his neck. With trembling hands she poked the other end into her own neck.

  “Copy!” Ava screamed, her voice shaking. “Copy my brain into his! And into every other robot linked into the network!”

  The killer robot swung her down again, and the cord stretched to its very limits.

  Will it break before anything happens? Ava wondered. Do we have enough time?

  Abruptly the killer robot stopped swinging Ava through the air. The line of monster robots around him stopped chanting. All the angry robots attacking Nick and Eryn stopped completely.

  Everyone stood motionless.

  And in the silence, across the gulf of the vast cave, Ava’s enhanced hearing enabled her to hear Eryn whisper, “Thank you. Thank you, Ava. Thank you, my sister.”

  EPILOGUE

  Everybody

  Ava, Eryn, and Nick walked across the newly trimmed grass. It was spring now, and daffodils and crocuses bloomed alongside the well-tended tombstone before them.

  The inscription read:

  LIDA MAE SPENCER

  2004–2016

  Lost too soon

  Beloved daughter, sister, friend

  Ava bent down and tucked another bouquet of flowers into the hollow space between the stone and the dirt. But this bouquet was made of wildflowers: dandelions, violets, clover, and Queen Anne’s lace.

  “I know these will wilt pretty quickly, but this suits her better than anything we might have bought from a florist,” Ava said. “At least, that’s what our Lida Mae told me.”

  “Yeah,” Eryn agreed. “And now that we’re here, I see why it would be too creepy for her to look at this.”

  This tombstone was for the original, human Lida Mae, whose spirit and personality had been copied to create the robot Lida Mae.

  Nick raised his hand and waved at their Lida Mae, who was standing just outside the gate at the other end of the cemetery. He brought his thumb and forefinger together, making an okay sign, and she made the same motion back to him.

  The robot official who’d been zapped by the killer robot’s death ray had been completely destroyed. But the policewoman had survived being smashed with a rock column, and Lida Mae and Jackson had both survived being thrown across the cave. They’d all needed substantial repairs (and Lida Mae had had the skin on her torso replaced as well). Everyone knew that if they’d been human, all the injured would have been dead. But even Jackson didn’t argue that that meant robots were superior to humans.

  Because now even Jackson understood that humans had different strengths.

  Thanks to Eryn thinking creatively and saving us all, Nick thought. Then he could practically hear Eryn adding, With Ava’s help.

  Sometimes it was eerie being twins. It was also eerie having parents and stepsiblings who were robots. But the more he got used to it, the more Nick liked it.

  It certainly made life interesting.

  There were lots of other changes the kids had had to adapt to in the past few months. The entire family (steps and all) had relocated to Kentucky, just outside the Mammoth Cave nature preserve. Ava and Jackson’s parents, Brenda and Michael, had taken jobs bringing the babies and children from the cave back to life, and updating them after their years in storage. They were even retrofitting the young robots, making it so they could grow and change just like Ava and Jackson.

  That, amazingly, was entirely legal now.

  Nick and Eryn’s mom, Denise, counseled the restored kids and their families about how to handle their new chance at life.

  And Nick and Eryn’s dad, Donald, was busy building hotels for those families to stay in as they came to pick up their kids. He’d also built houses for Lida Mae’s family to live in outside the cave, now that all of them were fully repaired and restored. It was a good thing Jackson had made himself so strong and fast, because Donald needed all the help he could get.

  Sometimes Donald talked about getting Michael or Brenda to give him the same kind of superhuman powers. But then he’d always reconsider: “I think changes like that are better for the younger generation. I’ve spent too many years with a weak and slow body—I’m not sure I could handle all that power.”

  Sometimes Eryn wondered if he was just being kind to his kids, trying not to thrust too much change at them at once.

  Little did he know . . .

  “You in?” Ava asked.

  Eryn and Nick both nodded.

  “And Jackson said I could vote on his behalf—he’s in too,” Nick said.

  “And I have Lida Mae’s vote,” Eryn said. “It’s yes.”

  “Okay, then,” Ava said. She tried to pretend that her hands weren’t shaking. But why should they shake? She wasn’t in this alone. “It’s official. The five of us will go out and hunt down all the other killer robots still hidden in the world and . . .” She pulled an innocent-looking cord from her jeans pocket. “And teach them a better way of viewing the world. One that won’t destroy anyone.”

  Ava knew that there was still the small matter of convincing their parents and stepparents that the five kids were the right ones for that particular task. But she knew they were up to it.

  Hadn’t they already proved they could save the world?

  “Hey, wait for us!” she heard off in the distance.

  She turned and saw Jackson coming toward the cemetery. He was riding on the shoulder of one of the killer robots—actually, a former killer robot. Originally, none of the killer robots had had names, because they’d been practically interchangeable. But they’d all begun choosing what they wanted to be called.

  This one insisted his name was Ralph.

  The ground shook a little as he stomped forward on his boulderlike legs, but he grinned and waved his arm at all the kids just as joyfully as Jackson did.

  “Have you voted already?” Jackson called as he and Ralph approached the cemetery gate where Lida Mae was standing. “Ralph says he wants to come too.”

  “Is that all right?” Ralph asked hesitantly, his timid voice sounding almost comical coming from his massive head.

 
; Eryn started trying to telegraph a message to Nick with her eyes: Are we ready for this? Working as a team not just with robots, but former killer robots too?

  But then she gave up. She knew what his answer would be. Yes.

  That was her answer too.

  Before either of them could reply, Lida Mae spoke for all of them from beside the gate.

  “Of course!” she said. “The more the merrier!”

  Ralph responded by reaching out—impossibly far—and scooping her up and putting her on his other shoulder.

  “I just thought it’d be good to have two robots on our team with superhuman strength,” Jackson explained.

  “Along with two robots who don’t need superhuman strength to be amazing,” Ava retorted.

  “And two humans,” Eryn said softly. “Two humans who are glad to still be around. And . . . who know it’s best for both robots and humans if we all work together.”

  “We all know that now,” Jackson called to her from across the cemetery. His enhanced hearing had picked up even her near whisper.

  Eryn looked down at the tombstone one last time. It wasn’t just the original Lida Mae she wanted to remember. It was two scientists who had probably died without ever being buried, but who had held on to hope long enough to make sure the human race could start again. It was a small group of desperate robots who, in a time of cataclysmic war, had chosen a path nobody else saw.

  “We’re doing this for you,” Eryn whispered.

  Nick slugged her shoulder.

  “Who are you kidding?” he asked. “We’re doing this for ourselves! Because it will be fun!”

  Ava stepped between them and put her arms around both of her stepsiblings.

  “We’re doing this for everyone,” she said firmly. “For humans and robots and enhanced robots and former killer robots . . . We’re doing this for everyone’s future. Because now? Now we all have one.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Margaret Peterson Haddix is the author of many critically and popularly acclaimed teen and middle-grade novels, including the Missing series, the Shadow Children series, Claim to Fame, the Palace Chronicles, and Uprising. A graduate of Miami University (of Ohio), she worked for several years as a reporter for the Indianapolis News. She also taught at Danville (Illinois) Area Community College. She lives with her family in Columbus, Ohio. Visit her at haddixbooks.com.

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  The Girl with 500 Middle Names

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  Say What?

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  Running Out of Time

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Margaret Peterson Haddix

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Haddix, Margaret Peterson, author.

  Title: In over their heads / Margaret Peterson Haddix.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2017] | Sequel to: Under their skin | Summary: Twelve-year-old twins Nick and Eryn and their robot stepsiblings, Jackson and Ava, try to save humanity from killer robots.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015039563| ISBN 9781481417617 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481417631 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | Robots—Fiction. | Human beings—Fiction. | Extinction (Biology)—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.H1164 Ik 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015039563