Kzine Issue 23

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  KZINE MAGAZINE

  Issue 23

  Edited by Graeme Hurry

  Kzine Issue 23 © January2019 by Kimota Publishing

  cover © Dave Windett, 2019

  A World In Aspic © Mike Chinn, 2019

  killvampire.com © John H Stevens, 2019

  Stealing The City’s Dark Dream © Kevin Stadt, 2019

  Surviving Life © Cameron Johnston, 2019

  The Grip © Steve Bates, 2019

  The Sleepy Warrior © Todd Sullivan, 2019

  Chains © Lindsey Duncan, 2019

  Note: An editorial decision has been taken to retain the spelling and vocabulary from the author’s country. This may reduce consistency but it is felt it helps to maintain authenticity and integrity of the story.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright holder. For editorial content this is Graeme Hurry, for stories it is the individual author, for artwork it is the artist.

  CONTENTS

  A WORLD IN ASPIC by Mike Chinn (9)

  KILLVAMPIRE.COM by John H. Stevens (5)

  STEALING THE CITY’S DARK DREAM by Kevin Stadt (14)

  SURVIVING LIFE by Cameron Johnston (11)

  THE GRIP by Steve Bates (14)

  THE SLEEPY WARRIOR by Todd Sullivan (12)

  CHAINS by Lindsey Duncan (12)

  Contributor Notes

  The number in brackets indicates the approximate printed page length of the story.

  A WORLD IN ASPIC

  by Mike Chinn

  The Head Gardener opened the gate for Jim as the last of the visitors rolled back onto their charabanc. Jim walked out of the Tudor Garden and watched the flying machine casting off and rising into the evening sky. He heard the hum of its warming motors. With a hot downdraught redolent of ozone the engines fired and the charabanc accelerated away.

  Jim waited for the harsh whine to fade before speaking. “Busy day?”

  The Head Gardener’s relays chattered for a moment. “Acceptable, for the time of year.” It rotated its shiny torso and retraced its steps back towards the Sun Pavilion. Jim fell in beside the robot. He slipped his hands into his pockets, finally relaxed.

  “Ah, yes. Autumn’s coming.”

  The Head Gardener paused, angling its cylindrical body back on hydraulic joints. For a moment the pentodes inside its Perspex dome glowed. Relays clattered again. “Indeed. Yet the weather is unseasonably warm.”

  Jim had to laugh. “Are we discussing the weather?”

  The Head Gardener righted itself, swivelling its torso. If Jim hadn’t known better he would have said the robot was deliberately aping human movement. It didn’t need to turn to look at him: its clear dome was ringed with sufficient variable-mu tube links to give it all-round vision.

  “Do you feel uncomfortable?” There was no room in its mechanical voice for shades of emotion. Jim imagined them anyway.

  “Not at all. It’s rather—” He tried to grasp the correct word, even though he knew most subtleties of language were lost on the machines. “—Reassuring.”

  The Head Gardener swivelled itself back but made no attempt to move for a moment. Its four arms hung immobile. Finally light pulsed within its dome and it stepped forward.

  “Reassuring,” it intoned. “Adjective. The act of making one feel less apprehensive.” Pentodes glowed briefly. “Are you in a state of apprehension, James Taggart? Do you need reassuring?”

  “We left apprehensive behind three years ago,” Jim muttered. “And what I need is a cigarette.” Funny how the cravings hadn’t faded over time.

  One of the Head Gardener’s arms half rose in a sinuous move, its pincer held in a manner that looked almost chiding. “Cigarettes are known to have a harmful effect upon humans. Anything harmful is forbidden.”

  “A little late for that.”

  They reached the Sun Pavilion. Its flowing Modernist lines glowed white; sunset would soon paint it a delicate rose. Jim loved this time of day: the colours, the freedom. He supposed the Head Gardener and all its attendant robots were oblivious to aesthetic qualities. Such a waste.

  He stepped onto the terrace and held open one of the Pavilion’s glass doors. The Head Gardner followed more ponderously on its thick, segmented legs. As he did every time, Jim gestured for the robot to enter with a flourish. As it did every time, the robot clanked by, mute.

  Jim imagined the Pavilion had once been a restaurant or tea room. Now it was empty but for a bewildering array of machinery lining the rear wall. Dials, vacuum tubes, screens, light bulbs and wire spools twitched, flickered or glowed. There was a constant, almost sub-aural hum; the charged air smelled sweet, warmed by glowing tubes. More than once, Jim had asked the Head Gardener what it all did; the robot never responded. The array was connected to the national power beams, obviously. That it was sited in the centrally placed Pavilion meant all of the Roof Garden’s visitors would have access to it during opening hours. Of course, that also meant Jim would be in no position to observe for himself.

  The Head Gardner plodded up to a large red switch on the far right of the array. He threw it, and instantly there was quiet. Only a green light indicated there was any power being beamed to the machinery at all.

  The robot rotated its torso and walked away from the array, retreating towards the glass doors. Jim hung back, making no attempt to get there first. The machine reached the door and paused. Its torso rotated. It’s making a point of looking at me again, thought Jim. After a moment the automaton pushed the door aside with two of its arms.

  Outside, a maintenance robot was lumbering out from under the trees. Flamingos muttered in complaint before strutting away from the machine’s stubby rubber legs. It was an early model, Jim noticed: the top half of its riveted body had crude, angular representations of eyes and a nose. The “head” even had what could have been meant as a wide brimmed hat welded in place. He was glad such anthropomorphisms had vanished: the thing was damned creepy.

  Jim sat himself on a wicker chair on the terrace. The Head Gardener paused, dome glowing and relays clattering.

  “Good night, James Taggart,” it droned. Before it left, Jim could have sworn it nodded itself towards him. Bowed, almost. Then it ploughed on, the man apparently forgotten, disappearing behind the Pavilion. A moment later, Jim heard lift doors open and close, the whine of machinery. The Head Gardner was gone for the evening, back to wherever it hid in the body of the old department store.

  A clutch of service robots were already clanking from the building behind Jim: laden trays locked in their pincers. He always marvelled the clumsy machines somehow never dropped a single cup or plate, or spilled their contents. Whether they used gyros or some electronic system, their equilibrium was outstanding.

  They laid out Jim’s supper with precision: servos whirring, the smell of hot metal almost overpowering his meal’s aroma. A silver tureen for the soup, chafing dishes for the main course. Plates and bowl had a D&T monogram neatly painted near the rim. Once laid out to their satisfaction the robots about-faced and returned to the kitchens inside the Pavilion.

  The food was, as ever, excellent. Jim had come to expect no less. He was the robots’ prize; their darling. He was cossetted in every way – as long as it wasn’t bad for his health. This evening the soup was Brown Windsor, or something very close to it. There was lamb shank with roast potatoes and a choice of several vegetables. Dessert would be trifle or ice cream, served later. For drink there was only water served from a metal carafe beaded with condensation, drunk from a metal beaker that always tainted the flavour. What he wouldn’t give for a decent glass of wine, or beer.

 
; When the lamb was finished he sat back and looked at the sky. While he’d been eating it had turned black and splattered by stars. The roof garden was unlit—who was there to light it for except him?—and being so close to the trees, Jim could almost convince himself he was out in the country. Back in his parents’ cottage on the Downs.

  Abruptly he stood. Still holding the metal beaker in one hand he carried his chair in the other. He crossed a small arched wooden bridge over the stream. If the robots wanted to serve dessert, they’d have to find him. In the dark the few trees became woodland, a forest. Was the water moving, he wondered. Was that a purpose of the machines back in the Sun Pavilion: pumping the stream during visiting hours?

  In moments he’d reached the edge of the roof, the end of the garden. At some point the wall had been heightened and plastered smooth. The robots didn’t want him falling. Or jumping.

  There was a squat brick structure against the wall. Once accessing two elevators, now it was sealed: bricked up and plastered as smooth as the parapet. He put down his beaker and pushed the chair up against the building’s low side. Using it as a boost he could haul himself up onto the flat, narrow roof. There, hands in trouser pockets, he gazed out at the lightless city. Directly below him was the High Street Kensington tube station: silent and still. All around, streets and buildings were just as solemn, just as quiet. The only light came from the transmitter masts along the horizon: a pale, eerie blue glow generated by countless tubes arrayed on their transceiver arms. Warning spots flashed red and yellow from the highest points, though they were largely redundant. The masts’ glow was distinctive enough for any rare, low-flying aerial traffic. Visitors generally confined their sight-seeing to the daylight hours. London, obviously, was lifeless when the sun went down.

  Jim sat on the roof, dangling his legs over the six floor drop. If he’d launched himself free, the nets encircling the building would trap him before he’d fallen more than a dozen feet. He’d never been tempted to try. It would have been a futile gesture, lost on robots that would have patiently hauled him back and cleaned him without comment.

  Not for the first time the panorama reminded Jim of something; some image from childhood. The stark emptiness of all those buildings, the silence. Like toys: dolls’ houses—

  Jim came to his feet as the memory finally clarified. He didn’t remember his father—killed during the war while Jim was still a baby—but he remembered the large train set his father had owned. Jim’s grandfather had shown it to him on a couple of occasions. Jim had wanted to play with it, see the clunky tinplate locomotives chasing their tails among a maze of card buildings and bridges, but his grandfather wouldn’t operate the layout. The younger Jim had been disappointed at the time, but his older self recognized the old man’s reluctance. It had become a shrine, a memorial to the memory of Jim’s father. To be cherished and cared for, but never played with.

  That was the London he saw stretching out before him: nothing more than a memory. Preserved for the ages. Never to be played with.

  Another thought struck him—one so outrageous that it saw him leaping back into the garden and racing towards the Pavilion. He waded through the narrow stream, ignoring the bridges, startling dozing flamingos. A servitor was waddling from the Pavilion as he reached the terrace, carrying a towering pyramid of ice cream. Its limited cognition circuits failed to react as Jim yanked a Pavilion door wide and plunged into the dark building.

  The single green light guided Jim to the bank of machinery. His fingers located the lever and he threw it. After a moment, the wall spun into life: humming and glowing, ionizing the air. The incidental light cast by screens and tubes filled the Pavilion’s interior with a dim, hellish light.

  Jim raced back towards the wall, once again passing the servitor. It had paused at the table, relays chattering as it recomputed its options. As Jim overtook it, the robot jerked upright, came to some decision, and plodded in his wake.

  Even before Jim had climbed onto the old lift building, he knew he’d been right. The sky above the wall was filled with diffuse light; he heard engines, car horns, the squeal of wheel on rail. Back on his vantage he looked out over a London that was filled with movement and light. Had Jim ever been allowed to play with his dead father’s train set, he guessed it would have looked similar. Every window was lit; taxis and buses rolled along the streets; trains ran into High Street Kensington Station. Vehicles endlessly sped along their rails or drove down roads. Nothing ever slowed or stopped. There were no fares for cabbies to pick up; no passengers crowding the tube platforms.

  London was a full-sized toy: a backdrop for the benefit of those who flew over it during the day, controlled by the machinery in the Sun Pavilion. Why else did the Head Gardiner turn it off at night and switch it back on before the first visitors of the day arrived?

  He watched a moment longer before climbing back down. Waiting for him, ice cream dessert held patiently, was the servitor. Jim collapsed into the chair, laughing at the absurdity of it all.

  * * *

  He awoke with a start, breath hitching in his throat. For a while he stared at the paling sky, the dream images fading. It was the same one he’d had most nights since they’d brought him to the roof gardens. He never recalled the details, only the endless explosions and the stench. But the end was always the same: Jim spread-eagled across coils of wire, foot long barbs impaling him, as something huge and deadly pounded closer through the smoke and gas.

  Jim had been born during the latter half of the war, when after two decades of attrition all sides were developing increasingly sophisticated machines to augment their dwindling armies. The Germans improved on British tanks with their Elektrokampfwagen; the Allies’ created individual suits of powered Armor which evolved into the original self-governing fighting machines. Their code name had been derived from some obscure Eastern European play; a name which had stuck.

  Jim sat up, brushing at his creased shirt. After last night’s discovery he’d shut the power back off and walked aimlessly around the garden for a while, enjoying the evening’s warmth. It would be gone soon enough. Eventually he’d walked himself into a state of fatigue and lain down in the Cloister Walk.

  He’d never wanted a cigarette more.

  The Head Gardener was plodding towards him with its rolling gait. Three of its arms clutched parcels of some kind in their articulated claws. It drew up before Jim, dome glowing.

  “Good morning, James Taggart. Did you sleep well?”

  Jim smiled at the apparent irony. “Does it look like it?”

  The robot angled its torso. “Your question implies that you did not. Is this the case? Do you need—” Relays clattered. “—Reassuring?”

  Jim looked hard at the machine, as if its smooth shell gave away any clue. Was that a deliberate reference to last night? Was the robot trying to—? No, he shook his head at the stupidity of the idea. Robots couldn’t joke. He stood, running a hand through his hair. “Shall we go?”

  Jim took the lead, heading for the Pavilion. Reaching the door first he swept it open and bowed. The Head Gardner clumped by him. As it passed its torso swivelled a fraction. “Thank you,” it said.

  Jim stared, sure he’d misheard.

  The robot made its stolid way towards the wall of slumbering machinery. It flicked on the power and retreated. It passed Jim, who was still holding the door open. The automaton stepped from the terrace and had reached the junction leading to the Tudor Gardens before it realized Jim hadn’t moved. It rotated.

  “Will you not follow?”

  Jim blinked, letting the door close. He joined the robot. “Sorry. Had something of a strange night.”

  “Yes.”

  As the Head Gardener strode away, Jim wondered if it knew about him activating the machinery last night. How could it? he thought. Immediately followed by: Of course it does! How could it not?

  Back in the Tudor Gardens, Jim walked through an outer arch. The Head Gardener handed him one of the bundles before shutting
the gate behind him. It was a symbolic gesture: the gate wasn’t locked and Jim could easily leave through either of the other two archways. He leaned on the gate’s iron grillwork.

  “Why are you so good to me?”

  The machine’s smooth dome stared back. “You are critically endangered, James Taggart.”

  “Just me?”

  The robot chattered to itself. “Your species. You are a rarity.”

  Jim opened the bundle: it contained freshly laundered clothes. He changed quickly, passing his dirty, crumpled clothing back to the robot through the gate.

  “How many of us are left?” He’d asked the question several times before; the answer had never been encouraging.

  “That is unknown. The war, and the various contagions, left humanity scattered and unviable as a species. It is only by the greatest good fortune that any are located. Such as yourself.” The Head Gardener walked away.

  The same answer; Jim had expected nothing more. As he understood it, five years after the outbreak of war, an influenza outbreak had swept the world—most likely brought back from the Front by the wounded and those on leave. It killed millions; more than had died since the war began. Four years later there was another pandemic; it took even more lives. Living out in the country, far from major population centres, Jim’s family was shielded from the worst of it.

  When the third wave struck after another five years – the Press dubbed it the Third Horseman—it precipitated the great automaton arms race. There were no longer sufficient numbers of fit men left to replace those being slaughtered at the Front. No one thought to call an end to it all.

  The final and fourth pandemic scoured the planet. It became obvious to the self-governing machines that they were the only ones left fighting. Having no investment in the war they demonstrated they were more intelligent than their creators by calling an instant cessation to hostilities.

  They’d found Jim three years ago, living a hand to mouth existence in his cottage. One by one his family, having survived the four plagues, had succumbed to harsh reality. Jim himself was only days away from starvation. The robots had brought him to the roof garden, treated him, fed him and displayed him: a specimen of a near extinct species in something like his natural habitat.