Border Princes

by Dan Abnett

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘What can I tell you? The Melkene were a pretty advanced race. Particularly good at manufacturing artificials, or what Owen would call robots.’

  ‘That thing’s a robot?’ asked Owen.

  ‘It’s a soldier,’ said Jack. ‘About five hundred years ago, the Melkene found themselves in a hot war with a rival species. They were losing. Their soldiers – all artificials – were too predictable. They lacked, how can I put it? Uh, the balls for serious warfare. Just point-and-shoot mechanicals, with no killer instinct, no passion.’

  ‘So?’ asked James, fairly sure he wasn’t going to like the rest of the story.

  ‘So they manufactured the Serial G. Removed all the logic inhibitors and algorithmic compassion restraints they had traditionally equipped their artificials with. The sort of fundamental safeguards any advanced civilisation with a conscience would have insisted on installing in their artificials. The Melkene were desperate. Their backs were against the wall. They gave the Serial G ungoverned sentience, a ruthless streak and absolutely no compunction whatsoever about committing atrocities. The build remit was: whatever it takes, no matter how cruel or abominable, these things must be capable of doing it, in the name of victory. Put simply, in order to win their war, the Melkene created your basic... regiment of psychotic, homicidal artificials.’

  ‘They deliberately made mad killer robots?’ Owen asked.

  ‘Well, that’s a huge oversimplification,’ said Jack.

  ‘But essentially on the money?’ asked James.

  Jack nodded. ‘Yup. They deliberately made mad killer robots.’

  The three of them sat there in silence for a moment.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Owen, reflectively, ‘you have to wonder why you ever turn up for work, don’t you?’

  ‘How did things go for the Melkene, Jack?’ James asked.

  ‘Oh, they won.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice for them.’

  ‘Not so much. There was a huge outcry in the Galactic Community. Outrage at what the Melkene had done. In remorse, the Melkene decided to recall the Serial G units. The Melkene were extinct about, oh, six weeks later.’

  ‘I’ve seen this film,’ said Owen.

  ‘God, I wish it was a film,’ said Jack. ‘Because of their ungoverned sentience, the Serial Gs were judged responsible for their actions. They were impeached on about 16,000 counts of war crime and genocide. They scattered and went to ground.’

  ‘And one’s walking about here?’ asked James.

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘In Cathays, on a Thursday?’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘A genocidal robot war criminal?’ asked James.

  ‘That’s also completely bullet-proof?’ asked Owen.

  Jack looked at them both. ‘Repetition’s good, but, guys, we’ve got all the facts together now, right?’

  James nodded. ‘Things are as bad as they look.’

  ‘Oh, God, no,’ said Jack. ‘Things are much worse than they look, my friend.’ He held up the heavy service revolver clenched in his hand. ‘You know what this is?’ he asked.

  ‘Uh, no?’ Owen replied.

  ‘Absolutely useless, is what it is,’ answered Jack, putting the gun away. He got up and hurried to the gate, head down. ‘It’s gone,’ he reported. ‘It’s moving.’

  ‘What do we do?’ asked James.

  ‘Not much,’ said Jack. ‘We follow it. See where it’s headed. Try to keep it contained away from population centres. Think hard and pray for miracles.’

  ‘It’s probably heading back to my shed.’

  They looked around. Davey Morgan stood outside his ruined backdoor, gazing at them. Toshiko hovered behind him.

  ‘What did you say, sir?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Yank, are you?’ asked Davey.

  ‘Kinda,’ admitted Jack.

  ‘Got to know a lot of your sort, back then,’ said Davey. ‘Good old boys. Tough as old boots, they were.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jack. ‘What were you saying about a shed?’

  ‘Mr Morgan has been talking with the machine,’ said Toshiko gently. ‘They have an understanding, of sorts.’

  ‘Old soldiers together,’ said Davey.

  ‘Is that right?’ asked Jack, walking over.

  ‘I tried to make Mr Morgan wait out front,’ whispered Toshiko to Jack. ‘He wouldn’t be moved.’

  ‘You could have smacked him silly and dragged him,’ Jack whispered back.

  ‘Yes, I could have, but I’m a nice person,’ whispered Toshiko.

  Davey Morgan looked at them both. ‘It’s not polite to whisper,’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Jack, turning to him. ‘Mr Morgan, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Davey.’

  ‘OK, Davey. I’m Cap’n Jack Harkness. Tell me about this shed.’

  ‘It’s up on my plot,’ said Davey. ‘On the allotments, I mean. I kept your smart weapon there after I dug it up. I think it likes it there.’

  ‘Where is this shed exactly?’ asked Jack.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ Davey said. ‘Hang on a mo.’ He turned, and limped back into the kitchen.

  ‘Does he realise there’s some degree of urgency?’ Jack asked Toshiko.

  ‘He can help us, Jack,’ Toshiko insisted.

  Jack pursed his lips. He pulled out his phone and tried to dial. Dead.

  ‘We’re still inside that thing’s jamming range,’ he said. ‘Serial Gs are fitted with a comprehensive suite of communication counter-measures.’ He tossed his phone to Owen. ‘Take that, and get walking. I don’t care how far you have to go. As soon as you’ve got a signal, call Ianto and tell him to go to the Armoury, book out catalogue item nine-eight-one, and bring it here as fast as is humanly possibly. Got that?’

  ‘Armoury. Nine-eight-one. Right,’ said Owen, and hurried off through the house.

  Davey re-emerged from the kitchen, a cap on his head. He was buttoning up a threadbare jacket. ‘Off we go, then,’ he said. ‘I just had to get my digging jacket.’

  ‘Well of course you did,’ said Jack.

  Davey Morgan led the way down the back lane behind the houses to the allotment path. Jack, James and Toshiko followed him. It was slow going. Davey had a pronounced limp that was obviously troubling him.

  The sky had blackened. The sporadic rain had turned into a shower, and worse was undoubtedly coming. The wind had picked up. Choirs of alarms were singing across the backyards, punctuated by the whoop of a police klaxon.

  ‘Gwen’s dealing with the police,’ Toshiko told Jack. ‘She’s keeping them back, clearing people from the houses here.’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘A lot of them don’t want to go,’ Toshiko added. ‘A lot of them want to see what’s going on.’

  ‘They’ll die then,’ said Jack.

  ‘I suppose they might,’ said Toshiko. ‘Let’s hope the police are persuasive.’

  ‘Yeah, let’s hope.’

  ‘Jack?’ asked James.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What’s catalogue item nine-eight-one?’

  Jack smiled. ‘James, you so don’t want to know.’

  ‘Apparently, I do.’

  Jack glanced at him. ‘It’s one of the Armoury items I don’t let you play with.’

  ‘And that’s going to take this thing out?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Couldn’t honestly say, James, but I can guarantee it’ll make a whole lot of noise.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. There will be noise. There will be bright lights. There will be woe. There will be weeping and consternation. The streets of Cardiff will resound with the lamentation of estate agents.’

  ‘This is Torchwood going to war, then?’ asked Toshiko.

  ‘No, this is Torchwood trying to prevent one,’ said Jack.

  ‘You people have never seen a real war,’ said Davey.

  ‘Sir?’ Jack asked, looking at the old man.

  ‘I said you’ve never known a
real war. Not a real one. It never leaves you, war doesn’t. Everything you saw or did, it all clings like a smell you can’t ever wash off. Sixty years, sixty damn years, it hasn’t ever washed off.’

  Davey had stopped by an iron gate. It stood open on its bolts, as if it had been pushed aside.

  Beyond the gate lay the allotments: portioned-out strips of ground, a patchwork of rectangular plots, some with sheds, some with rainwater tanks or tool chests, some neglected and overgrown. A hazy mist drifted over the winter beets and rhubarb leaves. The rain began to fall harder, pattering off the vegetation.

  Jack walked into the allotments, and looked around.

  ‘I could come to like a place like this,’ he said. ‘When I retire. Not so much with the rain, obviously.’

  He looked at Davey. ‘Your shed?’

  ‘Up along there, Captain,’ Davey said, with a gesture. Raindrops dripped from his raised sleeve.

  ‘Tosh tells me you’ve spoken to this thing?’

  ‘Tosh?’

  ‘The nice Japanese girl there.’

  ‘Oh, right. Yeah, we’ve spoken a little. I dug it up, after all. Kept it safe. We chatted. Reminisced, really, one old boy to another. War stories. Memories of life during wartime.’

  Jack wiped rain off his face and looked at Davey. The old man’s eyes were very sharp, very knowing.

  ‘So, was it good to talk?’ Jack asked him.

  ‘Good?’ replied Davey.

  ‘I have no idea, no frame of reference, so I’m asking you. Was it good to talk?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Davey. ‘It was refreshing to meet someone who got it. To be truthful, Captain, I’ve never had anyone I could talk to about... about the service. Not Glynis. Not really. She never got it. God knows, I never wanted her to get it. It understood, though. I could tell it things. We shared things. Memories. It was nice for me.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Davey nodded. Drops of rain ran off the end of his nose. ‘Nice to be respected. To be acknowledged. Only a soldier understands what another soldier has been through. In the end, we’re a lonely breed in that regard.’

  ‘I guess you would be.’

  ‘I just—’

  ‘What?’ Jack asked.

  Davey shook his head. ‘I just wished we could have kept it to that. It kept having these dreams, see? At night, its dreams leaked into mine. I tried, but I couldn’t bear them. The things it had done. Laughed about. Awful things. I have my own bad dreams, Captain Harkness, and I’ll carry them to my grave, where God can judge me, if he likes. I couldn’t carry its dreams too. I wanted to. I tried. One old soldier to another.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Jack.

  ‘You’re going to have to kill it, aren’t you?’ asked Davey.

  ‘I think we are. I wish to hell I knew how,’ said Jack. ‘Davey, let’s see this shed of yours.’

  The rain beat down relentlessly. The shed was a silent, damp box. Its windows were broken and its door was half-open. Jack and James gazed at the decaying remains of the bodies spread and staked out in front of it. Toshiko looked away, swallowing hard.

  ‘What do we do?’ James asked Jack.

  ‘I guess we... find out if it’s inside,’ said Jack. He took a step forward.

  The shed juddered violently. It stopped shaking for a moment, and then juddered again.

  ‘Get down,’ said Jack.

  The shed blew apart. It came to pieces in a flash of yellow light. The panelled walls burst out in all directions in a flurry of splintered boards. The pitch-treated roof ascended, in one burning piece, and crashed over into a plot two allotments away.

  Swathed in flames, the Serial G turned and looked at them. It was standing on a scorched rectangle of ground that had been the floor of the shed. The downpour sizzled as it fell around it.

  ‘Keep your heads down!’ Jack yelled, on his belly in the soaking grass. James was face down with his arms over his head. Toshiko was trying to get the old man into the cover of a compost bunker.

  ‘Tosh! Get him out of here!’

  Toshiko replied something inaudible. Jack was well aware how impractical his last instruction to her had been.

  The Serial G took a step forward off the burning patch of shed floor. Its long, thin legs extended slightly, taking it up to over ten feet tall. The huge steel hooks that formed its hand opened and closed with a noise like a luxury liner’s anchor chain running out. It turned its head to the left, then to the right, and took another step. It hummed. Rain streamed off it.

  It was coming towards them. With a curse, Jack got up and ran, head down, through the rain, between rows of cold frames and bean poles.

  ‘Jack!’ James yelled.

  The Serial G turned its head to follow Jack’s movement. There was a yellow pulse.

  Jack had thrown himself headlong into a bed of wet brambles and elephant ear rhubarb leaves. He felt the scorch of the heat cone as it shaved the air above him. The blast exploded up a patch of ground in a great, muddy divot, and crushed a galvanised water tank with a kettle-drum bang. The water inside evaporated instantly in a screaming belch of steam.

  The Serial G began to trudge towards the spot where it had seen Jack drop down. Jack heard its steps pulping vegetables and snapping canes. He heard the drum of raindrops. He couldn’t get up. That would be suicide. He rolled instead, scrambling through the soaking undergrowth, twigs and nettles scratching his face.

  The Serial G fired again, but its blast fell short, violently excavating a cabbage patch and turning a large cold frame into a blizzard of glass and wood chips.

  Jack winced and tried not to cry out. One flying chunk of glass had stabbed into his upper left arm, and another had cut his cheek on the way past.

  The Serial G took another two steps.

  Jack sprang up, wincing at the tight pain from his upper arm, and started to run for better cover.

  The Serial G turned immediately, its torso rotating. It raised its left arm to shoot it out and snatch Jack off his feet.

  ‘Oi! Buggerlugs!’ James yelled. He came up from behind a composter and emptied the clip of his side-arm at the metal figure.

  His distraction worked. Too well.

  The Serial G ignored Jack and turned to face him instead.

  TWENTY-TWO

  It all happened very fast.

  James ducked back down behind the composter. The rain was hammering down. The Serial G pulsed its dull yellow glow and the brick composter pulverised. Toshiko glimpsed James’s body cartwheeling backwards in the storm of flying brick fragments and flaming hanks of compost mulch.

  She yelled his name. He was dead. He was so surely dead—

  She saw him get up, unsteady, dazed, his hair matted and his shirt torn. He looked around, as if trying to remember who he was, where he was.

  She watched him see the Serial G. It took a stride towards him. Pieces of burning mulch were still fluttering down to the ground in the rain.

  James turned to run.

  The Serial G snapped out its left arm in another lashing, hyper-extension. It failed to grab James cleanly, but the steel hooks crashed into his shoulder and the side of his head like a punch, and spun him wildly around, his skull smacked around to the left. He fell hard and crooked.

  The limb retracted as rapidly as it had extended.

  The Serial G took two more long steps forward through the rain and tilted its head down—

  —and rocked backwards suddenly. It rocked again, arms swinging, its legs forced back several steps, as if it was suddenly trying to walk head-on into a force seventeen wind.

  It shuddered as though it had been struck. It recoiled another step.

  There was a dull yellow pulse where its eyes should have been.

  A flash and a thunderclap of splitting air followed as the blast cone detonated less than two metres in front of it. The beam of energy simply splashed apart as if encountering some barrier in mid air directly ahead. The backwash of the blast caused the Serial G to sway on its heels ye
t again.

  From her vantage point behind the eggshell-blue potting shed, Toshiko stared in wonder and fear, not really understanding what she was seeing. She wiped rain out of her eyes.

  ‘It doesn’t like that,’ said Davey quietly. ‘Oh, it doesn’t like that at all.’

  ‘What?’ she asked distractedly, unable to tear her gaze away.

  The space where the Serial G’s eyes should have been glowed dull yellow again, and again, and then again. Three blasts in quick succession. Each one detonated in turn right in front of it. The pressure crack of tortured air was so fierce, Toshiko had to clap her hands over her ears. She felt each quake of discharge in her diaphragm.

  For a nanosecond, as the third pulse went off, she thought she glimpsed something haloed in the glare, a moving shape much smaller than the Serial G, illuminated for a moment in the light storm breaking around it.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ she whispered.

  ‘Tough little devil, isn’t he?’ asked Davey.

  ‘Who? Davey, what are you talking about?’

  Davey got up and pointed. He pointed very specifically at nothing at all in front of the Serial G.

  Jack rose to his feet, clutching his injured arm. It throbbed wickedly, but he barely noticed. His entire attention was on the Serial G and what the Serial G was doing.

  Out there in the rain, it appeared to have gone mad, or at least a good deal madder than the Melkene had made it. It was thrashing its arms, stumbling back pace after pace, as if it was experiencing a fit or—

  A dent, a clear, solid dent, suddenly appeared in its chest plating. The Serial G shuddered and swung its right arm like a wrecking ball. The arm came to a violent dead stop in mid air, as if blocked, as if held in place. Indentations began to appear in the smooth, oiled alloy of its broom-stick forearm. The steel hooks of its hand opened and closed spasmodically, chewing the air.

  The arm was suddenly free again. It sailed back, straightening and righting.

  ‘Oh my God...’ Jack gasped as he began to realise what he had to be witnessing.

  ‘Jack?’

  He turned. Gwen had crept up behind him, hunched low. Her eyes were wide.

  ‘Not a good place to be,’ Jack said.

  ‘I did all I could in the street. I could hear these noises. I couldn’t just stay put—’