“Dead?”
“But he can’t be,” Nimrod gasped.
“Burnt to a crisp, as if you didn’t know, in what, at first glance, appeared to be an industrial accident involving a sunlight-focussing mirror, or some such thing.”
“Icarus!” Ulysses gasped. He felt cold from the tips of his fingers to the pit of his stomach. And in that state of shock his mind began to work nineteen to the dozen. “But don’t you see? There’s a pattern forming here! Someone is following us, clearing up the loose ends surrounding Barty’s murder and trying to implicate us in the killings at the same time.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes! Shurin was very much alive the last time we saw him. As was old man Rossum.”
“Rossum?”
“Dominic Rossum. Of Rossum’s Universal Robots.”
“Yes, I know who you mean,” Inspector Artemis said. “You mean to say you paid a call on him too?”
“Y-Yes,” Ulysses stammered, feeling the nauseous knot in his stomach tighten.
Artemis led the way out of the boarding lounge and back through the plush office, into the foyer beyond to the elevator at the top of Bainbridge Tower, talking into her short-wave radio the whole time.
“Get a unit over to R. U. R.... You heard me! Rossum’s Universal Robots. We may have another homicide on our hands... I know, tell me about it. One dead industrialist on our hands might be considered an accident. Two smacks of carelessness. But three...? That would be a bloody disaster.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Short Circuit
T MINUS 1 DAY, 17 HOURS, 13 MINUTES, 29 SECONDS
“WHAT IS THE meaning of this interruption?” Dominic Rossum blustered, his handlebar moustache bristling in indignation. His rage echoed from the walls of the robot storage shed – a great vaulted barn of a place where the industrialist was inspecting the latest batch of completed Titan-droids.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr Rossum,” Inspector Artemis began.
“Not him again!” Rossum pronounced, looking down from his perch atop the robotic walking device he was using and seeing Ulysses paraded before him, hand-cuffed and bowed.
“I know you’ll find this hard to believe,” the dandy said, “but I never thought I’d be so pleased to see you again either.”
“I can’t say the feeling’s mutual.”
“No. I didn’t think it would be. But that doesn’t change the fact that your continued existence and excellent state of health gets me off the hook.”
“Now steady on. I wouldn’t go that far.” Artemis said. “The fact that Mr Rossum is still alive doesn’t exonerate you of the other murders.”
“What happened to innocent until proven guilty?” Ulysses protested.
“Oh, come on, Mr Quicksilver. What kind of a world do you think you’re living in?”
“What murders?” Rossum looked suddenly shaken.
“I understand you had dealings with Jared Shurin of Syzygy industries and Wilberforce Bainbridge of Bainbridge Mills,” the inspector said, turning back to the industrialist.
“Business dealings, yes,” the automaton magnate confirmed cagily. “But what did you mean by ‘other murders’?”
“When was the last time you had any contact with Shurin or Bainbridge?”
“Look, who is it that’s under suspicion here exactly? Am I to assume that Shurin and Bainbridge are dead?”
“I’m afraid so, sir. So, if you wouldn’t mind answering the question...?”
“Well, let me think...” Rossum trailed off as he tried to come up with a suitable answer, Ulysses supposed.
With Bainbridge and Shurin dead, was Rossum the one behind it all; his brother’s death, and those of the other two industrialists? But, if so, what possible motive could he have had? What did he have to gain by their deaths?
As he struggled with these thoughts, his gaze began to wander.
He stared up at the towering Titan-class droids. Like ancient cyclopean idols they loomed over the humans; dormant gods, waiting for the invocations of their worshippers to rouse them from their sleep of ages.
In the gloom at the far end of the vast shed, a spark of actinic light flashed like a burst of miniature lightning.
Ulysses was only dimly aware that the inspector was speaking again, his attention now fully focused upon what was happening at the rear of the barn.
“Inspector? I think we should get out of here,” he said, trying to remain calm.
“Mr Quicksilver,” Artemis replied testily, breaking off from her interrogation of Rossum. “I thought you were keen to establish your innocence in this matter and find some link between the dead men and Mr Rossum. Now we will stay here until we have managed to achieve that or not, as the case may be.”
The echo of a metallic groan rang from the far end of the barn.
“I realise that, but we really need to get out of here now,” he said, trying to back away from his armed police escort.
“Sir?” Nimrod looked at him, concern apparent in his eyes.
“Mr Quicksilver, I am currently investigating a double homicide. Now if you would just –”
“Yes, I know. But I’m trying to prevent another one from happening right now!”
The iron clang of the heavy footfall reverberated from the steel walls of the barn, echoing from the hulls of the other colossal automatons standing motionless in their serried rows.
“Now you all heard that, didn’t you?”
Ulysses regarded the shocked faces of Inspector Artemis, the other officers present, Dominic Rossum, the two technicians attending the industrialist, and even his own manacled manservant.
“Right. I thought so. And now that I have everybody’s attention, might I make a suggestion? Run!”
Before any of them could make a move, a shuddering shockwave rippled through the floor of the shed, pitching one clumsy-footed policeman onto the ground.
At the other end of the shed a colossal figure, like a walking city block, stepped out of the shadows, picking up speed with every shuddering footfall as it moved towards them.
Ulysses continued to back away, unable to take his eyes off the iron giant for even a moment. Despite his run in with the Limehouse Golem and various other droids over the years, he had never realised just how quickly something sixty feet tall, and weighing several tonnes, could move.
With pistoning steps the Titan-class construction droid ran towards the fleeing gaggle of panicking people.
“Split up!” Inspector Artemis shouted.
Policemen and Rossum’s employees scattered. Rossum turned his walking carriage towards the shelter of another droid then seemed to think better of it – uncertain whether any more of the giant automatons would activate as soon as he got too close – and turned back towards the centre of the shed.
All the time the lumbering construction droid was closing on them. It made no vocalisation of any kind, but that only made its cold-blooded determination to catch up with the fleeing humans all the more terrifying.
Ulysses sprinted after the inspector.
“What are you doing? I said split up!”
“And I’m still in hand-cuffs. I need you to release me!”
“Now is hardly the time or the place and besides, you’re still under arrest!”
The two of them stumbled as another juddering footfall sent a tremor through the ground.
“I’d rather hoped that this attempt on Rossum’s life would have exonerated me of having anything to do with the murders,” Ulysses panted.
“How do you know this isn’t another –”
“What? Industrial accident? Rather a coincidence don’t you think? Two in one day, in entirely different plants, the man in charge the victim on both occasions?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Inspector Artemis said breathlessly, throwing a sidelong glance at the panicked Dominic Rossum hanging onto the controls of his striding chair for dear life, “old man Rossum isn’t dead yet.”
“And if his s
urvival ensures my freedom, I’d rather like to keep it that way,” the dandy countered. “Un-cuff me and I can stop that thing. I’m sure of it.”
“You’ve dealt with this sort of problem before, have you?”
“Not on this scale, but I know what I’m doing.”
The inspector ran on, saying nothing more.
Feeling another juddering tremor, Ulysses risked a glance back over his shoulder.
The droid was closing on them. With a stride seven yards long, it wasn’t hard.
Ulysses saw a policeman – who was rather broad around the middle and obviously not used to having to run any distance for any length of time – stumble before the automaton’s advance. He landed hard on the mooncrete floor. Ulysses could hear his plaintive cries as he struggled to get up again but there was nothing that he could do for the man. To turn back and go to his aid now would be to condemn himself to death as well.
Even as the policeman made it onto his hands and knees, a foot the size and weight of an earthmover descended on top of him. There was the briefest shrill cry of unimaginable agony and then nothing. The robot lumbered on.
“McCormack!” the inspector gasped in horror. “This way!” Artemis turned and, grabbing hold of Ulysses, dragged him into cover between the feet of another of the Titans. Pulling out a set of hand-cuff keys, anxious fingers fumbling with the lock, she managed to free Ulysses of the manacles.
“Don’t make me regret this.”
“You won’t, I guarantee it,” Ulysses said, his face alight with relief.
The two of them peered from between the statuesque robot’s legs at the advancing droid. It was bringing one of its shovel-tipped arms to bear now, swinging it round with slow yet fatal purpose.
“You really think you can stop that thing?” Artemis asked.
“I think so.” Ulysses said.
“You think so!”
“All right. Yes, I can stop it. Does that make you feel better?”
The inspector scowled. “And how are you planning on doing that exactly?”
Ulysses flashed her a devilish grin. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll think of something. I usually do.”
And then he was gone, sprinting across the floor of the barn, between the avenue of iron giants, towards the lumbering Titan.
As the dandy ran towards the advancing droid, Artemis emerged from her hiding place, running after the industrialist and his cantering chair. “Come on! Move it!” she bellowed. “Everybody out of here!”
The scattered officers, factory employees, industrialist and hand-cuffed butler began to converge again as they made for the small door set into the vast hangar doors of the storage barn.
The droid did not appear to have registered Ulysses’ presence as the dandy came at it from out of the shadows. At least it didn’t act to deal with him as it powered on between the avenue of robots after the fleeing Rossum.
Ulysses drew level with the droid as its left foot made contact with the ground again. With an extra burst of speed he made it to the side of the foot and threw himself at the access ladder running up the side of the robot’s leg. Rungs were embedded into the side of the Titan, running all the way up to the droid’s head and the driver’s cockpit. Ulysses clung on as the automaton took another step forward and a huge shovel-hand swung past like some colossal pendulum. Then, having got a firm grip on the ladder, he started to climb.
As he climbed he began to formulate a plan. For someone to have activated the droid remotely they had to either be relaying a signal to the droid’s Babbage core or have already downloaded a Lovelace algorithm into the robot’s operating system. Either way, if he could de-activate the Titan’s reasoning engine he could bring its rampage to an end. And of course, if Artemis’s assumption was correct, and the robot’s behaviour was the result of a short circuit, then removing its brain would still be the most effective way to turn it off.
Despite the swaying motion of the droid, Ulysses was actually making good progress. As he neared the automaton’s shoulder he could see the others making for the open door and safety. They were almost there now – Rossum in the lead, atop his galloping carriage, with Nimrod not far behind him.
Making it to the railed walkway that ran from the shoulder to the automaton’s head, Ulysses darted along it, keeping his hands on both rails as he ran, just in case. Reaching the end, he threw himself inside the driver’s cabin that formed much of the robot’s steel skull.
The massive robot veered suddenly sideways, one huge hand smashing into a line of motionless droids. The first robot to bear the full force of the collision began to topple sideways with what felt like tectonic slowness. With a dull boom it collided with the Titan next to it, which also began to fall. One by one the line of giant automatons toppled into one another, like felled sequoias, the noise of their collisions filling the shed with a cacophony of crashing metal.
The robot suddenly lurched the other way and Ulysses fell into the driver’s seat. Instinctively he made a grab for the controls in front of him, pulling back hard on the steering paddles.
Through the smeared glass of the cabin’s windows he watched as Nimrod, Rossum and the others piled through the door, chased by oily flames as fire blossomed in the darkness of the storage shed.
As Ulysses had feared, pulling on the controls made no difference to the motion of the runaway droid. The controls had been locked out.
Now, more than ever before, Ulysses was certain that this was no industrial accident. He was going to have to go with his original plan.
He turned in his seat and saw the panel behind which the droid’s cogitator core resided. But his heart sank as he saw the bolts holding it in place.
He started to scour the cabin for anything remotely resembling a spanner or a wrench. Without a toolkit he didn’t have a hope of removing the panel and getting at the robot brain beyond.
As the robot took another lurching step towards the closed hangar doors, with a metallic clink something fell onto the sheet steel floor of the cockpit.
Ulysses snapped his head back round to the panel. The bolts were loose. In fact one of them was now rolling around at his feet.
That was all the evidence he needed. Someone had been in here before him and tampered with the automaton’s Babbage engine directly, only they’d been slack in securing the panel, obviously assuming that no one would ever be so foolhardy as to attempt what Ulysses was attempting right now.
Twiddling the three remaining bolts free with his fingertips, Ulysses ripped the panel open and hurled it aside. Beyond, in a space no larger than a rabbit hutch, lay the Babbage core, fairy-lights twinkling in the darkness.
NIMROD STUMBLED THROUGH the door, panting for breath, his heart racing. The police inspector stumbled through behind him a moment later. Ahead of him, Rossum brought his cantering walker to a halt in front of the looming hangar doors.
As the rest of Artemis’s officers and Rossum’s lab-coated technicians joined them, all of them struggling to catch their breath, Nimrod stood up straight, head turned to one side.
Registering his hawkish pose, Artemis raised a questioning eyebrow. “What is it?”
“Do you hear that?”
The inspector listened, concentrating on filtering out the panting of her officers, whilst trying to work out what it was Nimrod could hear and that she couldn’t.
“I can’t hear anything,” she said.
“Precisely.”
WITH A SUDDEN clattering crash, and a groan of metal, the hangar doors buckled and bulged outwards, the steel shutters splitting open as the colossal construction droid careened into them, then, with terrible slowness, it toppled to the ground.
Nimrod watched as, at the last possible moment, his employer flung himself free of the cranial cabin of the Titan, dropped the last twenty feet to the ground and, curling his body into a ball, hit the ground. He bowled across the mooncrete, landing in an awkward sprawl twenty feet away.
At the same time the Titan hit the ground with sei
smic force, sending everyone present reeling and tumbling. All except for Dominic Rossum and his now stationary strider.
There was nothing any of them could do as the droid’s head-cabin came down on top of the industrialist, crushing every bone and bionic component in his body, and pulping every organ, as surely as if he had been run over by a steam roller.
ULYSSES QUICKSILVER GOT painfully to his feet as the last echoes of the Titan’s fall faded and the dust cloud thrown up by it settled back down to the ground. His elbows, shoulders and knees hurt, his suit jacket and his trousers were scuffed and torn.
He staggered painfully towards the others – some vital component of the droid’s cerebral cortex clutched in his hands – as they slowly got to their feet.
Ulysses was met by staring faces, slack with shock, that looked from him to the toppled Titan and back again. With the off switch having effectively been thrown, with Ulysses’ removal of its Babbage brain, the droid had shut down immediately, mid-stride. Momentum had done the rest, sending the droid crashing through the hangar doors of the storage shed.
Misreading the appalled expressions of those gathered around him, Ulysses glanced back over his shoulder.
“I know,” he said, almost laughing with the relief of it all. “The bigger they are... Is everyone all right?”
Receiving no answer from the rest of them Ulysses began to count heads himself. Nimrod was safe, as was the inspector and her men – apart from the one who had been crushed by the droid back in the barn, of course. There were the two technicians, and...
Ulysses’ face fell. “Oh,” he said, crestfallen.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The French Connection
T MINUS 1 DAY, 16 HOURS, 17 MINUTES, 10 SECONDS
THE DANDY HAD withdrawn to a quiet corner of the robot marshalling yard from where he watched as a pair of Juggernaut-class droids, with human handlers in their driving seats, lifted the debilitated Titan clear of the crushed smear on the mooncrete that was all that remained of Dominic Rossum.
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