Monstrous Devices

by Damien Love

  The station was already busy in the early morning. People wearing harassed expressions pushed past in all directions. Advertisements and TV news blazed on bright screens. A group of nursery workers struggled to keep a small, excited line of children together. A girl of around ten with a pale moon face and long black hair stood holding a red balloon beside a small man wearing a startlingly bright yellow scarf with black dots. His eyes were lost behind the shining lenses of large, round glasses. As Alex looked, the girl, returning his stare with a frown, calmly let go of her balloon. It floated straight up in the crystalline shafts of light pouring through the high glass ceiling.

  Place names and numbers flickered and flashed on display boards. Indecipherable messages echoed over the loudspeaker. His grandfather moved beside him at a happy stride. The day, the planet, all seemed deeply normal.

  As the train to Paris pulled out, Alex’s grandfather popped the cork on a small bottle of champagne.

  “Drinking alcohol in the morning is a very bad idea,” he said as he poured himself a healthy plastic glassful and pushed Alex’s orange juice to him across the tabletop. “Drinking during the day at all is a bad idea. You should never do that. Seriously. But especially in the morning. Then again, it’s not every day you catch the train to Paris. And there is a school of thought that says champagne doesn’t count.”

  He raised the glass in a toasting motion, swigged a little, smacked his lips, and sighed in satisfaction. “Splendid. Now, then. Questions. One at a time.”

  Alex put both elbows on the table and rested his forehead on the heels of his hands, fingers working at his scalp as he tried to think where to begin. He pushed back his hair and took a deep breath.

  “Okay. Right: was I just attacked in my bedroom by three toy robots last night?”

  “Mm. More or less. Yes.”

  “Where did they come from? Why were they after me? How—”

  “Hold on. One at a time, I said. But we can take those two together. They weren’t after you, not really. They were after . . . Well, I’m sure you’ve guessed what they were after by now. And they weren’t really after it; they were sent by someone who is. So, ah, that’s where they came from.”

  “After it?” Alex, the events of the previous night suddenly tumbling vividly through his mind again, heard his voice rise in outrage, but he didn’t care. He opened his rucksack and pulled out the old toy robot, shaking it under his grandfather’s nose. “After this?”

  “That’s right. Don’t wave it around like that, Alex, there’s a good fellow. In fact . . .” He pulled his Gladstone down from the overhead rack, started rooting through it. “Yes, here we are.”

  He produced a sturdy white cardboard box, about half the size of a shoebox, lifted the lid, and pushed it to Alex. Inside was another, smaller box of thinner card. Picking it up, Alex noted that it was slightly worn at the edges, but still in generally excellent condition. The same bold illustration was printed on all four sides: a cartoonish painting of the robot he held in his other hand, stalking angrily down a dark street of jagged buildings. Blue steam rose from its rusted-pipe ears, forming a cloud that framed a single word in thick red letters: ROBOT.

  “The box,” Alex said, thoughts of the thoroughly bizarre circumstances he was in momentarily fading as his collecting reflexes took over. “Wow. Where did you find that?”

  “Ah-ha. Isn’t it wonderful? I finally tracked this down in a little shop in Austria. Next door to the most wonderful bakers in the entire world, as it turns out. The woman there, she makes this bread, and, oh, these cakes. Well, not quite cakes, they’re like horns of sugared pastry, filled with shavings of apple and—”

  “No. Stop that. Wait.” Alex shook his head, trying to clear it or shake something loose. He was getting nowhere.

  Outside, a brown-and-white blur of flat English fields mottled with snow rolled silently past. His grandfather poured himself a second glass of champagne, emptying the last drops from the little bottle by holding it upside down.

  “Who’s after it?” Alex asked, trying to focus and stay calm.

  “Hmm? Ah, well, now, of that, I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Not entirely sure, no.”

  “But it’s someone who . . .” Alex trailed off, feeling ridiculous. “Someone who sends . . . toy robots out . . . to do things.”

  “It would appear so, yes.”

  “And you’ve seen these . . . robots before.”

  “Well”—his grandfather paused, glass held to pursed lips—“yes, there’s no point denying that now.”

  “Okay, wait a minute, let me think.”

  The notion of asking his grandfather where he had seen the things before seemed appealing. But he needed to stay on track. “Okay. So, when you’ve seen them before, did you know who they belonged to?”

  “Ah . . . yes. I had a good idea.”

  “And you don’t think it might possibly be the same person who sent them last night?” Alex shouted.

  “Simmer down, Alex.”

  His grandfather raised his drink in a salute to a portly couple across the aisle, peering down sharp, wrinkled noses at Alex as though he was the source of a bad smell. “Adolescence!” He rolled his eyes. “Hormones! You remember, eh?”

  The couple aimed their noses at him, before turning away, each raising a large pinkish newspaper. Alex’s grandfather turned back.

  “Okay, yes, it might have been the same person, but I can’t say that for certain, now, can I?”

  “Oh, no, I suppose not,” Alex fumed quietly. “No, because, I mean, there must be hundreds of people out there with . . .” He stopped again, running up against the ludicrousness of what he was saying. “Little gangs of . . . toy . . . Right, I get it. You’re just not going to tell me who it is, are you?” He crossed his arms and threw himself back in his seat.

  “What difference would it make, old chap? You wouldn’t know the name anyway. All you really need to know is that it’s someone who wants that.” His grandfather pointed at the old robot. “And rather badly. And who, as you know, has peculiar methods.”

  “Peculiar methods? That . . . thing tried to kill me last night.”

  “Oh, no.” His grandfather drained his glass and looked at it with a melancholy half smile. “No, I shouldn’t say it was trying to kill you. Although, of course, I didn’t get a chance to find out what was on its needles. But I’d say it was more likely something that would have put you to sleep.”

  “Oh.” Alex swallowed the shout he was about to let out and leaned in, speaking in a furiously reasonable whisper. “Oh, well then. That’s different. If it was just a toy robot who was there to knock me out while its other toy robot friends stole another toy robot from my bedroom, that’s a whole different situation. You’re right, I don’t know what I’m making all this fuss about.”

  “Sarcasm, Alex”—his grandfather frowned—“is the lowest form of wit.”

  “But how . . .” Alex searched the questions now jumping for position at the front of his mind. “How did they work? What were they . . . like, radio-controlled?”

  “Well, something like that.”

  “Wait. I remember: that one, it was wet inside.”

  “Ah.” His grandfather gave a sickly smile and turned to the window. “Yes.”

  “And you said you didn’t like to kill . . . They weren’t alive?”

  “Alex.” The old man tutted. “That would be ridiculous. Although, on the other hand, you do raise a very interesting philosophical point. How do we define life? Do we even have the right? Tell me, did you ever get around to watching that film I bought you, 2001: A Space Odyssey?”

  “What?!? No. I fell asleep. It was really dull.”

  “Alex, you really should try and stretch yourself a little more when it comes to cinema. I mean, you read all kinds of books, and, well, anywa
y. There’s a computer in that film, you see, called HAL. Actually there’s a very interesting story about why he’s called HAL—”

  “No. Please. Stop. Okay. The robot last night. It was wet inside. What was that . . . battery acid or . . . some kind of oil . . . like hydraulics?”

  His grandfather sat gazing out the window at nothing in particular. He tapped a finger at his bottom lip, drew it thoughtfully along his chin. His eyes dropped to the table, then rose to meet Alex’s again.

  “As I said, I had hoped not to have to go into any of this, Alex, old chap. But here we are, you’re asking, and there’s no way around it. So. It’s not hydraulics, no. It’s pieces of . . . well . . .”

  “Pieces of what?”

  “People, Alex. Pieces of people.”

  The train rushed on into the tunnel beneath the sea.

  * * *

  • • •

  ALEX WAS LYING in bed. If he opened his eyes, there was the ceiling. There was the orange paper lampshade he hated, hanging thick with dust. If he turned his head to the right, he would see his posters. If he turned to the left, he would see the pile of unfinished homework on his desk.

  It had all been a dream. Any moment, his mum was going to come in and shake him and tell him he was going to be late for school. He’d need to remember to ask David about the math. And then there was Kenzie to be avoided somehow. Here Mum comes now. There’s the knock at the door. There she is, leaning over him. She opens her mouth, she opens her mouth, she opens her mouth, and she says:

  “I wonder, do you think you could find me some decent coffee and a couple of croissants on there? And for you, Alex?”

  Alex opened his eyes and stared at his grandfather, who sat across from him, half-turned to the man pushing the trolley up the aisle of the train. He had been trying hard to will himself to wake up from this dream. But it seemed that he was awake, and this was the reality he was stuck with.

  “Alex?”

  He didn’t know how long he had been sitting like that, but his face had set in a sore, frozen grimace.

  “Alex.” The old man leaned forward, tapped a finger on his sleeve.

  “Huh?”

  “Fancy a spot of something to eat?”

  Alex frowned harder at him.

  “Just my coffee and croissants,” his grandfather said, turning back to the trolley. “Oh, and some of that jam. And I’ll have a few of these, if you don’t mind.” Leaning around the cart, he came back brandishing a bulging fistful of salt packets. The man pouring his coffee raised an eyebrow in mild disgust.

  “Can never have too much salt.” The old man beamed up at him.

  “Okay,” Alex said, watching the trolley trundle slowly off down the carriage. He leaned forward again, rubbed at his forehead, tried a breath. “So. Pieces of . . . people.” He watched his grandfather lather jam onto a torn-off corner of croissant. “You mean dead people?”

  “Ew,” his grandfather said, pulling a face. He popped the croissant into his mouth. A dollop of jam dripped off and landed thick, wet, and red at the feet of the toy robot on the table between them.

  “Dear me. How does your mind work, Alex? That would be hideous. No, living people. You know: a single donor for each robot. Just patches of skin and blood and . . . such. Hair, maybe. Some spit, and perhaps, if they’re really serious, little scrapes from inside of . . . Well, you get the idea.”

  “Single donor,” Alex repeated, nodding pleasantly, as though they were discussing his biology homework. “And that would be the person who’s wanting to steal my toy robot?”

  “No.” His grandfather slurped his coffee and winced. “Muck. No, I shouldn’t say so. Those things last night were rather too easily dealt with. Just two little lookers and a stinger. No, if they’d come from him, we would have known all about it. More likely someone working for him.”

  Alex nodded again, noting the him. At least he knew it was a man. He opened his mouth, closed it. Trying to think, he glanced up past his grandfather.

  In other seats, people sat talking and reading, tapping laptops, prodding tablets, staring at phones, nodding to earphones. The man pushing the refreshments cart was almost at the end of the carriage. As Alex watched, the door down there whished open. A small, dark figure pushed in past the trolley, a girl in black. She came walking carefully up the carriage, turning her round, milky face left and right, searching the seats. She wore a sleeveless black top, with long black-and-purple-striped arm warmers covering from wrists to pale elbows.

  No one seemed to be thinking about flesh-powered robots coming at them in the night. The sheer weight of normality around their table struck Alex forcefully.

  “Right,” he said, looking back to his grandfather. “I’ve had it.”

  He glanced up at the girl, halfway along the carriage now. Her gaze swept over Alex, returned to him, and locked. She stopped, stood staring at him. There was something about her face. He recognized her as the girl from the station with the red balloon. That must have been it. He wondered if she was lost. Automatically, he started scanning around for the little man he had seen with her, but when he looked back, she had turned, leaving the carriage the way she had come.

  “All this,” Alex went on, “is just nonsense. People with little robots filled with bits of skin that they can control somehow. It’s just nonsense.”

  His grandfather had twisted around to follow Alex’s gaze, looking off up the carriage. Turning back, he frowned, a little hurt. Then he grinned.

  “Good show, Alex. That’s the stuff. Skeptical mind. You’re quite right. Everything I’ve been telling you is utterly ridiculous. Plainly, it can’t possibly be what’s going on. There must be some other, more rational explanation. And someday very soon, I hope that you and I can sit down over a good long lunch and have a proper conversation about it, see if we can’t thrash it all out.”

  Leaning forward, he picked up the robot from the table and deftly slipped it inside the old box, putting that back inside the other box and closing the lid.

  “For the moment, though,” the old man continued, standing, “the nonsense is what we’re stuck with. Sometimes there isn’t time to think things all the way through. You just have to accept what’s happening and get on and deal with it.”

  Reaching over, he picked up Alex’s rucksack, shoved the box inside, and zipped it shut. He stood, holding the bag out to Alex.

  “Now. It’s about time we got you to the toilet.”

  “What?” Alex was genuinely outraged all over again. “I’m not a little kid! I don’t need to go to the toilet.”

  “Yes. You do.” His grandfather had one hand in Alex’s armpit, hauling him up, slipping the rucksack over his shoulder. “Now. And quickly.”

  Lifting his Gladstone and ignoring Alex’s rising complaints, he began bustling him backward out of the carriage.

  Alex started another round of protests, but as he looked past his grandfather’s elbow, the words died in his throat.

  At the far end of the car, two big men in black suits with heads as bald as cue balls were coming through the door, walking very quickly and very grimly.

  And very definitely coming straight for them.

  * * *

  • • •

  “KEEP GOING,” HIS grandfather said.

  “Who—?” Alex started.

  “Quick as you can now, Alex.”

  He trotted faster, looking wildly about at the blurring, oblivious faces in the seats as they passed. They had already gone through two carriages. As they came to the next set of doors, Alex looked back to see the men already entering the car behind them. He hurried on.

  They came out into a different kind of carriage, no seats, more like a corridor. A toilet was set into a curving wall on the left. The sound of the train rushing over the tracks was much louder in here. His grandfather opened the toilet door and pushed hi
m inside, tossing his Gladstone onto the sink.

  “Now. Lock this behind me. Don’t open until I knock. I’ll knock like this.” He rapped sharply with his cane, three rapid taps, two longer ones, then stepped quickly back out and pulled the door closed, leaving Alex alone in the small gray room.

  Alex pulled the door open again. “But—”

  “Alex!” his grandfather snapped. Beyond him, the two men were coming into the corridor. “Lock it!”

  He felt himself being pushed back. The door ripped out of his grasp and slammed shut. He leapt to the lock and turned it. He stood looking at his hands on the lock.

  The copper taste in his mouth. A small, pallid version of himself, panicking in the mirror above the sink. The sounds of the train’s steel wheels rattling furiously.

  He stood back, examining the door for a way to see out. Nothing. He pressed against it, listening.

  All he could hear was the train.

  He pushed until his ear got sore, listening as hard as he could. Muffled seconds dragged past. Suddenly, the door shuddered mightily against his cheek as something crashed into the other side, sending him jumping back in fright.

  Rap-rap-rap. Rap—rap.

  He rushed to pull it open. Something large and black came tumbling into the room, falling heavily past him to the floor.

  “Lock it!”

  His grandfather’s voice. Alex slammed and locked the door again.

  He stood with his arms folded, hugging himself, backed into the corner. He stared down at the large bald man lying crumpled in an uncomfortable-looking heap at his feet.

  The rushing sounds of the train roared around his head. He poked the man with the toe of his shoe. Nothing. He looked at the door. He looked back at the big man. He looked at the door again.

  The train’s roar shifted to a howling new pitch. Alex thought distantly that he would quite like to go to the toilet now. But the big man’s face was pressed nose-first against the seat. Clackety-clatter screamed the train, over and over and over again.

  “Uhhhhhhhhrrm.”