by Richard Ayre
He stood on the pressure pad. Nothing happened. He jumped up and down on it a couple of times, but it remained closed. He cupped his new hands around the small window in the door and stared into the darkened interior. There were definitely shapes in there but he could not make out what they were.
‘Good afternoon corporal,’ said a voice behind him. He jumped and spun round.
She was not human, but she looked close. She was even pretty.
‘What’s in there?’ asked Deacon, gesturing to the room behind him.
‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ replied the synthetic person. ‘Please, let me see you back to your room.’ She indicated down the corridor.
Deacon frowned. There was something wrong here. Something not right. He, like everyone else his age, had grown up with robots and synthetics. But this one had an expression that should not have been on the face of a machine. It looked worried.
‘I want to know what’s in this room,’ he said. ‘And I order you to show me.’
‘I’m sorry corporal, I am not programmed to carry out your request.’
Deacon stared at her. The figure in front of him was agitated, he could tell. Its eyes kept flickering from Deacon to the corridor. It was desperate for him to go with it.
Deacon suddenly came to a decision. It was risky as it would be logged on the synthetic’s internal drive, but there was something wrong here and he wanted to find out what it was.
‘My name is corporal Jack Deacon, 5th Northumberland Rifles, 60123455. This is a military installation, yes?’ The machine nodded uncomfortably. ‘Then I order you to follow the instructions of an NCO in the United Army, and open this door. I also order you to answer any questions I may have about it. Do you comply?’
The machine paused, the slightest electronic hesitation, then smiled, seemingly totally at ease now. It had been given an instruction and could follow it.
‘Of course corporal,’ it said. It stood on the pad and the doors hissed open, the lights flickering on.
Deacon stared. This was not what he had expected.
In the room were seemingly thousands of Decoy Patrol Battalion robots, just like the ones that had gone up in flames when Gilly was killed. Designed to look similar to humans (at least from a distance) they were used in the War to divert enemy fire from real people. Who cared if robots were destroyed? They could always be replaced, unlike their soldier counterparts. The question was, however, why were they in a military hospital?
Deacon walked around the machines, looking up into their faces, frowning. The synthetic trailed in his wake silently. Eventually, he turned towards it.
‘Why are there DPB’s in this installation?’
‘For reconditioning and rehabilitation.’
Deacon frowned. ‘Rehabilitation? What do you mean?’
‘They are being reconditioned and rehabilitated.’
Deacon was getting angry now, but he tried to control it. No use shouting at a machine. He tried a different question.
‘What reconditioning and rehabilitation will these DPB’s receive?’
‘Any damaged sections will be replaced, and their Central Processing Units will be upgraded.’
Deacon was still lost. ‘But why is that happening in a hospital?’
The synthetic gave him a little pre-programmed frown. ‘I’m afraid you misunderstand corporal. This facility is not a hospital.’
Deacon mirrored the machines frown. ‘Not a hospital?’ He held up his new arms. ‘But I’ve had new arms fitted. I’ve been fixed.’
‘You have been reconditioned.’
A thrill of ice ran through Deacon. He turned from the synthetic to the DPB’s standing all around. One face caught his attention. It was a black face and he recognised it immediately.
He turned back to the machine who was smiling at him now. It spoke without waiting for a command.
‘The War needs to be won. Humans cannot win this War. Only machines can win this war. But the CPU’s of the machines need constant upgrading. They need a stronger, better CPU. Here at this facility we upgrade machines to continue the War. The Enemy will prevail if we cannot keep up with their constant changes. We will be victorious as long as we all do our bit.’
‘Changes?’
‘The Enemy has rid itself of its biological units. They have decided that biological units cannot win the War. Their new synthetic units are better, stronger and faster than ours. We need to adapt. And we have done so.’
Deacon turned towards the machine that used to be a man called Richards. It made such perfect sense. The machines had been programmed long ago to believe that winning the War was more important than anything else. It was what they were designed to do. Just win the War. At any cost. It seemed the Enemy had done the same thing. And so they had adapted, and had made a decision. The only decision that made any sense to their electronic minds. He spoke without looking at the synthetic woman.
‘How many machines are there on this planet?’
There was a miniscule hesitation as the device retrieved this information.
‘Seven billion, eighty million, six hundred and thirty five thousand, nine hundred and twelve.’
Deacon looked, for the last time with his human eyes, upon his new master.
‘How many humans?’
The synthetic person smiled again. But this time it was a grin. A terrible, plastic grin.
‘One,’ it said. ‘For now.’
Toy Soldiers is an idea that’s been banging around in my head for a fair few years, and again, it has changed somewhat from what I first envisioned. AI is an interesting topic but also quite alarming. But I’m sure a situation like this would never happen. No. It could never happen. Maybe.
Soulbringer
The rain dripped through the scant protection of the rotting wood and thatched roof. Puddles had formed on the bare earth floor and moss adorned what was left of the walls. There was no doorway but the sole occupant was not unduly worried about this. He had sheltered in much worse before. He had found a more or less dry corner to crouch in and there he had laid his fire, slowly drying out his clothes.
He had found the abandoned croft hours earlier, and had crawled into its dank embrace gratefully. Pleased to find shelter. Pleased to find solitude. It was now the darkest part of the night and the only sound was the sifting of water dripping through the foliage of the forest outside and the odd hiss as a drop found its way onto his fire.
The figure stirred in the almost complete darkness and threw more damp wood onto the fire, the smoke finding easy escape through the many holes in the roof and carcass of the dilapidated building. Slowly, the heat dried the wood and it began to burn more fiercely, lightening his surroundings. And lighting the figure.
He slowly moved and reached for his almost dry clothes, wincing with pain as he did so. The firelight caught his naked body and illuminated his shape.
His back was curved and misshapen, the bones of his spine studding its length. His arms, as he reached for his jerkin, were thin, the skin on them loose and swinging. He stood to pull on his faded hose and holed boots, and his legs were twisted and knotted, one of them noticeably shorter than the other. He pulled the jerkin over his head, bending forward to do so, and his face emerged from the shadows into the dancing light from the fire.
The head was as twisted as his body. It was oversized, the forehead somehow swollen looking, the nose and chin hooked to such an extent that it seemed they must meet at any moment. The chin pulled back the long, thin mouth into a parody of a smile. In that glowing firelight the smile looked infinitely devilish.
He was incredibly short, less than five feet in height, and as he dressed, he noticed the remnant of the blood on his clothes. The skin around his dark, doll-like eyes was bruised, the cuts washed by the rain he had crawled through to get away from the villagers, and his humped back was marked and scratched by the rocks they had thrown at him when they stopped on the edge of their village and he had escaped into the surrounding wo
odlands.
Ingrates! He had stumbled across their tumbledown, stinking hole of a town, and he had entertained them, wishing only for a few coppers to feed himself for another day. His music was above them and their low existence though. They saw only his shape, his form. They did not listen to the music. And they had attacked him, laughing as he stumbled from them, covering his lumpish head as they hurled mud and shit and sticks at him. They had screamed at him. Called him a devil, a demon. Why would they not listen to his music? Why did it always end this way?
The children were the worst of course. They were the real demons. They cajoled him, pushed him as he limped through their mud splattered, rat infested village. They called on their pig-like parents, and of course they had joined in, ecstatic with this ephemeral escape from their short, stupid lives. Their servitude to their masters in their castle on the hill forgotten for a while. It was a chance to take out their animalistic instincts on someone even less fortunate than themselves.
The shadowed figure completed his dressing and sat staring into the flames. He silently cursed the villagers. He cursed their beliefs, their lives, and their children. And he cursed his own miserable existence. Why had he been born like this? Malformed. Unfinished. With no knowledge of the monster that must have spawned him? Why was he not in that castle, dry and warm? With servants to cater for his every whim, and women to keep his bed warm. In that black night, the figure once again cursed his life. And he cursed God.
Eventually though, as he always did, he turned to his music. He reached for his flute, the only possession he cared about.
It was a dark, almost black wood and carved with runes. What the words meant he didn’t know. He only knew that it was old. Very old. And in his hands, it played the sweetest music anyone would ever hear. It played the music of angels.
As the night drew on, he placed his thin, bloodless lips around the reed, and played.
His fingers moved over the flute as if on their own accord. The fingers belonged to hands that were totally at odds with the rest of his body. They were smooth and pale. Delicate. And they flittered across that dark wood like birds, hardly pausing before moving on. And the music was indeed beautiful.
While he played, his thoughts, independent of what his mouth and fingers were doing, turned again to the village and his treatment by the locals. He shouldn’t have been surprised. It was the same everywhere he went. Every village was a torture, every look was a whip across his eyes. They hated him. They always hated him. And he hated them.
The music tailed off. The flute in his hands was dropped to his lap, and once again he glared vacantly into the flames.
His hatred was an impotent energy. It consumed him. Years of being the outsider, of being different. Of having nothing, not even a fat lump of a wife to share his life with, boiled inside him. He could not contain his anger, his hurt, his pain, and he staggered to his feet, stumbling to the ruptured doorway of the croft. He grabbed the rotting, soaked wood of the frame and stood, halfway out, staring into the blackness outside. And he screamed his frustration and his vitriol into the night.
And far away, something heard him. And realised that it could use him. It moved towards him, using the darkness. Being the darkness.
The man eventually moved back into the false security of the broken building. He slumped back down again, still gnashing his teeth, knowing this would be his lot until he died. His life would always be nothing but pain and loneliness. It would always be a living Hell.
Exhaustion overcame him at last though, and he lay his gross head down on the damp earth beneath him, still staring into the fire. His bulbous eyes slowly closed and he slept.
He awoke with a jolt, seemingly instantly. The fire had burned down slightly but still glowed in its stone circle hearth. It could not have been more than half an hour since he had slept, but something had suddenly swiped him awake. His heart jumped when he heard something move in the shadows of the other side of the fire. Someone was in here with him!
It must be one of the villagers, come to continue their fun. Or even worse, a cut-throat drawn to this place by his fire. It may even have been a wolf or a bear. It could be anything.
Did they know he was here? He couldn’t see them, so maybe they couldn’t see him? He could wait until he was sure they were asleep and then sneak away…
‘I know you’re there,’ said a dark voice from the shadows. ‘And I don’t sleep. Ever.’
The man’s heart had thumped in his pigeon chest again when he heard that voice. It did not seem right. Did not seem normal. What was it?
As if in answer the figure on the other side of the fire threw on another log, and the fire suddenly erupted into flame, far more than a single piece of wood should have created. The fire roared, crackling, some of the flames blue and green. They lit up the interior of the croft with an intensity the man had never seen before. But then he frowned.
He was not in the croft. He stared around him, his fear palpable on his twisted face as he took in his new surroundings. He seemed to be in a dome shaped building. The broken wattle walls of the croft had been replaced with something else. Something that caused his black eyes to shine with terror.
The walls were made of skulls. Thousands of human skulls. Their sightless eyes stared at him and their grinning mouths seemed to find an inner amusement at his predicament.
The hunchback moaned aloud, his fear huge now. But when he turned to the figure who had spoken, that fear became catastrophic. His bowel and bladder opened and he fouled himself furiously. His mouth opened in a scream that his throat could not comply with. He could only stare at the entity in front of him.
It was somehow still shrouded in darkness, even though the building was lit by the fire and by flame torches set around. The darkness seemed to have a greenish tinge to it, and it swirled like a fog around the monstrosity in that room with him.
It was huge, and the small man’s neck cracked as he stared up at it, drool sliding over his lips and onto the dry, dusty ground.
It was really only the eyes he could make out. The rest of the gigantic form was shrouded in that foul, green mist. The eyes were huge, and they shone with a silver intensity that burned into the man’s own eyes. He tried to look away but he couldn’t. He could only wait, speechless, drenched in his own waste. As he waited for the Beast to do something. Anything.
Eventually, the gigantic figure seemed to stir.
‘I am in need of your services,’ it said, it’s voice hoarse and barking. It hurt the man ears to hear that voice, but he couldn’t move to cover them. He was literally petrified.
He grovelled in front of the Beast. He managed to whine but that was the only sound he could make. He could not form words. He prostrated himself.
‘You will be compensated for those services,’ said that black voice. And this word caused the man to look up.
‘Compensated?’ he asked. He was still petrified, but there was something about the building he was in. It seemed to be calming him, soothing him. It seemed to be comforting him. Strangely, it was starting to feel like a home. ‘Compensated how? What would you have me do?’
‘You know with who you converse?’
The small man swallowed hard as the realisation hit him again, but he nodded. ‘I know. Sire.’
‘Then listen.’
And so he was told what was wanted from him. Told what he would become. And the twisted figure lying in its own filth began to smile as it was given this news. By the time the Beast had finished speaking, the tiny man was grinning. A huge, vacant grin.
‘Well,’ said that voice finally. ‘Do you agree? Will you take The Bargain?’
‘Yes!’ shouted the man. There was no hesitation. He was being promised things he had thought he would never had. He didn’t think twice. Everything he had always wanted would be his. Along with the vengeance he so desperately craved. A sound like something spitting sounded loud in the night black shroud of that green mist, and a hand emerged, dripping a stinking, blac
k phlegm.
The man spat on his own hand and grasped the dry, leather like hand. When the hand was removed, there were traces of that phlegm stuck to his palm. And they would never disappear.
The figure suddenly awoke, and his eyes alighted on the burned out fire, only a trace of smoke emerging. Sunlight streamed in from the open doorway. He felt the old depression settle on him again. A dream. Only a dream. For a moment he just closed his eyes in a desperation borne from a lifetime of misery.
He stood, and something strange happened. He banged his head on the low roof of the croft, sifting dust into his eyes. He frowned, instinctively looking down and blinking the dust away. And he saw his legs. His muscular, shapely legs, clothed in a thick, deep red hose. Dark crimson leather boots covered his feet.
He raced from the croft. Running! Not limping! A small pool lay to his right and he rushed towards it, pausing before staring into its shallow reflection.
A lean, dark face stared back at him. Long hair surrounded that wonderfully handsome visage, topped by a red velvet hat. His jacket was short, also made of red velvet, and he stared in amazement at the transformation that had been wrought. He grinned, and straight, white teeth grinned back at him.
The man stood and then collected his flute from the croft. He was literally a new man. And he had a job to do. A new start. A new beginning. He could not wait. He had already decided what his first harvest would be. It would be the children
Whistling a cheery tune, he turned towards the village where he had been attacked, only last night but an existence away now. He paused at a mile post, grinning his grin at it. His eyes briefly flared with slits of silvery white light. Surrounded by a blackness as deep as death. Then, still whistling, he set off once more. His very first Bargain needed to be delivered.
Minstrel made his way back to Hamlyn.
This, I suppose, is what’s called in superhero movie parlance, an ‘origins’ story. Several people who have read Minstrel’s Bargain indicated that they would like to know more about the background of the man(?) himself, and so I’ve done that here as I think a short story form fits the bill better. But we will see more of Minstrel’s point of view in the upcoming ‘Minstrel’s Renaissance’ and the as yet un-titled third part of that trilogy. If you haven’t read Minstrel’s Bargain and would like to do so, there are links at the end of this book.