Shadow Creatures

by Andrew Lane

  Heading down the aisle, back towards the door to the lobby, Calum noticed that ARLENE was almost blocking his way. He slowed down, momentarily confused. He was sure that the six-legged robot had been tucked to one side when he’d entered the warehouse, neatly out of the way. Maybe it had something to do with the angle he was coming at it from, but he could swear that it had . . . moved.

  He took a couple of steps closer. He had a strange urge to call out and ask ARLENE what it thought it was doing, but that would just be stupid. It was an inanimate collection of circuits, wires, pistons and metal struts. It responded to commands and it sometimes made its own decisions based on a mission-list and local conditions, but it couldn’t initiate movement on its own account. It couldn’t just wander around.

  Could it?

  This was stupid. He was letting the shadows and the noises freak him out. He needed to get back to his apartment and settle down with a can of cola.

  He walked towards ARLENE, aiming to squeeze past it and head for the lobby.

  The robot’s head suddenly spun round to stare at Calum. The lamps on either side of its camera ‘eyes’ flared to life, almost blinding him. He threw a hand up in front of his eyes, but his immediate instinct to step away was translated into a command for the bionic legs to start walking backwards. Taken by surprise, Calum overbalanced and fell.

  The impact drove the breath from his body. His head hit the floor with a sickening thud. For a moment he just stared at the ceiling, wondering what had happened, and then he raised his head to look around.

  ARLENE was walking towards him.

  The whirr of the motors that powered the robot’s legs – similar to his, now he came to think about it – was a repetitive and menacing sound that echoed around the warehouse as it came closer and closer to him.

  He raised himself up on his elbows and tried to scrabble backwards, but the bionic braces weren’t responding properly. His heels just rapped against the floor. His elbows wouldn’t pull the entire weight of his body, not backwards anyway, so he was effectively trapped.

  ARLENE stepped closer. Its head swung down so that it could see Calum’s face.

  And then its front right leg came down on his knee.

  He shouldn’t have been able to feel the pain, not with his legs the way they were, but the shock was incredible. He screamed – at least, he thought he did. Maybe it was just in his head. But, wherever the sound was – in his mind or out loud – he was definitely screaming.

  Tara stood outside the small coffee shop, not sure whether to go in or to turn round and head away.

  The message had come in from Tom half an hour ago:

  Hi Tara!

  You asked where I tend to hang out. Most evenings I end up in a coffee shop near Covent Garden – Monmouth Street. It’s a funny place – really small, and the seats and tables are quite tiny, but the coffee is to die for. They have varieties of coffee beans there that I’ve actually never heard of before. I’m gradually working my way through them – alphabetically, of course. I’ve got up to ‘H’ already. It’s a really good place to chill out and read the paper or a book, or do some work. It would be great to see you there. It’s also really handy for the West End, if you fancied going to see a film, or a play, or something (as long as it’s not clubbing. I don’t do clubbing – not under any circumstances). Or we could just hang out and talk about cryptids – I’ve collected quite a lot of information over the past few years, some of which isn’t on thelostworlds.com. I’d be happy to share it with you . . .

  Hopefully see you around!

  Regards,

  Tom

  Tara felt a little shiver of anticipation as she remembered the message. Somewhere in there she thought Tom had asked her out, without actually directly asking her out. He’d certainly mentioned going to see a film or a play together. If that wasn’t asking her out, what was?

  But they’d not actually met yet. The thought gave her some concerns. What if he wasn’t what he said, despite everything she’d managed to discover about him on the internet? What if he was really old, or really strange, or really creepy?

  There was only one way to find out, and it involved meeting him. At least it would be at a coffee shop, with other people there, and she could make sure she was closest to the door so she could run out in a hurry if there was any trouble.

  A part of her, a guilty part, knew that she should tell someone about the meeting, just so there was a record somewhere of where she was going and what she was doing. The problem was that most of her new friends were away, and the only one left – Calum – would stop her going, telling her she was crazy, it was too big a risk.

  And she didn’t want to tell him that she had a date – not until after it had gone well and she and Tom were good friends. She wanted to keep this to herself for a while.

  Just in case, she had created an event on her personal calendar and uploaded it to the internet cloud, where she kept things that she wanted to be able to access from any computer or phone, anywhere there was Wi-Fi or mobile-phone-signal access. She had also made sure there was a link to a photograph of Tom that she’d found on the internet. At least now there would be some independent record that the police could use as the basis for an investigation.

  If anything went wrong.

  She knew that she was deliberately delaying going in, but even now that the thought was out in the open she still couldn’t quite bring herself to enter the coffee shop. She looked up and down the street. It was lined with shops selling vintage clothes, art prints, film posters and odd little gifts. There was even a Chinese music shop, with bamboo flutes and strange stringed instruments in the window.

  This was stupid.

  Taking a deep breath, she entered the coffee shop.

  It was, as Tom had said, small, but it was interesting, and it smelt strongly of roasted coffee beans. There were six customers already there – four of them alone and two who were obviously a couple. She didn’t make it obvious that she was looking around, but instead slid into a high-sided booth.

  Tom had been right about the seating as well – it was like sitting on a park bench.

  A youth approached her, smiling. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked brightly.

  ‘A . . . flat white,’ Tara said, desperately trying to read all the way through the menu board behind the till.

  ‘Any particular coffee bean?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Is there a “house” bean?’

  ‘There is.’

  ‘Then I’ll go for that.’

  ‘Anything to eat?’

  ‘Not yet, but I might go for a croissant later.’

  ‘OK. I’ll bring your drink over in a moment.’

  The boy walked away, and Tara took the opportunity to look around.

  Tom was there. He was one of the four customers who were there alone. He was sitting perpendicular to Tara, so she could see the right-hand side of his face. He looked just like his photograph. He was typing something into his own computer tablet.

  She could feel herself relaxing, now she had established that he was real, and that he was who he’d said he was. And that he was alone.

  Her coffee arrived and she sipped at it, not really thinking about the taste but more interested in watching Tom. He was, she decided, even more attractive in real life than in his photograph. He was wearing a T-shirt, and his arms were really muscular, and quite tanned. His hair was slightly longer than it had been in the photograph.

  Her tablet beeped with an incoming email. She checked it out.

  Hi Tara!

  You want to join me? I’m not scary, honest!

  Regards,

  Tom

  He didn’t look round at her, but she knew that he knew she was there. She felt herself blushing. What was the phrase they used in police shows when an undercover agent had been identified? She’d been ‘made’.

  Tara pushed down against the almost overwhelming desire to run out of the coffee shop. Instead she tucked her tablet beneath one
arm, picked up her coffee and walked across to Tom’s table. She slipped in opposite him.

  ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘What are the odds I should bump into you here?’

  He looked straight at her, but he wasn’t smiling. Instead he looked worried, and guilty. Tara felt a small bud of fear begin to blossom in her heart.

  ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ Tom said. ‘I really am. This wasn’t my idea.’ He had a slight accent that she hadn’t been expecting. She opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, but he was already sliding out of the booth, his tablet computer in his hand.

  Before Tara could slide out too, a man slipped into the booth on her side of the table, blocking her exit. She felt her heart rate suddenly accelerate. As Tom walked away, head low, another man slid in to replace him. They both had short hair and heavy features. She had seen them before, at the park.

  She was trapped!

  ‘Before you say anything,’ the man opposite her said, ‘my brother here has a knife held beneath table level. Keep quiet, and don’t move.’

  ‘What . . . what do you want?’ she asked, a sick panic sweeping through her. This couldn’t be happening! ‘Money? Or my computer? Just take them.’

  The man beside her opened his mouth. ‘Why is it that they always say something when you specifically tell them not to?’ he asked.

  His colleague shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But at least she isn’t screaming. If she looks as if she might scream, or call out, then do what you need to. He gazed at Tara. ‘We don’t want your money, or your computer,’ he said. ‘Although we might take them anyway.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’ she asked, her voice shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘We want you.’

  She shivered, and wrapped her arms round herself. ‘Oh God. Is this about Nemor Incorporated?’

  The man looked at his companion in puzzlement. ‘Who?’ he asked.

  CHAPTER seven

  Calum couldn’t feel the pain of his leg breaking, but he felt the bone snap, and that was bad enough. If he had felt the pain, then he would probably have passed out. He knew it was serious, but things were going to get a lot more serious in the next few minutes if he didn’t do something fast.

  He turned half over, grabbed hold of the edge of a crate with his left hand and pulled himself away from ARLENE. The concrete was gritty beneath him, and he could feel it rasping against the skin of his side as he moved.

  Part of him was wondering why ARLENE had suddenly gone mad – was the robot being controlled, was it responding to its own decision-making in an unexpected way or had the short-range radio signals controlling his legs been misinterpreted by ARLENE as some kind of random instructions? Only part of him was wondering that though. The rest of him was wondering how he was going to get away without being trampled or crushed to death.

  He desperately reached out with his right hand, grabbed another crate and hoisted himself forward again. He half heard, half felt the thud from behind as ARLENE pursued him.

  He glanced over his shoulder, and winced at the sight of his twisted leg. ARLENE loomed up behind him like some metal analogue of the prehistoric creatures that his great-grandfather had spent his life searching for. Its head scanned back and forth, triangulating on Calum. It looked ready to lunge.

  As he hoisted himself forward over the rough concrete, Calum’s brain raced, calculating the possibilities. If ARLENE was being controlled from outside, then he was dead. He couldn’t get away from the robot fast enough. If it was responding to its own internal programming, then he was probably also dead, depending on what instructions it thought it was following. It might just lose interest and stop – if he was lucky. He didn’t feel lucky.

  His best bet would be if the robot’s control systems had been activated by the transmissions that were going from Calum’s brain to his bionic leg braces. The radio waves were short range – if he could move far enough away then ARLENE would lose the signals. But how far was far enough?

  Again he pulled against the crates, gaining another metre, but when he looked over his shoulder he saw ARLENE still moving forward. It was staying in range! He couldn’t get away fast enough! Desperately he pulled off the headband with the sensors for his legs, but the robot kept coming!

  He looked around, hoping against hope that there was something nearby that he could use, but the aisles were clear. He was, however, almost at a junction of two of them, and that gave him an idea. Instead of laboriously pulling himself, hand over hand, away from the robot, he stretched himself out, pulled his arms into his sides and rolled. His body was angled towards the cross-aisle, and he managed to get across the open space in a few seconds. For a split second he bizarrely flashed back to a trip he and his mum and dad had taken to Greenwich Park once, when he was six, and the way he had rolled down the hill there, laughing all the way, with his dad chasing him. But now it was a robot chasing him, and it was concrete rather than grass that he was rolling over.

  He rolled faster, trying to increase the gap between him and ARLENE. He tensed, expecting another metal foot to come crashing down on his other leg, but nothing happened. He couldn’t hear the thuds of ARLENE walking either, but that might just have been because his blood was roaring in his ears like a waterfall. He stopped rolling and risked a glance backwards.

  ARLENE stood there, as still as a statue.

  Cautiously, Calum flipped on to his back and sat up, bracing himself with his hands. His breath rasped in his throat, and the skin of his side burned where he had pulled it across the concrete. Still there was no movement from the robot.

  It looked as if he was right – it had been the transmissions from his brain, routed through the electronic processor and radio transmitter of the bionic legs, that had set the robot off. That was . . . unfortunate . . . but it couldn’t have been predicted. And at least he was intact and relatively unscathed.

  Apart from his leg. He looked at it ruefully. It was twisted round, and there was blood on his jeans around the knee where ARLENE’s foot had smashed it. For the first time ever he thanked his lucky stars that he had no feeling in his legs.

  He reached into his trouser pocket, hoping against hope that his mobile hadn’t fallen out while he was rolling, and hadn’t been smashed by his exertions. It seemed to be OK. He pressed the memory button for Tara’s number.

  It went to voicemail.

  He grimaced. Just his luck that Tara was off somewhere enjoying herself.

  Who else? Gecko and Natalie were in Hong Kong. What about Mr Macfarlane? Could he come and rescue Calum?

  A small piece of cardboard had fallen out of Calum’s pocket when he’d pulled the mobile out. He picked it up curiously and glanced at it. It was the business card that Dr Kircher had given him.

  He sighed in relief. This whole fiasco had been caused by the bionic legs – it was only right that the Robledo Mountains Technology team came out and put it right. And Dr Kircher had said that Calum could phone him, any time, day or night. And they had access to medical facilities.

  He typed the number in and listened to the tone as the phone connected.

  This was not, he thought desperately, one of his better days.

  The call connected, and a voice – a human voice, not an answerphone – said: ‘Robledo Mountains Technology, emergency helpline. What’s the problem?’

  ‘This is Calum Challenger,’ Calum said breathlessly. ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘OK, don’t worry. Just hold on a moment while I retrieve your information.’ Calum heard a clicking sound as keys were pressed on a keyboard, then: ‘Yes, Mr Challenger. You were in earlier today. What’s happened?’

  ‘Difficult to explain, but one of the legs has been twisted and crushed. I’m lying on the floor, and I can’t get up.’

  ‘OK.’ A moment’s pause. ‘I have an address here in London Docklands. Is that still valid?’

  ‘Yes. I’m on the ground floor.’

  ‘OK, I’m alerting the immediate response team now. Th
ey’ll be on their way within a few moments.’ A pause. ‘Are you injured?’

  Calum raised his head and looked along his body, quickly evaluating his condition, and his heart sank as he realized how bad things were. ‘There’s little bleeding, as far as I can tell, but I think my leg is broken. It looks broken – at least, it’s twisted in a way that it really shouldn’t twist.’

  ‘Are you in pain?’

  Calum swallowed, not liking even to say the words. ‘I can’t feel my legs on a good day – the spinal nerves are damaged. Looking at it, though, I think I would be in quite a lot of pain if the nerves were working properly.’ He felt like laughing, and realized how close to panic he was. ‘Of course, if the nerves were working properly, then I wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.’

  ‘Understood. There’s a chance that your injuries are sending your body into shock, even though you can’t feel any pain. We’ll get to you as soon as possible. Can the team get access to you, or are there any locked doors?’

  ‘I’m on the ground floor. The door to the street is closed but unlocked. The door to the area where I am is open and unlocked, although it usually has an electronic lock on it.’ Calum mentally thanked heaven that he had left the security door open when he’d entered the warehouse.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Look, should I call for an ambulance?’ Calum asked. ‘They can get here quicker and they can treat me for the shock until your people turn up.’

  ‘Don’t do that!’ the voice on the end of the phone said quickly. ‘Our people are fully medically trained, and they will get to you soon. We’ve got a paramedic on a motorbike who can get there faster – he’ll make you comfortable and treat any immediate problems. The ambulance van won’t be far behind. Just keep talking to me.’