Twisted Metal

by Tony Ballantyne

  ‘Sit down,’ he said. He knelt on the floor before her, took one of her feet in his hands and began to pry the segmented casing away from it.

  ‘Oh, Karel, thank you!’ She sank back into the seat, electromuscles discharging. The plastic-coated sole of the foot came away, and Karel quickly stripped the segmented steel upper.

  ‘That feels so nice,’ said Susan.

  Karel pulled out the oil bath and dropped the upper into it.

  ‘You’ve got gangue lodged in here,’ he remarked. ‘Where have you been? Into the old city?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you make it as far as the fort?’

  ‘Oh, Karel, do the other one too.’

  She waved her other foot in his face. He quickly stripped away its covering, then gazed at his wife’s naked feet. Delicate steel bones, shimmering thin electromuscle.

  ‘You build yourself so well,’ he said.

  She gave a relaxed sigh. ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’

  He worked on her feet for some time, flexing them, cleaning them, straightening out control rods. He oiled them and slipped the casing back into place.

  Then they sat in silence for some time.

  ‘What are you thinking, Karel?’

  Karel looked up into his wife’s eyes.

  ‘Nothing in particular. Why?’

  ‘I never know what you’re thinking. Not really. You never let on.’

  A distance fell between them.

  ‘Susan, what’s the matter? Is it the child? It is, isn’t it? Your emotions are all bubbling up, trying to get themselves into order, ready for the making.’

  ‘Yes! No! Oh, I don’t know. Tell me, Karel, how do you know? All those immigrants. All those people trying to get into Turing City. How do you know they are telling the truth? How do you know that they are who they say they are?’

  She leaned forward, her gaze intense, pleading for an answer.

  ‘How do I know?’ echoed Karel. ‘I don’t. Not really. But that’s not the point. They say that they will act in accordance with Turing City’s philosophy; they promise they will weave their children’s minds in that fashion. What more can we ask of them?’

  And for a moment, an image of Banjo Macrodocious leaped into his mind.

  ‘Supposing they’re all lying?’ said Susan. ‘What if they are just saying that so they can come and live here? Wouldn’t we do the same? If our home had been destroyed and we had nowhere else to go?’

  ‘I’m sure that some of them are lying, Susan. Listen, they used to need permits to have children in Segre, back when the Artemisian siege was on and metal was short. But, really, they were just adapting a system that had been used for years in the middle countries. In Stark, robots used to have to pass a mechanical competence test before having children. That’s the price that bought their technical excellence. Robots have been leaving Segre and Bethe and Stark for years to come and live here, simply so they could raise their own children. Were we right to let them in? Well, I think so. Look at what happened: those other countries are conquered, and we are still standing.’

  Susan stared at him. She didn’t seem convinced.

  ‘Are you going to work tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about the parliament? You’ve heard, haven’t you? Kobuk has managed to get a petition together for parliament to be convened.’

  ‘Everyone has heard, Susan. Of course I’ll be back for that. But listen, we have Wieners now flocking into the western stations, running from Artemis. We can’t just ignore them, we need to get them processed. And there will be more robots coming. Lots more.’

  The golden glow in Susan’s eyes deepened. ‘I can’t help thinking that they’re wasting their time,’ she said, ‘that Artemis will get them sooner rather than later.’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Listen to me! I’m talking like a traitor. Karel, I don’t think we should have another child.’

  ‘That’s just the build-up of emotions,’ said Karel soothingly. ‘You were like this the last time, too.’

  ‘No I wasn’t and you know it. Karel, there is something waiting for me out there, and I don’t know what it is. My mind isn’t right. I don’t know what to think.’

  Karel took her hands. ‘Susan, it will be all right. Trust me.’

  He gazed at her. She looked away.

  ‘Susan? Susan! You do trust me, don’t you?’

  She couldn’t look at him. She spoke to the floor.

  ‘Karel,’ she said, in such a little voice. ‘I don’t really know what’s on your mind. I don’t know how it was made. I don’t think anyone does, not even you.’

  She pulled her hands away from his, stood up and walked from the room.

  Karel remained where he was.

  Thinking.

  The Cruel Mother

  Nyro sat down in the land of Born,

  The rain her metal has misted;

  And there she has knelt with her own true man,

  And a new mind she has twisted.

  Smile no so sweet, my Bonnie Babe:

  And you smile me so sweet, you’ll smile me dead.

  She’s taken out her own little awl

  And pulled the metal from her sweet Babe’s head.

  She’s lit a fire by the light of the night moon

  And there she’s melted her sweet babe in.

  As she was going to the forge

  She saw a sweet babe in the porch.

  Oh, sweet babe, if you were mine

  I’d clad you in the metal so fine.

  Oh, Mother dear, when I was thine,

  You didn’t prove to me so kind.

  O cursed mother, this land is full

  And it’s here that you will no longer dwell.

  O cursed mother, Shull is empty

  Go there now, cursed empty shell.

  Olam

  The feeling of fear in the stadium was electric: it was a static charge building up in the jolting, clanking crowd of robots, threatening to earth itself in a runaway crackle of panic.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ said the robot next to Olam. ‘They need us because they’re going straight on to attack Turing City: they’ll have to enlist every robot they can.’

  Olam eyed the robot with a dislike that was momentarily stronger than the fear that currently ran through him. The robot was tall, his body plated in whale metal. Clearly one of the Wiener aristocracy. The robot possessed an air of certainty that Olam despised.

  ‘Why would they want to attack Turing City right away?’ asked a nearby robot. She was a pretty thing but damaged, the panel on her upper thigh cracked. Olam could see electromuscle sparking through the break. ‘Surely they would want to pause and rebuild their strength?’ She was confused, trying to make sense of this sudden reversal in her fortunes.

  ‘No,’ insisted the tall robot. ‘Doe Menloop knows what’s going on. She told me, Kavan’s leading the Artemis forces now.’

  ‘Who’s Kavan?’ asked the woman with the damaged leg.

  ‘Kavan is a folk legend amongst the Artemisians. Kavan is the robot outsider who came to Artemis and proved himself more Artemisian than the Artemisians themselves.’ The tall aristocrat explained all this without a trace of condescension. Well, he would, reflected Olam. His sort would force you to work underground for a lifetime on low wages without any hesitation, and yet would be mortified if they thought they had been unintentionally rude to you. ‘A lot of people have been waiting for Kavan to take control of the army. They expect him to march upon Artemis City itself some day.’

  Olam felt moved to speak, but at that moment there was a crackle of static, a whistle from the speakers that studded the iron walls of the stadium, and the anxious noise of the gathered robots died away.

  It should have been a beautiful day. A holiday, a day for the people of Wien to take a walk, or go sailing, or to climb the towers of the whale minds. The weather was perfect, the late-autumn sky filling the gaps between the struts and the pillars
at the upper reaches of the stadium with bright blue.

  Just at that moment Olam fantasized what it would be like to be able to fly. To lift himself out of this cauldron of terrified, pleading robots and to rise up into the air, past the Artemisian guards who patrolled the terraces that looked down over the stadium floor, their guns at the ready. To just rise out of this nightmare and fly to safety . . .

  But the speakers whistled again, and the fantasy vanished, and Olam was back in the stadium, just one of hundreds of robots who had come here seeking the only apparent opportunity left for survival.

  There was yet another whistle, and a voice resolved itself.

  ‘Good morning, robots.’

  Olam followed the turning heads of his fellow captives towards the Royal Box. Only a few days before, Olam had visited the stadium with his brothers to watch the combat: robots in a carnival of customized bodies fighting to the death. Then, the Royal Box had been draped with tungsten alloy foil that flashed iridescent patterns in the wind. Now, it was just another iron box. A nondescript grey robot stood there on the balcony, speaking into a microphone.

  ‘My name is Eleanor,’ she was saying, ‘second in command to Kavan, leader of the Artemisian troops. Kavan, who was born an outsider and is now part of Artemis. Take him as an example, robots, and remember the words that Nyro spoke. “Artemis is never intended to be a country. Artemis is an ideal.”’

  ‘I told you,’ murmured the aristocrat. ‘They want us. They need us.’

  ‘Silence,’ said another robot, but the tall robot was going to have his say.

  ‘To think there are some fools still hiding out there in the city, just waiting for their brains to be unwound at the end of an awl. They should have come here, to safety. They should have listened to me . . .’

  Eleanor was speaking again. Olam strained his vision to get a better look at her. She seemed so nondescript. So grey. So inter-changeable.

  ‘And now you, too, have come here to serve Artemis. Some of you, no doubt, with a genuine desire to be part of the Artemesian state. But some of you will have come here through fear, or cowardice. Those in the city beyond would call you traitors . . .’

  At her words, Olam felt a lurch in his gyros. He remembered the looks on his brothers’ faces as he had left the shelter of the forge earlier that morning, the foil sheet advertising Artemis’s offer clutched in his hands. He remembered the walk through the clear morning towards the stadium. The city was broken, wreathed in smoke and spattered with droplets of metal, but the tall iron shape of the stadium remained untouched, rising cold and sinister above the streets. For decades, robots had fought to the death in that stadium, the wire of the defeated minds unwound and spooled up and sent off to be melted. Olam had thought little of their fate in the past. Now, maybe, he was going to join them. Perhaps he, too, would meet his death on the stadium floor.

  His thoughts were yanked back to the present and Eleanor’s words.

  ‘. . . but, no matter what your motives, all of you are welcome here. Now, if you will just bear with me a few moments . . .’

  There was another whistle and the speakers were clicked off. Eleanor turned away from the balcony. Olam had a surge of hope at her words. Maybe it was going to be okay after all.

  ‘I told you,’ murmured the tall robot, and suddenly Olam had a clear vision of how things were going to be. A vision of the Wiener aristocracy and their hangers-on, slotting easily into place in the Artemisian army, rising quickly through the ranks, while the likes of him were left at the bottom as always, only one step above the slaves and the condemned. Some things never changed.

  The aristocrat murmured again. ‘I’ll tell you something else . . .’

  There was a harsh rattle of metal and an electronic whine.

  ‘No talking!’

  The infantryrobot had seemingly appeared from nowhere. He had hit the aristocrat across the back of the head with his rifle. The tall robot was rubbing his head, trying to adjust the set of his mind.

  And now Olam realized how the crowd had been silently infiltrated by grey Artemisian troops. They were picking their way through the mass of Wiener robots, pulling random people out of the crowd and herding them towards one of the stadium exits. Olam looked closer. Pulling only the women out of the crowd, he realized. The Artemisian soldier that had hit the tall robot over the head was now examining the woman with the damaged leg.

  ‘Is there any other damage?’ he asked her.

  ‘No . . .’ said the woman. ‘No, I’m fine.’

  The soldier was unconvinced. ‘Hey, Greta. Come and take a look at this one.’

  Another grey soldier came over. Slightly shabby-looking, made of well-worn metal. She examined the damaged leg.

  ‘Seems localized,’ she decided. ‘But why risk it? We’ve harvested enough. Leave her here.’

  The two soldiers vanished into the crowd. Only Olam noticed that one of them had dropped something. An awl. Nonchalantly, he bent down and palmed the glossy black spike.

  The aristocrat seemed to be recovering. ‘Best not to speak,’ he said.

  The woman looked concerned. ‘What did they mean, why risk it?’ she asked, too nervous to heed the tall robot’s advice. ‘Why did they leave me behind? They’ve taken all the other women away.’

  ‘Not all,’ said the aristocrat quietly. ‘They’ve left the young ones. Now, let’s stay quiet . . .’

  Olam felt his gyros lurch again. What was going on?

  The grey troops were moving back through the crowd, separating them out. Olam found himself being forced off the gravel that covered most of the ground and onto one of the magnetized running surfaces that ran around the perimeter of the stadium. He felt his feet lock onto it as he walked; and he felt a lurch of fear. This is where robots had been run to death, supercharged and sent hurtling around the track, expending their lifeforce in one burst, whilst he and his brothers had watched and cheered. Now it seemed that the roles were about to be reversed.

  He looked around to see that the crowd was being spaced out into groups of three. Olam found himself with the tall robot and the damaged woman. More and more, he realized he had made a big mistake in coming here.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked the woman again. The tall robot just rubbed his head thoughtfully.

  The speakers whistled. Eleanor’s voice sounded.

  ‘Future Artemisians,’ she said. ‘Artemis was never intended to be a country. Artemis is an ideal. Artemis does not serve you, nor you it. Rather, you are Artemis. Artemis only needs the strong, the clever, the cunning, the artificers.’

  Olam’s gyros lurched again. The damaged woman looked at him, fear in her eyes.

  ‘Prove you have those qualities,’ continued Eleanor. ‘We only need two-thirds of your number.’

  There was an uneasy stirring in the crowd. Olam felt removed from the events, he felt as if he were standing in the terraces amongst the grey soldiers, or sitting where he belonged, up there ready to watch the killing, not down here participating in it. Hah, at least if he was up there he would be enjoying this spectacle, not like those grey soldiers above. They didn’t seem concerned by events on the stadium floor; they simply watched it all with bored resignation . . . A shot rang out, jerking him from his reverie. And another. There was a continuous volley of shots. All around the stadium, robots slumped to the ground, blue wire twisting and uncurling from their heads. Grey soldiers walked away, their guns smoking.

  ‘Five minutes,’ announced Eleanor, ‘or we reduce the numbers ourselves.’

  The aristocrat moved coldly and dispassionately, seizing the damaged woman with his two long arms.

  ‘I saw you pick up that awl,’ he said to Olam. ‘Use it on her.’

  ‘Please!’ cried the woman. ‘No.’

  Olam looked at the shiny black spike in his hand.

  ‘Do you want them to shoot us?’ asked the tall robot. ‘Use it!’

  ‘No!’ said the woman, eyes wide with fear. ‘Please, no!’

&n
bsp; ‘It’s you or us,’ explained the aristocrat. ‘This isn’t personal.’

  ‘But I have two children . . .’

  Olam weighed the spike in his hand. He looked at the tall robot, looked at the whale metal covering his body. The tall robot knew what he was thinking.

  ‘There’s no point attacking me,’ it said. ‘That awl would never pierce my body. I’m covered in whale metal. Look at you, with your pig-iron plating. I could defeat you with ease, but this woman is weaker. And you have a weapon. So use it on her.’

  The woman gazed at him, eyes pleading.

  ‘What did you expect?’ asked the aristocrat. ‘This is Artemis we are dealing with. Only the clever and the strong serve it. That is why it’s so powerful.’

  Olam looked around the stadium. He could see that most groups were, like his own, gripped by indecision. But in some of them a fight was taking place. In a few, robots already lay dead. One lay nearby on the magnetic track, arms and legs pulsing as two young women repeatedly smashed his head on the ground. Olam watched as the unfortunate robot’s skull was buckled and torn. The women pulled blue wire from the widening cracks in great loops, their mouths emitting excited electronic squeaks as they did so.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Olam, sickened. But maybe also a little excited, he realized. ‘I won’t,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Then give me the awl and let me do it!’ The tall robot’s voice was cold. There was no anger there, no passion. Nothing but pure logic.

  Seemingly without his volition, Olam’s arm reached forward, the awl offered up on his palm.

  ‘No!’ screamed the woman, her body rattling with fear. ‘Please!’

  Olam came to his senses and snatched his hand back.

  ‘You’re a fool, man,’ said the tall robot coldly. ‘Do you mean to tell me you’ve never come here to watch the fighting?’ He saw the answer in Olam’s stance. ‘I thought as much. Lower-class voyeur. You can watch it, but can you do it? Well, here’s your chance to join your betters! I killed my first robot when I was just ten! You should know what to do; you’ve seen it happen often enough. Come on! We’ve only got a couple of minutes left! Do you want to be killed too? It’s the logical thing. Only she dies, or we all die. Either way she will be dead. You’re condemning both of us as well.’