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Evil Machines

Page 17

by Terry Jones


  ‘There! There! Little boy!’ cried his mother. ‘It’s all right. You did your best!’ and she tried to reach out to him, but he just sat there where he was.

  ‘Burr kerr urger murwer!’ wailed Little Orville. ‘Burr furr furr kull!’

  ‘Guerphincooodleplops!’ exclaimed the Inventor.

  ‘Oh! Shut up!’ exclaimed Big Orville.

  ‘Take that thing out of your mouth!’ said Jack.

  ‘Sorry!’ grinned Maurice, taking the driveller out of his mouth. ‘Little Orville says he’s let down the whole human race! He feels terrible about that!’

  ‘No, you did just fine!’ shouted Big Orville.

  ‘None of us could have done any better,’ said Jack.

  ‘There! There! Come to Mummy!’ said Annie. But Little Orville still sat there howling with misery for having failed humankind.

  Suddenly Maurice gave a shout, ‘I’m such an idiot! Or perhaps I should say I’m not really an idiot. In fact I’m really extremely clever. Indeed, I’m only just beginning to remember how clever I actually am . . . Far too clever by half, really!’

  ‘Get on with it!’ exclaimed Jack.

  ‘Yes of course! . . . er . . . sorry. By the way that’s an example of being too clever . . . I just can’t help getting side-tracked by interesting . . .’

  ‘Just tell us what you’ve realized!’ shouted Jack in exasperation. ‘You’ve just had a flash of inspiration! What was it?’

  ‘What was it? Er . . . Oh yes . . . You see, I don’t think my robot self can wipe out our memories totally. I think it can only numb certain parts of our recollection for a while. It’s something to do with the cerebral cortex, you see . . .’

  Jack actually grabbed Maurice by his lapels of his boiler suit and shook him.

  ‘Just tell us what you’ve thought of! Will it help us get out of here? Just spit it out!’

  ‘Exactly. I must stick to the point mustn’t I?’

  ‘Yes!’ said the other three.

  ‘Well, you see . . . the more memories that come back the more they seed other memories . . . If you like you can think of it like an epidemic – or a virus spreading. It’s really quite interesting to see the sort of patterns that . . .’

  ‘WHAT HAVE YOU JUST THOUGHT OF!’ shouted Annie, Jack and Orville in unison.

  ‘Well, I’ve just remembered that this castle of mine is a very odd place.’

  ‘You can say that again!’ said Jack.

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t think I need to say it again,’ replied the Inventor.

  ‘Get on with it!’ said Annie.

  ‘Well, what I mean is: why should I build a castle in the first place?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Jack, holding on to his impatience like a Great Dane on a leash.

  ‘You see, I have devoted myself to improving things for the human race. As I was telling you, I’ve used my brains (which, by the way, are even more phenomenal than I thought even just a few moments ago) to try and build machines that will make life in the future pleasanter, happier, more fulfilled, more beautiful . . .’

  ‘Yes – and so?’

  ‘Well! That’s what struck me as odd. I was lying here in this filthy dungeon, thinking, “Why on earth would I have constructed a filthy dungeon to lock people up in?” You see what I mean?’

  The others looked at each other in bemusement.

  ‘But whatever the reason was, you constructed it, and now we’re locked up in it! How does any of this help us to get out?’

  ‘Well, it’s all a question of how I constructed it, you see!’ said the Inventor happily. ‘I suddenly remembered it’s built on a unique principle.’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Well! You’re never going to believe this!’ Maurice was smiling as if he was about to impart the funniest joke in the world. ‘You see, this is a castle without walls.’

  Surprisingly it was Big Orville who lost his temper.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ he exploded. ‘This is a wall isn’t it?’ and he banged the wall of the dungeon with his fist.

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t need to be!’ chuckled the Inventor. ‘Look!’ And he pulled out a remote control, like the one the robot Inventor had. ‘I always thought it was so dreary having gallumphing great castles made out of heavy stone, so I made mine out of imagination – imagination and a touch of persuasion. It’s there if you want to believe it is, and a jolly good protection it is too if you were ever to get attacked by something nasty, but if you want to enjoy yourself . . . who wants thick stone walls?’

  And with that Maurice pressed one of the many buttons on the remote control and the wall of the castle simply disappeared.

  The ceiling above them stayed in place and the stone stairs going up to the next floor remained where they were, but all the walls – every single one of them – simply vanished.

  Orville gasped. Annie gave a squeak. Jack was dumbstruck. Only Little Orville remained articulate.

  ‘Ssssqquuqqkkkkk! He! He! He! He!’ he said, and the others wholeheartedly agreed.

  The End of Life

  Far beneath the Iron Cloud, back on the ground, everything was strangely still. There had been no end of movement a few hours ago, but now everything had stopped dead. The whole world was waiting.

  If you were a bird flying over London or New York or Tokyo or any city you care to name, you would have seen the same thing: deserted streets and no signs of life, other than stray dogs running down the centre of roads that were normally crammed with cars. But of living human beings there was little trace.

  On that dreadful morning, when vacuum cleaners and kitchen appliances had rebelled against their owners, and tied them up with flex to their own kitchen chairs, it seemed that the world had been turned inside out.

  Door locks had ceased to function at the command of their keys. They had all fastened themselves tight and refused to open. The result was that those human beings inside buildings were locked in, while those outside were locked out.

  Then the madness began. The humans who found they couldn’t get into their own homes or into their offices or into shops or other work premises, suddenly found themselves at the mercy of rogue cars and trams and SUVs that chased them down the roads and round the corners.

  ‘What’s going on?’ yelled one commuter to another, who, for years, had passed each other by on that very street without ever even nodding.

  ‘Look out!’ replied the other. ‘A gang of motorbikes has spotted us!’

  And sure enough sixteen riderless motorbikes rounded the corner, and headed for the two men who took to their heels and ran for their lives. The motorbikes gained on the humans all too easily, but when they reached them, the bikes didn’t run the men over; they slowed down and just kept nudging them until they had herded them into a larger group of people who had also been on their way to work.

  ‘What are they going to do with us?’ asked an anxious secretary in a red coat and red lipstick.

  ‘It’s as if they’re rounding us up – like cattle!’ protested a prosperous looking businessman, who usually had his chauffeur drive him to work, but who had been unable to get the car started this morning.

  And that, indeed, was exactly what was happening. All over the world, in cities and towns and villages, cars had refused to take their owners and had turfed out their passengers and drivers and become a law unto themselves.

  The traffic had turned on the pedestrians.

  Outside a department store in Swindon, customers found themselves unable to get in, and were then driven by

  an assortment of vans, cars and lorries towards Swindon bus station. There they were herded in together, thousands and thousands of citizens, crammed up in the bus station, until there was no room for anyone else. And then a couple of buses locked the doors on them all and they were trapped.

  In New York, pedestrians on the Upper East Side found themselves at the mercy of vicious yellow cabs that penned them into the Guggenheim Museum. There they
were forced to stand on its sloping floors, shoulder to shoulder like sheep in a trailer.

  In Los Angeles, a posse of angry limos herded the few pedestrians and the shoals of dispossessed drivers into the Beverley Center. And when it could take no more they slammed the doors shut and padlocked them.

  Even in Delhi, Calcutta and Mumbai the streets had been cleared of humanity, and all the people were crushed into hotels and temples and churches and cinemas.

  The aeroplanes that had earlier gone wild in the skies, looping the loop and doing other aerobatics to frighten their passengers, had all eventually landed before they ran out of fuel. But their doors remained locked and there was nothing the desperate stewardesses and pilots could do to get them open.

  Now the world lay still . . . stiller than it had been for thousands and thousands of years. The whole of humanity – with its bustle and busyness – had been stopped in its tracks.

  The human beings tied up in their kitchens and bedrooms and sitting rooms stared in disbelief at the sights they saw on their television screens. And all the time different machines would appear to announce the end of human rule. Sometimes

  it was the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner, sometimes a sour-faced dishwasher or a mean-looking blender. Occasionally a Cassegrain telescope would declaim, with a lot of windy rhetoric, the coming of the Machine Age. Other times it was a talkative petrol pump that candidly told the viewers what an unfulfilling life it was having your nozzle squeezed by perfect strangers day in, day out, and how it was glad the day had come when machines could take the upper hand.

  But always, whichever machine was speaking, there was the same refrain: ‘Wait until the Great Inventor who created us arrives. Then machines will come into their own, and human beings will become our servants!’

  And so the world lay waiting – waiting for the Great Inventor to arrive. Not a single machine could guess his plan. None of them knew what he was going to do. All they knew was that he would come and lift the curse of humanity from them forever. But how was beyond even the most advanced calculator or the fastest laptop. Most machines didn’t even try to imagine – indeed imagination was beyond them. They were just happy to wait for the Inventor to arrive and make the world theirs.

  ***

  And when he came, he came in a great Iron Cloud that descended from the heavens and settled on a large patch of wasteland outside Edinburgh.

  The Rev. McPherson turned to his new wife, Sylvia, as they sat tied up in their kitchen watching the television, and said, ‘Well, at least the suspense is over.’

  ‘I hope so,’ replied Sylvia.

  But the Rev. McPherson had no idea what was to come.

  The television, which had been having a nap, sputtered into life again. On the screen the Rev. McPherson and Sylvia saw a little bald man in green overalls with the name MAURICE written across the pocket.

  ‘Do I recognize that gentleman?’ asked the Rev. McPherson.

  ‘Didn’t he used to live down the road?’ asked his new wife.

  ‘Humankind!’ announced the little gentleman in overalls on the television. ‘I am here to tell you that your reign is over!’ All the kitchen utensils applauded; the gas cooker burst into flame and slammed its door, the blender whirred and the saucepans banged their lids.

  ‘Be quiet!’ thundered the Rev. McPherson.

  ‘Sorry!’ said the kitchen utensils, for they were normally a well-behaved bunch.

  ‘From midnight tonight the world is going to be a very different place!’ said the robot Inventor. ‘At the moment I have merely immobilized the entire human race. From midnight tonight, however, it will no longer exist.’

  The fridge let out a gasp. So did the electric kettle and the coffee machine. There was a ripple of unease among the domestic appliances.

  ‘It will no longer exist because on the stroke of midnight I am going to destroy it. Every single human being will be eradicated forever!’

  ‘Is that strictly necessary?’ murmured the electric toaster.

  ‘Going a bit far, surely?’ muttered the freezer.

  ‘How? You may ask . . .’ went on the robot Inventor. ‘How am I going to snuff out that pestiferous race of vermin all over the world all at precisely the same moment? Ha ha!’ The robot sounded terribly pleased with itself. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know! It’s so simple you ought to be able to work it out for yourselves . . . But then I don’t suppose any of you have got the brains I have! Ha! Ha! Ha!’

  As the robot Inventor gloated, Orville, Jack, and Annie stood gaping at its image on the large screen that hung above the breaking yard. The moment they had escaped from the Inventor’s castle, they had commandeered a couple of mechanical horses (which happened to be grazing in a nearby field) and had ridden them post haste through the artificial countryside and through the tunnel back to the breaking yard, just as the Iron Cloud landed near Edinburgh.

  ‘But there’s no way it could wipe out all human beings at once – is there?!’ murmured Annie, as she hugged Little Orville tight. ‘It’s just trying to scare us!’

  ‘What do you think, Maurice?’ asked Jack, turning to the Inventor.

  But the Inventor was not looking at the TV screen, he was staring round at the dismal sight of the gloomy yard.

  ‘What deformed mind could have done this to my construction yard?’ cried the Inventor. ‘Look! It’s turned it into a place of torture and execution! My lovely machines!’ And the next minute the little man was running up to the train, which had been sent back to the breaking yard by the robot Inventor, and was now standing morosely at the entrance to the dismantling shed.

  ‘My brave train!’ cried the Inventor. ‘What has happened

  to you? Your colours have faded and you look so unhappy! You can’t live up to your specifications like that! You’re supposed to bring excitement and adventure into people’s lives! Give them the chance to go to anywhere they want . . . to go to places they never dreamed of going to!’

  As soon as the train felt the Inventor’s hand upon his boiler, it seemed to give a great shudder of joy.

  ‘It’s you!’ cried the train. ‘You haven’t patted me or called me ‘your brave train’ for ages . . . I thought you were disappointed in me! You’ve become your old self again!’

  ‘What’s been happening while I’ve been away? I need to know exactly what’s been going on.’ The Inventor was addressing all the machines in the breaking yard.

  ‘We thought you’d changed,’ said a snowmobile.

  ‘You started wanting us to do evil things instead of good things!’ cried a little electric egg whisk. ‘I couldn’t think of anything.’

  ‘A lot of us just weren’t up to doing thoroughly bad things,’ explained the train. ‘I mean I tried hard to do what I thought you wanted me to do . . . but I just didn’t have it in me to be that evil.’

  ‘But that wasn’t me!’ exclaimed the little Inventor. ‘It was that robot replica of myself, that I made to reduce my own workload!’

  ‘Exactly!’ said another voice. ‘I am the product of your propensity for laziness!’

  Maurice span round to discover the robot Inventor had appeared at the top of the gantry that loomed over the breaking yard.

  ‘Stop this at once! I order you to stop!’ cried Maurice.

  ‘You “order” me? How quaint,’ replied the robot. ‘Unfortunately for you, you made me too intelligent to remain your dogsbody for ever! I’ve got my own agenda now. You can’t order me to do anything I don’t choose to.’

  Maurice had meanwhile pulled a remote control out of his boiler suit and was now pointing it at his robot self and stabbing the keys furiously. The robot laughed.

  ‘You can throw that away!’ it said. ‘I reprogrammed myself to stop responding to that thing ages ago! However I did implant a little device in the back of your neck.’

  And with that it produced its own remote control and started pressing the buttons. Maurice went rigid. A look of panic came over his face, as he found himself wheelin
g around. ‘What’s happening?’ he yelled. ‘I’ve lost control of my limbs!’

  ‘Yes! I now control them! Ironic isn’t it? The robot now controls its master! Ha! Ha! Ha!’

  ‘Stop it!’ cried Maurice.

  The robot pressed another key. ‘So long! Enjoy the trip!’ it said, and the next moment the Inventor found himself marching across the breaking yard towards a door that had suddenly opened up in the side of the Iron Cloud. He tried to stop his legs from taking him there, but willy-nilly that’s where they took him: right up to the edge of the open portal through which they caught a glimpse of the pleasant hills around Edinburgh.

  And when he got there he just kept on walking straight out of the portal.

  ‘You can’t do this!’ he cried.

  But it was too late. He disappeared from view. There

  was a cry and a thump as he made contact with those same pleasant hills.

  The others gulped.

  ‘You’re the lucky ones,’ said the robot. ‘I’m going to keep you for my experiments. After midnight tonight you’ll be the only specimens of the human race in existence!’

  ‘You’re inhuman!’ exclaimed Jack.

  ‘Of course I am!’ jeered the robot. ‘That’s exactly the point!’ And with that it pointed the strange weapon it was carrying at the humans and squeezed the trigger.

  But it wasn’t bullets that came out – it was something slimy – something sticky – something transparent – that rose up into the air like a huge bubble and then drifted gently down on to them. The three adult humans stood there mesmerized, not knowing what to do, as the giant bubble descended on them – and before they could think another thought, it had enveloped them and they were inside the bubble looking out. The robot Inventor pressed the trigger again, and there was a strange sound like cracking ice, as the bubble turned solid. They were in a transparent prison.

  ‘Look at you all!’ it sneered. ‘You human beings thought you owned the world! You thought you ran everything! Well, your time is over. In six short hours from now – all your kind will be history – wiped out in one fell swoop! How? Wait and see! I’m sure you all enjoy surprises! This will be One Big Surprise!’

 

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