The robot swung its sword.
The man thrust his shield up to block the blow.
The sword slid off the shield and struck the man’s hand. Several fingers flew through the air, illuminated in the spotlight’s white light.
The man screamed and clutched at his hand.
The robot swung its sword. The blade struck the man in the face. His body jerked. He let out a muffled cry.
The robot swung again. The blade struck the man in the face.
The man was still.
The robot also remained still.
Neither figure moved.
Despite his highness, Danny knew immediately what had happened. “It froze, didn’t it?”
“It would appear so,” said Bernard.
“How can a robot injure a human in the first place?”
“The laws are overwritten by a court order,” explained Bernard. “But sometimes the laws are stronger.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“About what, sir?”
“About a robot killing a human.”
“The human made his choices, all of which led him here. He has now borne the consequences. How I feel is irrelevant. But it doesn’t make me feel good.”
“May I ask why?”
“Life is precious. All life. It ought to be protected. Another beer, sir?”
“Please.”
Bernard went inside.
A handful of robots moved onto the arena floor. They loaded the bodies of the man and the robot onto a long flatbed cart and then drove out of the arena.
A man in a black leather jacket materialized from out of the darkness and trotted into the center of the dirt floor. A powerful spotlight beamed down on him.
“How do you like that?” he called out. His amplified voice filled the arena.
The crowd cheered.
“It’s a shame about the freeze-out, but did that slimy son a bitch get what he deserved?”
The crowd roared.
“I said, did that slimy sack of shit get what he deserved?!” the man screamed.
The crowd absolutely screamed back.
“That’s what I thought.”
Bernard returned to the balcony. “Your beer, sir.”
Danny took it. “Thanks. Say, Bernard, who’s this guy?”
The man on the arena floor turned in place and looked up at Danny. “For those of you who don’t know me, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Zammy Spry. I am the founder, owner, and proprietor of Robot Palace. I am your master of ceremonies!”
Sammy raised his hands in the air, spun in a circle, leaped onto his toes, and balanced perfectly on the tips of his pointed black boots. Illuminated tassels swung from the arms of his jacket, color-shifting from purple to red to blue to green to white and back again. His smiling face appeared on the giant monitors throughout the arena. The crowd cheered, eating it up.
Bernard reached out and tapped the power button on a wall-mounted monitor. The screen lit up, showing a close-up of Zammy’s face.
“Let that last match be a lesson to all of us,” said Zammy. “Think before you commit a crime. Our previous competitor could be up in the stands right now, enjoying a cold one,”–Danny was certain Zammy pointed directly at him–“but instead, he broke the law. Now he’s dead, and the only thing he’ll be enjoying is his new status as a permanent organ donor. Stupid bastard.”
Zammy looked down at the dirt. He shook his head.
After a moment, he looked up at the crowd once more. “But, life goes on.” He smiled. “So, are you ready for our next performance?”
The crowd cheered.
“Bullshit. I said, are you ready for our next performance?”
The crowd howled.
“That’s more like it. I hope you’re ready for something extra special, because we’ve pulled out all the stops for this one. You know ’em, you love ’em. . . . Put your hands together for . . . the Wrecking Crewwwwwww!” Zammy trailed off in grand fashion. His spotlight went dark.
Green lights appeared around the arena, whizzing in a circle along the walls above the arena floor.
The crowd went berserk.
Everyone was on their feet, arms in the air, cheering. Thousands of bluish-white lights filled the arena as everyone readied their mobile phones to record whatever was about to happen.
A grating sound filled the air, the sound of a heavy gate opening. A swarm of people ran into the arena. Some sprinted for the wall and began trying to climb it. Others staggered about, peering up into the darkness, wringing their hands, crying, and even sobbing. Still others collapsed into the dirt and hardly moved.
The sound of the gate closing filled the air once more.
“What is this, Bernard? Who are all these people?”
“It’s tonight’s main event, sir. According to tonight’s program, it’s the Wrecking Crew. But everyone here refers to it as the pedophile parade.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“Justice.”
Green spotlights shot from high up in the darkness, pointing straight down vertically, where they created brilliant green circles in the dirt.
Some of the people wandered into the green lights and looked up, investigating their origin.
Trap doors opened in the floor, directly under each of the green lights. Danny counted about a dozen. Large robots rose into the arena, each one glowing with green light. Danny recognized them at once: Pagaz-model military-grade attack units like the one he and Candy met at Mechanical Man.
When the Pagaz units reached the arena floor, everyone fell silent. The only sound was the clamoring and weeping of the humans mewling in the arena, scrambling about in the dirt, and leaping pathetically into the air in feeble attempts to scale the wall.
Every monitor in the arena lit up, bearing a large, green-glowing number: 5.
The crowd chanted, “Five!”
The number changed to a bright 4.
The crowd chanted, “Four!”
Then 3.
“Three!”
2.
“Two!”
1.
“One!”
In unison, the crowd screamed, “ACTIVATE!”
The Pagaz units came to life. Their red eyes lit up. Each robot pulled two long, curved, samurai-style katanas from their sheaths. They stepped forward, targeted the nearest human, and swung.
The screaming began.
The Pagaz units seized upon person after person, katanas swinging in tandem. Limbs and heads were severed. Mortally-wounded people flopped about in the dirt, screaming in agony.
And the blood flowed.
Danny was shocked by the sight of it. It looked black in the green spotlights.
Some of the people mounted a combined assault on the Pagaz units, attempting to subdue and disarm them. One of the robots was successfully felled, but only after its twirling blades had chopped up nearly a dozen humans. A man in a business suit managed to remove a katana from the hand of the Pagaz. He turned to find another Pagaz bearing down on him. He held the sword with two hands and swung it with all his might. The Pagaz feinted, parried the blow effortlessly with its own katana, and sent up a brilliant spray of sparks. Much to the delight of the crowd. The Pagaz then criss-crossed its blades and in an instant the business man’s chest and shoulders separated from his lower body and legs. Both halves of the man fell into the dirt. He looked down at himself, screaming.
A man leaned over the wall above Danny’s private box and yelled and shook his fists. “That’s what you get for raping kids, you fucker!”
The severed business man’s image appeared in perfect close-up on all the monitors in the arena. He looked up at a hundred images of himself, sprawled in the dirt, his body in halves. He died with the sword still in his hand.
Bernard turned and went into the private box.
Danny followed.
But still the screaming was audible. Danny closed the door, and silence ensued.
“So all those peo
ple. . . .”
“Convicted child molesters,” said Bernard.
“And they chose to come here, like the last guy?”
“That is correct.”
“So this is what society has come to.”
“It would seem so.”
The white courtesy phone lit up, emitting a pleasant ring. Bernard answered it. He listened, said, “Right away, sir.” And hung up. “Your presence is requested, Mister Olivaw. I will escort you. Right this way.” Bernard opened the door to the suite and waited. “You may of course bring your beverage.”
On his way out the door, Danny took one last look over his shoulder at the monitor depicting the action in the arena. A Pagaz unit stood with one heavy robotic foot on the chest of a fat, hairy man writhing in the dirt while a second Pagaz filleted him. The crowd roared. They captured it all on their handheld devices.
Danny followed Bernard down the hallway to an elevator. Bernard pressed the topmost button, then entered several numbers on a virtual keypad. They rode upward for a few moments, and the door opened into a lavish black marble foyer decorated with tall black vases brimming with long-stemmed red roses. Their sweet, decadent aroma filled the air.
“Right this way, sir.”
Bernard knocked gently on one of the two gleaming black doors.
After a moment, the door opened a few inches. The face of a man with spiky black hair appeared. Dark sunglasses obscured his eyes. “What’s the password?”
Bernard and Danny exchanged a look.
The doors flew open. The man in the sunglasses held two large silver handguns. His long black trench coat fluttered around him. “Tell me the password or I’ll kill ya!”
Danny opened his mouth to reply.
The man began to laugh. “I’m just kiddin’. There’s no password. Come on in. Z’s expecting you.” He holstered his weapons inside his coat. “How the hell ya been, Bernard? It’s been awhile.” Bernard and the man shook hands.
“Indeed it has, sir.”
“We’ve been working a lot. Just got back from Borneo.”
The man turned to Danny. “You must be the great Daniel Olivaw.” He extended his hand. “Delilah informed us that you were here.”
Danny shifted his pint of beer to his left hand, wiped his right hand on his jeans, and shook hands.
“I’m Rukara. Pleasure to meet you. I loved your book. I didn’t agree with everything in it, particularly most of chapter three, but the rest of it was rock solid. No pun intended.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” said Danny.
Rukara lifted his sunglasses up to his forehead and peered at Danny with glowing red cyborg eyes. “I can’t tell who’s higher, you or me. Are my eyes red?” He dropped his shades over his eyes and laughed. “Come on.”
A voice echoed through the room, “Rukara! Get your ass over here or we’re putting your head back into that box of spiders.”
“I’m on my way and that’s not funny,” Rukara called.
Danny followed Rukara through a suite that was a palace unto itself. Rukara’s coat emitted a subtle illumination, giving it the appearance of giving off black light. Rukara caught Danny studying it. “It’s woven with MLEDs, micro light-emitting diodes. One of my inventions. It actually bends light. Works great for camouflage.”
They entered a great room decorated with lavish tapestries and gold-framed mirrors. Candles burned everywhere, and a warm glow filled the room.
“Well, look what the pussycat dragged in,” said a man lounging on an enormous sofa. He wore a tee shirt with BUSTED printed on it, and his red eyes glowed in the candlelight. The lower half of his face boasted a long beard.
“Good evening, sir,” Bernard replied. “How was Borneo?”
The man rose and hugged Bernard.
Before the man could answer, a woman in a silver-sequined evening gown stepped forward and said, “Hot.” She held a sleek black cigarette holder in one hand. It gave her the air of a silver screen starlet straight out of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Her hair was orange like fire, its brightness surpassed only by her eyes, which glowed a brilliant red.
“Didn’t I see you downstairs, playing piano?” Danny asked.
“Didn’t I see you downstairs, staring at my ass?”
Danny felt his face flush.
“It’s okay,” said the woman, “it is a sweet ass.” She turned in place and gyrated her hips.
Danny tried not to stare at the low sweep of her gown, the way it revealed the small of her back and the top of her–
Another voice rang out. “Rony! Stop torturing the man.”
Zammy Spry emerged from the large kitchen carrying a green beer bottle. Zammy shook Danny’s hand. “It’s great to meet you, Mr. Olivaw. Really great. I mean, really really great. Really. Your work on the subatomic distillation of positrons absolutely blew my mind. If I had positrons, I’d want them subatomically distilled by no one but you.”
“Yeah, well, it was all common sense.”
“Pioneering a paradigm shift in robotics is hardly common sense, Mister Olivaw.” Zammy somehow managed to simultaneously squint in concentration and open his eyes wide in disbelief. “If it were, somebody would have thought of it. Probably a whole bunch of people. But they didn’t, Mister Olivaw. You were the one.”
“Please, call me Danny.”
Zammy threw his head back and laughed. “And humble, too. Such a rare thing these days. Listen, Danny. We’re delighted to have you here at the Palace. I’ve already instructed Delilah to void all the charges on your credit card. You are our distinguished guest so everything is on the house.” Zammy reached inside his black leather jacket and withdrew Danny’s credit card.
Danny took it. “You don’t have to do that–”
Zammy held up one hand. “I insist. Case closed. Now, lest you think my manners have escaped me, let me introduce everyone.
“You’ve already met my expert robot builder, Rukara.”
Rukara nodded. He put an enormous joint to his lips. It bobbed up and down when he spoke. “You don’t mind if we party a little, do you? It’s the only way we can cope with all the death around here.”
“I don’t mind,” said Danny.
“Sometimes I wish I were a robot,” said Rukara, “then I wouldn’t have to feel anything.” He fired the massive joint and inhaled. “Right, Bernard?”
“I feel your question deserves a lengthy response best suited to another time, sir.”
Rukara exhaled. “That’s why I love you, Bernie, you don’t mince words.” He passed the joint to Zammy.
Zammy took a long drag and held it. “The lovely lady in the evening gown is Rony. She loves fire and explosions and guns. And champagne.”
Rony raised her champagne flute.
“She also plays piano,” said Danny.
“Indeed I do,” said Rony.
“Indeed she does,” said Zammy. He enjoyed a long, slow exhale. “The gentleman reclining on the sofa is Bella. He’s an expert in all things mechanical. He also surfs.”
“Indeed I do.” Bella winked a glowing red eye at Rony, then stood, shook Danny’s hand, grabbed the joint from Zammy, and returned to the sofa.
“And one of these days he’s going to shave that goddamn beard,” said Zammy.
Bella stroked his beard. “Chicks love it.”
“What chicks?” Rony asked.
Zammy led Danny to the kitchen. Two men with glowing red eyes wore black latex gloves, carefully placing colossal nuggets of cannabis one at a time on a digital scale.
Zammy sipped from his beer. “Over here we have Blendo and Atom. Blendo is the one with the walrus mustache and wearing the beret. Atom is the other one.” Atom had blond hair and wore black horn-rimmed eyeglasses and a black tee shirt that said Am I missing an eyebrow?
Atom placed a nugget the size of a grapefruit on the scale and read aloud the weight. “Point nine-nine-seven.”
Blendo entered this number in his electronic tablet. “Got it.”
At
om weighed another nugget of similar size. “We’d shake your hand but we don’t want to get sebum on the merchandise. Point nine-nine-eight.”
Blendo entered this number as well. “Got it.”
“Okay, that was the last one.” He stripped off his latex gloves and shook Danny’s hand. “Hi, I’m Atom, your friendly neighborhood Automated Technically Obsolete Man. At least that’s what they tell me. But I reject that reality and substitute my own. Are you really Daniel Olivaw?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Smart and clever,” said Blendo. “I’m gonna go crunch these numbers and take a bubble bath.” He departed with his tablet.
Atom withdrew three silver balls from his pocket and proceeded to juggle them. “I didn’t think subatomic positronic distillation was even plausible. I thought it was a myth. But when I heard someone had actually achieved it, I just about peed my pants. Do you mind if I juggle? It’s how I cope with the stress around here. Don’t get high on your own supply, right?”
“Wrong,” Rony called from the sofa. She took a long hit from Rukara’s monster joint. She leaned her head back and blew several perfect smoke rings into the air.
Atom continued to juggle. “Everyone needs to blow off a little steam, right? Or, in their case, C-21-H-30-O-2. Also known as tetrahydrocannabinol. What with the bomb threats, the arsonists, the stalkers, and those damn protesters, Zammy’s security costs have gone up six hundred and forty-seven percent. Six hundred and forty-seven percent. That is significant. When we’re not in the arena executing the court-ordered sentences decreed by the State of California, which in all actuality means executing convicted felons, we try to relax. Blendo takes bubble baths. I juggle. They party. What’s your drug of choice, Mister Olivaw?”
Danny’s face formed a rueful smile. “Candy.”
“A man with a sweet tooth,” said Atom.
Bella entered the kitchen and opened the massive stainless steel refrigerator. “Rukara! Brewskie?”
Rukara lay sprawled in a big leather recliner, with his feet up. He was attempting to blow smoke rings. “Hit me.”
Bella tossed him a beer. Rukara caught it in one hand. Bella refilled Rony’s champagne flute from a bottle in the fridge. He turned to Danny. “You workin’ on your R-N, Mister Olivaw? Because you are nursing that pint of warm beer.”
Eye Candy Page 34