by Mark Roman
But before Bernard could finish his sentence, the Panhead had disappeared inside and the door had slammed shut in his blustery face. He billowed backwards in a mixture of disappointment, rejection and rage.
“How dare they!” he howled, gasping in disbelief. “Right, that does it! The final straw. Treating me like a common draught! I will show them the power and the sheer blowiness of Bernard the Great, Mighty Ruler of the Winds of M’Ars!”
With that, he roared down into the canyon below to make ready for a new and terrible conflict.
*
Dura looked a little shaken.
Tude gave him a strange look.
Tude’s lenses lit up like 20 Watt halogen light-bulbs as he placed the gift on a shelf in the hallway. Then he said,
Had Dura known that ‘the others’ consisted of the lovely Tina accompanied by that dead-leg Len, he would have turned on his heels and motored straight out of Tude’s abode.
There they both were, relaxing on a sofa. Dura nearly choked at the sight of Len’s jagged arm-appendage draped over Tina’s delicate shoulder panels. He shot a furious look at Tude, but the site foreman merely shrugged.
To his dismay, Dura found his face-lights glowing from the powerful currents surging through them. He managed an embarrassed smile.
Dura ground his metal jaws.
Tude rubbed his digits with glee.
But no sooner had Dura set off towards the armchair than he found it suddenly occupied by Mr Snuggles, sitting with his feet on a cube-shaped footrest, and swigging from an empty can of Stallion lager. Dura screeched to a halt, wondering where the little robot had sprung from. Mr Snuggles emitted the sort of revolting burp even Dugdale would have been proud of.
Tude cast a disapproving look before turning to the others to explain.
Meanwhile, Dura had eased his heavyweight rear assemblage onto a metal bench facing the sofa. He made a point of avoiding ocular contact with Len and Tina by staring at the large box on the floor between them.
Silence.
Four pairs of optics stared at the box. Mr Snuggles slurped from the empty lager can and let out another burp.
Silence.
Tina nudged Len, and flicked her head in Dura’s direction, but Len merely shook his head and folded his appendages. She nudged him again.
With a sigh, Len leaned forward and, with deliberate formality, said,
Dura bristled.
The two bots hung their heads and rocked backwards and forwards on their tracks. Then, still not looking up, Len extended a big shovel hand towards Dura. For a moment Dura hesitated. But then, sensing Tina’s eyes on him, he clattered his plastering trowel hand into Len’s shovel.
4. Thrifty Shades of Grey
A few moments later it was all
Tude puffed out his chest.
Dura surveyed the bland design and, for want of anything better to say, asked,
Eve grinned proudly and scooted over to one of the windows to give a demonstration. She pressed a button and, with a whirring noise, a set of grey steel window grilles, more suited to a nuclear fall-out shelter, started to lower, finally slamming shut with a clank.
“The dog’s bollocks,” commented Mr Snuggles, scratching himself between the legs and making a nerve-shredding grating noise.
Tude swivelled to face him.
*
Tude closed the door behind him and switched to encrypted mode.
The delinquent robot, seated on a workbench, was swinging his tin legs and looking about the room with a nonchalant air.
Mr Snuggles reached for some wire off-cuts lying on the bench and began idly twisting them into the figure of a tiny stick man with an overlarge stomach.
Mr Snuggles shrugged and continued fiddling.
“Chuff off. You’re not my real dad.”
Tude staggered back at the words, but managed to control his volume.
Tude watched him go. Then, on an impulse, he performed a wireless scan of the little robot’s memory chips. In a desktop recycling bin, among beer-making instructions, pie recipes and jpegs of ladybots, he found a file containing a transcript of their recent conversation, discarded and ready for deletion.
*
The site foreman bot flicked open a box-cutter attachment on his right appendage and started cutting the plastic ties and tape.
Tina uttered a shriek.
Eve beamed at her and gave her a wink, while Dura and Len exchanged puzzled shrugs. Mr Snuggles, slumped back in the armchair, took a swig of Stallion and stared at the box with a glazed look.
Tude finished ripping open the box’s edges and laid out its sides to reveal a beautiful babybot. It looked like a human toddler, but with features exaggerated for maximum cuteness. Tude activated it by pulling one of the ear lobes, and two huge blue eyes blinked at them.
Eve leaned forward and lifted her new baby to her chest-plate.
At this, the lager-swilling robot perked up.
Tina nodded politely.
The tiny robot swivelled her head back towards Eve and signalled,
Eve emitted a high frequency yelp.
Tude was rattling with amusement.
Beyoncé swivelled her head again.
Robo-optics turned to the armchair, now empty apart from a dent where Mr Snuggles had been sitting. A crushed lager can balanced on the arm.
transmitted Dura, pointing at a line of cubicles in the hallway, one of which had its door closed.
Tude gave a knowing nod.
Silence.
Beyoncé tapped again.
They heard the door being unlocked from the inside. A crack appeared. Beyoncé stepped aside and reached her tiny arm through the gap. Taking him gently by the hand, she led Mr Snuggles to Eve.
Eve gazed down at the two small figures and, in that moment, her system underwent a profound change as circuit-warming feelings swept through her body. She crouched and opened her arms, ready to embrace the mechanical children that would make her family complete.
But at that moment, Beyoncé swung the startled Mr Snuggles around her body like an Olympic hammer thrower, before letting go and sending him clattering into Eve’s chest, almost knocking her over.
*
transmitted Eve.
Tude closed the door and they returned to the living room, their mood sombre.
The music was turned down, and the girlbot returned to her viewing. It was an old clip of a Japanese robot attempting to peel a potato but ending up stabbing its human operator in the arm with the peeler. Beyoncé roared with laughter. The adult bots watched her, perplexed.
trilled Tina, placing her tool-bag on the floor and joining Eve in a synchronized bop around it. As she got more into the swing of it, Tina started singing the lyrics,
Dura felt a knot in his abdominal circuits as he watched her gyrations and listened to her words, convinced they were directed at him. Never before had he felt so miserable.
Tude and Len shifted uneasily as new embarrassment connections formed in their positronic brains. Small-talk was their only refuge.
Len said.
Tude shrugged.
how impressed they were.
5. Clueless in the Shuttle
“I can’t believe it!” muttered Lieutenant Willie Warner as he pulled yet another weightless suitcase along the corridor. “Giant chickens. Giant friggin’ chickens!”
“Anything the matter?” asked HarOld.
“Yes,” said Willie. “There is.”
He crammed the case into the newly-reconstituted lift and pressed the Close button to prevent it, or any of its bobbing companions, drifting out again. Then he turned and headed back to the Assembly Room for more.
“Would you like to talk about it?” offered HarOld.
“No.”
“How about playing a guessing game?”
“No.”
“Listen, I’m here for you, buddy. If there’s any issue with oversized birds, specifically poultry, I might be able to help.”
“Yeah?”
“A quick scan of the ship reveals no fowl on board, so I think we’re safe.”
“Did you not hear my conversation with Zak Johnston just now?”
“Er, might have done. Remind me.”
Willie sighed as he retrieved another suitcase and headed back to the lift. “The Germans? Coming back to Earth with us? Their base? The giant chickens? The repaired lift? My orders to send the luggage down? Any of that ring a bell?”
“I might have missed some of that ... Will the chickens be coming aboard too?”
“No. Just the Germans, and Brokk, and HarVard.”
“So, what’s the problem then? No birds. We’re fine, no?”
Willie stopped in his tracks. “Look, forget the chickens.”
“You brought them up.”
Willie grunted. “I made mankind’s most important discovery, ever. And it was just giant chickens.”