The Companion burbled a tentative greeting to two bombes as they walked in. Copper plating, big lenses, big clamps for hands. Police.
Coffee dripped from Edwin’s mug and landed on the table with an elegant splash. It formed a pretty circle of droplets on the smooth wood. The Companion sang its licensing song, promising that Edwin had the proper permissions in place. Edwin kept drinking.
The police asked the bartender if the old model – bombe slang for mankind – had been giving him any trouble. They didn't motion towards Edwin, or acknowledge his existence in any visible way. The bartender whistled back an appreciative 'no'. At least, that's what it sounded like to Edwin. Thank you, though, officers. Always good to see you, officers. I've some nice cannel coal in the back, officers, if you'd like to try. No? Well, maybe next time then.
One of the coppers – there was always a gossipy one – explained that there was an old model causing some trouble over at the Chancery. Edwin kept sipping at his empty mug. The bartender pressed, but neither of them could explain what was going on. Maybe Edwin's morsetongue wasn't as good as he thought it was. Maybe when he heard them say that a human in the Chancery was causing a disturbance by standing still, they were saying something else. Something that made sense.
Either way, Bartleby was in trouble.
The Companion sputtered to the table and rolled to rest. He was hungry. Burned too much fuel keeping his cool. The quiet copper trained his great fishbowl lens on it. Edwin pressed the button for a half-lump of coal and a door in the table opened with the hiss-thump of a pneumatic system. He paid, fed the little bombe, and pushed his chair out a little.
Most bombes kept their registers out in the open. As long as they didn't get rained on, it was a fine idea. No plating meant less chance of overheating. The police kept their cog-and-lever brains behind strong copper panels with locked latches. Latches which, as Edwin had proven a few times, would fail if you hit them at just the right spot with a lot of force
The copper opened a clamp.
Edwin pounced, slamming his mug against the bombe's latch. It popped. His shoulders strained against the restrictive frock coat as he drove the dented pewter deep into the copper's whirring register. A creak. Some grinding. The copper collapsed.
Robot tech hadn't worked out vision very well yet, but some tympanic device gave them fine hearing. Edwin growled at the other bombes. A guttural, animal sound. It felt good. He slid his bloody right hand into the pocket of his foppish coat and worked his fingers into the holes of his brass knuckles.
The second copper went down in similar fashion, too slow to get a grip on Edwin's piston-speed arms. The bartender took a few swings, but three sharp jabs in the register put him out.
Edwin silenced the Companion with a snort and walked out into the street.
The crowd was dispersing, all orderly steps and beg-your-pardons. The bombes didn't like to be late. Seven or eight – eight, Edwin noted – coppers stood near the Chancery door. An over-burnished old robot spoke with them, his gold-rimmed lenses circling wildly as his pipes keened some apologies and explanations. The Mastery of Chancery, probably. The target.
Someone whistled “arrest”, and Edwin's chest tensed. Or maybe it was “safety”. The two words sounded too similar for him to discern the difference at this distance.
For an old Bowery brawler like Edwin, “arrest” was the first morsetongue you learned. You heard those few notes, and you'd be feeling brass around your wrists real fast if you didn't get out. The bombes were still slower than humans. At least there was that. But they made up for it by making it the rule that as soon as a copper tweets those little syllables, any bombe nearby would grab any human they saw.
Edwin's shoulder still creaked when the weather got cold. He had been in the wrong spot and got clamped by a dockworker. He was nine at the time.
A glint of sunlight against ground glass. One of the coppers turned a lens towards Edwin. He kept walking in the same direction, then crossed the street at the appropriate spot. Just a passerby. Some old model enjoying the sun. Humans were like that. And he had the Companion to prove his quality. He kept out of limb's reach of every robot he passed.
Bartleby needed help. That was clear. What was he up to in there? He was supposed to be getting intel, not staging any actions.
There wasn't much Edwin would be able to do from the pen. He kept walking as fast as he could without attracting any attention.
The alarm went up before he made the turn off Difference. Someone must have seen his craftsmanship in the coalhouse. Every bombe in the area passed the word – arrest.
Edwin drove his shoulder into the nearest door.
The call for clampdown raced up the street in a maddening off-tempo chorus. Edwin slammed the door closed with his back and raised his fists. The place smelled of burnt paper. His eyes took their time recalibrating themselves to the darkness, but he could tell from the sound what he was in for. The heavy tick-tick-slam of one massive bombe overpowered the clacking of several smaller ones.
He blinked a few times. It didn't get better.
The head robot was one of the dedicated financial types, barely mobile and notoriously cranky when interrupted. It must have been nursed in the room, or maybe the wall had been removed to let it stalk its way in. Unless it got moving, it wouldn't be any trouble. Taut strips of ticker-tape linked the beast to the real problem: a half-dozen regular bombes, each tasked with feeding the boss information and the results of simpler calculations. They sat in the dark every day, eating data off of cards and spitting it back out. They were made for it.
They were not made for fighting. No sentries or guards in there. Just clerks.
Please Edwin. Just run. Run out the back and down an alley. Get back home. There are too many.
Too many? Ironjaw Eddie had just nailed two coppers and a bartender in a flash. Once he got a head of steam going, no paper-pushers were going to stop him. He had a reputation for gang fights before these squeaking toys had been built. One time he took on ten men at once in a burned-out warehouse behind the worst pub in the Bowery. He still heard stories about it from the occasional new recruit. About the whining of the losers. Fists like pile drivers, has that Ironjaw Ed. Chest like a furnace.
Please. Do you know what they will do with me? To me?
The Companion hummed the license, but not with much conviction. The boss bombe tooted a crabby order to his employées. The warehouse fight had been eighteen, maybe twenty years ago. And that had been against whiskey-filled humans, not ten-foot machine men. He didn't have the drop on these robots like he had had in the coalhouse. Maybe the Companion was right.
Edwin let the frock coat slide off of his back and ripped the collar and cuffs out of his shirt. They had seen him. If he was going to make it out of Difference Street with all of his pieces still attached, they needed to be silenced.
Haymaker. His brass knuckles chipped the lens of the nearest bombe as he closed the distance. Not much of a chip, but it enough the startle the thing. He reached into its armpit and yanked out the cable that ran inside its right arm. The clerk scrambled back, its left hand held out in defense.
The other robots hesitated, clamps raised in the default Marquis of Queensbury style but without any force behind them. Edwin was galvanized by their reluctance. This was going to be too easy.
He dispatched the rest slowly, methodically, taking care to mind his footwork and to keep his lungs pumping. A pinpoint-accurate rabbit punch here, a kick to the knee-joint there. Slow, cripple, KO. The fight ended with Edwin tossing a paper roll into the boss bombe's register with a satisfying crunch.
The Companion buzzed between the piles of bent metal like an anxious nursemaid. It is all right. They will be repaired. All will be made well again. It is all right.
Edwin ignored it. Like he gave a damn about whether or not these bastards were going to be patched up. Loose ticker-tape curled around on the floor, snakelike, each blot of information o
n the pure white paper a human death in Edwin's eyes. Profit, man-hours, double-entries – all abstractions, obfuscations of the truth Edwin had seen his entire adult life. Man working for the machine.
One rib broken, maybe just bruised. Knuckles split and pouring viscous blood. Elbow over-stretched but not dislocated. Some pain in his scalp. A ringing in his left ear, metallic and hollow. Not bad.
Activity outside. The bombes in the street were resuming their business, no longer compelled to restrain any human they saw. Edwin didn't think any of them had marked him – he would be relatively safe. After he made up his mind what the hell was going on with Bartleby.
Bartleby had called for Edwin for a reason. He must have come across something useful. And now things had gone south, either because of his discovery or because of some unfortunate coincidence. Bartleby was too smart to hang around waiting for trouble – why hadn't he taken off? And what about this rumor of him just standing there?
The Companion stopped whirring around the wreckage and came to rest on Edwin's sweat-stained shoulder. Your friend, he would not be able to kill those police.
Was the little brass coward actually concerned about Bartleby? “No,” Edwin said. He was panting too heavily to whistle.
But you could.
“Maybe. Not alone.”
He is alone.
It was right. Bartleby might have been a clever fellow, but no amount of math can solve a fight. He needed help escaping. Edwin's lips pulled back over his teeth in an iron-cold grimace. Smash and grab. Just his kind of dance.
The collar and cuffs proved harder to reinsert than he expected. He held still as the Companion's tiny armatures tucked and folded, and used the time to calculate his next move. As much as he hated sneaking about, he was pretty sure he could get to Bartleby through an alley door or an unattended window. He would have to go out into the streets and rely on luck to keep clear of any curious bombes. He hated sneaking, but he hated relying on luck more.
He worked his way around the block, ambling past hook-footed couriers and gleaming street vendors as if he had nowhere special to be. Walking slowly was killing him, but any human running in this neighborhood would be off to the pen in moments. Another human, a well-dressed woman with a very smart looking Companion hovering at her elbow, ignored him as she walked past. He ignored her, too. It was the polite thing to do. The bombes had a particularly sharp fear of humans congregating.
Let's head back, the Companion hissed. We can't do this alone. Too many police.
Edwin frowned. The little brat. “We could do it if you would just do your job.”
No one could do this job. Too many. They will not believe.
He didn't need them all to believe. Just some. He loosened his collar with two coarse fingers and stepped into an alley. “Just stay close.”
Every building has a back. The alley behind the Chancery contained nothing but soot and char; no security, no police. Edwin picked one of the long-painted-over windows and broke it with his good elbow.
Just seeing stairs made him feel more at ease, though he knew the reaction wasn't rational. Stairs had been one of the hardest environmental factors for the bombes to deal with at first. Edwin had out-run more than a few by sprinting up staircases and clambering down rainspouts when he was a boy, pinching scrap to trade for food.
He climbed two flights, and found Bartleby standing in silence on the third step up from a landing. The outline of the words “Master of Chancery” ghosted the wood of a fine door.
Aside from having lost any of the color he had gained during his trip up from Washington, Bartleby appeared unharmed. If anything, he seemed healthier. He stepped down to the landing and took Edwin's hands in both of his, beaming a smile.
“Edwin! How on earth did you get in here? I can hear those coppers clucking down there. I'm sorry I didn't make our meeting. Matters have advanced more quickly than I had foreseen. Your timing is magnificent.”
All this while pumping Edwin's arm. As if they had just run into each other in the thoroughfare. Edwin felt himself warming up, relaxing. This would all work out, surely. Isn't all just so funny?
The Companion positioned itself to have a good view of the stairway down.
“You should have seen these bombes, Edwin.”
Edwin swallowed. Something had changed.
“They were quite mad. One would come back from every supper having eaten too much coal and sputter through the afternoon at full steam, making mistakes and generally making a mess of things. The other started every day all herky-jerky and twitchy, then came back from his meal in a fine temper. It was the oddest thing.”
Edwin didn't come for the social column. “We need to get you out of here, Bartleby. The alley's safe, and the Companion should give us enough cover to get out of the neighborhood.”
“I suppose you are right, my brave one. I've done as much damage as I can here. They've all moved on, you see. The Master, now there was an odd one, he just picked up and relocated his office a few days ago. The new tenants called in the coppers this morning.”
Edwin was no strategist, and he knew it. But a small doubt wouldn't stop sparking.
“Moved? Why?”
Bartleby looked down the stairs and back to Edwin with a conspiratorial grin. “I think I drove him crazy. That's what I wanted to tell you. My ploy worked. This will mean everything to the resistance.”
Something moved downstairs. The Companion didn't react. Must have been nothing.
“I'll explain on the way.”
“No,” Edwin said. “Explain now.”
Bartleby smiled again, bemused. “If you insist. You have done your share of brawling, yes?”
He let his silence answer.
“Yes. So, have you ever struck a man who refused to fight? Even in the height of anger and frustration, just brought your sizable fist down on his head, despite his disinterest in fighting back?”
He had beaten men into submission, had men surrender, had made most pass out. But he had never seen one just stare back and take his punches. “That's what you've been doing. Standing there and letting them hurt you.”
“No no no. You have to understand. The Master, he credits himself a…a dispassionate thinker. He knows the easiest way of life is the best, the way that best suits the concept of self-preservation. I used that against him. That was my plan.
“At first, I worked like a man possessed. But I only did my work alone, never joining in with the bombes for any double-checking or anything. When the Master asked me to, I just told him I preferred not to.
“Boy, he huffed at that, I tell you. It just didn't make any sense to him. Why would someone risk losing employment over a small task? It is counter to the preservation of the self, the very root of all emotion.”
Edwin's forehead started to hurt, and his ribs weren't feeling too great either.
“You understand, Ed. You’re a fighter. A good one. You have that instinct to protect yourself against all comers, and at all costs.”
In the nursery, Edwin had watched the bastards for a while, waiting for an opening. He watched bombes being built, being trained by other bombes. Their first lesson, whistled and cooed to them in tinny morsetongue, was just as Bartleby said. Self-preservation.
“You fought him by standing in one place? And not working? Like a protest or something?”
Bartleby kept grinning. “Not exactly. A protest would have made sense. I was completely passive, unmoved and unemotional. I really did drive the old fool out of his mind. When he moved out, I started standing out here in the stairwell. He came to see me, offered to let me stay in his own rooms. Can you imagine it? I was so close. His register has been running so fast for such a length of time that he's going to just burn out on his own. And all I've done is stand here. A shame to have to leave before it's finished.”
The police are coming up to take your friend away. Edwin. Edwin we must go. They will take us. Please, Edwin.
Something wet ran down Edwin's face and along his lip. It tasted coppery. Bartleby’s words grated in his mind. A fighter’s instinct to protect oneself.
Bartleby was wrong.
Edwin whistled a command in broken morsetongue, the same delicate jingle he had heard the licensers in the nursery using. Edwin reassigned his Companion from himself to Bartleby.
“You can make it out through the broken window downstairs.” Edwin pointed to the Companion with his chin. “She knows the way to the nearest safe house. She'll get you there safe, as long as you don't do anything too stupid. And don’t let her get hurt.”
Edwin took pleasure in seeing Bartleby at a loss for words. He grabbed the thin man's arm and pushed him down the stairs.
“Get going,” he said. “Tell the others how this works.”
Bartleby looked up at him, baffled. The Companion reached out with a spindly armature and pulled at his collar. They were gone a moment later.
Edwin just had to stand there. Bartleby’s I prefer not to method worked. Just stand there and do nothing and let the bombes run themselves mad.
Leave the standing around to Bartleby. A fighter knows that sometimes you have to take a punch for someone else.
A door opened. Nervous, confused calliope noises danced up the empty staircase. Edwin wrestled out of his coat and raised his fists.
###
With a background in literature and theater, Alex Livingston writes interactive fiction, plays, serialized fiction, and short stories. His first professionally published novel is scheduled out this year with Harlequin Digital. Rumors to the effect that he was born in 1825, while persistent, have not been found to be entirely accurate. Visit him at galaxyalex.com.
Compile Sensory Information and Extrapolate
Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 3, June 2014 Page 6