by Jim Butcher
They swarmed all over him, clinging to his arms, beating at his head and shoulders, trying to drag him down. He struggled valiantly, throwing away one robot after another with dreadful force, but they always came back. He was inhumanly strong, but there were just so many of them. He disappeared inside a crowd of robots, steel fists rising and falling like jackhammers, over and over again, driving Dead Boy to his knees. And then they cut at him, with their steel blades and whirring buzz saws and vicious hands.
While the majority of robots were dealing with Dead Boy, the remainder closed in on me, and Liza. She’d frozen, her face utterly empty, her body twitching and shaking. I gently but firmly pushed her behind me, out of the way. Our backs were to the nearest wall, but not too close.
I was thinking furiously, trying to find a way out of this. Most of my useful items were magical in nature, rather than scientific. And while I knew quite a few nasty little tricks to use against the living and the dead and those unfortunate few stuck in between . . . I didn’t have a damned thing of any use against robots. Certainly throwing pepper into their faces wasn’t going to work. I don’t carry a gun. I don’t usually need them.
I backed up as far as I dared, herding Liza behind me, and fired up my gift. My inner eye snapped open, and immediately my Sight found just the right places for me to stand, and where and when to dodge, so that the robots couldn’t touch me. Their blocky hands reached for me again and again, but I was never there, already somewhere else, one step ahead of them. Except the more they closed in, the less room there was for me to move in. I managed to be in the right place to trip a few and send them crashing into one another, but all I was doing was buying time.
I knew what was happening to Dead Boy, but there wasn’t a damned thing I could do.
One robot aimed an energy weapon at me. I waited till the very last moment, and then sidestepped, and the energy beam seared past me to take out the robot on my other side. It exploded messily, bits and pieces flying across the room. They ricocheted off the other robots harmlessly, but one piece of shrapnel passed close enough to clip off a lock of my hair. Liza didn’t react at all.
The robots had discovered they couldn’t hurt Dead Boy, so they decided to pull him apart. They grabbed him by the arms and legs, stretched him helpless in midair between them, and did their best to tear him limb from limb. He struggled and cursed them vilely, but in the end, they were powerful machines and he was just a dead man.
Liza darted suddenly forward from behind me, grabbed up the robot arm that Dead Boy had torn off, and used it like a club against the nearest robot. She swung the arm with both hands, using all her strength, her eyes wide and staring, lips drawn back in an animal snarl. She wasn’t strong enough to damage the robot, but I admired her spirit. We weren’t in her world anymore, but she was still doing her best to fight back. But she still couldn’t hope to win, and neither could Dead Boy, so as usual it was down to me.
I concentrated, forcing my inner eye all the way open, till I could See the world so clearly it hurt. I scanned the robots with my augmented vision, struggling to understand through the pain, and it didn’t take me long to find the robots’ basic weakness. They had no actual intelligence of their own; they were all receiving their orders from the same source, through the same mechanism. I moved swiftly among the robots, dancing in their blind spots, yanking the mechanisms out, one after another. And one by one the robots froze in place, cut off from their central command, helpless without orders. They stood around the metal room like so many modern art sculptures . . . and I sat down suddenly and struggled to get my breathing back under control, while my third eye, my inner eye, slowly and thankfully eased shut.
I have a gift for finding things, but it’s never easy.
Dead Boy pulled and wriggled his way free from the robots holding him, looked in outrage at what they’d done to his purple greatcoat, and kicked some of the robots about for a bit, just to ease his feelings. Liza looked about her wildly, still clutching her robot arm like a club. I got up from the floor and said her name a few times, and she finally looked at me, personality and sanity easing slowly back into her face. She looked at what she was holding, and dropped it to the floor with a moue of distaste. I went over to her, but she didn’t want to be comforted.
A voice spoke to us, out of midair. A calm, cultured voice, with a certain amount of resignation in it.
“All right, enough is enough. We didn’t think the security bots would be enough to stop the famous John Taylor and the infamous Dead Boy . . . or should that be the other way round . . . but we owed it to our patrons to try. You might have been having an off day. It happens. And the bots were nearing the end of their warranty . . . Anyway, you’d better come on through, and we’ll talk about this. I said Liza Barclay would come back to haunt us if we just let her go, but of course no one ever listens to me.”
“I’ve been here . . . before?” said Liza.
“You don’t remember?” I said quietly.
“No,” said Liza. “I’ve never seen this place before.” But she didn’t sound as certain as she once had. I remembered her earlier premonition, just before the robots appeared, when she’d known something bad was about to happen. Perhaps she’d known because something like it had happened the last time she was here. nless she was remembering something else, even worse, still to come . . .
A door appeared in the far wall, where I would have sworn there was no trace of a door just a moment before. A section of the metal just slid suddenly sideways, disappearing into the rest of the wall, leaving a brightly lit opening. I started towards it, and once again Dead Boy and Liza fell in beside me. You’d almost have thought I knew what I was doing. We threaded our way through the motionless robots, and I held myself ready in case they came alive again; but they just stood there, in their stiff awkward poses, utterly inhuman even in defeat. Dead Boy pulled faces at them. Liza wouldn’t even look at the robots, all her attention focused on the open door, and the answers it promised her.
We passed through the narrow opening into a long steel corridor, comfortably wide and tall, the steel so brightly polished it was like walking through an endless hall of mirrors. It occurred to me that none of our reflections looked particularly impressive, or dangerous. Dead Boy had lost his great floppy hat in his struggle with the robots, and his marvellous purple greatcoat was torn and tattered. Some of the stitches on his bare chest had broken open, revealing pink-gray meat under the torn gray skin. I keep telling him to use staples. Liza looked scared but determined, her face so pale and taut there was hardly any colour in it. She was close to getting her answers now; but I think, even then, she knew this wasn’t going to end well. And I . . . I looked like someone who should have known better than to come to a place like Rotten Row, and expect any good to come of it.
The corridor finally took a sharp turn to the left, and ushered us into a large antechamber. More steel walls, still no furnishings or comforts, but finally a human face. A tall, slender man in the traditional white lab coat was waiting for us. He had a bland forgettable face, and a wide welcoming smile that meant nothing at all. Slick, I thought immediately. That’s the word for this man. Nothing would ever touch him, and nothing would ever stick to him. He’d make sure of that. He strode briskly towards us, one hand stretched out to shake, still smiling, as though he could do it all day. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. They were cold, certain, the look of a man utterly convinced he knew important things that you didn’t.
Fanatic’s eyes. Believer’s eyes. Such men are always dangerous.
He dropped his hand when he realised none of us had any intention of shaking it, but he didn’t seem especially upset. He was still smiling.
“Hi!” he said brightly. “I’m Barry Kopek. I speak for Silicon Heaven. I’d say it’s good to see you, but I wouldn’t want to start our relationship with such an obvious lie. So let’s get right down to business, shall we, and then we can all get back to our own lives again. Won’t that be nice?”
“Come with me,” he said, “and many things will be made clear. All your questions will be answered; or at least, all the ones you’re capable of understanding. No offence, no offence. But things are rather . . . advanced, around here. Tomorrow has come early for the Nightside, and soon there’ll be a wake-up call for everyone. Slogans are such an important part for any new business, don’t you agree? Sorry about the robots, but we have so many enemies among the ignorant, and our work here is far too important to allow outside agitators to interfere with it.”
“Your work?” I said. “Arranging dates for computers, for people with a fetish for really heavy metal, is important work?”
He looked like he wanted to wince at my crudity, but was far too professional. The smile never wavered for a moment. “We are not a part of the sex industry, Mister Taylor. Perish the thought. Everyone who finds their way here becomes part of the great work. We are always happy to greet new people, given the extreme turnover in . . . participants. But they all understand! They do, really they do! This is the greatest work of our time, and we are all honoured to be a part of it. Come with me, and you’ll see. Only . . . do keep Mrs. Barclay under control, please. She did enough damage the last time she was here.”
Dead Boy and I both looked at Liza, but she had nothing to say. Her gaze was fixed on the official greeter, staring at him like she could burn holes through him. She wanted answers, and he was just slowing her down.
“All right,” I said. “Lead the way. Show us this great work.”
“Delighted!” said Barry Kopek. I was really starting to get tired of that smile.
He led us through more metal corridors, turning this way and that with complete confidence, even though there were never any signs or directions on the blank steel walls. He kept up an amiable chatter, talking smoothly and happily about nothing in particular. The light from nowhere became increasingly stark, almost unbearably bright. There was a sound in the distance, like the slow beating of a giant heart, so slow you could count the moments between each great beat, but they all had something of time and eternity in them. And there was a smell, faint at first, but gradually growing stronger . . . of static and machine oil, ozone and lubricants, burning meat and rank, fresh sweat.
“You said Liza’s been here before,” I said finally, after it became clear that Kopek wasn’t going to raise the subject again himself.
“Oh, yes,” he said, carefully looking at me rather than at Liza. “Mrs. Barclay was here yesterday, and we let her in, because of course we have nothing to hide. We’re all very proud of the work we do here.”
“What work?” said Dead Boy, and something in his voice made Kopek miss a step.
“Yes, well, to put it very simply, in layman’s terms . . . We are breaking down the barriers between natural and artificial life.”
“If you’re so proud, and this work so very great, why did you send those cyborged taxis to attack us?” I said, in what I thought was really a quite reasonable tone of voice. Kopek’s smile wavered for the first time. He knew me. And my reputation.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “That. I said that was a mistake. You must understand, they were some of our first crude attempts, at melding man with machine. Those men paid a lot of money for it to be done to them, so they could operate more efficiently and more profitably in Nightside traffic. We were very short of funds at the beginning . . . When they found out you were coming here, Mister Taylor, well, frankly, they panicked. You see, they relied on us to keep them functioning.”
“Who told them I was coming?” I said. “Though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.”
“I said it was a mistake,” said Barry Kopek. “Are they all . . . ?”
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded glumly. Still smiling, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “I’m not surprised. Your reputation precedes you, Mister Taylor, like an attack dog on a really long leash. It’s a shame, though. They only wanted to better themselves.”
“By having their humanity cut away?” said Dead Boy, just a bit dangerously.
“They gave up so little, to gain so much,” said Kopek, just a bit haughtily. “I would have thought you of all people would appreciate . . .”
“You don’t know me,” said Dead Boy. “You don’t know anything about me. And no one gets away with attacking my car.”
“Being dead hasn’t mellowed you at all, has it?” said Kopek.
“Is Frank here?” I said. “Frank Barclay?”
“Well, of course he’s here,” said Kopek. “It’s not like we’re holding him prisoner, against his will. He came to us, pursuing his dreams, and we were only too happy to accommodate him. He is here where he wanted to be, doing what he’s always wanted to do, happy at last.”
“He was happy with me!” said Liza. “He loves me! He married me!”
“A man wants what he wants, and needs what he needs,” said Kopek, looking at her directly for the first time. “And Mister Barclay’s needs brought him to us.”
“Can we see him? Talk to him?” I said.
“Of course! That’s where I’m taking you now. But you must promise me you’ll keep Mrs. Barclay under control. She reacted very badly to seeing her husband last time.”
“She’s seen him here before?” I said.
“Well, yes,” said Kopek, looking from me to Liza and back again, clearly puzzled. “I escorted her to him myself. Didn’t she tell you?”
“No,” Liza said quietly, though exactly what she was saying no to, I wasn’t entirely sure. She was all drawn up in herself now, looking straight ahead, her gaze fixed, almost disassociated.
The corridor finally ended in a flat featureless wall, in which another door appeared. Kopek led us through, and we all stopped dead to look around, impressed and overwhelmed despite ourselves by the sheer size of the glass-and-crystal auditorium spread out before us. It takes a lot to impress a native of the Nightside, but the sheer scope and scale of the place we’d been brought to took even my breath away. Bigger than any enclosed space had a right to be, with walls like frozen waterfalls of gleaming crystal, set so far apart the details were just distant blurs, under tinted glass ceilings so high above us clouds drifted between us and them. Like some vast cathedral dedicated to Science, the auditorium was so enormous it had generated its own weather systems. Kopek’s smile was openly triumphant now, as he gestured grandly with outstretched arms.
“Lady and gentlemen, welcome to Silicon Heaven!”
He led the way forward, between massive machines that had shape and form, but no clear meaning or significance. So complex, so advanced, as to be incomprehensible to merely human eyes. There were components that moved, and revolved, and became other things even as I watched; strange lights that burned in unfamiliar colours; and noises that were almost, or beyond, voices. Things the size of buildings walked in circles, and intricate mechanisms came together in complex interactions, like a living thing assembling itself. Gleaming metal spheres the size of sheep-dogs rolled back and forth across the crystal floor, sprouting tools and equipment as needed to service the needs of larger machines. Dead Boy kicked at one of the spheres, in an experimental way, but it dodged him easily.
Kopek led the way, and we all followed close behind. This wasn’t a place you wanted to get lost in. It felt . . . like walking through the belly of Leviathan, or like flies crawling across the stained-glass window of some unnatural cathedral . . . So of course I strolled along with my hands in my coat pockets, like I’d seen it all before and hadn’t been impressed then. Never let them think they’ve got the advantage, or they’ll walk all over you. Dead Boy seemed genuinely uninterested in any of it, but then he died and brought himself back to life, and that’s a hard act to follow. Liza didn�
�t seem to see any of it. She had a hole in her mind, a gap in her memories, and all she cared about was finding out what had happened the last time she was here. Did she care at all about husband Frank, anymore? Or was she remembering just enough to sense that her quest wasn’t for him, and never had been, but only to find the truth about him and her, and this place . . .
There was a definite sense of purpose to everything happening around us, even if I couldn’t quite grasp it, but I was pretty sure there was nothing human in that purpose. Nothing here gave a damn about anything so small as Humanity.
“I was here before,” Liza said slowly. “There’s something bad up ahead. Something awful.”
I looked sharply at Kopek. “Is that right, Barry? Is there something dangerous up ahead, that you haven’t been meaning to tell us about?”
“There’s nothing awful here,” he said huffily. “You’re here to see something wonderful.”
And finally, we came face-to-face with what we’d come so far to see. A single beam of light stabbed down, shimmering and scintillating, like a spotlight from Heaven, as though God himself was taking an interest. The illumination picked out one particular machine, surrounded by ranks and ranks of robots. They were dancing around the machine, in wide interlocking circles, their every movement impossibly smooth and graceful and utterly inhuman. They moved to music only they could hear, perhaps to music only they could hope to understand, but there was nothing of human emotion or sensibility in their dance. It could have been a dance of reverence, or triumph, or elation, or something only a robot could know or feel. The robots danced, and the sound of their metal feet slamming on the crystal floor was almost unbearably ugly.
Kopek led us carefully through the ranks of robots, and at once they began to sing, in high chiming voices like a choir of metal birds, in perfect harmonies and cadences that bordered on melody without ever actually achieving it. Like machines pretending to be human, doing things that people do without ever understanding why people do them. We passed through the last of the robots and finally . . . there was Frank, beloved husband of Liza, having sex with a computer.