The Robots of Gotham

by Todd McAulty

  Getting lost down here was a very real possibility. In the absence of street signs, I had to find my own landmarks. Remember things as I passed them. I’d be coming back this way in a few hours—possibly in a hurry. I needed to make sure I didn’t make a mistake. The last thing I wanted was to be wandering around in a hundred miles of ancient tunnels under Chicago, looking for a way out.

  The next landmark I found was a dead robot.

  It was sprawled across the middle of the tunnel like an auto wreck. There were parts of it everywhere. Shards of metal, shiny bits of glass. Its upper torso was wedged up against the drum of an old boiler tank on the south side of the tunnel, one arm flung out, its head twisted and dented. It was maybe nine feet tall. Or it had been when it was intact, anyway.

  I shone my light over the length of its body, trying to figure out what it was. I didn’t recognize the model. In fact, it didn’t really resemble any configuration I was familiar with. It was roughly humanoid, but its head was squarish and overly large, like a Kaiser-Daimler field security unit. It had Korean optics, but heavily modified. Its hull was a light blue, like a robin’s egg. Its left arm was missing, but its right arm was badly twisted and very long. Its hand was full rotary, capable of high-speed spin, and it had highly dexterous fingers, as if for delicate factory work.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked it, hunkering down and leaning close for a better look.

  When I got the light close enough, I could see its torso had nearly a dozen bullet holes. Somebody had really wanted this thing dead.

  I ran my hand over the metal, felt the jagged edges of the nearest hole. The metal was cold, and the torso was covered with a fine layer of grit. It had been here a while.

  There was a noise to my right. Distant, echoey, and kinda spooky. It sounded like . . . I wasn’t sure exactly what it sounded like. An insect mating call, maybe. A big insect.

  I stood up, pushing on into the tunnel. Bits of metal crunched under my feet.

  I reached my next turn about two hundred yards farther west. I was under Michigan Avenue now. Columbia College was roughly nine-tenths of a mile, straight south. An easy stretch of road, as long as I kept close tabs on where I was. And as long as there weren’t any obstacles that didn’t show up on my map.

  I shone my light up and down the passage. The air seemed more humid here, and there was a thin layer of mist coiling along the floor, especially to the north. Other than the mist, the route was a little more clear, with fewer webs and almost no obstacles—just one stack of junk forty feet to the south, covered with a tarp.

  I stood at the intersection for a few minutes, listening. It’s very, very quiet when you’re that far underground. You can hear water drip a long way off. I strained to hear any recurrence of the strange noise, or any other odd sounds. I stood perfectly still, eyes closed, regulating my breathing, listening to the tunnels.

  It was quiet. From far, far off I could hear a distant hum, like a power generator, and a rhythmic tapping, almost like footsteps. I wondered if I could hear street sounds this deep underground. Could I hear trucks passing overhead, perhaps?

  I wondered what it had been like for those workers delivering coal in 1899. Probably didn’t look much different from today, except possibly a little brighter. But I imagined the tunnels full of sound and candlelight, as pit ponies and young men with dirty faces pulled heavily laden carts filled with coal and other freight offloaded from cargo ships through long dark miles to expectant customers waiting in the sub-basement of Marshall Field’s. Constant echoes, shouting voices, the rattle of carts, the ringing of bells—all the sounds of commerce.

  Did those young men wonder what these passageways, fresh and new in 1899, might be like in two hundred years? Did they imagine they were digging the first layer of a great new subterranean civilization? Did they picture their city extending farther and farther underground, each new level opening up like some new suburb? Did they see themselves as pioneers taming the underworld, just as their friends and cousins were doing in the American west? Or were they just putting one foot in front of the other, waiting for their shift to be over?

  I heard the noise again. Or one very much like it. It was like a screeching, the outrage of some great subterranean beast. It ended as abruptly as it began, and all that was left were the echoes, bouncing off the walls.

  It had definitely come from the south. I opened my eyes, turned my light back on, and resumed my journey, headed south.

  I was still marking landmarks, looking for changes in the tunnel, however subtle, that would help me if I got lost or disoriented. And that’s part of the reason I noticed when the rails ended.

  It was very abrupt. They simply stopped. The left rail stopped about two feet sooner than the right. There was no stopgap, no dead wall, nothing to stop a cart from running right off the rails. They just vanished.

  It was strange enough to pique my curiosity, and I stopped to examine them. The rails were solid steel, nearly an inch thick, and something had sheared through both of them. I reached down and felt around the ground. I found hardened lumps of melted steel in a splash pattern around both ends.

  Not sheared. Something had melted the rails.

  I stood up, shining my light down the tunnel. As far south as the light could reach, the rails were gone.

  Gone where? Steel rails are damn heavy. It would have taken some heavy machinery to cut and transport a few hundred yards of rail. And I saw absolutely no sign that there had been any heavy machinery down here in the last century.

  Another subterranean mystery . . . and not one I was likely to solve. Tonight, this was just another landmark. I made a mental note that the transition from rails to no-rails happened about two hundred fifty yards south of the left turn onto Michigan and kept going.

  I found the next robot about a third of the way to my destination. It was simply standing in the dark, a few feet from the west wall, motionless. It was the same make as the dead robot I’d left about a quarter mile back. Same big square head, same robin’s egg blue. It stood just under eight feet tall. I couldn’t make out any bullet holes, although I wasn’t close enough to be completely certain.

  A motionless robot is not necessarily a dead robot. Robots can be motionless for . . . well, basically forever and still not be dead. So I approached this (potentially killer) robot as if it were still alive . . . and also potentially a killer robot. Which is to say, I threw a rock at it before I got too close.

  Actually, three rocks, because the first two missed. But the third one bounced off its head with a satisfactory clang.

  It still didn’t move. It stood with its head down, arms at its sides. Most robots have some kind of external power indicators, but this thing wasn’t giving off any light whatsoever. It sure looked dead to me.

  I walked a little closer, getting a better look at the thing. Its right shoulder looked damaged or maybe just very dirty. The whole robot looked filthy, as a matter of fact. It looked as if—

  There was a footstep to my left. The sound of something heavy, crunching dirt and coal grit under a very solid tread, maybe thirty feet away.

  I whirled to my left, bringing the flashlight up. Nothing but a solid wall.

  Echoes can be tricky in tight spaces, especially when it’s extremely quiet. I whirled around again, shining the light south, up and down, covering floor and ceiling. Nothing. I turned north, repeated the pattern. Up and down, floor and ceiling. I took a few steps north, shining the light down a narrow side passage that branched off to the east.

  Nothing.

  I retraced my steps back south, stood completely still for a second. I kept my flashlight aimed at the wall to my left. Listening.

  There was a sound. Quiet, but definitely real. A crunching sound. But slow. The sound someone might make if they were trying to be quiet as they moved across a floor strewn with grit. The sound of something heavy, creeping stealthily.

  I flashed the light around. South again. Nothing. A bunched-up tarp, sh
oved up against the west wall, forty feet away. Had that been there before?

  I flashed the light to the right, over by the robot. I counted to three quietly, then quickly flicked the light back at the tarp.

  It hadn’t moved. But something had. Something was out of place. It took a second to process it.

  I flicked the light back to the right. The robot was gone.

  I swore, loudly. I spun in all directions at once, flashing the light everywhere.

  The robot was standing behind me, not three feet away.

  I jumped a good three feet and probably shrieked a little. Somehow I managed to keep the light fixed on the robot, although my hand was a little shaky.

  “Sneaky bastard,” I said.

  The robot didn’t move. It didn’t say anything. We stood facing each other in the tunnel, neither of us budging.

  “Okay,” I said, once I got over the initial shock. “Okay.” Had the robot actually moved? I’d gotten a little turned around as I walked back and forth. I shone my light at the thing’s feet, looking for footprints. That was useless. Back up at its head. Its head was lowered, exactly as it had been when I first found it.

  Its hands though . . . had they been slightly raised and a little outstretched like that? Or not?

  My heart was still racing. I gave it a few seconds to calm down. I kept my flashlight firmly on the robot as I did. It remained motionless.

  We remained like that for about a minute. But I couldn’t keep standing here forever.

  “I’m going to turn around,” I said, “and look south. And while I do, you’re going to stay right there and not move, like a good robot.”

  The robot didn’t respond. With some reluctance, I turned my flashlight south.

  The tunnel was clear. The tarp hadn’t moved, but there was a thin tendril of mist playing around its base. I listened for a second, but heard nothing. Nothing except that nearly constant, creeping crunching. I flicked the flashlight back north.

  The robot was gone.

  “Jesus shit!”

  I crouched, doing a 360-degree turn, shining my light in all directions. As soon as I found a wall, I got my back up against it in a hurry. I shone my light north and south, up and down, all over the wall, the floor, the ceiling.

  Nothing. The robot was gone. There was no evidence he had ever been here.

  “Goddamn creepy piece of shit,” I muttered. How had something that big moved so stealthily?

  I stepped away from the wall, but I wasn’t too happy about it. Keeping my flashlight aimed everywhere at once, I took a few tentative steps south. No robot emerged from the floor or squeezed out of a dark shadow to kill me.

  I had to keep moving. Sergei and his team were under way by now and would be at the college in a matter of minutes. I had a schedule to keep, creepy robot or no creepy robot.

  I started to walk again. Mostly I kept my light shining north as I stumbled my way south. I listened for even the faintest sound, and gave the tarp a wide berth.

  About two hundred yards south, I started to see light in the tunnel ahead.

  But it was too soon to see light. Unless I was badly turned around, I wasn’t anywhere near an exit. The light got stronger as I got closer and began to resolve into multiple lights. One of them flickered, like firelight. Was it my imagination or was I starting to smell smoke?

  I was distracted by the strengthening smell of smoke when I came across two more machines.

  These two were different. For one thing, they were both very much alive. The big one on the left, considerably over eight feet and much more massive than the first two, was dismantling a barrel. Its smaller companion on the right, about the size of the disappearing robot, was drilling a hole in the floor. Both had the same square heads and light blue coloring.

  They turned their heads toward me as I approached.

  “Hello,” I said.

  Now, I wasn’t exactly keen on interacting with two (potentially killer) robots. But they were right in the middle of my path and going around them would take time. Besides, it was high time I figured out just what these blue box-heads were all about.

  The two machines exchanged a glance. Seriously, they looked at each other, like two guys in an alley who’d just found a talking rat.

  The first robot, the big guy on the left, said something. I have no idea what, because it wasn’t English. Wasn’t Spanish, either.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked.

  The big robot said some more stuff. It still wasn’t English, but it was enough for me to get a sense of it. It sounded Indian, maybe Hindi or Punjabi.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand you,” I said.

  The smaller robot took a few steps closer. I backed up a bit, trying to keep a good distance between us. The moment it stopped advancing, I flashed my light behind me. There was a third robot back there somewhere, and now would not be a great time for it to sneak up behind me.

  “He wants you to approach,” said the second robot.

  Screw that, I wanted to say. But I didn’t, because years of high-level negotiations have taught me the best time to say “Screw that” is rarely in the first few minutes.

  “I’d rather not,” I said. Also not usually a good opening gambit, but at least we were all being honest.

  The big robot said something, and the smaller one translated. “You must identify.”

  “I can identify just fine from here,” I said.

  “You must approach and be identified,” it said.

  It had an Indian accent. I’ve never met a rational device with an Indian accent before. I’ve never met a rational device with any accent before. How the hell does a machine get an accent?

  “Does he speak English?” I asked, pointing at the big guy.

  “No,” said the smaller robot. “But I shall translate.”

  Again, this made absolutely no sense. Rational devices don’t need special hardware to speak different languages. If the smaller guy had an uncorrupted English concordance and grammar engine—and it sure seemed like he did—he could share that with any other machine on the planet. Including the big guy on the left. Something was definitely very odd with these robots.

  But I’d dealt with odd before. Odd, I could work with. “Great,” I said. “Please let him know that I would be happy to identify from right here.”

  I also said this to stall. I had no intention of identifying myself, but I needed to have a good, plausible identity ready to share. Someone with a good reason for crawling around Chicago’s coal tunnels.

  The two spoke to each other for a while. The longer I listened, the more I became convinced that they were speaking an Indian dialect.

  “He asks that you approach and be identified,” said the smaller robot.

  I thought about that for a few seconds. While I did, I flashed the light behind me, still on the lookout for Mr. Creepy Robot. No sign of him.

  Machine intelligences can be violent killers, but—in my limited experience—they were usually pretty up front about it. If they’re going to kill you, you usually know it. “All right,” I said reluctantly. I closed the distance slowly, until I was about ten feet away.

  “Give him your hand,” said the small robot.

  Jesus, this is a dumb idea. I took a few steps closer and stretched out my left hand to the big robot.

  The big robot took my hand. His hand was massive, but I was relieved at how gentle he was. Until he stabbed me, right through the suit.

  “Ow—ow! Shit, let go!”

  He held on to my hand for about two seconds before releasing me. I yanked it away and took half a dozen quick steps backwards, examining my hand.

  I expected it to be bleeding profusely, but I could barely find the hole in the suit. The suit had hardened quickly where the puncture occurred but, unpowered, the metallic mesh was already relaxing back to its usual rubbery texture.

  Neither of the robots was making any additional hostile motions. Goddamn it, did they inject me with something? I
thought. I should run, but at this point it was far too late.

  “You are being identified,” said the machine on the right.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Using your blood.”

  Goddamn. They were doing a gene analysis. So much for a fake identity. In about six seconds, these robots were going to know everything about me.

  This changed everything. I couldn’t be seen wearing the combat suit at the college now, not if they had a positive ID. If these damned hunks of metal had already snapped an image of me, it might be too late. Hayduk could have my identity in minutes.

  I had to run. If I could get back to the hotel, get my travel documents—

  The big robot started speaking. The short guy translated.

  “Your biosignature is unknown to us,” he said. “We will create a new identity record. Your designation will be Foxtrot-Eight-Echo-Whisky-Hotel-Seven-Quebec.”

  I massaged my hand, regarding them and thinking.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “That is satisfactory,” said the shorter robot.

  “You don’t have access to globalNet down here, do you?”

  “Global information networks of any kind are dangerous to us,” said the machine. He was speaking on his own now, instead of translating for the big guy. “We use no wireless communication, in any form.”

  That explained why they weren’t able to share data, like language data. But it exposed an even bigger mystery. Why would robots cut themselves off from globalNet? It would keep them in the dark about . . . well, about everything, really.

  I had a great many questions. But they could wait until I determined just how much trouble I was in.

  “How long have you been down here?” I asked.