The Robots of Gotham

by Todd McAulty

  She continued with her briefing. “Sergeant Van de Velde!” I said, louder this time.

  She stopped talking. All I could see was her profile, but I could see her expression sour, before she turned to face me.

  Her jaw was set, and her hands were on her hips. “Yes, Mr. Simcoe?” she said.

  Well, she remembers my name. My mouth was suddenly a little dry, but I soldiered on. “What is my situation?” I asked.

  The question seemed to surprise her. “Your situation?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Your situation,” she repeated. She nodded, looking at the floor now, as if assessing the matter.

  “She’ll update you on your situation tonight,” said the young woman who’d whispered to her friend, drawing out the last word to give it a deliberately salacious meaning. There was laughter from the rest of the squad, but it had a nervous, exhausted edge.

  It took a second for the implication to sink in. Did her squad think that Van de Velde and I were hooking up?

  Van de Velde turned on the soldier who had spoken with a look that could peel paint. “¡Creasy, cállate la boca!” Even I knew what that meant: Creasy, shut your mouth.

  Those who were laughing shut up. Their sergeant glared at the entire squad, one by one, until they were all staring at their feet, appropriately chastised.

  Van de Velde returned her attention to me. She took several steps forward, hands still on her hips. She didn’t stop until she was close enough for me to smell her skin, smell what kind of soap she used. She smelled pretty good, actually, especially for someone who’d spent the last few hours in a coal tunnel.

  “You don’t have a situation,” she said.

  “No situation,” I said.

  “No.”

  “Okay,” I said. Did that mean what I thought it did?

  She leaned forward, turning her face away from her squad and lowering her voice. “But if I catch you in those tunnels again, I will shoot you myself. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly,” I said.

  I thought she was going to dismiss me then, turn around and walk back, but she just stood there for a moment. She was looking at the floor again, and wearing a pained expression.

  “I have to take my squad now, and recover two bodies in those tunnels,” she said at last. “That’s two more men under my command who are now dead. We will lay them to rest next to Corporal Maldonado.”

  Now she was looking at me. Now her eyes were glaring into mine, with fresh fury.

  Her meaning was unmistakable. Two more dead men she had me to blame for. Perhaps she thought I’d forgotten Corporal Maldonado, the young man who died when the Juno mech opened fire on the hotel.

  I had not forgotten.

  “The robot that attacked you is not the only one in those tunnels,” I said. “Returning there in force is a mistake.”

  “I won’t leave those men down there.”

  “You don’t have to. There are other ways to retrieve them.”

  “No thank you,” she said, her voice icy. “We don’t need your help.”

  I was exhausted, sore, and more than a little rattled from my own run-in with the Orbit Pebble, where I’d put my life on the line for her and her damn soldiers. And now she was about to jeopardize their lives again—needlessly. My own temper, already badly frayed, was pushed past the breaking point.

  “Listen to me, soldier,” I said. “You don’t have enough manpower to deal with one of the things, let alone an entire colony.”

  “Colony?” she said, surprised. “How many are there?”

  “Why don’t you ask Colonel Perez how many men he lost the first time he sent soldiers into the tunnels? I’m sure he’d be happy to share those reports with you.”

  “How do you know—?”

  “Do you want to lose more men in another ambush? Then by all means, take them back in. But don’t pretend you know what’s in those tunnels, because you have no goddamn clue.” I pointed at her rifle. “And believe me, you damn well better bring heavier ordnance than this piece of shit.”

  Van de Velde was furious. She glared at me with naked anger, and for a moment I thought I was going to get a much more intimate view of her weapon.

  But she wasn’t the only one who’d heard me. Her squad had been listening to every word I said, and they were staring at me with shock and dismay. Those who didn’t speak English were whispering to those who did. Their terror of the Orbit Pebble was written all over their faces.

  Van de Velde looked over at them, at the fear and panic in their eyes. When she returned her gaze to me, she was just as angry. But there was a hint of uncertainty as well.

  I lowered my voice. “We can bring your soldiers back without firing a single shot.”

  It took a moment for Van de Velde to get her anger under control. But to her credit, she did it. “How?” she said.

  “We go in alone. Just you and me. We bring out the bodies. No violence.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “Then bring your gun, and put some big-girl panties on. I’m unarmed.”

  For the next few seconds, I was pretty sure I was going to get a punch in the face. It’s not clear to me what kind of underwear Sergeant Van de Velde actually wears, but I’m reasonably confident that in a fair fight she’d kick the living shit out of me.

  “All right,” she said at last.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Two hours. Downstairs.”

  “Agreed.”

  She turned and walked back to her squad without another glance at me.

  “The soldier,” I said to her back. “The one shot in the leg?”

  “What about him?”

  “Did he make it?”

  She turned enough so I could see her profile. “Yes. The medics were pretty grim when we got him to the hospital, but the techs there got him stabilized.”

  “Good. I’m glad.”

  Van de Velde nodded, then returned to her briefing. I made my way to the command center.

  While I walked, I thought about what I’d just done. I’d spent an hour this morning running for my life from that woman, and now I was returning to the scene of the crime with her? Was there any way to look at this that didn’t make me look like an idiot?

  Probably not. Sooner or later Van de Velde would come to her senses and likely have me arrested. In addition to the fact that I’d just gotten two of her men killed, there was the matter of the American combat suit. She must have recognized it, even in the dark. No way could she overlook the fact that I happened to possess one of the deadliest weapons in the history of warfare.

  At least she didn’t know I’d stolen it from Hayduk. Right now only Hayduk and Nasir knew that the man who’d escaped the Sturgeon Building had stolen a combat suit. The Memphis Ceasefire forbade the AGRT from possessing American-powered combat armor, so neither of them was likely to mention it. While Van de Velde might suspect me of being an American spy, that was likely the extent of it. For now.

  And at least for the time being, I believed her when she told me she wasn’t going to have me arrested. I wasn’t sure exactly why. Other than the fact that if she were going to do it, she almost certainly would have done it already. Perhaps she felt obligated to me for helping her against the Orbit Pebble. And perhaps there was more to it than that. Either way, I wanted to find out. But whatever the case, I couldn’t just sit by while she planned a hostile incursion into the robot colony. I owed it to her, and I owed it to them, to make sure the recovery of her dead soldiers happened without violence.

  Assuming the colony was still there. But I hoped it was, and I hoped I hadn’t somehow brought doom down on its head when I stumbled on them in their secret home under Chicago.

  The kid who’d watched over me when I was arrested after the death of Corporal Maldonado was on duty in front of the command center. I was glad to see him, and his face split in a wide grin the moment he saw me.

  “It’s the doctor,” he said. “How’s your robot
buddy?”

  I’d forgotten that he had mistaken me for a doctor, after all that drama with the diagnostic tables. “Getting by. How you been?”

  He shrugged. “Okay. I get all the boring details. Look at all these guys.” He nodded enviously at the two squads suiting up in the hallway. “They’re gearing up for action. Going out to investigate an attack in some basement this morning.”

  “Gonna blow some shit up,” said the other guard at his side.

  “Exactly. And I’m stuck here guarding a door again.”

  “Yeah, well, you should be thankful,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “After you see a little action, guard duty starts to look good, believe me. Besides, this is an important position. People respect you. You’re watching over some important real estate, here.”

  “I guess,” said the kid, straightening up a little.

  I made to step inside the room, and the kid shook his head.

  “No civilians allowed,” he said.

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about. Keep up the good work,” I said. I stepped around him and walked into the command center.

  I didn’t spot Sergei at first. He wasn’t at his medical station. I did spot the hulking mobile combat robot by the door—and with a start, I realized I recognized him. It was Zircon Border. Or one of his bodies, anyway, what he called his mobile torsos. I flashed him a wave behind my back as I walked past. About five seconds later, as I passed a big display screen on my right showing an approaching weather system, the screen flashed black. In its center, visible for scarcely a second, were the words:

  Good morning, Mr. Simcoe

  ZB

  I grinned despite myself. Zircon Border might be criminally underutilized, spending most of his cycles happily communicating with Atlantic porpoises, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have his eyes open.

  I finally spotted Sergei in the far corner, by the first aid cabinet. He’d stripped to the waist and was applying a bandage to his side. I made my way over. He spotted me just before I reached him, and his features split in a smile.

  “God,” I said. “I’m glad to see you alive.”

  “You as well,” he said, clapping my shoulder.

  “What happened?”

  “Not here.”

  He pulled on a fresh shirt. I saw him carefully bundle up something that might have been his old shirt and throw it in a lidded receptacle. I caught a glimpse of the logo on the side:biohazard.

  “You hurt?” I asked.

  “It is nothing. My own stupidity.”

  We left the command center. “I think we agreed, when this was over, there would be beer,” said Sergei.

  “Yeah. But I don’t think the bar’s open. How about coffee?”

  “Coffee would be excellent.”

  He turned to the right. About a hundred feet down the hall, I could still see Van de Velde and her squad.

  I grabbed Sergei’s arm. “Not that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want Van de Velde to see us together.”

  “Did she see you? Wearing suit, I mean?”

  “Yeah. She knows it was me in the tunnels.”

  Sergei’s eyebrows rose. “This is not good.”

  “It might not be as bad as you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll explain it all. Come on, let’s take the west stairs.” Sergei followed me to the left, and we made our way downstairs to the lobby restaurant.

  “First things first,” I said as we slipped into a booth. “Joy and the others had to make their way back to the hotel without the drone jammer. It’s only a matter of time until they’re connected to the theft and identified.”

  Sergei nodded. “That was unfortunate. But it has been . . . dealt with.”

  “Dealt with? How?”

  “Car was scanned by four separate drones on drive back. It was flagged for review and possible investigation, along with several other curfew violations. Fortunately, morning shift drone operators do not go on duty for another . . .” He glanced at his watch. “Eleven minutes. There was plenty of time for me to review incident and flag it as approved.”

  “Nicely done,” I said.

  “Lucky. If I had returned to hotel twenty minutes later . . . not so lucky.”

  “About time we had a little luck.” I felt a wave of relief. An hour ago, I wasn’t sure any of us were going to survive the morning without being arrested or killed. And now—through a combination of quick thinking, resourceful friends, and no small amount of luck—it looked like we were in the clear.

  For now, at least. And right this moment, that was good enough for me.

  Over coffee, I told Sergei what had happened in the tunnels. About stumbling on the robot colony, running into Van de Velde, hearing his recorded message, the chase under the college, and finally the Orbit Pebble and the brutal attack.

  “That is incredible story,” said Sergei. “You were more fortunate than me.”

  “More fortunate?” I said, startled. “An Orbit Pebble killed two innocent soldiers because of me, and I thought I’d signed my death warrant when Van de Velde saw my face. What happened to you that compares to that?”

  Sergei took a slow, deliberate sip from his cup. “Bad news,” he said simply.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Sergei wasn’t one to exaggerate. “You better tell me. Start from the beginning. Joy said you ran into trouble at the college?”

  “Da. I lured Van de Velde’s guards away from car, as planned. But they chased me longer than I expected. They were very determined.”

  “Van de Velde runs a tight ship.”

  “I do not know what this means.”

  “Never mind. We saw pictures of the men chasing you, taken by drones. It looked like you were a few blocks ahead of them. They caught up with you eventually?”

  “Da.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “A bit of luck. They chase me into alley. There was fence at end, with pointy wires at top.”

  “Barbed wire?”

  “Yes. Barbed wire. It was too dark to see wire, and I became tangled. The guards managed to reach the fence while I was still caught in wire.”

  “That doesn’t sound like luck to me.”

  “It did not seem so at the time, either.” Sergei lifted his shirt, revealing the bandage on his chest. “Fence tore my shirt, did this.”

  I whistled in sympathy. It looked like a nasty cut.

  Sergei lowered his shirt. “Fortunately, guards were overexcited. First to reach fence, he try to climb it. He slip near top. His leg was caught, in . . .” Sergei stuck three fingers out, like spikes.

  “In the barbs? Damn!”

  “Yes. He struggle and tear his leg. Very unfortunate.”

  This seemed like genuine sympathy—and for a soldier who’d been chasing him. I was a little surprised, but I probably shouldn’t have been. I’d seen Sergei care for these very same men at his medical station, fight to save their lives after the Juno attack. When it came to the men in his care, Sergei was a medical professional first and a midnight fugitive second.

  “How did you escape the second guard?” I asked.

  Sergei sipped his coffee again. “Guard became sick,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Convulsions. He began to shake just as he reach fence. Physical exertion—running—made him nauseous and weak. He collapse against fence.”

  “Damn. That was a piece of luck.”

  “No,” said Sergei.

  “No?”

  “His symptoms were exactly as described in Indiana field reports.”

  “Indiana field . . . Jesus, Sergei. Are you saying the soldier chasing you had the plague?”

  “I cannot be certain. But symptoms were consistent with early onset of F5-117 pathogen.”

  That was a shock, to say the least. “It’s reached Chicago.”

  “Yes.”

  Cold fear gripped me.
I took a deep, calming breath. We knew this was coming, I told myself. Make sure Sergei is okay.

  “Were you exposed, do you think?” I asked.

  “Only briefly, when I took pulse.”

  “You . . . you took the soldier’s pulse?”

  “Da.”

  “You climbed back over the barbed wire, to examine the soldier. The one having convulsions.”

  “Da.”

  “Why?”

  Sergei’s look told me he clearly didn’t understand my question. “To help him,” he said simply.

  “To help him,” I said. “Of course you did. Jesus. Well? Did you learn anything?”

  “Elevated pulse. Very sweaty. Difficulty breathing. Nausea. Convulsions became severe very quickly.”

  “Did he get a good look at you?” I asked.

  “Nyet. He was semiconscious at best. But first guard, on fence, he eventually manage to lift himself off barbs. He fell to ground on other side.”

  “I hope you got the hell out of there.”

  “Da. But not before he shoot at me.”

  “Damn! You could have been killed.”

  “It is okay. I was some distance by then.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been shot at myself,” I said, remembering my run through the tunnels under the college. “Warning shots, I think, but still. Scary as hell.”

  Sergei nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Very much. Scary, like hell.”

  I toasted him grimly with my coffee.

  “Did you lose them after that?” I asked.

  “Yes. Also, I lose myself. In my last run away from soldiers, I lose my directions. I headed east, looking for lake, but when sun came up, I found I was heading west.”

  “Damn.”

  “I was several miles from hotel. I began to head back east. Joy and your friend Black Winter found me in his car.”

  “Glad to hear that. Is Black Winter here?”

  “No. He had to return to Manhattan Consulate, and manufacture a rationale for retasking drones.”

  “I hope he’s not in any trouble. We couldn’t have found you without him.”

  “He said it would not be issue, if he acted quickly.”

  “Good. Did you run into any drones last night?”

  “No—device worked perfectly. Speaking of which . . .” He reached into his pocket and slid something to me under the table.