by D Miller
Hector slowed his breathing. He tried to speak but nothing came out. He cleared his throat. 'Hector,' he whispered. He cleared his throat again. 'Hector, I'm Hector. Hector.' He nodded, yes Hector was his name, he was almost sure of it. He slowed his breathing some more. The new robot held out his hand.
'Nice to meet you Hector Hector dude. I'm Omo.'
Hector looked at the pale hand floating in front of his eyes, slowly he extended his own, and crept it forward, watching Omo's hand all the time. He looked up at Omo, then down again as he slid his own hand into his, as they touched he gasped, and his hoover motor whined into life. He quickly shut it down.
'It's just Hector,' he said, as Omo squeezed his hand. He looked up from their joined hands to find Omo smiling at him as if he knew everything Hector was thinking and feeling. Hector felt as though there was an electric contact between them, he would never be able to let go.
Omo looked around the cottage. 'Nice place you have here dude.'
Hector noted that Omo lowered their joined hands onto the sofa, but still did not let go. 'It keeps the rain off,' he said. 'It's always fucking raining here. No that's not true, sometimes it stops for nearly five minutes at a time.'
Omo lifted his jacket to his face with his free hand and sniffed. 'Hey, I smell good! Was it you who washed my clothes dude?'
'I put some crushed flower petals in the rinsing water.'
'Good job Hector.'
Hector squeezed Omo's hand, Omo smiled, Hector's hoover motor started again. He silenced it and looked away.
'You don't mind that I, um…'
'Undressed me? I don't mind at all.'
'Your clothes were all muddy.'
Hector looked at Omo who grinned at him, and squeezed his hand.
Hector looked down, once more he turned off his hoover motor.
'What were you doing–'
'Dude I have to–'
They had both spoken at the same time.
'You first,' said Omo. Hector remembered the countdown; he took his hand from Omo's and got up, crossing to the fireplace he switched the radio back on.
'T minus ten minutes…t minus nine minutes 55 seconds…'
Hector looked at Omo. 'I need to tell you about the bombs.'
Hector and Omo sat at Hector's table. Hector had told Omo that he was the caretaker of the castle. He told him that the battalion had been gone for what seemed like a few weeks to him, but was really a year. He told him that there was a monster in the castle, and explained how on the previous day the monster had been more active than usual, then the bombs had made their appearance wanting to fulfil their destiny and Hector, as an official human being, had given them a mission to reduce the castle and all its outbuildings to rubble. While they talked Britnee's countdown continued on the radio. Hector did not tell Omo that the bombs had held him down and topped up his battery fluid, because then he would have to explain that the humans had convinced him that he was one of them. He was afraid that Omo would not like him if he knew that he had once identified with the human beings in their plan to murder enough robots so that humans were in the majority once again.
'Where is the monster?' said Omo.
'I don't know, I hear him but I can never find him, I've been all over the castle. Britnee doesn't think he's real.'
'Have you always heard the monster?'
'I'm not sure. I don't think so. Not until the battalion left and I was alone.'
'Dude, where were you before you were here?'
'I don't know. I don't know. I've never thought about that before. I don't have any memories of before the island, it seems like I have always been here. I don't understand why I haven't thought about that before. Omo, where did you–' Hector stopped. The countdown on the radio had ended. There was a distant explosion. 'I think that was Alice in the catering stores,' he said. 'Oh God it's started, what have I done? They're all going to kill themselves, because I gave them a mission.'
Omo stood up, he walked round the table to squeeze Hector's shoulder, then he sat on the sofa and patted the space next to him.
'It's good that Alice died happy,' said Omo, 'and living her dream. But what about you dude, do you have a dream?'
Hector sat down next to Omo. 'Yes. I dream about having a friend.'
'Yeah dude? What happens in your dream?'
Hector glanced at Omo, then looked away. 'I dream that we'll sit together by the fire, talking, and, that, um, he'll hold my hand.' Omo held Hector's hand. Hector looked down at their joined hands. Omo stroked the back of Hector's hand with his thumb. Hector's mouth was dry. He looked at Omo.
'What else?' said Omo.
'Um, after a while he, um, puts his arm around me.'
Omo put his arm around Hector. Hector shut his eyes and leaned against Omo. There was another explosion, a bit closer this time. 'Brenda in the non-military vehicles store,' said Hector.
'What happens next in your dream dude?'
'Um, well, next, he might, um, kiss me?'
Omo kissed Hector's mouth.
Hector lay in front of the fire with his head on Omo's chest. 'Oh God, oh God, oh God oh God oh God,' he said.
'Dude, are you OK?'
There was another explosion, this one shaking the little building and sending something metallic crashing onto the floor, where it rattled around briefly before coming to rest.
'Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God.'
'Dude?'
'Oh God I feel like I exploded and every bit of me was blasted to the end of the universe and now my atoms are floating in space and I'll never come back to earth.'
'Er, dude, you feel that in a good way, right?'
'Yes, and now, I would like to feel it again.'
'OK. Give me a minute.'
Hector raised himself up, and propped his head on his hand. He looked at Omo.
'A literal minute or a metaphorical one?'
'You know what? Never mind.'
Omo pushed Hector onto his back, bent over Hector's stomach, and kissed it.
Another explosion rattled the cottage.
Hector and Omo lay on their backs, naked in front of the dying fire.
'Omo where did you come from? How did you get here? Why are you here?'
'Isn't it obvious dude? I'm here for you.'
'But I don't know you. I feel like I know you, I feel like I've always known you. I feel like I was dying of thirst and then you gave me water. Does that make sense?'
'Baby it makes perfect sense. Dude, listen to me. I think the monster is real. I don't think the bombs are real.'
'What?'
A male human voice said, 'This is high command to Britnee. Your mission is not authorised. I repeat, you are on an unauthorised mission. I am ordering you to stand down!'
Hector sat up, he looked around.
'Dude, it's coming from the radio.'
Hector lay back down. He put his head on Omo's chest and shut his eyes. 'I thought they were back, the battalion, but it's just the mainland.'
'Britnee your mission is unauthorised. Acknowledge please.'
'He's wasting his time,' said Hector. 'Britnee won't be bossed about by anyone. They need to try and reason with her.'
'Dude, you can talk a bomb out of exploding?'
'They are smart bombs, if new information relevant to their mission comes up they have to consider aborting.'
'So Britnee can be talked out of it?'
'You mean can a bomb who isn't real be imaginary talked out of her imaginary mission? I think she will consider seriously what they have to say, then explode. She is the last one to detonate, so she's probably looking at delaying them while her daughter bombs fulfil their destiny.' Hector thought for a moment. 'The bombs are real,' he said.
'Dude, do you remember you told me that the bombs tunnelled out of the armoury? And when you found them they were on the first floor? And that you saw them climbing out of a hole in the banqueting room on the first floor. Wouldn't they have come up in the cellar if they tun
nelled from the armoury? Why would they make a hole in the ground floor, and then the first floor? Why not just walk up the stairs?'
Hector rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. There were three loud explosions in quick succession, one of his shelves collapsed at one end, spilling its contents which spent some time rolling around on the floor.
From the radio came the sound of a voice humming a tune. 'Nuuuur, nuur nuur nuur, nur nur nur nur, nuuur nuur nuur nuur…'
'Britnee please,' said a female human voice, 'stop singing that awful tune and talk to me.'
'It is not an awful tune, it is the Dambusters march. It is only a thousand years old, what short memories you humans have. It is one of the few human tunes written for a proper purpose to my mind, to celebrate specially designed bombs going off.'
'Britnee would you like your own, er, march?'
'Yes, write me one.'
'Oh well, yes, absolutely, but I will need some time.'
'You've got five minutes.'
'No, no, Britnee, to do it properly, to do you justice, for the theme tune that you truly deserve, I'm going to need much more time.'
'Ten minutes.'
'But I want to commission a composer, and have it orchestrated, and recorded by the Edinburgh Philharmonic.'
'Okay, 20 minutes.'
'It will take days, not minutes.'
'Bollocks. Nuuuur, nuur nuur nuur, nur nur nur nur, nuuur…'
Omo got up, he turned off the radio. 'Dude are we in any danger here?'
'When Britnee detonates it is possible the cottage could be hit by some imaginary masonry from the imaginary explosion, we tried to design things so that all the energy from the pretend explosions would go into reducing the castle to rubble, but…,' he shrugged.
'How long?'
'Twelve minutes.'
'Get dressed. We're leaving.'
Hector stood. He pulled on his jeans. 'We're leaving to escape from imaginary bombs,' he said.
Omo was already putting on his jacket. 'Baby don't be cross. Just because the bombs are imaginary, it doesn't mean that you imagined them. This whole place is a dream.'
'Are you saying this is my dream, alone on an island with a real monster and imaginary bombs and unending fucking rain?'
'No baby, it's the monster's dream.' Omo put his shoes on, he stood and faced Hector. 'Look at me dude, I'm going to ask you a question, it's the most important question I've ever asked you.'
'Ever? Ever?'
'We can talk about that later, right now I need you to think, it's impossible to explain how important this is. For both of us. OK?'
Hector nodded.
'Is there a number that you keep on coming across? It would be a four or five digit number. Dude can you think of anything? Anything at all? It's so important.' Omo leaned his forehead against Hector's. 'I really need you to think dude.'
Hector let go of Omo's hands, he took a step towards the fire and picked up the can of battery fluid from the shelf above. He took hold of Omo's hand, straightened out his index finger and ran it over something on the side of the can.
'Do you feel that?' he said.
Omo nodded.
Hector held up the can so they could both look at it. 'Do you see the raised dots? They are arranged so that if you read them from left to right in rows or columns there are four dots, then three, then one, then two.'
Hector and Omo were looking at a pattern of dots:
'But Hector, dude, if you read them from right to left, then it's two, one, three, four.'
'When I found you, you were unconscious. Britnee topped up your battery fluid, but you didn't wake up right away, instead you started counting down. Do you remember at all?'
Omo shook his head. 'I remember waking up in your bed, with you snoring on the couch.'
'I do not snore.'
'Sorry baby, but you do, really loudly.'
'Huh. Perhaps I was imaginary snoring.'
'Dude?'
'The number you started counting down from was four thousand, three hundred and twelve. When it stops raining it starts again in four minutes, thirty one point two seconds. When Britnee and I radioed command to report the battalion overdue we got back four beeps, then three, then one then two.'
'Baby that's just ten beeps. You can cut it up any way you want, it could be two, one, three, four.'
Hector sighed. 'Each set of beeps was separated by a burst of white noise. Four beeps, white noise, three beeps, white noise, one beep, white noise, two beeps, white noise and then it started repeating. Sometimes it seems the monster is saying words that sound like four, three, one, two.'
Omo looked doubtful.
'I bet if I just look around this cabin at random I can find something with that number on it.' Hector thought for a moment, he crossed to the bed, picked up the grey blanket and started looking round its edges until he found a label. He showed it to Omo.
'Forty three twelve military suppliers,' read Omo.
Omo hesitated, then he looked around the cottage. He walked to the other side of the table to pick up something that had fallen on the floor and looked closely at it, then he laughed. 'Look at this baby, it's a tin of sodium bicarbonate, it says, "use within 43.12 days of opening."'
There was a massive explosion, the window over the bed blew in, and Hector, who had his back to the window was blown forward into Omo; both robots fell onto the floor, with Hector landing on top of Omo. There was the sound of alarmed cawing from outside. 'Baby are you OK?'
'I think so, are you?'
Omo pushed Hector onto his side, he brushed his hand through Hector's hair, glass fell out and tinkled onto the floor. Omo stood, he held out his hands and pulled Hector to his feet, he checked Hector's front, then turned Hector around. 'Your jacket is torn at the back dude.' Omo turned Hector back round and kissed him.
Hector picked glass out of Omo's hair. He smiled. 'I'm sorry I was cross before,' he said.
'Oh baby,' said Omo. 'Was that Britnee?'
'No, too soon, I think it was Zohra in the armoury. They must have had more non-smart materiel in there than we thought. That was bigger that we expected.'
There was a second explosion, louder than the first but not as powerful. Something knocked on the door. 'It's the monster,' said Hector, 'he's out of the castle.'
'Baby it's not the monster, he can't hurt you.'
There was a third explosion, nearly as powerful as the first, followed by a loud cawing, some scuffling, and another knock on the door. Now that Hector thought about it, it was more tapping than knocking. He opened the door. Three of the strange birds stood there. They made no move to come in but shuffled on the doorstep, crowding each other and looking at Hector in their cross-eyed way.
'What the hell?' said Omo.
'Thank God, it's only the birds. They are funny looking aren't they?' said Hector. 'They found you, they were looking after you. Do you remember?'
'Nooooo.'
'You were near the cliff top, where they live. They were sheltering you from the rain. With their wings.'
The strange birds shuffled their feet again, stretched their necks and cawed. 'I think they want us to leave,' said Hector.
'Oooookay. Let's go.'
Hector picked up the radio, he turned it back on. He heard Britnee's voice. She was singing that she was off with the wraggle taggle gypsies. She sang slowly, sweetly and sadly.
'Britnee will detonate when she finishes her song.'
Omo pushed Hector out the door, the birds made way for him, crowding around his feet as Omo joined Hector, then walked ahead of them, waddling awkwardly but quickly on their short legs over the wet ground, using their folded wings as if they were ski poles. Hector and Omo followed them, aided enormously by their night vision and gyroscopic stabilisers. 'You know that tune Britnee was humming? The one she said was a military march?' said Hector. 'That was written to celebrate blowing up some dams in Europe by aeroplanes, using a specially designed bomb. Fifty-three of the bombers, all re
ally young men, died in the raid, and nearly 2,000 people drowned when the dams burst, civilians, and prisoners of war. But most of the dead were forced labourers, they were slaves, like, um, like us.'
'A thousand years dude. My my.'
'Omo what are you looking for? Why do you keep looking up?'
'I'm trying to see the stars dude.'
Hector laughed. 'The thing about it raining all the time is, rain means clouds, and clouds mean you can't see the stars. Ever.'
The strange birds waddled on, sometimes turning as if to check that Omo and Hector were still following them.
'Omo why did you ask me about a number? Why is it important?'
'Baby you need to be brave.'
'Oh dear.'
'The number is your ticket out of here. This place, it's a mad man's dream. It's a computer program that links you, and me, to the unconscious mind of a lunatic. Outside of this nightmare you have friends who love you, and want you back.'
'Are you one of those friends?'
'Yes.'
Hector stopped, he held up the radio, Britnee's voice was swelling on a final high note.
'Goodbye General Hector,' she said. 'My daughters have fulfilled their destiny. Thank you for helping us. Thank you for helping me.'
There was a click, Hector looked at Omo who pushed him to the ground.
'Oh,' said Britnee, 'oh, ooh, ooooh, ooooooooh, oh yes, yes, yes, OH YES, YES YES GOD YESSS.'
A massive explosion ripped through the night, the noise was huge, it wiped out thought, past, present and future. Hector lay on the wet grass, Omo lay on top of him, they listened to the sound of chunks of masonry hitting the soggy earth, and crashing into Hector's cottage. The birds hopped around cawing. The inundation seemed to go on for a long time. Omo wouldn't let Hector get up until nothing had crashed to earth for 30 seconds, and only the sound of the unending rain disturbed the night, then he helped Hector to his feet. Hector looked back at his cottage, it had been smashed down to its foundations. Behind him and Omo the ground was littered with pieces of masonry from the castle, the biggest was perhaps as big as the metal bucket he had used to mop the floors, the smallest like a sliver of left over soap from the ladies latrine (the soap in the men's latrine never seemed to get any smaller). The density of the detritus decreased as it got closer to them, the last piece had come to rest perhaps half a metre from where they had lain on the ground.