by Alex Scarrow
A moment later they were crashing through bracken, twigs and branches, thorns slapping and tearing at Liam’s face as Bob continued to bound through the woods like the world’s clumsiest gazelle. Liam was still struggling to get some air as each loping stride brought his ribs crashing down against the hard slope of Bob’s shoulder and slammed his lungs empty of breath like a blacksmith pumping vigorously at his bellows.
‘Bob!’ he managed to gasp after a while. ‘Stop!’
‘Just a moment,’ his voice rumbled back. ‘We are not safe yet.’
Bob scrambled down a steep slope, almost losing his balance several times. At the bottom he waded knee deep through a stream, sending showers of spray up into Liam’s face. On the far side he scrambled up a slope then, finally reaching the cover of a large fallen oak tree, he bounded over its thick trunk and hunkered down on the far side. He eased Liam off his shoulder on to the ground where his grey eyes quickly studied him.
‘Are you hurt, Liam O’Connor?’
Liam struggled for air. ‘You mean … apart from a few cracked ribs?’
Bob scowled sceptically.
‘I’m … fine … I’m fine,’ Liam gasped, waving the comment away. ‘Just joking.’
From the far side of the stream, up the slope opposite, echoed the sound of dozens of voices calling out to each other. A search party already beating the woods for them. Liam wondered how much effort they’d put into that. Having the Sheriff of Nottingham as a prisoner might have been a bargaining chip if Locke intended to deal with John. But clearly that wasn’t his plan. The Grail was his true prize. Leverage that would work on Richard alone.
‘Bob,’ Liam whispered.
Bob was still scanning the slope opposite.
‘Bob! They have the Grail!’
The support unit turned to look down at him. ‘Are you sure?’
He nodded towards the slope and the camp back in that direction. ‘It’s over there. The leader of those bandits … he is a time traveller, just like we thought! But he’s not one of us. He’s not, you know … a TimeRider.’
‘Who has sent him?’
‘I didn’t really understand. But he’s … he’s come back to get it! The Grail. I think it’s back in that hut! Or, if not, Locke knows where it is.’
‘Locke?’
‘The leader! James Locke,’ he hissed impatiently. ‘The leader!’
‘I see. You wish to return to retrieve it?’
Actually no, he really didn’t. Going back to the camp was actually the last thing he wanted to do. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I think … we have to go back.’
Just then he felt the fallen oak tree’s trunk vibrate. He sat forward and looked along the trunk towards the splayed and unearthed roots at the end — and saw the dark, fluttering, wraithlike form of The Hood, crouched like a beady-eyed bird of prey looking for a morsel of food.
‘Oh, come on,’ he uttered, ‘give us a break!’
CHAPTER 60
1194, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
The Hood jumped down, and the trunk, free of its burden, flexed with a woody creak that disturbed several crows nearby. The shrouded form slowly pulled itself from a squat on the ground to its full height.
Bob turned to face it, his arms and legs flexed, ready for action.
‘Bob! Be careful! It’s a metal robotic thing!’
The Hood’s head slowly turned towards Liam. In the shadows he thought he saw the faintest blue glimmer of its LED eyes.
‘Warning!’ boomed Bob. ‘You are not authorized to participate in events that will change history!’
The Hood’s gaze smoothly panned towards Bob. There seemed to be an unspoken challenge in the way it silently regarded him. Then without warning its glove-covered hands pulled the cloak up over its body and tossed it aside.
Liam gasped at the sight, horrific in a way, yet also fascinating. Beneath the cape its form had looked so convincingly human. But now exposed, as he looked at the metal frame, specked with blisters of rust and flecks of old combat-green paint, he wondered how anyone could ever have been fooled into thinking this thing a man. Flesh-coloured plastic, in some places scorched black, in other places melted and bubbled like toasted cheese, hung from its arms and shoulders and neck. In some areas it was actually entirely unmarked and looked very much like real human skin, hanging in sagging loops like the putrefying flesh of some undead being.
‘It’s an old war robot,’ said Liam. ‘That’s what Locke said.’
‘Affirmative,’ replied Bob. ‘Configuration matches Korean model, dating from early 2040s.’
‘Right,’ nodded Liam. ‘Uh … does it — can it talk?’
‘It can communicate using synthetic speech circuits. Not convincing. This functionality may have been disabled.’
‘Does it understand us?’
Bob’s eyes remained on it, watching, waiting for the thing to make its first move. ‘Yes it does.’
‘Could we … could we convince it, you know, to n-not hurt us? Be our friend?’
The robot’s gaze swivelled smoothly towards Liam, its dented and corroded metal skull cocked on one side, blue lights regarding him with cold curiosity for a moment.
Bob regarded the robot. His database included a catalogue of AI variants — family trees of artificial intelligence code, from the first viable self-cognitive versions developed in the late 2020s right up to his version number compiled in 2053. Bob identified this model robot as an old North Korean combat unit. Mass-produced in the mid-2040s and used to devastating effect in the first Pacific Oil War. His records indicated that hundreds of thousands of South Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese as well as their own North Korean civilians were butchered by this model. They were unreliable, with a friendly/hostile identification software that was prone to error. Understandable, given the original AI was pirated code adapted to work with imported Chinese chip sets.
Bob decided to attempt a Bluetooth handshake. Beneath the Chinese or Korean language interface would be a common programming language.
[W.G. Systems AI V7.234c. Please identify]
The robot turned its gaze slowly on to Bob.
[SolSun Inc.: V3.23 -
: 29-06-45]
[Communication protocol. Please select: ASCII-English. Hexadecimal. Binary]
[Selecting Ascii-English]
‘We have a communication channel open,’ said Bob.
Liam nodded. ‘All right … Well, could you ask it to be a good fella and leave us alone?’
‘Negative. It will have mission parameters, just as I do.’ Bob decided that finding out what it thought its mission was would be the most useful line of enquiry.
[Specify mission parameters. Highest priority first]
[Mission Priorities — Primary:
FOLLOW ORDERS IDENT J. LOCKE
— Secondary: Locate, identify hostile forces in target combat zone]
Bob turned to Liam. ‘Its code has been hacked.’
[Identify ‘target combat zone’]
The robot’s gaze shifted to the trees, the thick branches of oak leaves and acorns above them, then back on Bob.
[Target Combat Zone — 35°43’56.27”N/127°47’19.17”E. Kumwon-San, South Korea]
‘Bob! What’s going on — tell me? What’s it saying?’
‘It appears to be following mission instructions from a war that ended in 2049. It believes it is in a Korean jungle. It also believes the year is 2047. This unit was not properly decommissioned. Its mission program is still active but has been crudely hacked to make it follow the verbal commands of J. Locke.’
‘Well … can’t you just tell it that it’s wrong?’
‘Negative. It has no way of identifying the correct year.’
Liam eased himself slowly back along the ground away from the Hood’s unmoving form. ‘Is there not a way you can, you know … convince him to — ’
‘I will try.’
[Information: current location is 53°9′56.49"N/1°5′1.43"W. Sherwood For
est, England]
[Negative]
[You are outside the target combat zone]
The robot’s response took a moment to come back.
[Current location coordinate offset is within target combat zone]
Bob tried a different approach.
[Information: current date is 12 June 1194]
[Negative. Present time data is 11-03-2047, 07.45 hours]
[Transmitting correct time data]
The robot received the information, then cocked its head curiously.
[Transmitted data
. Data confirmed as valid. Please wait]
[You are beyond mission parameters. You are not in the target combat zone]
[
Data conflict]
[Deactivate combat status immediately]
The robot’s blue LED eyes dimmed and flickered out. And its frame sagged and shuddered.
Liam clapped his hands together. ‘Bob! You did it!’ He got up off the ground and took a cautious step towards the immobile statue of corroded metal and melted plastic. ‘Jay-zus-’n’-Mary, you made it turn himself off, so you did! You’re a bleedin’ genius!’
Bob shook his head. ‘It is not turned off. It is merely … considering …’
Liam’s eyebrows arched and he stopped mid-stride. ‘Oh, in that case …’ He took several steps back. ‘Couldn’t we just hit it over the head? You know? While it’s busy considering things?’
‘An offensive action may activate its self-defence routine.’
‘Oh. How about we just run?’
Bob’s mouth had just opened to reply when the statue stirred to life with the soft whirr of servo-motors.
[Primary mission priority override]
The blue eyes glowed once more.
[Verbal command from J. LOCKE (password verified)]
[Command received 4 minutes, 34 seconds ago]
[Command status: active]
[Command = ‘kill them both’]
Bob eased his broadsword out of its sheath; the scrape of metal on leather seemed deafeningly loud in the stillness of the woods. The noise seemed to trigger a reaction from the robot. It pulled its own sword from a scabbard and, holding the weight of the long blade effortlessly in one hand, it advanced towards Bob.
‘Liam O’Connor, you should run.’
CHAPTER 61
1194, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
The robot’s last step took it within striking range and with a whiplash movement it swung its sword at Bob’s head. Bob quickly raised his own, parrying the blow with the sharp, vibrating clatter and ring of metal on metal.
Bob’s riposte was a lightning-fast lunge towards the robot’s ‘armpit’ — hydraulic fluid pipes momentarily exposed between plates of pitted metal armour. The lunge nipped at one of the pipes, causing a clear yellow liquid to spray out under pressure.
The robot swung its arm down, snapping Bob’s sword like balsa wood. It reached out and grabbed Bob by his neck, lifting his feet off the ground and hurling him like a child’s toy against the fallen oak. He bounced off the stout trunk. The tree shuddered under the heavy impact.
‘You must run!’ barked Bob as he struggled to get to his knees.
Liam shook his head. ‘I can help!’
‘RUN!’
The robot reached down and grasped hold of Bob’s right ear in an attempt to lift him up off the ground. But with a loud ripping sound it was torn from his head, spattering them both with a thick gout of blood. The robot tossed the ear aside and reached down again, this time picking Bob up by his neck, raising him above its head.
Liam could see a fine spray of the yellow liquid puffing out from the rubber pipe that Bob had managed to nick with his blade. It was pumping out in arterial pulses …
Like blood … just like robot blood.
The robot carried Bob, still aloft, like some sort of trophy, towards the trunk and then slammed him down across it. Liam thought he heard something snap as Bob grunted and rolled off the side, falling heavily to the ground.
Jay-zus. It’s going to kill him!
The robot thrust the sword still held in its other hand through Bob’s left upper arm, skewering him to the trunk, like a butterfly pinned in a collector’s cabinet.
‘Bob!’ Liam shrieked. Bob struggled to wrench the sword out of the wood, but its blade was buried at least a foot deep into the old dead oak.
With Bob pinned down, the robot now slowly turned round to focus on Liam. Blue eyes softly glowing, evaluating its next target.
‘Please!’ Liam’s voice quaked. ‘I’m not in your war!’
It advanced on him.
‘Hey there! H-hey! James Locke said to go an’ get me, right? Not … n-not kill me?’
Liam fell as he took a backwards step, landing amid a cluster of nettles. The robot stood over him and then slowly squatted down, placing one glove-covered hand around Liam’s throat.
‘P-please! I can help Mr Locke! … I can h-help … h-him!’
Behind the robot, Liam thought he heard something crack and rip. Or maybe that was the sound of the tendons in his own throat. He felt the robot’s fingers begin to compress his windpipe, firm and steady like someone winding a vice closed, feeling tender muscle and trachea, cartilage and his Adam’s apple pressing in on each other. His eyes saw white sparks, his ears roared with pulsing blood struggling to find a passage up to his brain through a dangerously compressed carotid artery.
Then suddenly hot foul-smelling liquid was splashing into his face.
The hand round his neck twitched painfully as if attempting to snap it, but then released its grip as if someone had suddenly decided to spin the vice’s handle the other way. The hand dropped down on to his chest like the lifeless appendage of a paralysed man.
His vision cleared again and he saw the robot’s left arm dangling by its side. From beneath its armpit the rubber pipe flapped like a serpent, gushing yellow liquid in hot spurts. The combat robot flopped to its knees, blue-light eyes looking down uncomprehendingly at its powerless arm.
Behind it he saw Bob standing triumphantly with the broken, jagged remnant of his sword in one hand. His other hand, his left arm, was a dangling tattered stump that ended with the fragments of an elbow and dangling loops of frayed tendons and muscles.
Bob thrust the sharp edge of his broken sword into a small gap between the robot’s armour-plated shoulders and twisted. The robot lurched and more of the hot clear yellow liquid spurted out under high pressure.
The robot’s half metal, half plastic-human face seemed to express something. Surprise. Shock. Then finally, with a whirr of hidden motors working against hydraulic pressure that no longer existed, it collapsed on to its side.
‘We were fortunate. It appears the combat unit’s rear motion sensor panel was damaged in an earlier fight,’ said Bob matter-of-factly as he began to examine the ragged remains of his left arm. The arterial spurts of his own opened veins already beginning to cease as the blood clogged into a thick sealing glue.
‘Bob!’ Liam managed to gulp. ‘Your … your arm!’ He looked round Bob’s wide frame to see the rest of it was still pinned to the tree.
‘I will live,’ he said gruffly. He looked down at the robot. ‘It is still active. Although motion on its combat chassis has been disabled.’
Liam could see the blue-light eyes burning angrily still and its head turning frantically left and right with the loud whirr of a small overworked motor, as if that alone was going to move its heavy lifeless chassis across the forest floor.
‘What — what did you do to it?’ Liam struggled to talk. His throat was killing him.
‘I severed a major hydraulic pipe. The liquid provides the pressure system that enables the servo-motors to activate limb movements.’ He examined the disabled robot. ‘A design flaw of mechanical units,’ he said dismissively. ‘They cannot heal themselves. They are old technology.’
‘Right.’
Bob started looking at the ground until he spotte
d what he was after. He stooped down and picked up a rock the size of a human head.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Liam.
‘This unit is still active. It needs to be destroyed.’
As Bob raised the rock over his head Liam found himself looking away. Even though it was just a machine on the ground, the plastic skin from the nose down made at least half its head look too human for him to want to watch it being smashed in.
He heard several heavy thuds followed by a clanking and the clattering whirr of some part of it still working frantically. Another final thud and the noise stopped.
‘Is it … dead?’
‘It is dead,’ Bob replied.
Liam turned to see a flattened hump of crumpled metal and shredded flesh-coloured plastic.
‘Before this unit found us, you indicated we need to return to the camp.’
Liam looked at Bob. ‘We can’t go back … you’re in no condition to fight. Not like that.’
‘My combat proficiency has merely been reduced by fifty per cent. I am still an effective combat platform.’
Liam looked at him. Perhaps he was right. Even with one arm he pitied any poor man who decided to stand in Bob’s way. But, looking at the pitiful dangling shreds of his left arm, he didn’t feel he had the heart to ask — no, to order — Bob to fight his way back into the camp.
Then his gaze rested on the robot’s discarded dark cape, then the tattered rags and woollen hose that still clad the dead robot’s body.
‘All right … All right, I’ve got an idea. I guess we should bury the robot?’
‘Correct. The metal will corrode in due course.’
‘Well, let’s undress it first.’ He looked at Bob and cocked an eyebrow. ‘Guess who you’re going to pretend to be …’
CHAPTER 62
1194, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
Liam eyed them cautiously as he stepped through the camp. There were expressions of hostility. Someone picked up and threw a handful of horse dung at him. It broke up in mid-air and rained down his chest as Liam covered his face behind bound hands in case there was any more coming his way.