by Tom Slemen
One hour later, Doggerty was poised to enact the holdup routine. He mouthed the words of menace into his microphone and took an imaginary gun out of a nonexistent inside pocket, and at the far end of the room, Mechanizmo pulled a very real antique Browning automatic out of its inside pocket. Out of the loudspeaker positioned behind the mouth of the robot, Doggerty’s electronically disguised and amplified voice boomed out: ‘Okay, no funny business or this hostage gets a hole in the head!’
Each phoneme of the sentence was delivered with chilling intent. Doggerty got carried away and pulled the imaginary trigger, and the impulses from the sensors in the glove of the body-suit caused Mechanizmo to fire the Browning pistol. The bullet blew a hole in the wall - inches from an old oval-framed painting. That bullet whistled past Rob Davenport’s nose.
Harry was incensed. ‘Jimmy! What did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you to be extra careful with the gun?’
‘Oh my God; my finger twitched Harry, I’m sorry!’ Doggerty tremblingly apologised.
‘That’s it, were not using bullets - were going to end up killing someone.’ Rob ordered Harry to remove the clip from the pistol or he was closing the whole job down.
After a while Roach realised Rob Davenport was right; there was no need to give Mechanizmo a loaded gun - not with someone like Doggerty at the controls - someone would end up murdered.
Unknown to the four people in that room, a pair of eyes were watching everything through digital binoculars. From the window of a dingy bedsit across the street, an old adversary of Harry Roach, known as Sniffer Doolan watched, and listened. A tiny radio microphone had been inserted into the outside ventilation grille of the robot shop, and it was working much better than anticipated. Sniffer had earned his nickname in the underworld by sniffing out scams before they were pulled off. Sniffer put them to his own use before the rivals could put their plans into action.
Back over at the shop, Roach was concerned about the glassy-looking eyes of Mr Mechanizmo, but Rob said he had the answer. He found a pair of mirrored sunglasses and placed them on the robot.
‘Perfect,’ Roach walked around the robot, scrutinizing it from every angle until he was satisfied it could pass as a human. ‘Well, it looks like we’re ready for business gentlemen,’ Roach declared.
‘So this is it, Harry?’ Doggery was so excited. He’d be at the controls. For once, everyone was relying on him. He wasn’t living in Harry’s shadow now.
‘Yes, Jim, this is it. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll have about a million plus in our hands tonight. Now, remember, if anything goes seriously wrong, we resort to plan B. We all go our separate ways and it’s every man for himself - but let’s keep our fingers crossed eh?’
Jim crossed his fingers out of superstition - and Mechanizmo made a corresponding gesture with his leather-gloved fingers.
They all seated themselves at their prearranged positions. Alex and Harry were stationed at their computer to monitor the state of the robot and give alternative instructions, whilst Jim stood upright in his virtual reality body-suit, focussing his mind. Rob stood at the window of the shop, peeping through a gap in the blinds on the lookout for any unwanted visitors to the shop.
Roach nodded to Alex, who activated the main control computer. A map of the route between the shop and the bank appeared on the screen. The robot walked across the room, and Rob Davenport nervously opened the door to allow it out of the shop. The world’s first robotic bank robber was on his way to seize over a million for his creators.
Doggerty was perspiring inside his virtual-reality helmet. As the robot walked down the street outside, Doggerty could even feel its heavy feet pounding the sidewalk via the vibrating transducers in his boots. He saw what the robot was seeing on high-definition screens in front of his eyes in the helmet. He could feel everything except the wind on that mechanoid’s face. On a main monitor in the room, Roach and the other accomplices watched the scenes being beamed back from the robot’s two camera eyes.
‘Cross the road Jim,’ Roach told his friend, directing him to the ideal place for a spot of auto-theft.
Jim Doggerty walked on the spot, lifting each leg up and down in turn as he went through the motions of walking. He reached out and the index finger of his glove pressed absolutely nothing in mid-air. Four-hundred yards away, the robot pressed the button of a pedestrian crossing. Everyone in the room saw the green man icon flash on a traffic-light post, and they all heard its beep-beep-beep. The robot crossed the street with the other pedestrians.
Nerves began to get the better of Doggerty. ‘I need to go the toilet, Harry,’ he said in a trembling voice.
‘Tie a knot in it!’ Roach yelled back. Jim’s bladder always acted up when the going got tough. ‘Go down that alleyway over there,’ Roach instructed him as he studied the shaky footage on the plasma screen.
‘Where?’ Doggerty asked.
‘On the right! And hurry up!’ Roach was becoming impatient.
Doggerty trotted on the spot, and panted. The robot hurried over to Baker’s Alley, one of the darkest secluded back streets in the city.
The robot surveyed a number of cars in the alley, then went over to one vehicle – a Zarki 8000 electric saloon – and punched its gloved metallic fist through its side window. An alarm sounded, and a mile away, Doggerty – now sitting on a dining chair to simulate the car seat - manipulated the robot’s hand so it tore open the console of the Zarki and wrenched out its screeching horn-speaker.
A knife slid sideways into view on the main screen and in Doggerty’s helmet screens. The robot was about to be mugged as it sat at the wheel.
‘Stealing cars is illegal man,’ said a curly-haired thug with a face tattoo. He held a hunting knife at the neck of Mechanizmo. ‘Get out the car and give me what you’ve got,’ the violent robber told the mock man.
‘Get rid of that no-mark,’ Harry said to Doggerty.
‘With pleasure,’ was Doggerty’s reply.
Mechanizmo got out the vehicle and faced the car-jacker, who was alternating glances between the top of the lonely alleyway and his latest victim.
‘Your wallet, come on,’ said the mugger to Mechanizmo. He thrust out an open palm, ready to take the easy money.
The robot flexed its piezoelectric and hydraulic muscles and delivered a high-velocity left-hook to the jaw of the robber which would send him into a coma for a fortnight.
Doggerty crouched back down and sat on his seat, and Mechanizmo copied his movements as it sat in the Zarki 8000. The robot started the vehicle with an illegal unlocker key and the vehicle faintly hummed as it sped off down Baker’s Alley towards the road, steered by the distant hands of Doggerty. The bank was a few minutes away now.
Back at the robotics shop, Rob Davenport experienced a palpitating heart as he heard a noise outside on the street. He opened the heavy curtain and peeped through the grimy window to see a policeman standing there. Their eyes met. Rob closed the curtain and told Roach the bad news.
‘It can’t be serious if there’s just one copper there,’ Roach reasoned. ‘See what he wants and don’t let him in if he hasn’t got a search warrant.’
Rob was nauseous as he opened the door and stepped out into the street, closing the door behind him. ‘Yes, constable?’
‘Sorry to bother you sir,’ said the smiling policeman, ‘but I’m investigating the disappearance of a street-sweeping robot –‘
‘Street sweeping robot?’ said Rob with guilt written all over his face.
‘Yes, its cart and brush were found in a garage in this street this morning,’ the police constable told him in a soft voice, ‘did you see or hear anything this morning?’
No I didn’t officer. Sorry,’ said Rob, his heart still pounding.
There was a brief silent pause which ended when the policeman said, ‘Do you mind if I come in your shop for a few moments?’
‘I’ve got family staying over, so I’d rather you didn’t,’ was Rob’s feeble excuse, but the policema
n went and pushed the door of the shop open anyway.
‘Excuse me constable,’ Rob stood in his way. ‘Have you got a search warrant?’
‘No, will this do?’ he produced a vintage revolver from his coat pocket. It was nothing like the sophisticated modern firearms the police of today used.
‘Hey, that’s illegal officer,’ Rob said, gazing at the business end of the weapon.
‘Shut up and turn around,’ Sniffer Doolan whispered, and Rob complied with his order. Sniffer prodded the barrel into Rob’s lower spine and pushed him into the shop.
Harry Roach glanced away from the screen for a moment to the back of the shop saw Rob walking slowly towards him with a familiar-looking officer of the law. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said swivelling around in the chair to face his old adversary.
‘There’s a parking space over there,’ Alex told Doggerty, pointing at the screen, then sighed when Mechanizmo raced past it in the Zarki 8000.
‘I know where to park, leave it to me,’ Doggerty retorted. It was exceedingly difficult, trying to control a car by teleprescence and look for a parking space in the capital.
Alex and Jim still weren’t aware of Sniffer Doolan’s presence, and Roach didn’t tell them in case he distracted his friend. One lapse in his concentration and Doggerty could crash the Zarki and blow the whole job.
Sniffer Doolan sat down with the revolver barrel pressed in Rob’s back. He put his index finger to his lip and softly murmured the words, ‘No talking.’
Roach gritted his teeth. All the Irish master of disguise had to do now was sit back and let the robot return with the money, and every penny of it would be his.
The Zarki was parked at last in a cul-de-sac. Mechanizmo left the stolen vehicle and darted from the dead-end street towards the bank.
Inside Carlton Bank the over-weight and over-tanned security guard Roger was chatting to a young female student waiting to be served in one of the four queues. The two plexiglass doors of the main entrance parted and in walked the human-looking robot. It walked through the lobby and the second set of doors opened automatically with a faint swish. Mechanizmo walked straight to the head of the first queue of people and waited to hold up the place as Doggerty readied himself seven miles away.
‘Hey! Hey! Big Dude!’ the guard cried out to Mechanizmo, ‘Get to the back of the queue man.’
The robot, awaiting instructions from afar, did not respond.
‘Excuse me miss,’ the guard brushed past the female student he’d been attempting to impress earlier. He walked up to the ignorant customer.
‘Hey mister queue-jumper didn’t you hear me?’ Roger the guard said, and he glanced at his own reflection as he addressed the robot, admiring himself.
Without turning, Mechanizmo threw its right arm around the show-off guard’s neck and held him in a choking, vice-like grip. To the startled bank teller, the robot’s fifty-watt voice said, ‘Okay, no funny business or this hostage gets a hole in the head!’
Waves of sighs, gasps and half-hearted attempts at screams filled the air. The queues of people moved away from the bank robber with the guard in a head-lock. When the robot produced Roach’s unloaded Browning automatic and poked the barrel in the guard’s right eye socket, the gaggle of customers stampeded out of the bank.
'No, not in the eyes!' screamed the guard, and he wet himself.
‘Hand over everything you have there miss or your guard's a dead man!’ Doggerty said through Mechanizmo’s speaker mouth. The bank teller seemed in shock, and she simply stared at Mechanizmo with her mouth open.
‘No! Let me go please!’ a crimson-faced Roger begged the robber to release its grip.
‘Show me the money!’ boomed the robot, and the teller snapped out of her catatonic trance and started to pass bag after bag of money under the window.
‘Don’t stop or he dies, and I know you have more of that!’ Mechanizmo said, watching the green bags containing thousands of pounds being squeezed through the gap under the window. The robot put the gun in its pocket and released Roger. He fell to the floor, gasping for oxygen. Mechanizmo took a large holdall bag from inside its jacket and began to fill it with the bulging bags of money. The guard got to his feet and somehow managed to retrieve the Browning pistol from the coat of the robot. Without a word of warning he aimed the gun at Mechanizmo’s back and pulled the trigger repeatedly. The unloaded firearm made clicking sounds. The robot turned around, prised the gun from Roger’s grip, then took a swipe at him with its fist. The blow broke his arm, shattered his collar-bone and tore off his rotator cuff, and the guard fell on the floor, yelling in agony.
‘That’s enough! Get out of there!’ Alex shouted at Doggerty, back at the shop, but Doggerty was determined to put as many of those beautiful green moneybags into the holdall as he could.
The robot walked away with its cache of loot, and as it reached the lobby of the bank, a teller pressed the sole of her shoe on a floor stud-button that activated the bullet-proof plexiglass doors. The main entrance doors slid shut as well, so Mechanizmo was sandwiched between two bullet-proof partitions. Knock-out gas seeped into the lobby through a ceiling grille.
The robot began to pound away at the closed glass doors of the main entrance with its metal fists. The tellers looked on, confused and astounded at the bank robber’s apparent immunity to the potent knock-out gas and they were also amazed at his incredible strength. Mechanizmo charged repeatedly at the doors until they gave way. The doors crashed down and the robot walked out onto the street. Half the members of the crowd who had run out of the bank and a number of bystanders outside the building started to faint as the sleeping-gas seeped out from the lobby and drifted into the street. Among all the ensuing panic and chaos, the anonymous-looking robot slipped back to the cul-de-sac, got into the Zarki 8000 and joined the stream of traffic heading eastward.
‘How long will he take to get back?’ Sniffer asked Roach in a low but menacing voice.
‘I don’t know,’ Roach told him with a look of disgust. The parasitic Doolan was hated by most people in the underworld.
‘Well, I’ve got all day,’ said Sniffer gleefully, his gun still trained on Alex’s back. ‘It’ll be worth the wait I think Harry.’
Twenty minutes later, the Zarki 8000 was abandoned behind a derelict casino. Mechanizmo made the rest of the journey home on foot, avoiding the omniscient street cameras by walking down narrow streets and alleyways, with Doggerty guiding him every step of the way. The robot was a few minutes away from walking home with almost a million pounds.
The tension in the shop was electric. Alex, Rob, Harry and Sniffer Doolan watched the shaky image of the robot’s point of view on the screen as it headed down the back street towards the shop. Doggerty was walking on the spot, his face streaked with tracks of perspiration. Then the unexpected happened. A policeman with a German shepherd dog approached Mechanizmo. It was that same dog that had barked at the robot in its previous incarnation as a road sweeper. Once again, that dog began to bark hysterically at the mechanical man with no scent.
‘Rexy!’ the officer shouted at his loyal dog, ‘Calm down boy! Rexy!’
The hound lunged at the robotic bank robber and its fangs tore into the packed holdall. Mechanizmo did not react in the immediate way a human would to a canine attack, and this made the policeman suspicious – this and the way the banknotes fluttered from the tear in the bag. The officer had heard the news about the recent robbery and vaguely recalled how the description of the robber mentioned a dark-green trilby – just like the one this man was wearing.
‘Hey you there! Hold it!’ warned the officer as he aimed his recoil-less thirty-eight automatic at the stranger’s back.
Back in the shop, Doggerty turned slightly and drew a phantom gun, and simultaneously, Mechanizmo turned and waved the unloaded Browning at the policeman and his dog.
The lawmen of that day and age took special reflex-sharpening drugs, so, in a flash, the policeman let loose three rounds. The slugs s
lammed into the robot’s chest plate and punctured a power cell, causing an electrical fire to flare up. A fountain of crackling blue sparks erupted from the chest of the mechanical simulacrum, which perplexed the policeman. He had naturally assumed he’d fired upon a human, not some robot. Rexy slipped from his leash and bounded off towards Mechanizmo, and the robot took aim at the canine with the empty pistol. In the twinkling of an eye the policeman fired four more rounds at the head of the robot, and its plastic and metal skull burst open. A cloud of gallium glitter dusted the air as the Quantium brain exploded.
‘That damned policeman! He’s ruined everything!’ Sniffer Doolan ran out of the shop and headed for the staggering robot. Smoke was billowing from its electronic innards. The policeman saw the Irish crook in uniform and took him to be a colleague, until Sniffer fired at him. The bullet whistled past the policeman’s head and ricocheted from a wall. The officer took cover in a doorway in the back street.
Sniffer Doolan ran up to the robot and tried to pull the torn bag of money from its clenched hand. Rexy jumped up at the robot and knocked it off balance with his two paws, and the heavy-famed robot fell against Sniffer and almost crushed him against the wall. The bogus policeman screamed as one of his ribs cracked. Mechanizmo began to smoulder, and tongues of flame emerged from the bullet holes in its chest. There were a series of electrical flashes and Sniffer, pinned hopelessly against the wall, began to twitch and shake violently as if he was in a speeded-up film as the bolts of alternating current zapped his body. The power cell at the heart of the robot exploded and its corrosive acid and inflammable chemicals engulfed man and machine in a fireball that ignited the banknotes in the holdall. Sniffer shot himself rather than be burned alive.
‘What now?’ Rob Davenport asked Roach in a state of shock.
‘Plan B,’ Harry Roach answered, and headed for the door. ‘Every man for himself,’ he said, and cringed at the cliché.
As the sound of wailing police cars and ambulances grew in intensity, Roach, Doggerty, Alex and Rob left the robotics shop and split up.