Runaway Robot

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  She motioned to me to pick up the hand and tutted quickly towards the exit.

  There was a hand on the shelf all right, but it wasn’t my hand. It was huge. Three times the size of a human hand. It had long pointy fingers made of jointed steel. When I tried to pick it up, it was so heavy I could hardly lift it, let alone carry it. Not with my one remaining hand, anyway. So I had to rest it on my shoulder like a soldier carrying a rifle and follow her back the way we came. I had to rush to catch up with her, or I would have been locked in there forever, lost as that long-lost coffin.

  We passed the helmet thing again. It was looking at me. Again. Only this time it wasn’t a trick of the light. Its eyes flickered blue. I tried to hurry past it. Happy to Help was way ahead now. The light followed her. I could see the cone of light ahead, but everything around me was in darkness—

  Then out of that darkness something grabbed me.

  I didn’t want to look, but I had to.

  A metal hand! But this one was on the end of a metal arm. And the metal arm was attached to the shoulder of a massive metal body. The massive metal body was lying flat on the shelf. At one end of the metal body was the helmet with the flickering blue eyes. Armadillo-style plated steel fingers curled round my flesh. The hand moved my hand up and down.

  I was nearly rigid with fear. Then something flashed across my brain. ‘Are you,’ I said, ‘shaking hands with me?’

  I AM THE WORLD’S MOST POLITE ROBOT.

  I’m used to that voice now. But the first time I heard it, it was a bit of a shock. It’s a voice that could stop traffic. I wish you could hear it. A mixture of wind and steel – like bagpipes playing inside a washing machine. But with words.

  ‘Is this your hand?’ I asked, turning round so it could see the hand hanging over my shoulder.

  I CAN ANSWER ALMOST ANY QUESTION.

  ‘Is this your hand?’

  SORRY. I AM UNABLE TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

  The helmet turned towards me. Two eyes set in two huge, dark pits sparked blue as they saw me. The mouth was as wide as a letterbox and burned an electric-fire yellow when he spoke. Imagine looking into the slot of a toaster, and you’ll know what I mean. In fact, there was a slight smell of burning electricity about him.

  I tried to stay calm. I could see that there was a catch inside the metal hand that more or less matched another catch inside his handless wrist.

  ‘Hold your wrist up,’ I said.

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT.

  ‘Great. I’ve never had a servant before. Do you know how this fastens?’

  I AM THE WORLD’S MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE ROBOT.

  ‘So DO you know how to put your hand back on, then?’

  I AM SORRY. I AM UNABLE TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION. AND NOW . . . THE NATIONAL ANTHEM, ‘GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS KING . . .’

  Then this thing started to sing. Well, not sing, exactly, but I don’t know what else to call the noise it was making. It wasn’t like human singing. More like a tractor singing with a backing track of steam and hammers. Surely, I thought, when she heard all the noise, Happy to Help would come back and help me out of this situation . . .

  Then – mid chorus – it stopped singing and leaned forward, as though thinking of something.

  IT IS GOOD MANNERS TO STAND DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.

  ‘I AM standing. You’re the one who’s sitting down.’

  The metal suit didn’t speak or move. Maybe I’d been a bit rude. Can you be rude to a chunk of metal? I tried to make up for it by starting a different conversation.

  ‘Are you in Lost Property because you’ve lost something? Or are you in Lost Property because you’re lost? I mean, are you the lost thing or the loser?’

  I HAVE GOT LOST.

  Inside the suit, I could hear cogs clicking and wheels whirring. I thought it might be the sound of robot tears. I said, ‘Shall we try to put your hand back on?’ Thinking this might cheer it up.

  But it was not the sound of robot tears. It was the sound of robot effort as he tried to stand up. Its eyes flashed blue. Its mouth burned bright orange. The helmet ducked into the aisle. Arms reached out. One leg steadied itself on the floor. Then . . .

  I was waiting for the other leg to appear but there was no other leg.

  ‘Whoa!’ I said. ‘Don’t stand up. You’ve only got one leg.’

  IT IS CUSTOMARY TO STAND DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.

  ‘Yeah, but you’ve only got one leg. You’re going to fall. On top of me. You’re going to kill me . . .’

  It tried to steady itself by planting a hand on the shelf. Its head rose up.

  And up.

  And up.

  ‘My days,’ I said. ‘You’re huge!’

  GOD SAVE THE KING!

  ‘And loud. You’re really, really loud.’

  The shelves shook. In their boxes, the lost teeth chattered. The mislaid coffin shuddered as if the body was going to climb out of it. Lost luggage trembled.

  Suddenly it let go of the shelf and nodded its head. At least, it was a nod to start with, but then it became a topple. Eyes flashing, teeth blazing, mouth roaring . . .

  LONG LIVE OUR NOBLE KING . . .

  Its massive face was crashing towards me. Something flashed across my brain. Something familiar.

  What was it?

  Oh. Yes.

  That was it.

  Fear.

  Absolute, extreme fear.

  There’s a gap in my memory here. I do remember the robot falling like a massive mallet towards me. The next thing I remember was being in a little room with someone in a medical uniform asking me to follow their finger with my eyes while Happy to Help watched anxiously from the doorway. The medical woman said that I was fine physically but in a state of shock. Then she asked me who I had come to the airport with. I wasn’t going to admit that I was just hanging around the airport on my own, minesweeping food. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Shock,’ said the medical woman in an understanding way when I didn’t reply. ‘Were you going on holiday? Do you remember where?’ She had started to speak very slowly. She seemed to believe that a state of shock might turn a person into a two-year-old. ‘Can’t you remember?’

  I shook my head. It was true that, at that point, I was having a lot of trouble remembering things.

  ‘Definitely,’ she said. ‘Shock.’ She looked at her wristwatch. ‘Odd. My watch is supposed to ping if anyone is reported missing. Oh well. We’ll keep you here and give you a nice big cup of tea until you start to feel better. Meantime, no doubt someone is looking for you in the airport. I’m sure we’ll get an update soon.’

  Happy to Help brought over the robot’s shovelsized hand. She put it on my lap as though it was my missing hand and started to go on about how none of this was her fault.

  ‘A robot fell on him,’ she said.

  ‘A robot?’ said the medical person.

  ‘Yeah. It’s listed on the database as a suit of armour. And it looks like it’s been there for years. I’m getting Health and Safety to move it right away.’

  The medical woman kept looking at her watch. ‘It’s still not pinged,’ she huffed. ‘I’m going to send a notification, and if there’s no reply we’ll have to take you to the hospital. What’s your name?’

  I had been feeling a bit foggy, but as soon as she said the word ‘hospital’ my brain became very clear indeed. That sounded like trouble. So I just nodded at her.

  ‘You don’t know your name?’

  ‘Can you give me a clue?’ I asked.

  The medical woman sucked her teeth. ‘This is worse than I thought,’ she said.

  ‘Can I go to the toilet?’

  ‘Of course. It’s just across the corridor. Don’t forget your hand!’

  As soon as I was in the corridor, I ran, clutching the big metal hand under my arm. I dodged past the passengers and exited through the big automatic door that opened into arrivals.

  When the doors opened, I had to take a step bac
k. All those eyes staring at me – I really wasn’t ready for that. Every single head behind the barrier scanned me, checking to see if I was the person they were waiting for.

  For a second – with all those eyes on me – I felt like a celebrity. Then the eyes all decided I wasn’t the person they were waiting for and looked away. Except for a few who carried on staring at the big armoured fist I was carrying. It’s not easy to carry a giant steel hand if you’ve only got one hand yourself.

  I settled it deeper under my arm, and tried to stroll on, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  You know when you forget your coat? Or leave your phone at your mate’s house? And your mum says, ‘Where’s your coat?’ And you say, ‘Oh! Sorry – I forgot it.’ And you promise to get it back the next day.

  It’s not the same if you leave your hand behind.

  If you lose your flesh-job hand, people come running round to take you to hospital, send you cards, say nice things and – in the end – fix you up with a brand-new state-of-the-art replacement hand.

  If you lose your brand-new state-of-the-art replacement hand, they’re not going to be nice about it. Leave your state-of-the-art hand somewhere, and difficult questions will be asked.

  And the answer to one of those questions will have to include, ‘I swerved school and went to the airport.’ Which is not a sentence you ever want to have to say to your mum.

  There was no way I could leave the airport without my hand.

  Luckily the Osprey Grip MM has its own little app that synchs with your phone. It’s called HandShake. It looks like a hand with its fingers spread out. The fingers disappear one by one as the hand’s battery fades. It’s also got a ‘Where’s My Hand?’ button, which helps you locate your hand.

  Turns out, my hand was still on five fingers’ worth of battery. And it was still in the airport. And I probably would have found it if one of those electric luggage buggies hadn’t come between me and the door. Its klaxon was beeping. It kept saying, ‘Excuse me, please. Unstable load. Thank you.’

  I stepped out of its way and saw what the unstable load was.

  It was the robot.

  It lay across the back of the trolley. It wasn’t dead because it had never been alive, but it really did look dead. Its joints chimed like church bells when the trolley stopped to wait for the airport doors to open. I followed the trolley down the ramp. It crossed the short stay car park, heading for the multi-storey.

  When the trolley stopped by the service lift, the robot’s head turned towards me. The lift doors opened. The trolley wheeled itself inside, still saying, ‘Unstable load. Thank you.’

  As the lift doors began to close, the robot’s eyes flickered. It was staring at my hand.

  No, not at my hand. At its own huge metal hand. Was it asking for its hand back?

  The lift doors closed.

  The robot vanished from sight.

  I could have turned round then and walked away.

  But I didn’t.

  I had to give him his hand back.

  I charged up the stairs.

  I chased the lift up to the roof.

  If I hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened.

  The trolley had already trundled out of the lift by the time I got to the rooftop. It had parked itself in the middle of the wide, empty space. It was proper windy up there, and noisy – like someone was beating the air with a massive whisk. I didn’t notice what was causing that at first. All I noticed was the robot. It wasn’t lying on the trolley any more. It was standing up on one leg. On tip-toe, like an armoured ballet dancer.

  ‘Hey!’ I shouted, over the noise.

  Then I saw the helicopter, hovering right over his head. That’s where the noise was coming from. It was small and white with POLICE painted on its side in black letters.

  The robot’s toes drifted off the floor. He was floating up into the air, swinging like a pendulum, every swing taking him a little bit higher.

  A long cable dangled from the helicopter’s hatch, like a fishing line.

  Then I realized. The robot was attached to the end of the cable.

  ‘I brought your hand back!’ I shouted over the noise.

  THANK YOU.

  It really was a polite robot. Even when it was dangling from a long metal cable, suspended from the belly of a helicopter, it remembered to say thank you. As it twisted in the air above me, it held its one hand out towards me.

  ‘Oh right! Sorry! Nearly forgot!’

  It wasn’t easy, fixing the hand back on the dangling robot’s wrist, especially as I only had one hand myself. The robot helped me by twisting its wrist on to the thread inside the hand. He held out his hand for me to shake.

  I made a grab for it with my right hand, totally forgetting I didn’t actually have a right hand. Just the ghost of a right hand. It passed through the air like light through a window.

  Then something grabbed me by the wrist and hoisted me into the air. The robot. He lifted me level with his face and stared into my eyes.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, under his blazing blue gaze.

  I was about to say, ‘I think I’d like to get down now,’ when I realized I was no longer dangling three metres above the roof of the multi-storey. The helicopter had moved over the edge. I was now suspended about thirty metres above the tarmac. The runways spread out beneath me. Planes were queuing up for take-off. Lego-sized people were hurrying around. I tried not to look.

  ‘We’re going to fall,’ I said. ‘We’re going to plunge to our doom.’

  The robot put his hand under my arm and hoisted me up to his chest.

  MY NAME IS ERIC. HOW DO YOU DO? WHO ARE YOU?

  ‘Hi, Eric,’ I said. ‘I’m Alfie. PLEASE. Do. Not. Let. Go . . .’

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT.

  We swung out high over the Skyways estate. Hey. Guess what. The whole estate – the roads and avenues – was shaped like one massive aeroplane spread out on the ground. That’s what it looks like to people arriving at the airport – a gigantic aeroplane.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I wondered out loud.

  I CAN ANSWER ANY QUESTION.

  ‘So, where are we going?’

  I’M SORRY, I CAN’T ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

  Skyways is now the most advanced state-of-the-art housing estate in Europe. All the houses are super insulated, super solar-heated and super intelligent. When you open the front door, the house says ‘Hello’ and switches on the heating and the kettle and the CCTV for you. When it’s time for bed, the house dims the lights and switches off all screens.

  And, of course, it’s right next to the airport because it all started with the airport. Old Mr Shilling used to build aeroplanes in a hangar on his estate. Planes with names like Excalibur and Guinevere because he loved anything to do with knights and chivalry. Back then, they used to call pilots ‘knights of the air’.

  Anyway, his aeroplanes got so popular that the airfield turned into an airport. Then, years later, the country estate turned into a housing estate. All the streets are named after famous aeroplanes. This sounds like a nice idea, and I admit that Concorde Circus, Spitfire Street and Gulfstream Walk all sound good. It’s just a pity that a lot of planes – especially war planes – are named after extreme weather conditions and annoying insects. Hurricane Way, Cyclone Walk and Typhoon Avenue all sound like really windy places to live. The people on Mosquito Street and Wasp Lane are always trying to get the community council to change their names. Then there’s all the planes that just have numbers. Try explaining to a pizza-delivery robot that you live in house number 4 on 747 Street. Or number 52 B-52 Street.

  We live at number 23 Stealth Street (a kind of bomber plane).

  And then there are the robots. There are so many different species of them that Skyways is like a robot petting zoo.

  Our pizzas are delivered by Pizzabot – basically an oven on wheels that says ‘Buon appetito!’ when it arrives with your pizza. The streets are cleaned by DustHogs – big h
edgehoggy things that wander around all day sucking up leaves and litter through their rubber trunks. There are little DustHog hutches in the base of the solar-powered lamp posts. When their batteries run down, they back themselves into the hutches and recharge. There’s even a little DustHog dormitory round the back of the Community Hub where they all go at night after they’ve discharged their rubbish. Our wheelie bins are robots too. You throw the rubbish in, and they sort it out into recycling and non-recycling.

  What do all these robots have in common? They are all really disappointing. Basically just walking, talking furniture.

  Eric is not a disappointing robot. Eric is the most-not-disappointing robot you could ever meet.

  As we flew over the estate, the sun bounced off his big helmet head and his breastplate chest. If you were looking up from one of the front gardens, we would have looked like a comet flashing by, taking a short cut through the solar system.

  But we weren’t a comet.

  We were me and Eric, and we were taking a short cut to the R-U-Recycling scrapyard . . . and Eric’s final destruction.

  We climbed so high into the sky I could see the river shining on the other side of the airport. The runways stretched out into the grassy hills like fingers pointing to faraway places. Blue mountains rose up on the other side of the river. I thought, If we keep going up, we’ll be in space. I clung tight to Eric’s massive arms.

  Then the picture began to come into focus. The green splurge of ground became individual trees. The brick aeroplane of the estate became individual houses. We were coming down. I tried to spot Stealth Street. For a mad moment, I imagined the helicopter setting us down in our back garden. Mum would look through the kitchen window and see a helicopter landing, and then I’d step out and say, ‘Surprise!’

  But that’s not where we were going. We swerved left, heading towards a little tarmac road leading to a place where sunlight sparked off mounds of glass and metal.

  The R-U-Recycling scrapyard.