Runaway Robot

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  And he was my obedient servant.

  ‘OK, Eric,’ I said. ‘Unleash your powers!’

  There was a long pause. A whirr of cogs. A mechanical brain was thinking. Then . . .

  SORRY. I DO NOT COMPREHEND.

  ‘You’re my obedient servant. Show me what you can do.’

  I AM ERIC. I AM LOST.

  ‘Not any more, because I found you. What can you actually do?’

  I CAN PERFORM A RANGE OF HOUSEHOLD CHORES. SUGGESTIONS: FLOORS – SWEEPING OF; CLOTHES – IRONING OF.

  Ironing? . . . Clothes?

  I thought I’d found Iron Man. I’d actually found Ironing Man.

  I CAN WELCOME GUESTS.

  ‘We never have any guests.’

  ANSWER THE TELEPHONE.

  ‘Nobody answers the telephone any more.’

  I CAN POLISH SILVER.

  ‘Silver? What kind of silver?’

  I CAN ALSO PREPARE A LIGHT SNACK.

  If you’ve been hoping for laser-firing lessons, a snack is definitely a disappointment. But it is a snack.

  I CAN PREPARE CUCUMBER SANDWICHES.

  ‘Cucumber sandwiches are not a snack. Cucumber sandwiches are just a way of hiding cucumber.’

  EGGS.

  Eggs could be good, I thought. So I filled a pan full of water and handed him a couple of eggs.

  Eric’s approach to eggs was different, to say the least. He closed his fingers, crushing the eggs into his steel palm. Then opened his palm again. His hand was glowing red hot.

  He literally grilled the eggs on his own hand. They sizzled. They bubbled. The bits of broken shell inside them glowed white with heat.

  The heat from Eric’s hand blasted my face. I had to screw up my eyes. Which was just as well because soon the little bits of broken shell started flying around the room like tiny hot bullets.

  I WILL COOK FOR THREE MINUTES OR TO TASTE.

  ‘No! No! Stop! You’re going to burn the place down! We’re being shelled by eggs.’

  Eric nodded, and then turned his hand round so the palm was pointing down. Incinerated egg flopped on to the floor, black and bubbly like a deep-fried bat.

  It was not food.

  But it was excellent.

  I said, ‘Do it again!’ and gave him two more eggs.

  One of the shells filled up with hot air, and then exploded like a hand grenade.

  They were the last two eggs, so I thought I’d see how he was with toast.

  Slices of bread caught fire within five seconds.

  The wrapper of the loaf lit up, swelled up into a blazing ball of fire, and floated around the room like a little lost dragon.

  I also tried him with raisins: they squeal, then hiss, then suddenly fossilize.

  Cheese: goes gooey at first, then flows like hot lava on to the floor.

  Sugar: smells like all the sweets you ever wanted, but then turns into evil superglue.

  Salt: blazes blue!

  Plastic: don’t. Smells like poo.

  Very thinly sliced potato: I thought this might lead to crisps. And it did! I sprinkled some of them with salt and doused them with vinegar, but when I tried to eat some, Eric put his hand up to stop me. He poured the crisps into one of Mum’s best bowls and gave them to me on a tray.

  He really is a polite robot, I thought, as I sat there munching my way through a massive bowl of salt-and-vinegar crisps. OK, I may not have a laser-blasting war-bot, but I do seem to have a massive crisp-making machine.

  Then the DustUrchin came scuttling in. Dust-Urchins are the baby version of the DustHogs we have patrolling the streets. They have little spikes on their backs to make them look cute. When their batteries run down, just like the bigger versions, they back themselves into little recharging hutches.

  As robots go, they are among the more disappointing robots.

  Now, our DustUrchin parked itself at Eric’s feet. It doesn’t have eyes – just a couple of lights on its front bumper. But if you looked at it now you would swear it was staring up at Eric.

  Have you ever seen when two babies meet?

  They don’t talk because they can’t talk. But they always check each other out.

  Eric: *Stares at DustUrchin*

  DustUrchin: *Stares at Eric* ‘Today is September twenty-third,’ it says.

  Eric seemed to think this was the DustUrchin’s way of introducing itself.

  I AM ERIC. YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT.

  The DustUrchin’s headlights flickered. It was obviously happy to have found a new friend.

  ‘You have one local news update,’ it said. ‘Police today are looking for a large humanoid robot, which caused some disruption at the airport and damage to police property. The weather is slightly overcast with sunny intervals and a five per cent chance of rain. Have a great day.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘The police? What was that about the police?’

  I’d just been having so much fun with Eric that I’d totally forgotten there would be consequences.

  ‘You have ONE phone message,’ said the DustUrchin, ignoring my panic.

  I didn’t even know until then that the DustUrchin sucked up phone messages as well as dust.

  ‘Hi, Alfie,’ it said in a voice that was definitely my mum’s but also quite robotty, as though it had vacuumed up Mum, and she was trapped inside it. ‘Home in fifteen. Tell the kettle!’

  Fifteen minutes!

  The floor of the kitchen was crusted with tiny stalagmites of blasted sugar and puddled with melted cheese.

  The front door was lying on its side in the hallway.

  And, worst of all, there was a gigantic fugitive robot in the kitchen.

  I CAN PERFORM SMALL HOUSEHOLD REPAIRS.

  ‘Can you? Can you honestly? Can you put the door back?’

  Eric picked up the door as easily as if it had been made of tissue paper. We propped it back into place. The middle finger of his left hand turned out to be a screwdriver.

  I said, ‘Oh! Snap! I’ve got a screwdriver too. Though mine’s in my thumb.’

  Eric fixed the door. The DustUrchin fixed the kitchen. Its trunk sucked up the crumbs, sugar and incinerated egg. It even wormed its way up the wall to unexpected heights cleaning the tiles and the pipes.

  In ten minutes, the kitchen looked so clean you would never know that a giant robot had heated a tonne of ingredients to the point of nuclear meltdown.

  ‘You’ve saved my life,’ I said to the DustUrchin.

  If Mum had seen the mess, she would have been completely triggered.

  She also would not have been thrilled to hear we were sheltering a fugitive from justice in the house – even if it was made of metal. I had to find some way of hiding Eric.

  Then I heard the house say, ‘Welcome home, Mrs Miles. Do go through . . .’ and the front door swing open.

  ‘Ow!’ That was Mum. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The front door just opened outwards. Hit me in the shoulder.’

  ‘Doesn’t it always open outwards?’ I was hoping the malfunctioning door would distract her long enough for me to get Eric out of sight.

  ‘No. It always opens inwards.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said, still playing for time.

  I managed to get Eric into the corner of the kitchen.

  ‘Stay there and be quiet,’ I hissed.

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT.

  ‘What?’ said Mum.

  ‘Nothing. I just said are you sure it opened inwards before?’

  ‘All front doors open inwards.’

  ‘All? Really?’ I managed to click the kitchen door shut behind me. If I could just keep her out until I could get rid of Eric . . .

  ‘I’m a postwoman, Alfie. I do front doors for a living.’

  ‘And I bet you have done more than enough doors today, so don’t go near the kitchen door. Go and have a nice sit-down, and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘I have to admit,’ said Mum, ‘that is the best
offer I’ve had all day.’

  She settled down in the big chair, and I took her over a cup of tea and what was left of the bowl of crisps.

  ‘Where did you get these, Alfie?’

  ‘Made them.’

  ‘Made them? From potatoes?’

  ‘Potatoes, yeah.’

  ‘That you chopped with your own hand?’

  ‘Well . . .’ In all the excitement of test-driving Eric, I had forgotten that I had lost my Osprey. ‘What do you think?’ I asked, a bit too quickly, hiding my arms behind my back. ‘Crispy enough?’

  She took a handful. Between crunches, she said, ‘What else is cooking?’

  I didn’t know what she was on about.

  ‘I hear the sound of pan lids rattling,’ she said.

  I could hear that too. I knew it wasn’t pan lids, though. It was the sound of Eric’s metal joints clinking as he tried to get comfortable behind the kitchen door.

  ‘It’s a surprise!’ I said, dashing out into the kitchen. I turned the radio on to cover the sound. This was a mistake. Every station seemed to be playing a song with a question in it. And Eric tried to answer every question.

  ‘Should I stay or should I go . . .?’

  I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

  ‘Where is the love . . .?’

  IF YOU HAVE LOST SOMETHING, TRY RETRACING YOUR STEPS.

  I turned the radio off.

  ‘Who are you talking to? I can hear voices in there.’

  ‘Oh,’ I called, ‘just the robot.’ This was the truth. But I knew she’d think I was talking about the DustUrchin.

  ‘Oh. Where is that little fella?’ she cooed.

  I heard the DustUrchin scuttle over, suck up the rubbish, and mention that it was a lovely day with only a five per cent chance of rain. ‘Police are continuing to search,’ it said, ‘for the runaway robot.’

  Now my brain was buffering. Should I make more tea or smuggle Eric out?

  I CAN PREPARE LIGHT SNACKS, said Eric, as if he’d been reading my mind.

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘That’s brilliant. Yes. Do you know any recipes easy enough for me to cook? No exploding eggshells.’

  WHY NOT TRY CLASSIC WELSH RABBIT?

  ‘We haven’t got any rabbits, Eric.’

  It turns out that Welsh rabbit is also called Welsh rarebit and is nothing to do with real rabbits.

  ERIC’S RECIPE FOR WELSH RABBIT, said Eric.

  1. PUT SOME CHEESE, BUTTER, WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE, MUSTARD, FLOUR AND PEPPER IN A PAN WITH SOME MILK.

  2. HEAT UP YOUR FINGER.

  3. STIR THE MIXTURE WITH YOUR HOT FINGER UNTIL IT IS A THICK PASTE.

  4. PLACE A SLICE OF BREAD ON THE PALM OF YOUR HAND.

  5. HEAT UP YOUR HAND UNTIL THE BREAD IS TOASTED ON ONE SIDE.

  6. SPREAD THE RABBIT PASTE OVER THE UNTOASTED SIDE ON A PLATE.

  7. HOLD YOUR HOT HAND OVER THIS UNTIL THE MIXTURE STARTS TO BUBBLE AND GO BROWN.

  ‘What’s going on in there?’ called Mum.

  ‘Don’t come in! Just relax!’

  I did everything Eric said, only using the cooker and the grill instead of electric hands. It’s not easy to use a cheese grater with one hand. And the pieces of Welsh rarebit were a bit uneven. As I was about to take them through to the living room, Eric popped a pair of napkins on to two plates. We don’t normally have napkins at all. And these napkins were folded into the shape of swans.

  ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ said Mum.

  ‘In dexterity class.’

  ‘You’re working so hard to be the best you can be,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a world-class state-of-the-art hand. There’s no telling what you’ll be able to achieve if you just keep working at it. Now, shall we watch this nice documentary about Genghis Khan?’

  So we ate our Welsh rarebits and watched actors recreating massacres and bloodbaths all over medieval Mongolia.

  ‘He was a bad lot, old Genghis,’ said Mum, making it sound like she had known him since he was in nappies. ‘But, you’ve got to admit, he really knew how to organize a postal service. Relay stations with fresh horses and hot food all over the empire. A letter could get from one end of the Silk Road to the other in a week. Amazing.’ She does tend to relate everything to the postal service. ‘This is very good Welsh rarebit, by the way. I’ll do the washing-up.’

  Sitting with Mum watching Mongol hordes burn cities and massacre people was so cosy and relaxing that I completely forgot that the whole snack thing was just a trick to keep her out of the kitchen.

  ‘No, no – I’ll wash up.’

  ‘Cook doesn’t wash up. It’s the rules. Besides, you’re not wearing your hand.’

  So she’d noticed. I thought I’d got away with it. Mum notices everything. She also asks the most awkward questions.

  ‘Where is it, Alfie?’

  ‘It’s being adjusted,’ I said, trying not to tell an actual lie, because one of the things she definitely notices is lies. ‘I’ll be wearing it again tomorrow.’ I smiled reassuringly as I took Mum’s plate from her hand and made my way to the kitchen.

  It’s not easy to hide a massive robot.

  It’s not like you can tuck him into a cupboard.

  I closed the door that led back to the living room and opened the door that led to the bedrooms and bathroom. I ran the kitchen taps at full pelt, put the kettle on to make as much noise as possible, and shuffled Eric back on to the SmartTruck. Right then, I was so glad our house had no stairs. I led the truck out of the kitchen and into the bedroom corridor. Past my room. Past Mum’s. Up to the door at the end, on the other side of the bathroom – the door that’s always closed. I had to shove it hard to get it to budge.

  ALLOW ME.

  ‘No! No more door destruction.’

  I finally pushed the door open, waved Eric through, and shut it after him.

  I stood still in the corridor. Do you ever have those moments when you think you’re about to sneeze? It’s like that for me when I feel like I’m on the brink of remembering something important. I froze outside the door with a memory fluttering in the corner of my mind.

  Then it flew away again.

  ‘So,’ said Mum as I walked back into the living room, ‘what’s going on?’

  I stopped in my tracks.

  How much did she know? About the airport? About Eric? It could be anything. Mum is like human Facebook. She knows when everyone’s birthday is – because she delivers their cards. If you’re old and you can’t get out, she’ll tell you all the news and gossip. And people tell her news too.

  She gestured around. ‘Why is everywhere so clean and tidy?’

  ‘Because I cleaned and tidied.’

  ‘Why did you clean and tidy?’

  ‘Just thought it would be nice.’

  ‘It must have taken ages. You must have started the moment you got back from Limb Lab.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘You did go to Limb Lab, didn’t you, Alfie?’

  ‘Of course I did. You saw the napkins.’

  ‘Good boy. Come on. Give me a hug.’

  It’s not that easy to do a one-handed hug. It can come out more like some desperate wrestling move.

  ‘Maybe it’s easier,’ she said, ‘if I give you a hug.’ Which she did. ‘Alfie, you’ve got all your life ahead of you. Get out there and live it. Like Genghis. Only not like Genghis. You know what they say – smart gets smarter.’ Mum is always telling me what they say, but never explains who ‘they’ are.

  Our house dims the lights and switches off all screens at 10 p.m. ‘Good sleep hygiene,’ it says, ‘makes good health.’ If you want to look something up on your phone, you’ve got to get right under the duvet where the house can’t see you.

  As soon as I was in bed, I was straight on the HandShake app, looking for some sign of my hand, trying to figure out where it was. It told me it still had three fingers of battery, so that was something. But it gave its location as on a motorway heading north. />
  What could I do? What’s the point of an app that tells you where something is but doesn’t tell you how to get it back? If I could only operate the hand by remote control, I could maybe turn the car round.

  I had no idea what to do or how to explain how I had come to lose my state-of-the-art hand. I couldn’t sleep. So, instead, I tried finding out more about Eric. Who made him? When? What for? Who did he belong to? If I could find out where he came from, then maybe I could take him back there. Maybe there would be a vast reward.

  I scrolled through every page looking for stuff about Eric the Robot. There was a lot about various other Erics, such as Eric the Red, Eric the Angry, Eric the First, Eric the Second, and so on. The middle name of most Erics seems to be ‘the’.

  There was also a lot about every kind of robot: mobile and immobile, soft and hard, independent, remote-controlled, industrial, recreational, robots the size of postal districts that could cut tunnels through rock, robots the size of molecules that could move through your bloodstream, robots the size of little bees that can swarm, robots you could send into space . . .

  There was some stuff about the first ever robot – which was built by St Albert the Great. He called it an android. One of his pupils smashed it because it wouldn’t stop talking. And I was distracted for a while by the Leonardo da Vinci robot, which is the double of Eric. Honestly, look it up. It’s basically a suit of armour with an engine in it.

  But although there was loads about robots and about loads of different Erics, there was nothing about Eric the Robot.

  Unless I’d found an original Leonardo da Vinci in Lost Property . . . What if Eric was a lost masterpiece? I could polish him up and sell him to a museum for a fortune.

  I curled up and let the relaxing thoughts of fame and fortune lull me to sleep.

  Postwomen start work early.

  The house turns on Mum’s bedside lamp at 5 a.m. and makes her a cup of tea at 5.15 a.m. By 5.30 a.m., she’s out of the front door, and I’m in my school uniform. As soon as I hear the front door click shut, I go to get Eric out of his hiding place.

  As soon as I opened the door to the room, I had that almost-remembering feeling again. But Eric tried to stand up, and I forgot about everything apart from the danger of being crushed by a falling robot.