Runaway Robot

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  I slipped away, pretending to be interested in the carnations in Up, Up and Bouquet until the coast was clear.

  Then I ducked out of the airport and went to the Limb Lab.

  Back at the airport, I’d had this idea that maybe I could secretly copy Eric’s left leg, then hack into the 3D printer to make him a brand-new one. I took one look at the printer and realized I had no idea how to use it. Also, a leg made of resin and plastic was never going to hold up Eric’s massive metal body.

  Dr Shilling swept in. ‘Right, team,’ she said. ‘It’s time to Show Your Moves!’

  Show Your Moves is when you have to demonstrate what progress you’ve made in learning to use your new limbs.

  Tyler had progressed to playing the piano with his new fingers. There was no piano in the Limb Lab. His mum had brought one in specially – a little electric keyboard – just to show us. And he didn’t play ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Ten Green Bottles’. He played the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean – with drum effects – while his mum turned the pages of his music, looking very proud.

  ‘How does his playing now compare to his playing before the accident?’ asked Dr Shilling.

  ‘He couldn’t play at all before his accident,’ said Tyler’s mum.

  ‘Couldn’t play at all,’ said Tyler, who seemed to think he needed to translate his mum as well as Shatter.

  ‘Well, that is progress!’ said Dr Shilling.

  D’Arcy had taken up ballet. She pirouetted and performed jetés all over the place on her blades. I know they’re the right words, because she would keep saying them.

  Shatter’s karate looked more terrifying than ever.

  And my progress was . . . no progress.

  Not going to lie – I am impressed by the Osprey Grip MM. As hands go, it’s one of the best. I love all its special grips: the key grip, for when I’m using keys or knives and forks; the power grip, for lifting things. It can do things no flesh-job hand could ever do – for instance, spin round completely on your wrist. Very useful for terrifying smaller people. I also love that I can synch it with my phone.

  I just hadn’t yet learned how to synch it with my brain.

  Dr Shilling gave a little speech about the amazingness of my hand. ‘Alfie will be able to operate it with his thoughts. Just imagine. In the very near future, engineers here in England could be sitting comfortably in their own homes, controlling hands like these to do all the heavy work millions of miles away, on

  Mars. Imagine a surgeon in London performing a delicate operation in Addis Ababa. And Alfie here is leading the way.’

  She probably made this speech to motivate me. It didn’t really work. It motivated Shatter, though, to fume and rage.

  ‘Yeah, but,’ she said, ‘he can’t! Work it.’

  ‘He can’t work his own hand,’ said Tyler.

  ‘He will in time,’ said Dr Shilling. ‘It’s a question of motivation. When he finds something he really wants to do with his hand, he’ll do it. Greatness doesn’t come easy. Alfie is on a great quest for humanity. He’s a pioneer.’

  ‘Can’t work his. Own fingers,’ said Shatter.

  Normally, by the time everyone has Shown Their Moves, I just want to go home and crawl into bed for a week. Not this time. I’d had another idea.

  The Shilling Room is a kind of mini-museum of non-flesh limbs. It’s named after Dr Shilling’s grandad – the founder of the Limb Lab. I thought if I had a look in there I might find some kind of leg for Eric. They’ve got a whole history of wooden legs going back to pirate days. There’s a display of artificial arms from the First World War hanging on the wall. When you open the door, the breeze makes them shiver like a skeletal Mexican wave.

  I didn’t notice Dr Shilling had come in behind me until she spoke.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it, Alfie,’ she said, ‘how far we’ve come?’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Were you looking for something in particular, Alfie?’

  I could have said, ‘Yes, I was looking for a spare bionic leg for my secret robot.’ But I thought it was probably wiser to say, ‘Just looking. I wanted to know more about, you know, history and things.’ So I did.

  ‘That’s really good. The more you know about history, the clearer you can see the future.’ As if to prove it, she picked up a wooden leg and waggled it. ‘This is the first ever false leg to have joints like a real leg. See? Made for the Marquess of Anglesey after he lost a leg at Waterloo in 1815. It’s got both dorsiflexion and plantar flexion. Do you know what that means?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look it up. And, here – this is the first artificial hand Grandfather Shilling ever made.’

  It looked like a big leather glove with some hinges and stuff inside.

  ‘So you grew up in this house?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, in a flat inside the house. The house was full of offices and workshops when I was little. And children of course. They came here to learn how to use their new limbs. And not just to use them. Grandad thought the best people to help design new body parts were the people who were going to use them. So the children were taught how everything worked. Lots of them became inventors and engineers themselves. Some of the most exciting technology we use today was invented by Limb Lab kids. The Pizzabot? An ex-Limb Lab kid built that. And your Osprey hand? Well, I designed that.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That’s me when I was little in that photograph. And that’s my father, Arthur Shilling, when he was little. It’s always been a family firm. To help children who’d been injured in wars and accidents to have a better life. A quest, really. Like King Arthur. My grandparents loved anything to do with King Arthur. That’s why they named my father Arthur.’

  There were loads of photographs on the wall: some really old ones in black and white where the kids were wearing mad old-fashioned clothes; some more recent. In all the photographs, the kids were sitting at a big round table.

  ‘Like in Camelot,’ said Dr Shilling.

  Not going to lie, I wasn’t interested in the furniture. I just wanted to know if I could get Eric a spare leg here. I said, ‘Did they ever invent any legs? I don’t mean blades; I mean legs. Legs that can walk. Legs like on a walking robot?’

  ‘Robots don’t walk,’ said Dr Shilling. ‘I mean, some do, but they’re not very good. Gimmicks mostly. We’re not interested in things like that here at the Limb Lab. Asking a robot to walk is a waste of brainpower. Walking is an incredibly complicated and risky activity.’

  I pointed out that the robots in Stars Wars can all walk. ‘They can walk and run and kick and everything.’

  ‘They’re not robots. They’re actors in costumes. Take a look around the Limb Lab. Do we give people new legs? No – we give them blades. Think about it. What’s the most precious thing in your body?’ she said. ‘The only bit you can’t replace?’

  ‘My brain?’

  ‘Exactly. And where is your brain?’ She picked up a little demonstration doll from the interactivity table. ‘It’s stuck in a little box on top of a wobbly neck, right at the top of your body where any enemy can take a swipe at it, and the whole thing is balanced on these two spindly fragile legs. Is that a good idea?’

  ‘It’s worked so far.’

  ‘When you walk, watch what happens.’ Dr Shilling made the little doll walk across the table. ‘When you take a step forward, you are basically falling over. Then you save yourself just in time with your other leg. Then you fall over again with that leg. Then you save yourself again. Walking is basically just a series of narrowly avoided falls. Is that any way to carry around the human brain? No. It’s rubbish.’

  A voice behind me said, ‘What about the mad. Robot that’s on. The rampage? That’s got. Legs.’ Shatter had sloped into the Shilling Room with Tyler in tow.

  Dr Shilling’s eyes narrowed. ‘As I understand it, the robot that has featured on the news lately does not have legs. It rides around on an automated trolley. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with us her
e at the Limb Lab.’

  ‘I never said. It did,’ said Shatter.

  ‘If you know anything about the whereabouts of that robot, I want you to tell me.’

  ‘You?’ said Tyler. ‘Not the police?’

  ‘Me AND the police. That robot is bringing our work into disrepute. A robot is not an imitation human. It’s a machine for doing a job. The only job that thing is doing is scaring people. And scared people are dangerous.’

  Like I said, Eric is controversial.

  ‘What about BB8?’ said Shatter. ‘BB8 is. Real. I know because he. Was in. A science. Museum.’

  ‘BB8 doesn’t have legs, Alfie,’ said Tyler, as if I was the one who brought BB8 into the conversation.

  ‘No. He doesn’t,’ snapped Dr Shilling. ‘The fact is, people have tried making robots with legs in the past and it led to disaster. OK?’

  It must have been obvious that we were both a bit surprised that she was so triggered by my question because she went all super nice after that.

  ‘Maybe future humans,’ she said, her face softening into a smile, ‘will have wheels just like BB8. Then their brains will be safer. The future is wheels and blades, not legs. The future is children like you.’

  The way she looked at me and Tyler and Shatter and D’Arcy, you could see that she thought we were a team. Friends.

  I was buzzing like a phone on silent, thinking we could be the Kids of the Future, united in amazing technology, like Guardians of the Galaxy.

  ‘The future is wheels,’ announced Tyler.

  ‘Yes!’ I said. ‘The future is wheels.’

  ‘The future is. Me,’ said Shatter. She leaped into the distance.

  It was a shame there wasn’t a bit more distance for Shatter to leap into, because when I got back to my workstation, she was sitting there waiting for me with a face that said we were not a team.

  ‘Your arm,’ she snarled, ‘looks. Like Lego, Robot. Boy.’

  ‘She called you Robot Boy,’ explained Tyler.

  ‘I heard,’ I said.

  But just in case I hadn’t heard clearly, she said it again, going into a bit more detail this time. ‘Robot. Boy. Your dad’s. A robot your. Mum’s a robot. Your little. Brother . . .’

  I didn’t wait for her to finish. Something about what she’d said triggered me. Before I’d even thought of anything to say, I’d turned round and shoved her. She went flying. When I say she went flying, she really did fly – right along the corridor, like a bowling ball scattering kids like skittles. The Osprey hand does pack a stronger-than-usual punch.

  As she lay sprawled on the floor, I thought, Oh great – more controversy.

  I got ready for her to come at me.

  But she didn’t. Shatter stood up, hands in the air. ‘All right it’s. All right,’ she said.

  Dr Shilling had come over by then. ‘I see Alfie has made some progress after all,’ she said. ‘Though unarmed combat is not the kind of progress we were hoping for. Are you all right, Shatila?’

  ‘I’m fine. It doesn’t. Matter I. Just tripped.’

  Maybe Shatter was making progress in kindness, I thought.

  Wrong.

  Before I even got to my workstation, she’d messaged me: Didn’t. Batter you in. Class coz they’d’ve. Stopped me. Will kill. You soon.

  It was interesting to me that she was just as stop-start when she was texting as when she was talking. Maybe she used voice recognition.

  Tyler came over and said, ‘Shatila is going to kill you. Sometime.’

  I suppose he was worried that I hadn’t got the text. ‘I know.’

  ‘She’s annoyed that you pushed her.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said D’Arcy. ‘You’ve got a strong right fist. In this world, a strong right fist solves nearly every problem.’

  You probably think I was scared. I wasn’t.

  I was just thinking, The Future Is Wheels.

  Back home, I went straight to the shed to tell Eric my idea. He was surrounded by grow bags, big plant pots, a few collapsible chairs, a sun lounger, an old-fashioned electric kettle and some cushions. But, most of all, by memories. Memories seemed to rush out of that shed on the breeze. I couldn’t tell you what they were memories of exactly. A feeling of remembering blew all around me, then seemed to vanish, like a song on the radio of a passing car. I felt I’d lost some big, shiny memory, just like I’d lost my hand.

  Then I saw exactly what I was looking for, and I forgot all about my feelings. Sticking up from behind the pile of cardboard boxes – like a meerkat looking out for trouble – were the handles of my scooter. I’d forgotten I even had a scooter. As soon as I saw it, a memory was triggered – the scooter was something to do with my accident.

  I went over to pick it up and, as I touched it, little flashes came back to me. As if the scooter was a USB stick, and I’d stored bits of memory in it.

  I let the memory go.

  I was far too busy to think about stuff like that now.

  I hoisted the scooter out from behind the boxes. Apparently it had come out of the accident without a scratch. Mum must have put it in the shed until I was ready to ride it again. It’s got a telescopic steering column, so you can make it as tall or as small as you like.

  You can, for instance, make it exactly the same size as Eric’s leg. Which is what I did.

  ‘Eric,’ I said, ‘what if you had a scooter for a leg? One leg could be the scooter, and the other leg could scoot. I’ll show you.’

  I stepped on to the scooter to show him how it worked.

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT.

  ‘Good. Follow me.’

  Out in the yard, I wedged the handlebars into the slot at the bottom of his torso where his left leg went, turned it round until it I couldn’t any more, and tightened all the screws. The running board was also extendable. I jiggled it round until it was the same size as Eric’s foot. It had two wee whizz wheels, one on each end.

  ‘Right, Eric. Give it a whirl.’

  Eric tried a step. The scooter shot forward from under him. He should have fallen backwards, but his other leg came down just in time to stop him. He tried it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  IF YOU WILL PERMIT ME . . .

  ‘Yeah, go ahead. Keep practising.’

  It was working! The sun slithered over Eric’s metal panels as he moved. He was upright and mobile. When he wobbled into the gate, it swung open.

  ‘Eric, don’t go out.’

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT, said Eric, going out.

  ‘Do you actually even know what obedient means?’

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

  He rumbled over the concrete patio of the yard. He wobbled through the gate. He scooted – proper scooted – down the alley.

  ‘Eric! Don’t go far!’

  At the very end of the alley, he spun round and scooted back towards me; then he stopped and spun round again. He spread his arms out and aeroplaned back down the alley. His steel fingers struck sparks all along the backyard walls.

  The sparks made other memories flash in my head – I remembered plunging down underpasses on my scooter on bright sunny days. Scooting along walkways.

  I KNOW HUNDREDS OF JOKES.

  He whooped, in a way that seemed to say, ‘I’m really chuffing chuffed with myself.’ He shot to the far end of the alley, turned left, and then . . .

  He disappeared.

  ‘No! Eric! Come back!’

  I tore after him. Out of the alley, on to Stealth Street. When I caught up with him, he was holding on to a lamp post with one hand, spinning himself round it. For a machine that had no emotions, he was doing a brilliant job of looking really happy. He sounded like a hundred dustbins having a party.

  ‘Eric, slow down! You’re going to fall!’

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT.

  Then he clattered on to the pavement.

  ‘Eric?’ I cried. ‘What’s hap
pening? Are you dead?’

  No. Eric’s a machine. Not a person. He’d never been alive, so he couldn’t be dead. Machines are not like people. If a machine stops working, you can fix it. Like I said, with machines, there is always a way to fix them. You just need to stay calm and think.

  What I thought was . . . batteries. What if Eric just needed recharging?

  I searched his body for some kind of socket. There were three metal spikes sticking out of his neck like the prongs that stick out of the bottom of an old-fashioned kettle when you pull the electric cord out. I knew because I’d just seen a kettle like that in the shed.

  I dashed back to the shed, grabbed the kettle lead, and returned quickly to Eric. It slotted snugly over his spikes.

  Great! All I had to do was plug him into one of the DustUrchin recharging points. There was one on every lamp post.

  Except the lead was only about half a metre long.

  And the nearest lamp post was on the other side of the road. How was I going to move half a ton of steel across the road? Easy! Extension lead. Great. There was one in the shed. I ran and got it. Plugged him in. All I needed now was for the road to stay completely deserted for the next . . . how long?

  How long was it going to take? It takes about half an hour to charge my phone, and Eric is about a million times bigger. What if it took half a million hours? I was panicking that, any minute now, the empty pavements would be full of kids coming home from school, and everyone would know about Eric.

  I crouched over his body, willing him to recharge more quickly. I was thinking that even if he just got to three per cent I could probably move him back to the shed before anyone saw him.

  All the time Eric was lying alone on the pavement, my heart was in my mouth. Luckily there was no one around. Everyone was at school or at work.

  After a few minutes, there was a faint tinkling. Well, not tinkling exactly; more of a rattle with a squeak thrown in. The sort of noise you hear if there’s a coin rolling around in the glove compartment of your car. Then Eric’s eyes started to glow slightly. Eric was charging up.