by Jack Dann
This is like a license to print money, he thought. He spoke to this robot after the matches.
The conversation left him obscurely disappointed. Afterward, he supposed he had wanted the robot to demonstrate the kind of fire one expected of great athletes.
"You fought well," said Jimmy Guang. "Much better than any other mech we've had so far. And the crowds particularly appreciate the way you taunt the opposition."
Slava arrived and began spot-welding a patch onto the mech's back. Jimmy Guang congratulated himself for maintaining a cool exterior.
The robot's voice was a smooth baritone, its inflections nearly human. "I assumed they would, and as a strategy I had nothing to lose by it. If my opponents devote CPU time to analyzing my taunts and formulating retorts, that increases my chances of winning. Also, if the crowd begins to support me, I anticipate that you will be more forthcoming with necessary repairs and maintenance."
"You are a clever machine," said Jimmy Guang. "You use all tools to stay alive."
"No. I am programmed to maintain optimal functionality. Whatever action I take is directed to that end."
Jimmy Guang was storing this up as evidence against his imagined future robot-rights persecutors. "You don't care about staying alive?"
"My programming imbues a preference for awareness over oblivion," said the robot, "but I neither enjoy the first nor fear the second. You put me out on the arena floor to destroy the others. That is what I will do."
While these words were still rolling in his head, Jimmy Guang tried to avoid remembering the conversation he'd had with Marta the day before, but in his sleep that night he saw the surviving gladiator taunting Russian soldiers who surrounded it with railguns and rocket launchers, and in his sleep he was oppressed by a hope that it would survive.
The neXt morning, a ten-year-old boy staggered into his shop, bent under the weight of a bag of coffee beans. With a gasp of relief, he dropped the bag to the floor and stood expectantly until Jimmy Guang fished in his pocket for whatever coins he had handy.
Once the boy had gone, Jimmy Guang took the bag into the curtained-off portion of the office. He slit it open, and his heart fluttered in his throat. He took a deep breath, smelling the coffee, and plunged his hands into the beans. At the bottom of the bag he found a canvas bundle. Inside the canvas bundle was a Colt .45 automatic that could have come from the hand of John Dillinger. It was cleaned, oiled, and loaded.
And here I am, thought Jimmy Guang. I have decided to kill a man, and here is the weapon I will use to do it.
Was he falling into the war? Had he lost his ability to stay apart from it, to keep it in its proper perspective? Surely there were IF soldiers who raped women, who committed atrocities.
Surely. But none of them had broken Marta.
He heard his door open. Stowing the gun in his desk, Jimmy Guang went out front, arranging the knot of his tie as he went. Captain Butsayev was waiting for him.
"Jimmy Guang," he said. "I fear there is going to be trouble. You noticed the delegation that sat with me last night."
Jimmy Guang nodded.
"They commented on the superlative show put on by the robots," said Captain Butsayev, "which is to your credit. But they also gave me to understand that they were gravely unsettled by the intermingling of Russian soldiers and locals. The lack of animosity disturbed them. They consider it inappropriate for a time of war, and they demanded that the performances be ended." Incredibly, Butsayev smiled. "But I stood up for you. I noted the effect of the House of Gladmech on morale, and argued—strenuously, I might add—that this benefit outweighed any possible detrimental effect of fraternization." The captain clapped Jimmy Guang on the shoulder. "Not to mention the fact that working on your robots helps to keep young Slava out of trouble. I believe that the delegation was swayed by my arguments. Your shows can go on."
All of this washed over Jimmy Guang like a surprise rainstorm. "Thank you," he said. The gun in his desk drawer loomed hugely in his mind, and he tried without success to inject some warmth into his tone of voice. "I believe that you are right about the benefit of the House of Gladmech, and I thank you for your courage in supporting me at what must have been some risk to your career." "You're certainly welcome," Butsayev said. "I meant what I said." After a pause, he furrowed his brow and said, "Are you all right?"
Jimmy Guang was saved from having to answer by the entrance of Marta. She saw him before Butsayev, and she smiled at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Jimmy Guang saw Butsayev notice her missing teeth. The Russian's gaze flicked over to Jimmy Guang, who gave no sign that he had noticed.
So you know, he thought. You know about your brother, or at least you've heard rumors. But you protect him, of course. He's your brother. And after all, these aren't Russian girls.
"Captain Butsayev, this is my companion Marta Chu," he said, with what he thought was the right admixture of formality and warmth. "Marta, Captain Vasily Butsayev."
Butsayev snapped a shallow bow. "Miss Chu," he said.
Marta's hand darted to her mouth before she could stop it. Self-conscious, she returned it to her side and nodded at Butsayev. "Captain."
"Captain Butsayev has just informed me that my gladmech operation has ruffled the feathers of Russian bureaucrats," Jimmy Guang said with a too-broad smile. "He says that we should continue to ruffle, and not worry about their squawking."
Marta's answering smile looked tired and forced. "A little fortune," she said.
Butsayev, sensing the tension in the room, nodded to Jimmy Guang. "In the midst of war, one does what one can," he said, and shut the door softly behind him.
They went to Fez for lunch on the patio, and as the waiter was clearing away their soup bowls the top three floors of a building at the other end of the square blew away in a tremendous explosion. The concussion of the blast felt like a giant thumb jabbed into each of Jimmy Guang's ears. He leaped out of his chair to grasp Marta, but she was faster than he was and had already ducked into the restaurant. From there they watched as six Russians in full suits approached the burning building. As its surviving occupants emerged, the Russians rounded them up, directing them to a waiting flatbed truck.
With a flash one of the suited Russians blew apart. The sound, a flat crack compared to the deep boom of whatever had destroyed the building, nevertheless made Jimmy Guang flinch. The other five Russians turned as one and raked the doorway with railgun fire. The people coming out were obliterated, and part of the doorway caved in.
They stand there, thought Jimmy Guang, inside their shiny suits. Like robots themselves, uplinked and shunted so they can move faster than I can think. It was difficult to imagine that a human being inhabited those suits.
Another Russian detonated, the shining green fragments of his suit clanging down on the stones of the square, and the remaining four abruptly changed their tactics. Backing away in an expanding arc, they poured rail-gun fire into the building and twenty seconds later another rocket destroyed it completely. Smoke hung in the square, and as the echoes died away the sounds of panicked voices formed a background to the creak and groan of shifting rubble.
He had seen it all before, but something in the horror of the moment provoked Jimmy Guang. "If you could get out of here," he asked Marta, "where would you go?"
"Today there is no out of here," she said. "Some days there is, but not today."
He was thinking about this as they walked in the square the next morning on their way to the bazaar in search of apples. The fires in the destroyed building were out, and shirtless laborers under the direction of Russian soldiers worked to clear the nibble. Fresh pockmarks pitted the pavement, and blood had sunk into the stones of the square like dirt in the creases of a hand. The workers called out and began digging a body free of the wreckage.
It's not working, Jimmy Guang thought. What if they do watch the matches without killing each other? What does it matter if later this happens?
"Marta," he said to distract her. She was looking at
the body and the workmen and the soldiers too, and he wanted her to think of something else. He wanted her to think about him, to understand that he asked her questions to find out if his answers were the same as hers.
"I've never been to India. You grew up in India, didn't you?" she said.
"Also Hong Kong and Bangladesh. My father was an engineer. He met my mother in Shanghai while building a bridge, and married her before its span was complete. I am named for the nickname of an ancestor of hers who worked on railroads in the United States." Two hundred years ago, that had been. Jimmy Guang supposed he still had relatives in America, in San Francisco or New York maybe. For a fleeting moment he thought of asking Marta if she would go to America with him. He thought he had enough money to do it.
Marta smiled at him. "You with your American name," she said, "and your old-fashioned American clothes. I love you, Jimmy Guang Hamid. If I could ever get out of here I would go with you to Hong Kona or Bangladesh or Shanghai or anywhere."
His American mixing-robot champion somehow acquired the name John Wayne. It continued to dispose of any opponents, and Jimmy Guang grew afraid that the monotony of its victories would cut into audience interest.
About a week after Marta's promise, though—which Jimmy Guang carried with him like a charm—a Russian army truck pulled up in front of the House of Gladmech. Jimmy Guang was there overseeing welders who were patching one of the hangar's walls, which had been partially shredded by a rocket attack from the mountains the night before. Slava Butsayev was elsewhere, which was good. Jimmy Guang hadn't worked up the nerve to kill him yet, and he didn't trust himself to keep up his friendly façade when other things were aggravating him.
Maniacs, he was thinking as the truck ground to a halt. Don't they know not to target this building by now?
A beefy and florid soldier hopped out of the truck's cab and came directly to Jimmy Guang. "You Jimmy Guang?" he said, pointing at the sign on the hangar.
"Yes," said Jimmy Guang.
"I have a robot in my truck there that will take your John Wayne apart," the Russian said.
Possibilities unfolded in Jimmy Guang's head. "I assume you're willing to wager on that," he said.
The big match took place the next night: John Wayne, the American seafloor miner, against Lokomotiv Lev, liberated from an abandoned factory in Bishkek and retooled by bored Russian combat engineers. Jimmy Guang had a feeling that John Wayne was about to meet an Indian he couldn't kill or outsmart.
The House of Gladmech was packed and sweaty. It had been a hot day, and even with the hangar doors open, a faint fog of perspiration hung in the cones of light from ceiling lamps. Lokomotiv Lev's partisans, a group of Russian perimeter guards from Bishkek, sat near the normal crowd of Butsayev's men from the Osh garrison. They formed an olive-green cluster amid the riot of Uzbek weaves and kaffiyeh worn by the locals. Jimmy Guang himself was wearing his suit, but he had gone to the only Western clothing store in Osh to buy a new tie for the occasion, and his shoes were polished to a quiet shine. The Colt automatic rested heavily in the small of his back. He wasn't sure why he'd brought it, but the night was fraught with uncertainty, and he hadn't wanted to feel unprepared.
He had a tremendous amount of money riding on the match. Fully three-quarters of the evening's receipts were at stake. If John Wayne suffered a defeat, Jimmy Guang would be without enough liquid cash to complete the purchase of tobacco and foot powder he had been negotiating with a Pakistani trader who would not return to Osh until spring. Without those goods, his income potential—and with it his dream of running to Shanghai or Delhi with Marta—would be severely injured.
If he won, though ... and if the Russians paid up .. . he would have enough money to get them both anywhere. Berlin, perhaps. Sydney. San Francisco; he could look up relatives. Jimmy Guang's stomach fluttered.
Marta entered the hangar and took a place on a raised bench against one wall. He was glad to see her. She caught his eye and waved. Big night for her too, he thought. She knows what's at stake.
Then Slava Butsayev walked in, worked his way through the crowd, and sat next to his brother. Marta's face turned to stone. Jimmy Guang watched Captain Butsayev closely for the next few minutes. The officer greeted his brother, touched him on the shoulder, made space for him on the bench; but no pleasantries, no exchange of affection, took place. He knows, Jimmy Guang thought, just as he had thought days before in his office. He knows, and he despises his brother, but blood is blood.
Slava Butsayev never sat in the stands with the other Russians. Did he have friends among Lokomotiv Lev's crew? That seemed most likely. Jimmy Guang had a paranoid spasm; had Slava sabotaged John Wayne? Did he have some arrangement with the Lev's builders? The idea passed as quickly as it had arisen. Slava takes pride in his work on the mech, Jimmy Guang thought. He wouldn't throw a match.
Whatever the reason for Slava's action, his visibility gave the evening an entirely different flavor. Jimmy Guang looked back to where Marta sat near the wall.
She was getting up. She did not look in his direction as she left.
Angry and fearful, Jimmy Guang raced through his prematch patter, leaning heavily on the crowd to bet local, to show some pride in Osh. He played shamelessly on whatever regional animosities he could think of and channeled them into ferocious wagering. By the time the mechs themselves appeared, the floor was thrumming with the stomping of feet and dust was sifting down from the rafters.
John Wayne destroyed Lokomotiv Lev in less than ten minutes. The Russian robot lumbered to the center of the ring looking purely invincible: squat, barely human in shape, with customized steel plating welded around its sensing apparatus and most joints. It looked as if Lev's crew had scavenged the armor from a tank. They had also, it appeared, amped up the grasping power of the pincers that served Lev for hands and provided the robot with epoxy sprayers and other nozzles whose function Jimmy Guang couldn't begin to fathom. Still, John Wayne was quicker, and more importantly, he had adapted himself to the idea that he was fighting for his life—or, as he preferred it, optimal functionality. Lokomotiv Lev had been programmed to destroy John Wayne; John Wayne to survive. So Lev managed to glue shut John Wayne's primary torch, encouraged by the hoarse shouts of the Bishkek Russian contingent (and some of the more fundamentalist IF guerrillas, who hated modernity and blamed it on America). Then Lev caught and tore away a significant amount of John Wayne's external plating, and for a brief moment it looked as if the Bishkek mech would get its pincers into John Wayne's internals. The voice of the crowd grew constricted, frenzied. John Wayne's escape brought them back into full-throated roar, and the momentum of the match seemed to shift. Lev couldn't keep the American in one place for long enough to bring its full strength to bear. And while it tried, John Wayne danced to the side and slashed at Lev's joints with his remaining torch until, as a thundering cheer rose from the weaveand-kaffiyeh side of the arena, Lev's left leg failed entirely and it toppled to that side. Within a minute, John Wayne had disabled both of Lev's pincers, and shortly after that Lokomotiv Lev was fit only for Pavel to scavenge gyros and CPU space.
The room of the old hangar rattled with the fierce roars of the winning side. The uproar was deafening, and grew a sharp edge as the Russians from Bishkek got up and left, leaving their champion to leak hydraulic fluid into the sand. What an odd stew of rivalries here, thought Jimmy Guang: Russians and Kirghiz, different divisions of Russians, even a strange flavor of the old Russian-American Cold War. Money changed hands in thick handfuls, and parts of the crowd broke into spontaneous chants that reminded Jimmy Guang of the fenced-off portions of European soccer stadia. Look what I've done, he thought as John Wayne clanked and whirred toward him. He snapped the robot a mock salute, and John Wayne saluted back. Over the robot's shoulder Jimmy Guang saw Slava Butsayev get up and follow the Bishkek group, and he knew at that moment that he could wait no longer.
Butsayev and the Bishkek Russians found their way to his favorite bar, and there they drank until t
he sky was beginning to lighten. Meeting out on the street in front of the bar, they began shouting at each other. Jimmy Guang's Russian wasn't good enough to determine the source of the disagreement, but it grew heated, and after a sudden flurry of punches, the Bishkek group began walking in the direction of the airport. Slava Butsayev watched them go. After a moment, he called something after them, some Russian colloquialism Jimmy Guang had never heard before. Then Butsayev set off down a side street, wending his way toward the area of the bazaar.
Jimmy Guang was stiff and chilly from his vigil, which he had kept from the vantage of a second-floor balcony in an empty apartment house opposite the bar. He resisted the impulse to shoot Butsayev right then and there: apart from the difficulty of hitting someone with a pistol shot from that distance, there was the question of propriety. Jimmy Guang Hamid was a man who did things a certain way, as his mother had plotted graphs a certain way in her classrooms or his father held the pencil a certain way when drafting. He had never killed a man, had never fired a gun, and if he was to do it now it would have to be done in a certain way. So he followed Slava Butsayev through the twisting ancient streets near the bazaar, and it was not until Butsayev came upon a teenage girl sweeping a crooked concrete porch in front of a building honeycombed with darkened windows that Jimmy Guang removed the gun from the waistband of his trousers. The trousers immediately sunk onto his hips, and he hoped that they did not sink any further to trip him up in what might follow.
Butsayev acted with the speed and decisiveness of a hunter, rather than the swagger of the torturer. He made as if to walk past the, girl, who had stopped sweeping and dropped her eyes toward the street as he approached. He said something to her and reached out to curl her hair around his fingers. She flinched, and his hand clenched.
Now, thought Jimmy Guang. Before he can do anything.