Robot Wrecker

by Paul Tomlinson

  "Nathan?" I asked.

  Riordan's face was grey, he was probably thinking the same thing I was: the explosion was too convenient, just like the death of the Talos Industries chairman.

  Riordan shook his head. "One of the police officers."

  Chapter Nineteen

  It started like most Mondays. Badly. You know there is something fundamentally wrong with the universe when you wake up alone in bed, and the only memories you have of the previous night are that you also went to bed alone. And sober. If I'd gone to bed drunk, I'd at least have had an excuse for the headache. And the strange dreams. The dreams were beginning to lose their intensity, but I was still waking up with the cold sweats and the lingering image of George Raft's grim smile.

  This particular Monday was doubly bad, because I woke with that 'first day back to work' feeling. Probably because it was going to be my first day back at work. Now that Raoul had regained consciousness, Phyllis and I had decided that we should get the repair shop back into some kind of working state, ready for his return home.

  "I thought I'd asked you to speak to the Goldberg's about that cat of theirs?" Phyllis said, as soon as I got to the repair shop.

  "I did."

  "Well, it got in here again, through the broken skylight, and peed rusty water up the hi-fi, so it only plays out of two speakers: all I can get out of the other one is a gurgling noise."

  I wanted to tell her that gurgling was an improvement over the music she usually played, but I didn't. Because I was scared of her, okay?

  It was just like we'd never been away.

  "Why don't I just fix the cat?" I asked.

  "Thirty-eight years they've lived across the road, and never once have they brought so much as a toaster in here to be repaired: they'd sooner go across town and pay some upstart with 'approved dealer' stickers in his shop window: you think we owe them free repairs?"

  "Maybe not. I'll look at the hi-fi later."

  "Mrs. Zimmerman 'phoned before you got here," Phyllis said. "She said the servo went in her leg again: when I told her you weren't available, she was hopping mad! Heh, heh! She fell down the stairs, and now her leg is twisted round backwards, and she's most upset about it. I personally don't know what all the fuss is about: being able to kick yourself in the butt saves someone else the trouble. Anyway, she says you're a lazy, no good waste of space, and she never wants to set eyes on your good-for-nothing hide again, and could you go round and fix her leg as soon as you get in."

  Yep, it was just like old times.

  Mrs. Zimmerman needs a bit of explanation. Actually, she needs more than that – Susan Calvin would have a field day with her – but that's by the by. Mrs. Zimmerman is a robot, but she doesn't seem to know that. She thinks she's human. Sort of. In fact, she has virtually no concept of reality. She believes herself to be an eighty-seven year old widow. She is in fact a thirty-two year old MLS-5, probably the last surviving example of the Melissa series.

  Mrs. Zimmerman is still technically registered as the property of Cyril Herbert. She had been his housekeeper for thirty years of her existence, the two of them living the solitary lives of an aged married couple. When Cyril's heart finally gave out, Mrs. Zimmerman's robot brain was unable to cope with the fact.

  Cyril's death was only discovered when a neighbour called in and found Mrs. Zimmerman serving afternoon tea to his bloated corpse. Some would have you believe that the corpse had been patched and stitched like a geriatric Frankenstein monster, in an attempt to repair the damage the housekeeper had caused while dragging Cyril upstairs to bed every night. Such rumours are unconfirmed. But it isn't difficult to imagine Mrs. Zimmerman propping up her putrefying patron in front of his favourite TV programme with a packet of popcorn and a pomander.

  Cyril's corpse was taken away for cremation, and when his will was read, it turned out that he was as potty as she was: he had bequeathed his home and savings to the robot, and left instructions that she be allowed to live out her remaining days as a 'free person.' The will also made provision for a maintenance contract for Mrs. Zimmerman, said contract having been agreed by Cyril Herbert and Raoul's Robot Repair Shop just before Mr. Herbert's demise.

  Mrs. Zimmerman's maintenance had become my responsibility when I began working at the repair shop, and it was impressed upon me by Phyllis that as long as the robot remained functional, the repair shop would continue to receive an annual contract fee from Cyril Herbert's estate.

  Mrs. Zimmerman seemed to regard me as some sort of mischievous nephew, and I admit it was all too easy to regard her as an aged aunt in the grips of senile dementia. The Melissa series were fairly utilitarian machines, originally manufactured in Germany: imagine, if you can, Norman Bates' mother in Art Deco bronze, and you'll have some idea of her appearance.

  "I killed him, you know," she said to me one day.

  I thought I'd misheard her. "I'm sorry?" I said.

  "I'm not," she answered. "Cantankerous old crackpot. He used to drive me crazy: I can't eat this with my teeth; I can't read this, the print's too small; I can't walk far on these feet; I can't this, it hurts when I that, whinge, whinge, whinge. So I did him in. Put him out of his misery. And mine. I knew what was in his will, I knew I was made for life. I just crept up behind him, shouted BOO! and there he was, dead as a doornail, and I was free."

  This was said during one of her more lucid moments, and I could almost believe it was the truth.

  "I'm not really mad, you know, I only pretend," she said. "If they think I'm mad, they'll leave me alone, to live like a person."

  I told Raoul what she'd told me, and he thought hard on it for about twelve seconds, then shrugged.

  "He's dead. We get 20,000 currency units a year for the maintenance contract, where's the harm?"

  "But suppose she kills again?" I asked.

  "She doesn't go out, she never sees anybody. Except you, and she likes you."

  I was not convinced, but there was little I could do. Only I had heard Mrs. Zimmerman's confession. Cyril's body was now dust, so there was no evidence of any kind. What could I do? Just make sure never to turn my back on her, that's what I could do.

  I went to fix Mrs. Zimmerman's leg, and then took the old Land Rover out on the rounds to half-a-dozen other customers to thump, drop or otherwise repair their domestic robots. It was almost as if the Talos Industries business had never happened.

  Around sixish I pulled into a drive-thru burger place and ordered a double cheeseburger and fries in a greasy paper sack. Who wants to live forever? Then, having nowhere to drive to, I pulled into the burger joint's parking lot and ate the neatly packaged meal. The 'phone went, and I ignored it, expecting it to be Phyllis with another emergency call-out repair (at double rates for after dark service); but Phyllis usually gets the message and hangs up after a dozen or so rings, this caller didn't.

  "Wewwo?" My mouth was full of soya patty.

  "Stevie Houston?"

  "Either that or someone's stolen my 'phone," I said. I peered at the little dashboard monitor.

  "Mrs. Zacharias said I'd have to leave it ringing a while if I wanted to get through to you." The caller was Beth Civardi, she was lying in a hospital bed. "She says she often has difficulty getting through to you."

  "How are you?" I asked.

  "On the mend," she said. "Been a bit groggy for a couple of days, or I'd have called sooner. I wanted to warn you."

  "Warn me?"

  "Nathan Rhodes isn't dead," she said. "The explosion killed the driver; I was in the back with Nathan. He disappeared before the ambulance got there. I can't get any information from Talos or my superiors, but I think the prototype robot, the Wrecker, is missing too."

  "If you were Nathan, what would you be doing right now?" I asked.

  "I think revenge would feature quite heavily in my thoughts," Beth said.

  "I think so too," I said. "Thanks for the warning. Is there anything you need? Grapes? Comics? Lucozade?" I tried to think of all the things you were meant to
get for hospital patients.

  "If you can think of a way to get me out of here, that'd be great: this place is sending me stir crazy."

  "See what I can do."

  "Take care, Stevie."

  "Thanks, Beth, I will."

  *

  Moving into the flat had been an adventure. To brighten up the dingy room, Nathan and I had painted the walls with 'Sunset Orange' – a colour that ended up looking a lot like dried rust. We'd probably have chosen something wilder if it hadn't been for the chocolate brown nylon carpet that all rented flats had to have fitted. Between us, we hadn't had much stuff to move in – a rucksack full of clothes, and a couple of bed rolls we bought in the local market. 

  We accumulated more junk during the twelve months we lived there – but now it was all gone: all that was left in the middle of the floor was a box containing two of Nathan's t-shirts and the arm he had left behind. I wasn't sure what to do with the box. I thought about asking the landlord to stash it in the cupboard under the stairs, in case Nathan came back for it. But in the end I wrapped the arm in the t-shirts and took the bundle back with me to the repair shop.

  The repair shop had once consisted of a forecourt and shop, with an office and a small apartment. Next to it had been two work bays, where mechanics had raised cars on hydraulic platforms and fixed whatever it was that used to go wrong under fossil fuel vehicles. The hardware had been robbed out years ago. The larger bay had been fitted out as Raoul's workshop years ago, and there was a connecting door between it and the office and shop area. The smaller bay had been used as a storeroom, mainly because it was a windowless space and because the sliding metal door across the front of the bay had rusted shut back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. 

  Rather than try and fix the big metal door, I'd knocked a new one through the side wall. And a window. Or rather, I knocked holes through with a big hammer, then got a couple of guys to come and fit a door and window: I used the same guys who had come to replace the wrecked door on the repair shop. I'd dragged in an electric shower cubicle, replacing the heater unit and connecting it to the repair shop's main water tank, setting the timer to give me a short but hot shower. There had already been a toilet, fed by a rainwater tank – it still seemed to drain off somewhere, so I didn't look too closely. Half the concrete cave I filled with my work bench, tools and computer. In the other part I laid a nice thick rug – like one my grandmother used to have. I bought a new mattress and bedding, so that at least the sleeping area had that 'new home' feel. My kitchen was an old two-ring gas stove and a battered microwave which was probably frying my nuts every time I used it.

  Outside was a covered over porch that I grandly referred to as 'the veranda' – I had a rocking chair there, so I could watch the sunset. Or the thunder storms. The washing machine I'd fixed was also out there under the lean-to. I planned on fixing up a clothes-dryer sometime soon, but in the meantime I had a washing line out in the yard.

  Although I technically lived in the same building as Raoul and Phyllis, they were more like neighbours than cohabitants: we didn't have to see each other unless we wanted to. This new little hobbit hole was the first place I'd ever had of my own. I could sit around in my underwear, eat pizza and fart. I could fill my space with gadgets and really cool toys. I could sleep without hearing someone else snore. But mostly I'd end up sitting around and talking to myself.

  *

  "The damage doesn't look all that bad," Phyllis said.

  SAM was laid out on a workbench at the repair shop. What was left of him. She thought that was the reason for my worried expression.

  "I know. The knee and elbow joints need replacing, and the neck'll need re-wiring, but it's no big deal," I said.

  "Then what?" She asked.

  "It's not over," I said. "Nathan is still out there somewhere, and he's got that robot with him, the one that nearly killed Raoul. If he blames me for what has happened, he'll come back. He'll want to get even."

  "You don't know that for sure," Phyllis said. She'd brought in a tray of coffee and biscuits. The biscuits looked home made, but she'd deny it if I asked her, so I didn't. I bit into one, it was good – still warm.

  "That robot is still out there somewhere. And Nathan's going to send it after me," I said.

  Phyllis blew on her coffee to cool it. "How do you manage to wind people up so much that they want to kill you?" She asked.

  "It's a gift," I said.

  "You think that thing will come after you while you're here?" Phyllis asked.

  "You scared?" I asked.

  "Of a robot? You've got to be kidding: I've been around them most of my life, never saw one yet that made me nervous. They're just machines."

  "It probably won't show up here anyway," I said. "Nathan doesn't know that – "

  "It's already here," Phyllis said quietly. She moved towards the window, listening.

  "I didn't hear anything," I said.

  "Neither did I," Phyllis said. "Something's set off one of the motion detectors at the back of the yard."

  A red warning icon was flashing on one of the workshop's mismatched monitors.

  "Probably just kids again, looking for some scrap bits for one of their cars," Phyllis said. She didn't sound convinced, and the fact that she reached for her shotgun made her seem less so.

  "Stay here: it's me it wants," I said.

  I went to the door before she could stop me.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Wrecker was standing on top of a pile of auto scrap, immediately visible in the moonlight when I opened the door. It was like a frame from a Batman comic.

  The robot leaped from the top of the twenty-foot cliff of rusted metal carcasses and landed without a sound. A gun-metal and stainless steel skeleton with blood-red muscle formations, it looked like some weird fusion of raw flesh and surgical instruments. The eyes were dead spheres in a gleaming steel death's-head. Its mouth was modelled to give the impression of fangs: psychological intimidation. It was like some beautiful but lethal sculpture: a nail-bomb in a Zen garden.

  It circled around me, moving with the kind of grace you see in slo-mo replays of gymnasts, but its movements took place so quickly that all I was aware of was motion-blur: it was as if the robot disappeared, reappearing somewhere else, a few feet away. Dancing with Death.

  I looked at the robot, and knew how Raoul must have felt when he faced it: like Frankenstein facing his creation for the first time. This machine, with its Nikon shark eyes was soulless. Malevolent. Before that moment I had, like Phyllis, never felt afraid of a robot. But this machine was faster than me. Stronger. It was programmed to kill. It would not lose its target. It would not cease until I was dead.

  If I moved, it would attack.

  I could not outrun it. Or outfight it. To out-think it, I was going to need a flash of inspiration and a whole heap of luck.

  Inspiration seemed to be in short supply that night.

  It attacked without warning: I barely had time to register its movements, never mind react to them. The robot lifted me bodily, squeezing me in a bear-hug which forced the air out of my lungs. I looked up into its immobile fright-mask face, trying to struggle free, but my arms were pinned to my sides, and my feet kicked uselessly at its steel shins. Then it had hold of me at neck and groin and was lifting me above its head. It threw me, like I was a kid's doll.

  I hit the ground and lay gasping like a de-bowled goldfish for a moment, then got to my knees. I found myself staring up at the killing machine. It reached down, hands gripping the sides of my head, and jerked me to my feet. I had a feeling that Nathan had instructed the robot to prolong this little confrontation for as long as possible: no easy death for Stevie Houston. Maybe Nathan was somewhere close by, watching; or he was controlling it himself and getting a direct visual feed from the robot's eyes.

  I looked up into the machine's dead-fish eyes.

  "Too chicken to face me yourself, Nathan?" I asked.

  If Nathan heard me, he gave no
indication. The robot lifted me again, and sent me flying into a heap of discarded robot parts.

  Blood streamed down my face from a cut above my left eye and from another along my jaw. It hurt to draw breath. I looked frantically around for a weapon, but the robot was already standing over me, reaching down. It seemed that it was going to swing me round by the leg this time, before hurling me into something hard and rusty.

  I heard a buzzing then, like a small motorbike engine, or a large wasp. Maybe it was just the robot humming, happy in its work.

  Then again, maybe not.

  "Hey, tin man! Come and say hi to my new can opener!" Phyllis yelled. She was wielding the little chainsaw I sometimes used to hack off robot limbs when I went out scavenging: Phyllis seemed to have a similar use in mind.

  The robot turned and walked straight towards her. I saw Phyllis swing the saw, and the robot blocked it with its forearm, sparks flying. The saw stalled then, and the robot knocked it from her hands. It picked her up and threw her: she hit a pile of scrap metal, heavily, and lay unmoving.

  "No!" I yelled.

  The robot was moving towards Phyllis, aiming to finish her off. If she wasn't dead already.

  I picked up the chainsaw. I hoped it had a full charge, because if it wouldn't fire up when I got close to the robot, I was going to look very stupid. For a very short time. I advanced on the gleaming metal demon that was bearing down on the old woman. If this was a movie, it was exactly the kind of moment when they'd stick in a commercial break.

  Phyllis stirred. Her eyes flickered open and she looked up at the robot, and then towards me. I placed a finger on my lips: I didn't want the robot to be warned of my presence if possible. I was hoping that it wouldn't hear me approach, wondered how sensitive its sensors were, whether I could get close enough to do it some damage before it turned and did me some. Phyllis didn't even acknowledge me with a nod, knowing that this would tip-off the robot. I think maybe she guessed what I was thinking.