by K. C. Finn
Less than ten minutes later a phonecall has them rushing to the interview rooms upstairs. Kendra blasts off at a gallop, leaving Cae to call on every available officer on the way to assist in the capture of the rogue bot. Fowler lags some way behind, but his short legs thunder on as best they can.
When Cae arrives at the scene he is met by the horrifying sight of the killer robot with its hands around Kendra’s throat. The previous intended victim, a parole officer, is clutching his own windpipe on the ground nearby, and some other officers rush in to help him get out of the room. Cae is the first to lay his gloved hands on the clockwork menace attacking Kendra, trying to prise its shining arms away from her. Between the two of them they manage to push the bot back, and when it forces its weight against Cae for a second time he gives a merciful little thank you to the RESISTANCE he has taken.
“You been working out?” Kendra grunts in a strangled voice.
“Something like that,” he replies with great strain.
Together they shove the bot back again, and Cae is taken off balance when the clockwork creature stops pushing. It looks around instead, suddenly heading for the doorway, and though it is full of policemen and guards the bot sets off at full speed. The breath-taking burst of energy sees the machine smash through the collected officers like bowling pins, and it is off at a gallop down the corridor at a pace no human can match.
“Damn,” Kendra groans. “Follow it!”
The officers who can get quickly to their feet again obey, but some of the older and the less fit are still winded and gasping from the bot’s impact. Another gasping figure arrives at the scene in the form of Doctor Fowler, who looks around at the assembled suffering coppers with confusion.
“It made a break for it,” Kendra explains, holding her throat.
“Ah,” Fowler pants, looking at her carefully. “Did it attack you?”
The chief nods. “Only when I tried to stop it from killing that parole guy,” she adds in spurts of choking breath.
“That’s a preservation mode,” the doctor reveals. “Part of the basic programming to make sure it gets the job done, although I daresay it’s taken the defensive strategy a step too far by trying to throttle you.”
During this exchange a worrying thought about the robot has bubbled to the top of Cae’s thoughts, and he bites his pale lip in anticipation of expressing it.
“Doctor Fowler,” Cae begins. The balding man turns with a frown amidst his ginger beard. “Do these machines have abilities for artificial intelligence?”
“Well of course,” the doctor answers. “They have to be able to build upon when they learn around them to progress successfully.”
“So they can adapt?” Cae asks. The doctor nods. “And they can develop new strategies to cope with problems?” He nods again. Cae furrows his dark eyebrows, deeply concerned.
Suddenly Kendra’s phone begins to ring. Grabbing it hurriedly, the new police chief listens fervently on the line. Howard Fowler watches her, bouncing on the balls of his wide feet.
“Well?” He asks. “Where is it now? Which camera’s gone down?”
Kendra’s face falls as she listens, and Cae already knows what she’s about to say.
“All of them.”
28.
With no way of knowing who or what the bot will strike next, locking themselves in at Dartley Station does not seem like a good idea to the other detectives. With all accounted for personnel now assembled in the cafeteria, Detective Smyth leads the warpath with one of his usual raging speeches.
“This is suicide!” He moans loudly. “We cannot be kept here against our will.”
“But you didn’t see it, detective,” pleads a young officer who was knocked down by the bot. “The thing’s a remorseless killing machine. We can’t risk letting it back out into society.”
“We have to catch it,” agrees the half-strangled parole officer in a painful throaty tone.
“Well said,” Cae concludes, giving Smyth a look of disdain. “If you hadn’t been so busy suspecting your own people,” he continues irately, “perhaps you would have noticed a killer robot milling about the place sooner.”
Smyth bristles his moustache indignantly. Cae turns away from the older detective, stalking across the cafeteria to where Kendra is standing on a table counting heads.
“All accounted for?” He asks, watching her hazel eyes flicker impossibly quickly over the assembled crowd.
“Ninety-seven personnel,” she says, leaping down from the table with a graceless thud. “The only people not up here are the crims in the overnight cells.”
“We should go down there and check that they’re not in trouble,” Cae suggests, watching as Doctor Fowler pushes his round form through the crowd to meet with them. “Who knows, maybe Thomas Watt will be willing to talk to us now?”
“He’s downstairs?” Fowler asks. Kendra answers him with nod. “Then do let’s go, I could use another mechanical mind to bounce ideas off of.”
“Do you think it’ll come after us when we go out there?” Kendra enquires, and Cae is not surprised to see the nervous expression sneaking onto her face. It is not every day that she meets a figure that’s a match for her strength, after all.
“It will recognise you and Cae as threats to its success from now on,” Fowler replies gravely. “You have to be disabled before it can continue its work.”
“Well that was cheerily put,” Cae remarks. “Let’s just go before Smyth leads a walkout.”
And so they go, treading the eerie, empty corridors of the station under its buzzing fluorescent lights. Fowler leads the way and Cae follows, Kendra guarding the rear of the group with her hands poised at neck level, ready to grab any errant, metal fingers that might be waiting to strike.
They reach the cells where the overnight prisoners are held with a collective relieved sigh, finding that all the criminal suspects are present and correct. And, mercifully, still locked up.
“What’s up Rex?” Asks a petty mugger nearest the door. “You lot having a party up there?”
“No, no,” Cae answers cheerfully. “Just having a meeting about a dangerous homicidal robot loose in the station.”
The rough mugger’s face drops, his baggy eyes widening with fear.
“Don’t worry,” says a young voice from the farthest cell. “We’re safer locked in here than they are out there.”
“Hello again Thomas,” Cae interjects, approaching the young man’s cell.
Thomas Watt turns, his dark hair and blue eyes flat and lifeless. He looks thoroughly disappointed with himself, but his energy peaks for a short moment when he catches sight of Doctor Fowler. He comes to the bars of his little cell with speed.
“Howard,” he begins. “I couldn’t stop it, I’m so sorry.”
“Nonsense my boy,” Fowler answers. “You tried your hardest.” The doctor pats the boy’s shoulder through the bars. “Have you had any thoughts on how to disable it while you’ve been down here?”
The young man nods, but it is with very little confidence. “The only thing I can think of is to distract it. If we could keep the robot occupied for long enough on a task, we could smash its limbs off whilst it’s working.”
“Hey I know,” Kendra smirks. “We could let it strangle Smyth. It’d take long enough to get through that thick neck.” Cae gives her a serious look. “Not the time for jokes,” she adds glibly. “Noted.”
“You’d better come and help us,” Cae says to Watt junior, fumbling on his belt for his bunch of keys. They are tangled up behind his repaired gas mask, and as he retrieves them Cae looks at the mask more intently. “I have an idea,” he says slowly.
“Thank heavens for that,” Fowler exclaims happily. “Do tell.”
The deafening ring of Kendra’s phone echoes out into the cells. She grabs it quickly and answers, looking at Cae with wide-eyed shock.
“The bot’s in the cafeteria,” she warns.
Cae races for the exit door with a gloved hand, yanking its handle with al
l his strength.
“And we’re locked in,” he completes.
29.
Although Cae knows he will regret it severely later, the only way to break down the locked door is to let out the other criminals to help. But seeing as he’s let Redd Richmond go today already, perhaps he can write it off as some sort of amnesty.
“The station is on lockdown,” he says as he unlocks each cell. “So don’t get clever and think you’re going to run off. I want you to stay down here and out of the way.”
The petty criminals mumble to themselves as they assemble at the door, lifting a steel filing cabinet between them. As they begin the heaving process of battering down the door, Cae steps back to where Kendra, Thomas and the doctor are watching the labour effort.
“This idea of yours,” Kendra begins. “You’re not going to share it, are you?”
“I think it’s better if I just get on with it when we get in there,” Cae replies. “You and Thomas need to grab the axes and hammers from the fire safety cabinet and be ready to follow the thing around if it starts moving.”
“What do I do?” Asks Howard, his double chin wobbling with nerves.
“Well, when it’s disabled I want you to get to work finding out who tampered with it in the first place,” Cae explains. “It’s important to me to work out who’s behind this.”
“In that case,” says Howard, turning to Kendra and Thomas, “don’t damage the central chest panel when you start hacking at the limbs, I’ll need it intact to see what’s been done.”
“Believe me,” Kendra answers, “I don’t want to be anywhere near the front of that thing again.”
“I concur,” adds Thomas Watt. “If we aim behind the shoulder joints and at the back of the knees, we’ve got a chance.”
One of the muggers that has been released has taken to yelling “Heave!” as the criminals keep smashing at the reinforced door, which is now starting to buckle under the strain. Many of the arrested miscreants are unimpressed by this act.
“A few more should do it!” Squeals the skinny mugger, who is holding the back corner of the heavy cabinet and does not appear to be doing much heaving himself. “Heave!”
“I’ll heave you in a minute!” Barks a much larger car thief who is carrying a lot of the cabinet’s weight in the middle.
“That’s it, one more!” Continues the annoying little man.
“Shut up you little rat!” Adds another thief on the opposite side.
“Heave!” He squawks again, and this time the cabinet finds its mark with all the collected criminals’ strength.
The heavy door comes flying off its hinges and thumps down into the outer corridor, but it is hardly visible over the scramble of enraged criminals now mobbing the skinny mugger, shouting obscenities and trying to catch him for a beating.
Amongst this new chaos the four non-criminals in the room make their way to the exit and hurtle back up towards the cafeteria, Kendra leading the way. The sound of shouting and cries for aid soon catches the group’s attention, and even Doctor Fowler quickens himself to an extreme pace to reach the cafeteria in time.
The scene they arrive on is one of utter mayhem. The robot, no longer concerned with stealth, is holding two officers, one female and one male, up by their necks whilst others are throwing heavy objects at it in attempt to make it desist. Many of the stronger members of the force are already laid out unconscious against walls and in corners, as though the bot must have thrown them aside like rag dolls.
“Fire cabinet!” Cae reminds, and Kendra and Thomas depart for the opposite side of the room, where two secretaries and already trying to free the axes and hammers from their glass holding.
And so it is time to test the idea. Hoping against hope that his suspicions are right, Cae starts moving directly into the path of the robot. A hand on the floor grabs his ankle, and he is shocked to find it belongs to Detective Smyth. The older man is on the floor cradling his head with the other hand, which is caked in sticky blood.
“Don’t be a madman, Rex,” he groans.
He wants to bite back, angered that even in his weakened state Smyth stills deigns to give him advice, but the sorry mess of a man on the floor in front of him forces Cae into silence. He shakes his ankle free and presses on.
The man and woman being held by the robot are flailing wildly, their faces turning a horrific shade of purple as they are starved of oxygen. The bot’s basic programming has told it to eliminate every threat. And now that programming will be its downfall.
“Robot,” Cae states in a clear, loud tone.
He lifts a leather gloved fist to the nearest wall, smashing his hand straight through the cafeteria clock. The bot drops one of the people it is holding instantly, and then slowly releases the other, now watching Cae with its tiny, slitted sight receivers.
“This clock is broken,” Cae begins. “Hadn’t you better fix it?”
30.
“If they see something broken, they have to fix it. It’s part of the programming.”
Cae has been correct in thinking that this robot will be no exception to Archie Watt’s words.
“Brilliant!” Shouts Thomas from somewhere nearby.
“Everyone else get back and get out!” Kendra orders in a masterful tone, and for the first time since her appointment she sounds like the chief of police.
The murderous robot is occupied in picking up the loose cogs from the clock that have scattered everywhere, and during this time the ninety-seven personnel make a rush for the downstairs foyer, the fitter members carrying the wounded and unconscious. When he is certain they are all on their way to safety, Cae steps across to the cafeteria’s cash register, picking up a loose chair leg that has come off.
Kendra signals to Thomas, pointing at her right arm. He nods in understanding of the first target. Howard Fowler watches from the door with his beady little eyes. In a swift motion the two armed attackers advance on the back of the killer bot and strike in an almost perfect rhythm. Kendra’s fire axe comes slicing down right into the joint of the robot’s shoulder, after which Thomas Watt brings the hammer down on top of the head of the axe.
The double force brings the bot’s arm clean off and it turns on them then, enraged once more, the long fingers of its left arm outstretched and ready to choke.
But Cae is at work again in an instant, smashing up the cash register with the chair leg.
“Robot! Robot!” He orders in the same loud tone. “This register is broken.”
And the core programming takes over again, with the bot rushing to pick up the pieces of the shattered machine and starting to reassemble the buttons on the face of the till.
This time Kendra steps more boldly. She signals the left arm, then makes a motion across the knees. Cae watches with interest, knowing that she and Thomas are going to try the rest of the disablement in one go. He looks to Howard Fowler, who is putting his glasses on. The chubby scientist nods confidently at him, indicating that he is ready to get to work on the programming.
The small blast of a siren above them somewhere indicates that someone has lifted the lockdown on the building for the personnel to escape. Cae hopes with a shudder that no-one will reveal that he unlocked all the criminals downstairs, should they realise that escape is now possible. But he has little time to worry about it as Kendra suddenly makes her second move with her heavy axe.
The left arm comes off as swiftly as its counterpart had, and as Kendra and Thomas set to work on dropping the metal beast to its knees, Cae offers what help he can with the broken chair leg still in his grip. After a few moments the bottom sections of the bot’s legs are off, and when they turn it over to expose the chest panel, the machine has no ability left to move.
At this Doctor Fowler moves in, prising open the panel with his wide fingers and rubbing his little red beard with concern. He is in a flurry of button-pushing and code-reading, and finally Cae sees the emergence of the brilliant scientist that Kendra and the Clockworkers hold in such est
eem.
“Well,” says Kendra happily. “Everyone’s evacuated to safety and we dropped the killer bot. I figure it’s drinks all around, don’t you?”
“I think I ought to buy them,” pants Thomas Watt with a sheepish smile. “If I’d known before what you two can really do, I would have accepted your help sooner.”
“Excuse me,” says Howard quietly.
“Oh no,” Cae continues, addressing Thomas still, “You really helped us out at the Atomic Circus raid; I’d say we’re about even now.”
“So you were there following Damian Jobe?” Kendra asks the young man.
“Excuse me,” says Howard in a sterner tone.
“Yes that’s correct,” Thomas answers Kendra, rubbing his youthful blue eyes. “But I got in a bit over my head as you saw. I think I’m starting to make a habit of it.”
“Welcome to the club,” Cae chuckles.
“EXCUSE ME!” The fat doctor yells, making the three younger people jump.
“Sorry Howard,” Kendra says with a start.
“Did you find something?” Cae asks.
“Yes. Stop congratulating yourselves,” Howard orders, his expression grave. “It isn’t over.”
Requiem For A Pile Of Cogs
31.
“I should have realised what this would do to the programming,” Howard frets, pointing at the screens of code inside the killer bot’s chest panel, which seem to be rushing by in an erratic fashion.
“Why? What’s wrong now?” Kendra asks, exasperated.
“Well these bots are designed for stealth and secrecy,” Howard explains. “So if one of them gets damaged you can’t just leave it lying around; someone would find it and give the game away. There’s a line of programming that instructs the other clockwork robots to come and collect the remains.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Thomas asks, pushing his dark hair off his sweating brow.
“This machine has sent out its signal to all the other bots belonging to the Clockworkers in Dartley, some sixty robots I’d imagine.” The doctor fixes his serious, beady eyes on Cae and squares his large jaw. “It has sent out the tampered code in its signal.”
