by Damien Love
With a small, delicate sound of ticking and whirring, the silver wires uncoiled, arranging themselves hungrily around the stone, a tight, complex embrace. He felt the robot vibrate slightly as its chest folded out, sealing completely over, without leaving a trace of a gap or a hinge. The tin seemed to grow infinitesimally colder in his fingers.
He raced blindly through the unknown city. Streetlights trembled in the falling snow. Dark streets slanted at shaking black angles. Images, memories swarmed at him. Golem thoughts. A terrifying, sickening, comfortable feeling. He sensed hidden tunnels beneath his feet. He was aware of tiny windows far above. Candlelight. All the secret lives, lonely in the night. The city changing. The night black and yellow. He knew the city. He didn’t know the city. Things weren’t where they should be. Things were where they shouldn’t be.
He remembered patrolling long ago, long nights of work. Hunting. Fighting. Being hunted. Men with torches. Flickering light. Screaming faces. He heard the river. He felt the river. He knew where the river was. The stone bridge singing silently. The clay riverbed. His feet taking a familiar path through unfamiliar streets. Centuries rising and falling around him.
Alex shook his head, panting. He was here and now, a boy running on this dark street, on this cold night, this old toy robot burning icy in his hand. He saw he had come to a tall archway and raced on under it, coming out onto a wide stone bridge carpeted in snow, lined by soft lamps and black statues hunched in patience.
High on a hill to his left, a castle glowed like a stern fairy tale, lit up warm golden-white in the night. Its reflection shuddered in the rushing water. The black river was wild and high, overflowing its banks.
When he reached the center of the bridge, he stopped. Ahead, a tower loomed hazily above another archway, marking the opposite end. He looked back, saw nothing, no one. He moved to the side, looked over. The water wasn’t far below. It coursed in a lethal torrent, foaming furious white where it smashed around the bridge’s stone buttresses and arches. He looked at the water. He weighed the robot in his hand.
A noise made him glance up. An unsteady, unrhythmic sound, echoing and amplified by the archway ahead. Like the marching feet of a broken army.
Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp.
He stepped to the center of the bridge, peering toward the tower ahead. The stuttering marching grew louder. Then he saw. At first it looked like just one figure—tall, wearing a long black coat, a hat—but as Alex watched, six more life-sizers spread out from behind it, forming a ragged line from one side of the bridge to the other. The head of the machine at the extreme right was squashed flat. Still it stumbled on with its brothers.
One by one, the robots raised their arms. Depleted as they were, they still seemed deadly enough. Alex turned, began running for the other end. Coming from that direction, tiny in the archway, was the lone, sullen figure of the girl, walking fast.
Alex skidded to a halt, turned again.
The robots were very close now.
Spinning around in desperation, he found he stood at the base of a statue: a tall bearded man in a hooded robe loomed sternly over him, flanked either side by sad angels with huge stone wings. He heard the terrible noise of the river.
A thought seized him. He searched in his jacket until he found the robot’s old box. He dug out his ruined phone. He looked at the robot, at the box, at his phone.
He pushed the lid closed on the robot’s box, then hauled himself up onto the bridge’s parapet, feet sliding dangerously in the snow, then up again, until he stood on the plinth at an angel’s feet. The angel held a massive book. For a stupid second, he caught himself wondering what it was. He heard the robots suddenly stop.
“Alexander!”
The voice sounded sharp, and very close. He looked down. The girl stood directly beneath him. Her huge dark eyes burned hatred. Her face bleakly fascinated him. Sister.
Alex hoisted the box. The thing inside rattled feebly.
“Don’t come any closer, I’ll throw it in!”
“Now, now, little Alexander.” She suddenly smiled a smile that failed to reach her eyes. “Let’s not be foolish. Now, look.”
Rolling her head as though trying to ease an ache in her neck, she lifted both arms, held them cruciform. Her coat moved strangely and the button at her throat fell open as a flier came crawling out from inside, followed by another, then another, eight in all. As they emerged in a small silver swarm, they split in two directions, until four apiece stood perched along her outstretched arms.
Simultaneously, they swung down their hooks, piercing the heavy fabric of her coat. The girl fluttered her eyes up at Alex. The fliers’ wings started beating in a blur. Slowly, she came rising into the air.
“Now, wouldn’t you like to learn?” she said as her head drew level with his. She hovered motionless, effortless before him, the straining little machines sounding like distant dentists’ drills. Alex leaned back until he pressed against the angel’s cold hard wing.
“Tricks and toys and techniques, and all the time in the world to learn,” she went on. “Oh, the places you’ll go! Oh, the things you will think! No more dreary little rabbit boy running away all the time, hop, hop, but Alexander—the Great! You can keep your little toy and come with us, and we’ll teach you how to play with it properly. You won’t believe how easy it all is, bunny. All the secret things. Secrets about you, too, maybe, eh?”
She cocked her head.
“Would you like to know a secret now?”
Alex swallowed.
The girl whispered something he couldn’t make out.
She giggled and whispered again. He leaned forward, straining to hear. Her mouth moved. Alex stretched farther, trying to catch her words.
“. . . my favorite boots for kicking.”
She jerked back, bringing one large boot up in a wild, balletic swing that hit his elbow with crushing force. The box spun from his grasp. They both lunged for it, Alex managing to grab it a fraction before her. The fliers made a grinding noise and she twitched violently, aiming another heavy kick at his side, another at his arm.
“Steel toes. See?”
The boot just missed his jaw as he ducked back.
“Zia!”
The girl froze, hung scowling in the air. Beneath them, the tall man and Beckman were approaching, moving painfully, but moving fast. The tall man was practically dragging himself, staggering on his cane, leaning heavily on Beckman’s shoulder.
The girl spun with another high, swiping kick.
“Zia,” the tall man shouted again. “Down. Now.”
“But . . .”
He moved a finger slightly on his cane. Instantly the fliers responded, dragging her downward as she frowned furiously up at Alex. The man patted her head weakly as she landed, the small robots burrowing back inside her coat.
“Come down now, Alexander.”
It sounded as though it was costing him a great effort to speak. In the lamplight, Alex could see that, beneath his hat, his entire head had been hastily wrapped in white bandages. One red, weary, yet furious eye stared out from the mummy-like mask, hints of raw skin around it.
Alex opened his mouth. A mass of emotions stuck in his throat. His head rang. “Are—” he managed. Then: “Who are you?”
“Come down,” the man said in his exhausted croak, “and then let us talk.”
“Alex!”
The voice came from behind them. Looking off, Alex could see his grandfather’s dove-gray figure running onto the bridge, sprinting toward them.
“The river!”
“Listen to me, Alexander,” the mouth behind the bandages hissed. “Don’t listen to him.” Alex saw the eye wince shut in painful concentration. Two life-sizers lurched off from the line, staggering toward the old man.
“He’s had long enough with you,” the tall man gasped bitterly, almost spent
. “And what has he done for you? What has he taught you? He has only kept things from you, eh? Things I can teach you, things you could not begin to imagine. But you will imagine them. Now. Listen.”
“Shut up,” Alex shouted. “Stop talking to me. Don’t you say my name.”
He turned to the angel, grabbed at the book in its arms, and used it to clamber higher. Now he sat perched on its shoulder, leaning exhausted against its snowy stone wing. The water churned and roared beneath him. Looking around desperately, his eyes stuck on another statue, not far away, a man with a staff, carrying a child on his shoulder.
“Alex!” His grandfather was getting nearer. He stopped to swat savagely in the air with his stick at something Alex couldn’t see. The girl turned toward him, tracing strange patterns in the air. Another flier emerged from her coat. The old man lifted his cane to meet the whipping arm of the lumbering life-sizer bearing down on him.
“All the things you could see,” the whisper hissed on from below. “Don’t let him stop you. Don’t let him stop you from being who you could be. Who you should be. Who you are.”
“Shut up!” Alex yelled.
“Don’t let him close your world down. Don’t let him hold you back.”
“Shut up!”
Alex heard the roaring water. The sharp sound of his grandfather’s cane snapping in two.
“Come down, Alexander.”
“Leave me alone!”
He saw the old man hit hard, knocked down, scrabbling desperately backward through snow, pressed by the life-sizer, pecked and buzzed by the flier.
“Alexander. You know us. You have always known us. Inside you.”
“I said Shut UP! STOP!”
Alex felt it. He felt his shout move out, straight toward the toy robot. Felt it drawn inside. And he felt the robot move, just once.
He felt his shout absorbed by the tablet, the clay growing heavier and colder and burning blue inside its awkward little container. He felt the light. Then he felt his shout sent back out into the flickering world, a fury on the wing. His voice, his command, bursting over the bridge in a cold, lightless wave. It rolled out, breaking across everyone and everything.
The force stunned the world. Time slowed, the river slowed, everything stopped. Everything but him. He had been trembling, but now he moved surely, in full control, the only thing left moving anywhere. He grabbed the angel’s somber head, pulled himself up, leaned far out over the frozen, boiling river. All the statues watched him.
He held the robot’s old box at arm’s length. The river responded. The waters parted before him, rolling back and up into two towering black walls to reveal the scarred clay riverbed, littered with centuries of junk, hungry to take back what had been removed from it long ago.
His senses were intensely sharp. He studied the picture painted on the box. The dark streets. The jaggy buildings. The robot marching, comically angry, looking for work. Then he pulled back his arm and threw the box as hard and far as he could, threw it forever away.
Things now happened at once, the planet spinning, the tides turning again. Alex saw the robot’s box leave his hand, saw it arc up and out toward the waiting river, saw it turn, fall, and disappear as the churning waters smashed violently together to receive it.
At the same time, he saw the girl break away from the tall man. He saw the flier drop from the air, saw her leap onto the side of the bridge and extend her arms, coat sleeves falling back, the dark map of scars catching the light. He saw her dive, plummeting into the water. He saw her sink, rise again, saw her look suddenly desperate, saw her pulled helplessly away, fast, caught in the raging current.
At the same time he heard the tall man cry after her in purest horror—“Zia!”—saw him cast away his cane and crouch painfully. He heard the creaking mechanical crank, saw the heavy old springs working at his heels, and saw him sent leaping high off the bridge after the girl. He saw him hit the river hard, saw him strike out toward her.
At the same time, Alex felt something inside lurch after him, a sharp bloom of fear and loss that swelled and burst around his heart. He saw his hand reach out as the word he had been fighting was torn from him, a whisper he barely heard.
“Dad?”
But he remained clinging to the statue, staring down at the water. The tall man’s bandage must have come off. It unfurled in a long snaking white coil on the seething black surface.
His grandfather appeared at the foot of the statue, leaning out over the water, gazing after them. Beckman went scurrying along the side of the bridge, stopping every few steps to look down, then hurry on. “No, no, no, no, no, no . . .”
In the darkness it was difficult to see. They were far out now, moving swiftly. It looked as though maybe the two small heads came together. Then they were gone, pulled down, pulled away.
Alex stared off down the river, straining to catch any further sign. But all there was to see was the Vltava, running high and black and very fast, catching the reflections of Prague and throwing them back, just as it has always done.
He was shaking again. A torrent of things ripped through him, burned his throat. He looked down at his grandfather, still staring out over the empty black water. As if sensing his stare, the old man turned, looking very grave.
“Alex.” He sounded tired. “Come down.”
“Are they . . . ? Is he . . . ? Is it over?”
“Yes, well—” The old man stopped. He was staring intently at him, head cocked, studying him seriously. He opened his mouth as if to ask a question, then seemed to change his mind.
“It would appear to be over, yes. Unless there’s anything you want to tell me now. Or . . . ask me?”
Alex clung to the cold stone, considering the old man. His mind had been raging like the river, but now it felt stunned, drained. He was exhausted.
“I . . . Not now. Maybe later. I think . . . I’d like us just to have some normal time. If we can. Just me and you, like it used to be. I mean, just for a little while? I need time to think.”
His grandfather sighed. “I would like that very much.” He reached up a strong, friendly hand. “Come on down, Alex. Let’s leave the saints and the angels alone.”
“So what now?” Alex said as he jumped weakly to the bridge.
Lifeless life-sizers stood around like strange new statues waiting to be hoisted up to join the others. A flier lay smashed near his feet. Beneath the high tower at the far end, he could see figures in shadows: a bald man, a small man, a chubby man. They looked lost.
“Ah, well.” His grandfather kicked sadly at the broken pieces of his cane in the snow, then bent to pick up the one the tall man had thrown away as he jumped. He held it up to a lamp, weighed it, and swiped loosely at the air.
“Hmm. Not a bad stick. Not a patch on mine, of course. But it’ll do until I can see my man about fixing me up another.”
He placed an arm around Alex’s shoulder, steered him firmly around so his back was to the robots and the men. They started walking toward the archway at the other end of the bridge.
“I think the first thing to do now,” Alex’s grandfather said, removing his mask, “is find ourselves a spot of breakfast. Ah, do you fancy trying to give Harry a ring?”
“Oh, I . . .” Alex patted his jacket pockets. “My phone. I’ve lost it. It must have fallen out. It was broken, anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” His grandfather spoke without looking at him. “Well, no matter. We’ll find another somewhere. I think you should call your mother, too. Do you good to hear her voice. Although, ah, we should probably work out what we’re going to tell her. Get our stories straight.
“I’ll have to buy you a new phone, I suppose,” the old man went on after a moment. “Harry was telling me he’s got one of those things now. Says he can’t live without it, although, if you ask me, he managed fine for long enough. Now he’s on at me to get one. And An
ne, she’s another one. In fact, most people I know.”
The light was changing. Morning breaking.
“I don’t know, though. I just don’t like them. I mean . . . Anyway. Now, tell me this, Alex: have you ever tried Turkish coffee? Tricky stuff. But worth the effort. There’s a knack to drinking it, you see . . .”
They passed beneath the old stone arch, the old man casually twirling his new cane.
* * *
• • •
THEY STAYED ON in Prague two more days. They maintained the strange silent pact and refrained from discussing much that had happened. Instead, they explored the city, and they ate some incredible dumpling things in a small restaurant not far from the Old Town Square.
Still, Alex was aware that, sometimes, when he entered a room, Harry and his grandfather would stop their conversation. And aware of the clamor building again in his mind that he had decided not to think about. Not yet.
Meanwhile, his grandfather scoured newspapers and listened to local radio news. But there were no reports of bodies in the river. There was, however, a great deal about the tramcar crash, and lots more about the blackout and what was described as “the freak localized storm” that had ripped through the Christmas market, snapping spires from the Church of Our Lady before Týn. Many people had been injured by the huge tree when it fell.
Accounts of all these incidents were hazy and varied, the details confused and confusing. All the newspapers noted one particular detail, however:
The police were seeking two masked men for questioning.
AFTER THE END
SNOW IS FALLING on the islands of Britain.
It falls gently on the Palace of Westminster and the standing stones of Wiltshire; on Manchester’s soccer stadia and the great iron angel at Newcastle; on the columns of the Giant’s Causeway and the high castle in Edinburgh. From John o’Groats to Land’s End, the entire country lies blanketed in white, everywhere, all at once.
It is a dim afternoon, a few days after Christmas. Snowmen stand in streets and gardens, silent sentinels of a scattered and crudely shaped army. They leer stony smiles, wink coaly eyes, test the air with carroty noses. No one counted, but, for one moment, there were exactly seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy-seven of them.
