So You Want to be a Robot and Other Stories

by A Merc Rustad

  Your son sits beside you, motionless save for the twitch of his fingers as he turns a silver knife. You do not remember when he ceased being a child—he is so like his lord father, grown and powerful and hollow.

  The sorceress did not come back for you, but neither did the Hunt bring her or the other girls in as prized prey. In their world, your old world, does she remember you? (You still remember her.)

  “My lady?”

  “Yes, my son?”

  He leans his forehead against your temple, his eyes closed. “Will we ever leave this place?”

  He is the Winter Lord’s favorite; you have seen what is done to him, what he is made to do. But you are the sole winter bride.

  One day, you hope, your son will create a distraction and you can follow the sorceress. (Or perhaps you will do the same for him and let him go.) One day, you will leave Winter forever.

  “My lady?” he whispers, and you grip his hand around the knife hilt and hold him close.

  “Yes,” you say. “In time.”

  I MISS YOU.

  I miss the feel of your scales, the coarseness of your fur, the tease of your claws, the scrape of your fangs against my skin.

  At night, I dream we’re still together: in your castle, in your coffin, in your dark lake waters. Just us, without the world to judge. I dream you were not taken from me.

  In the dreams, there is no fire to consume you, no silver bullets or machine guns on biplanes, no stakes and no curses.

  I miss you.

  I want you back.

  IT’S COLD HERE in my so-called happy ending. I hate this dull, monotone ever after I’m trapped in. Here I’m just another pretty face, flawless make-up, cast only to smile, or cry, or scream. Never to feel—especially not for you.

  The future for me is to settle down, forsake my dreams and forget you. Fade into obscurity, because the monster is the only one who is remembered.

  (I will not be content in oblivion.)

  When we were together, I was your world and you were mine. You always remembered my name. You knew the inside seams of my heart, the desires unspoken. You treated me as equal.

  No one knows me here.

  But they remember you, and so do I.

  They cry “Stockholm Syndrome!” when I say your name. They twist my story every time, turn it into a lie, because you’re a monster. Their stories can only end one way.

  You didn’t take me against my will. I came looking for you, remember? We found each other in the dark, in the moonlight, under the sun, beneath the stars.

  We were so happy.

  I rage and grieve in silence as the credits roll.

  I miss you.

  Oh, God, I want you back.

  THEY SAY YOU were invisible, but I could always see you.

  They say you were a dichotomy of good and evil, man and monster, two different faces—but I know it’s you, only you. (They never said the same about me, of course, but I love you because we’re so alike.)

  I know you when you wear a mask, when your music echoes beneath the opera house foundations.

  They called you mad—but it’s only science. Think of the wonders we created in the laboratory, our bodies silhouetted by Bunsen burners and lightning, our scalpels agleam in the shadows. We discovered the secrets of life, and of death, and how to pass between them. We should have won acclaim for our research. We earned only torches and the cries of a mob.

  I miss you.

  I want you back.

  MY LIFE IS a fractal mirror, showing every possibility but the one I want. The glass always tells the wrong story.

  But no longer.

  Now the story is mine, and I will give us the ending we deserve.

  SO I’M BUILDING you again, my love. From memory and scraps of film discarded in sunless vaults. From coarse stitching that held your flesh together and old bandages that never aged.

  I’ve sewn your scalp with lightning and daisy petals thrown in a lake. I’ve carved bones from wolf-headed walking canes and the memory of your touch. Your claws: here they are, made from jungle rock and sulfur.

  I’ve riveted your skin with radiation and the devil’s name. I’ve given you eyes only I can see. Your blood I made in the laboratory through chemistry and minor chords. Teeth? Oh, I would never neglect something that important. Here they are, shaped from celluloid and magnetic tape, waveforms written on ivory shards.

  Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the final piece: I could never forget your heart.

  I found it wrapped safe in old newspapers with glaring headlines, with ticket stubs and cigarette paper. It was locked away in a jar, sealed in a box, buried under the crossroads.

  I hid it there so it would be safe until I could break away from the cameras and the binding scripts and the spotlights that never showed me as real.

  I’ll put your heart back in your chest, and you will live, you will live, you will live.

  When I’m done, they will say I have created a monster.

  OUTSIDE? YES, I hear the angry voices. The firelight gleams on the laboratory windows. Lightning shears the sky. It’s like the day we first met, don’t you agree?

  Your heart begins to beat.

  Live, my love.

  Your eyes open.

  The mob has reached our castle gates. Of course they brought a battering ram. Don’t worry. I came prepared.

  Do you see those wings I made for us? Metal frames stretched with supple leather, a harness that can hold us both. An engine will propel us far away, far into the sky, into the night, where no one can ever follow. The cloaking device is one I designed when you were invisible. We will be unseen by radar or satellites.

  You smile and I take your hands in mine.

  When you say my name, my heart beats wildly again—I live, I live.

  The mob has breached the gates; we must go now.

  I help you stand. The windows slam wide open. The night gusts in and whips my lab coat like a cloak behind me. You breathe deep the rain-scented air. Your first breath. The first of many.

  Footsteps on the stairs, voices echoing along spiraling stone walls. “Monster!” they scream.

  Yes, my love, they speak of us both.

  Make sure your harness is fastened tight. Hold my hands while I grip the yoke.

  The door to the laboratory shatters.

  Jump now—I won’t let us fall.

  The engine roars and then we’re flying, arching up into the lightning-streaked night, cutting through rain. We’re making history, you and I, and we will always be remembered.

  You laugh in exhilaration, and I howl with you. We will never be separated again.

  I missed you so.

  And now I have you back.

  MICKIE FOUND THE Doombot5000 at an estate sale purely by accident. Well, that and a tracking app she’d installed on her phone. But really, when the address popped up, it wasn’t as if she could have known it was the estate of her former nemesis, Sandron the Unstoppable.

  Poor Sandy. He’d been a decent antagonist back in the day. She didn’t remember any invite to his funeral.

  Mickie, formerly Mindsight the Conqueror of Space, shuffled through the rows of sentimental crap and old clothes and Sandy’s impressive collection of Space & Time Quarterly until her phone buzzed and she saw the Doombot5000 in a corner behind three ancient vacuums.

  No one else has noticed yet, because why would a guy like Sandy have owned a Doombot5000?

  “I’ll take all four vacuums,” she told the manager.

  BACK AT HER loft, which was nothing like her old digs on the Cataract of Europa, she lined up her new vacuums and the Doombot5000.

  The Doombot5000 did resemble an old tube-hosed vacuum, with its squat head against the floor, a cylindrical upright body and its destructor-arms flattened against its sides like a cord and nozzle. Of course its batteries were depleted and the flashing red eyes and wailing “DESTROY ALL THE THINGS!” mantra were offline.

  What mattered, and why Mickie had shelled out a g
rand for the “antiques”—half the rent for this month—was that it was an original Doombot, and it hadn’t been neutralized by the Accord of Peaceful Enforcement in ’98.

  Her heart pounded as fast as it had back in the day when she donned her black heels, vibrant purple cape, and went forth to battle the do-gooder heroes always standing between her and world domination. She pulled out the adapter cord she’d made and plugged it into the Doombot’s battery port. Nothing, at first.

  Then the optics began to glow and the digitized voice crackled through static. “D-DESTROY—”

  “Disengage,” Mickie ordered, and the Doombot quieted. She’d designed them to answer only to her voice commands, but of course Mimic the Mic had figured that out and copied her voice and shut down her army.

  For a moment she considered reprogramming the half dozen Doombots she’d collected in retirement and starting again, but…it wouldn’t be the same. Most of her old foes were dead or retired, and besides, she was trying to reform.

  Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Mickie unscrewed the Doombot’s back casing and examined the motherboard. No visible damage or corrosion. Good. She clipped her earpiece, wired to a small mic, into the DO NOT TAMPER WITH port.

  “Claire?” she asked. “You in there?”

  IT WASN’T HER fault, is what Mickie’s therapist had told her. But that was bullshit and they both knew it. So she fired him and went for coffee with one of her few non-powered friends.

  Daisy was a mechanical engineer. They’d dated on and off (way back when), but since Daisy didn’t approve of world domination, they’d decided to just stay friends.

  “Why does it have to be your fault?” Daisy asked, eyeing the flakes of ash on Mickie’s jacket.

  “No one else could survive me blaming them,” Mickie said, looking away. “And I’m the one who told Claire to go.”

  Daisy stirred her mocha latte with a dented spoon. Her office/garage smelled of oil, hot metal, sweat and strong espresso. “So you’re the one who got her killed.”

  Mickie nodded. She should have told Claire to stay back at their lair, but no, Claire—Chain Lightning to everyone else—just had to take on the TechnoSorcerer on her own. Well, not entirely. Mickie had sent the Doombots with her girlfriend, and an hour later, she lost contact with all other ’bots and the woman she…liked. A lot.

  Maybe more than a lot, but she couldn’t admit that. It wasn’t becoming of unstoppable evil. Even if denial sucked.

  Claire didn’t come back, and the Doombots were disabled by the TechnoSorcerer’s mind field. Mickie didn’t even have the heart to swear revenge. She just…felt lost.

  Daisy rested a grease-stained hand on Mickie’s. “Look, hon, you got two options. Wallow in guilt like a hero, or do something.”

  “Do?”

  “You’re an antihero—”

  “Villain.”

  “Whatever. You’ve always solved your own problems, right? I know you can’t fix or solve grief. And that’s okay. But what are you going to do with the rest of your life? You don’t have to move on, but you can take a detour for a while and decide where to go next.”

  Mickie nodded slowly. “Why did we stop dating again?”

  Daisy grinned. “Differing points of view.”

  “Your loss.” Mickie managed a deep breath. “Thanks.”

  Sometimes it was the little words that were the hardest, unlike ultimatums and grandiose declarations of destruction.

  Little words like thanks or stay with me or I think I may love you.

  IT HAD BEEN when she was refurbishing the first Doombot to serve as a butler for her loft apartment that she noticed something was wrong.

  Instead of blaring its intention to destroy all life forms, the Doombot5000 had stuttered, spit static, and stammered, Where…am…I?

  And the voice had been Claire’s.

  IT MADE SENSE, in retrospect. Like most defeats, Mickie had analyzed everything about her failure and made copious notes (along with plans for revenge):

  1. The TechnoSorcerer had an affinity for machines.

  2. Chain Lightning could change her body’s molecular structure into pure energy.

  3. Doombots had been on the scene.

  4. Conclusion: in the resulting showdown, the TechnoSorcerer must have channeled Claire into the Doombots when she attacked, overloading most of the ’bots in an explosion that had left no sign of Chain Lightning, and only a few scrapped machines.

  There was no fifth point on the list, because Mickie did not believe in itemizing grief.

  NO RESPONSE FROM the Doombot5000. Mickie shut her eyes. She tried again, “Claire, are you—part of you—in there?”

  She heard only the internal hum of the Doombot’s mechanic guts.

  She sat back, disconnecting her earpiece.

  She did not punch a hole in the wall, or set the ceiling on fire in rage. It was too much work, even for instinctual reactions.

  The first Doombot she’d heard Claire’s voice in had short circuited when she tried to extract the memory chip to preserve whatever was left, and since then, Mickie had hunted down all the remaining Doombots to find pieces of Claire’s consciousness.

  By her calculations, there were only six Doombot5000s left after they’d been disbanded or destroyed upon her retirement. Before she’d known Claire was in the ’bots, somewhere.

  FIVE DOOMBOT5000S RECOVERED over the next year—mostly legally—and the sixth one was right on her tracker app: stashed in an old warehouse that, when she checked the online records, had once belonged to the TechnoSorcerer himself.

  She spent a week working up plans to infiltrate the warehouse. Invisible suit that repressed her heat signature so she could slip in through a vent? Her joints weren’t what they used to be, and she didn’t want to throw her back out again. Chiropractic visits were not cheap with her pathetic insurance plan.

  Build a giant raygun to launch into orbit and program it to vaporize all biological matter without destroying the mechanical elements? She lacked the funds. And besides, he’d probably sense her invention and disable it before she could fire.

  Storm the gates with an army behind her, cape snapping in the wind, her blasters gleaming? Still came down to finances, plus the fact she’d be fined for inciting supervillainy within the city limits.

  Finally, she settled on the most dangerous option. She’d never been one to do anything less.

  Mickie clenched her hands, missing her deathray gun, and knocked on the side door labeled OFFICE.

  “Come in,” called a creaky voice she’d know anywhere.

  She walked in.

  The TechnoSorcerer—Desmond—sat in a battered office chair, snapping his fingers at the TV. He glanced over his shoulder and sighed.

  “Hi, Mick.”

  “Hi, Des.”

  Retirement hadn’t been easy on either of them. He’d let his hair grow shaggy, hadn’t shaved, and was using his power to change the TV channels. How far had he fallen?

  She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, unsure where to pose or if the piles of junk and old chairs were stable enough to sit on.

  “Long time no see,” Desmond said.

  “I guess.” She’d dated him, too, back in the day, but she didn’t want to bring up old conversations. “I hear you have a Doombot5000 in storage here.”

  Desmond snapped the TV off and swiveled his chair fully to face her. “I knew this day would come.”

  “Give me my Doombot.”

  “Or what?”

  Mickie readied a string of threats, how she would crush him, make seven generations of his ancestors or descendants lament, et cetera, but…it was so much effort, and she was tired. She sat on the edge of the desk and shrugged.

  “Well, I can’t pay you much, because I just paid rent.”

  Desmond sighed. “I’m barely making ends meet myself. Business just isn’t what it used to be.”

  Mickie nodded. There was an awkward silence. Neither of them had the energy to monologue or p
osture or even trade innuendo.

  “Look, Des.” She took a deep breath. “I think Claire is in the Doombots. Parts of her mind, anyway—scattered through all the 5000 models.” Honesty was so much harder when she wasn’t wearing a cape and declaring war on the forces of good. “I’m trying to get her back.”

  “Oh.” Desmond rubbed his face, wrinkled hands scratching his stubble. “Damn, Mickie. I didn’t know.”

  Mickie shrugged again, picking at her nails. “I didn’t know for a long time.”

  Another awkward silence.

  Mickie swallowed. “So, I wondered…” She took another steadying breath, her heart pounding like the first time she’d challenged him to a duel. “Can I have the Doombot?”

  “Of course you can,” Desmond said. “I’ve felt awful about what happened for years. It’s why I gave up the cape.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose, uh, that is… Can I help you try to get her out?”

  Surprised, Mickie’s first instinct was to spurn his offer, declare she needed no one’s help, ex-boyfriend and former enemy or not.

  “Okay,” she said instead.

  “HI, DAISY,” MICKIE said on the phone. “I wondered if you could help me with a project… No, nothing that dramatic. No domination involved. Well, I mean, if you’re up for a little in the bedroom afterwards I won’t say no…”

  IN HER LOFT, cables linking all the surviving Doombot5000s together, Mickie’s hand shook as she hooked her earpiece into the first Doombot’s port. She nodded, and Desmond placed his hands on the ’bots, powering them on one by one.

  Daisy wiped down her wrenches and screwdrivers. She’d come to assist in building the transfer device. And had stayed the night. It’d been good, like the old days—Mickie had appreciated a distraction for a few hours at least.

  Now, the big day was here.