Twisted Metal

by Tony Ballantyne

  ‘What’s up, Axel?’ asked Karel. ‘This isn’t like you. Is there something else bothering you?’

  Axel pulled at the muscle halfheartedly.

  ‘Dad,’ he said. He was coming to the point, but in his own time. ‘I know you’re right about the selfish ones. I’ve seen the way that they get treated. The way that people talk about them, behind their backs. That’s not what I mean, though.’ He paused as if unsure what to say next.

  ‘What do you mean, Axel?’

  ‘I mean, well, this is all very well in Turing City State, but what if . . . I mean, what about . . . ?’

  ‘Are you talking about Artemis, Axel?’

  Axel dropped his eyes to look at the floor.

  ‘Well, yes. They say that they have invaded Wien. And that we’re next.’

  Karel laughed. ‘Artemis could never take Turing City State, Axel. They are strong, it’s true, but they don’t really value what they have. They don’t recognize their robots as being anything more than metal. In Turing City we value life. Our power lies in our recognition of what makes us all special. If we stand together, they will break off us like waves off a rock.’

  ‘But suppose they do invade!’

  ‘They can’t!’ insisted Karel. ‘They never will be able to beat us. Because we will always stand together as robots, and they will only be fighting as machines.’

  ‘But suppose they do beat us! Couldn’t you have built me so that I could pretend? So that I could share and be honest most of the time, but take it back when it really counts?’

  ‘But when would it really count?’ asked Karel.

  Axel rolled his eyes. ‘I hate it when you say things like that. You don’t know what it’s like . . .’

  ‘Trust me, I do,’ said Karel quietly.

  ‘No you don’t! I know about you. The other children say the rules don’t apply to you. They say that your mother bent your mind in strange ways. That you don’t tell the truth. That you only pretend to be part of Turing State.’

  Karel was shocked by this sudden outburst. So was Axel, who looked embarrassed and not a little ashamed of the ferocity with which his feelings had bubbled out. Silence fell, warmed only by the orange glow of the forge.

  ‘People say a lot of things,’ said Karel at last.

  ‘But is it true, Daddy?’ asked Axel plaintively.

  ‘Of course not. Why would I pretend to believe in Turing State?’

  ‘The other children say that Granma was raped by an Artemisian soldier. That he made Granma twist your mind to be like his.’

  ‘Those are just stories, Axel. People make things up.’

  ‘I know that, Dad. So I asked Mum. I asked her about what happened to Granma.’

  ‘And what did Mum say?’ asked Karel softly.

  ‘She wouldn’t tell me . . .’ Axel sighed. ‘Which way was it, Dad? Some say that Granma would never make you a Turing City robot when Artemis was so powerful. But surely she couldn’t make you an Artemisian when one had just killed Granddad? Dad, I don’t know what to think.‘

  Slowly, Karel crouched down by his son again.

  ‘Axel, who do you think I am?’ he asked.

  Axel reached out and took his father’s hand. ‘I think you are a good man, Daddy.’

  Karel looked down at his son’s tiny hand held in his own. So tender, so delicate, so strong. His face split into a smile.

  ‘Thank you, Axel,’ he said. They gazed at each other for a moment, and then his son removed his hand and went back to working on the electromuscle in his legs.

  ‘Tell me a joke, Dad.’

  ‘A joke?’ said Karel, bending to scoop up some of the bright silver curls of swarf Axel had dropped on the floor. ‘Let me see . . .’ Absently he rubbed the swarf together in his hands, making a thin metal worm. ‘Well, once there was a robot who didn’t like the way he was made. He noticed that all the other robots could run faster than him. So he bought steel and copper and he rebuilt his legs so that he could run fast too. But he still wasn’t happy, because there were other robots stronger than him. So he went and bought iron and tungsten and he rebuilt his arms. But he still wasn’t happy, because he saw that there were other robots that were better-looking than him. So he bought lead and oil and he repainted his body. But he still wasn’t happy. In fact, he was more miserable than ever. And he wondered to himself, I have better arms, I have better legs, I have a better body than all the other robots. And yet they are all so much happier than I am. It’s just not fair!

  ‘And he sat there thinking those sad thoughts, and then an idea occurred to him. Maybe he had been going about things the wrong way. He had tried to make himself happy by building arms and legs and painting himself. Maybe he should try a more direct method. He would build himself happy thoughts. So he took off his head . . .’

  Axel stared at his father. ‘I don’t get it, Dad.’

  Karel smiled at his son’s puzzled expression.

  ‘Well, if he took off his head, how was he going to make his body move? How could he put it back on again?’

  ‘Oh, I get it! Good one, Dad.’

  Axel returned to his work. Karel watched him and felt sad. Axel was distracted for the moment, but he would ask the same question again.

  The thing that every one wanted to know.

  Just how does your mind work, Karel?

  Susan

  Masur sold only the very best paints. His little shop stood back from the main street, tucked away in the corner of a narrow arcade, built, like so much of Turing City, of cast-iron arches and plate glass. There was nothing to advertise the shop, nor to indicate the quality of its wares, save for the elegantly worked silver leaf around the doorframe.

  Masur was serving another customer as Susan entered the shop. Masur was a trim, unexceptionally built robot. To the untutored eye, his body did not appear painted. Only under close observation would one notice that copper and bronze finish had been applied to raw iron.

  He was an artist. And he affected an artistic temperament.

  ‘Thinnest gold leaf in the city?’ he was saying, incredulously. ‘Hah! There is nothing thinner on the continent of Shull! Are you suggesting to me that those nekulturny from Artemis would be able to make anything as fine as this? That they would have a use for it, even? Hey, be careful with the door! The draught!’

  Susan carefully snicked the door shut.

  ‘It’s that thin,’ continued Masur to his customer. Gently, he opened the stone book, revealing a page that shone as yellow and smooth as sunlight.

  ‘Have you handled anything this fine before? It will crumple in the slightest breeze. It will stick to oil, though, so you must ensure your hands are perfectly clean. Some choose to handle it using static electricity. I say they are clumsy brutes, not worthy of the art!’

  ‘Then how do you apply it?’ whispered the customer.

  ‘I speak to it,’ murmured Masur. ‘I bring my head close to it and speak to it, and direct the vibration from my voice, and this way I guide it into place. I speak the form that I require, and it takes shape before me.’

  The customer looked from Masur to Susan, not sure if he was being wound up.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Susan. ‘Masur is a master. That book holds the finest gold leaf, barely a few molecules thick.’

  The customer turned back to Masur, still hesitant.

  ‘But if you are not sure,’ continued Susan, ‘perhaps you should try Kurt’s, down the street. Practise with foil first.’

  ‘No, I’ll buy it,’ said the customer, obviously feeling completely out of his depth.

  Susan waited patiently as Masur completed the transaction. She gazed around the shop at the tiers of brushed metal drawers that lined one of the walls from floor to ceiling, each of their edges marked with a small circle of colour. A selection of wire brushes, from fine to coarse, lay on a nearby counter, with an arrangement of nibs behind them. On the far wall were shelves of various heights, stacked and lined with books of beryllium copper foil
, books bound in copper and iron or in polished soapstone and slate. Susan felt the urge to take one down and to begin to paint; to open up its cover to reveal the shiny foil beneath and to splash paint over it, to create something to show the way she was feeling: scared and apprehensive and yet full of fecund promise.

  The customer shut the door timidly as he left, and now Masur came to her side.

  ‘Susan. Good to see you again!’

  ‘Hello, Masur.’

  ‘You don’t look too good, Susan. You don’t see me as often as you used to.’

  ‘I’ve been busy, Masur. I’m . . . we’re thinking of making a mind.’

  ‘Making a mind?’ Masur wagged his finger. ‘And yet you come here to buy paint? You should be saving up all that creativity for your child, Susan.’

  ‘Not you too, Masur. Please don’t lecture me.’

  Masur held Susan’s gaze for a moment. Then he went to the door and locked it.

  ‘We need to talk, Susan.’

  ‘Oh, Masur, later. Please, I just want to buy some paint.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘Some yellow. I feel as if the world is dark. I want to paint sunlight on my body.’

  Masur relented. ‘What sort of yellow, Susan? Lead tin yellow? Cadmium yellow? Chrome yellow? Cobalt yellow?’

  ‘All of them, Masur. And some red lead and realgar. And some titanium dioxide.’

  Masur took a slim aluminium case from one pile and then moved around the room, sliding open drawers, pulling out thin tubes and slotting them into place in the case.

  ‘How is Karel?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s fine.’

  Masur paused in the act of sliding open another drawer.

  ‘Really, Susan?’ he chided. ‘We’ve known each other for years, yet you never really open up, do you? And yet there is something about you that people trust . . .’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Masur pulled the drawer fully open and ran his finger along the neat lines of tubes of titanium white paint it contained.

  ‘I wonder about Karel, Susan. We all do. And yet you trust him, and so that’s good enough for us. But do you trust him completely?’

  ‘Of course I do!’

  ‘Then why are you here in my shop, looking so unhappy, rather than at home, speaking to your husband? Maybe I wouldn’t understand. I pour my life into paints, mixing lead oxide and tin oxide or precipitating cadmium nitrate, rather than spending my time forming a relationship. But then again, that was the way I was made. My parents only had two children: one to go out into the world, and me here to tend the shop . . .’

  He looked around, thinking. ‘They never thought about who it would pass to, after I died . . .’

  He snapped out of this reverie and gazed at Susan. ‘So tell me, why aren’t you at home, telling Karel how you feel?’

  Susan stared down at the marble floor. ‘I don’t know, Masur. I don’t think Karel would understand this.’

  ‘What makes you think I would?’

  ‘I don’t know. I feel so full of . . . something.’ She reached into the aluminium case in which Masur assembled paints, and pulled out a silver tube of realgar red. ‘Life, I suppose. I am ready to twist another child. And yet, at the same time, I am frightened. There is something out there, Masur. I feel as if our city is wide open, and that something is going to sweep into it and crush it completely . . .’

  She squeezed the tube of realgar as she spoke. The thin foil casing split, and red paint oozed out, covering her delicate fingers, running around her hand, filling the mechanism in her wrist.

  ‘Oh! Zuse! I’m sorry, Masur.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Masur, opening a cupboard and bringing out a tin of thin oil, clean and clear as water. ‘Dip your hands in this.’

  ‘What do you mean, there is something about me that people trust?’ asked Susan, dipping her hands in the solvent and watching the red paint forming itself into little drops and floating away.

  ‘Give me your hands.’

  Susan paused in the act of dipping her hands in the solvent. Masur took them. His own hands were very big compared to hers, the metal on them smooth and unpainted.

  ‘What?’ said Susan, nervously. Masur turned her hand over. He dipped one finger in the red paint that covered that hand and began to draw a shape on her delicate palm. A circle. He placed a dot on the top part of the circumference.

  ‘What is that?’ said Susan.

  ‘Shhh,’ whispered Masur. He dipped both her hands into the tin of thin oil. It slowly turned red as he wiped away the circle of paint that he had sketched on her palm.

  Spoole

  In the heart of Artemis City, yellow light filled a simple room. This was Artemis, so utility was the theme, but there was something about the line of the furniture, the quality of the metal, that suggested that this room was different to the rest of the city. That it was even, dare one say it, more important.

  One wall was given over to bookshelves; so many books in one place was a rarity on Shull. These were all identically bound in brushed steel, their titles picked out in gold foil.

  One of the books lay open on the clean steel desk occupying the centre of the room, its smooth metal pages untouched. A robot clad in simple iron stood gazing at it. Simple iron, but again there was something in the line of the metal that suggested expert crafts-robotship.

  After much thought, Spoole picked up the stylus and began to write.

  To my successor . . .

  He paused, studying the looping curves of the script he had just engraved on the metal foil page of the book. It didn’t look right. He ran a finger along the last word, reshaping the metal, erasing it, enjoying the feel of its purity as he did so. And then he engraved another word. The sentence now read:

  To my child . . .

  That still wasn’t right. He wondered about replacing child, but realized he was just finding excuses not to go on. This wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. And now the first page was creased and spoilt. He tore the metal page from the book and crumpled it up, compressing it into a tiny ball bearing.

  The trouble was, he reflected, he wasn’t even sure why he was writing this book in the first place.

  It was getting dark outside. Zuse, the night moon, was yet to rise. All the lights of Artemis were turned up bright. The Centre City looked like a dark web threaded with glowing jewels. From his window, Spoole could see the network of railway lines that had spread out across southern Shull, all converging on the floodlit yards that fed the forges and factories of Artemis. Coal, limestone, haematite, limonite, chamosite and bauxite, all came flooding in, and here in Centre City it was extracted and smelted and twisted and forged and sent back out across the continent as workers and soldiers and weapons and tools, all bent on shaping the land. Out they went, building bridges and more railway lines, sinking more mines and constructing furnaces and forges.

  Once Spoole had enjoyed the feeling of power this view gave him, but that had been replaced by something more subtle: a feeling of connectedness. Now Spoole took pleasure in the fact that he could lay a hand or a foot on any piece of metal anywhere in the city, and he knew that it would be connected, by wires, plates and ultimately rails, to every other point on the continent where Artemis had insinuated its railway lines.

  Spoole had caused an iron pillar to be driven into the floor by the window. Smooth and polished at the knob on the top, its fluted length sank into the floor, driving its way down into the earth below, where wires linked it to the main railway lines that radiated from Centre City. To Raman and Bethe and Segre and Stark. To Wien. Even to Turing City. He placed his hand on the pillar and he enjoyed the feeling of contact. He was touching half of Shull.

  Gearheart had entered the room as silently as she was wont to do. She was the most beautifully crafted robot in all of Shull, her mechanisms moving without sound.

  ‘Kavan has taken control of the army,’ she said.

  ‘It was inevitable, I suppose,’ said Spo
ole. A thought twisted through the metal of his mind. A thought of the words To Kavan . . . inscribed at the front of the book that lay on the desk.

  ‘I don’t know why you smile so,’ said Gearheart.

  ‘I was thinking about something else.’

  Her body was lovely in the yellow light. Made from the very best materials, brought here from across half the continent. She was curved and balanced, a superb advert of her own skill as a builder, yet Gearheart had never twisted him a child. That sort of woman was always the same, reflected Spoole. They would rather not do something than risk doing it imperfectly. It was a bitter shame. Spoole almost loved Gearheart.

  She came closer. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, taking from his hand the tiny ball he had pressed from the page.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, but Gearheart wasn’t listening.

  ‘Keep him busy, Spoole,’ she advised. ‘Better that Kavan is constantly searching out new enemies on our borders than sitting around here in the Centre City with too much time on his hands.’

  She rubbed the ball bearing between her own hands, making it rounder, smoother, more symmetrical. She held out the tiny sphere in her left palm, striking a pose; her right leg stretching back, her right arm turned out at her side.

  ‘Do you not like this?’ she asked. ‘Am I not in perfect balance?’

  ‘You look beautiful,’ said Spoole, and he meant it. That was the thing about women, they became more beautiful as they grew older. More practised in the art of bending metal into themselves.

  ‘What if I were to weave you a child, Spoole? Would you like that? Sometimes I feel so in harmony with the world that I feel that I must express it in some way. Should I weave a child?’

  ‘Stop teasing me,’ snapped Spoole. ‘I could have you taken apart.’

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But you know they could never put me back together as well as this.’ She struck another pose, ran her hands down her body. ‘Look at you, Spoole, the most powerful robot on the continent. What couldn’t we do together? I’m tempted. I really am.’