Twisted Metal

by Tony Ballantyne

  ‘This way,’ called Karel, and the group followed him up a narrow alley between two brick walls, their feet slipping on the loose, uncompacted gangue. They emerged from the alley into a wide, dirty street lined with oil-stained foundries, twists of scrap metal rusting outside their doors. Black pools of stagnant water lay in the middle of the road.

  ‘Which way?’ called Susan, looking up and down the empty street, her words caught in the rattle of metal feet on stone.

  ‘Uphill, up towards the fort!’ called Karel. He pointed to the upper level of the fort, rising above the dirty brick and verdigrised roofs of the broken-down foundries that surrounded them.

  ‘Artemis!’

  The call hissed with static. He heard a crackle of shots, the rattle of falling metal. Someone had been hit.

  ‘Colina!’

  A robot tumbled to the ground, her head a mass of blue twisted metal.

  ‘Leave her,’ ordered Karel. ‘This way!’

  Shots spat out around them, puffs of dust sprang up from the ground. They ran, around another corner, into a street where the buildings seemed better maintained, the gangue of the road well stamped down. A wide road, it curved upwards, following a gentle incline towards the fort. From behind, Karel could hear the stamp stamp stamp of Artemis troops, more of them, closing in on them, hemming them in.

  Susan was listening carefully as she ran. ‘Still not enough troops,’ she said, ‘still not enough for an invasion.’

  ‘There’s enough to kill us,’ said Harman. ‘Keep running . . .’

  They ran up the hill, around the curve, and then they stopped.

  Karel looked on in horror. Up ahead, the road simply came to an end. The last two foundries were built into a great white heap of gangue, piled up against the sheer wall of the fort. They were caught in a dead end. There was no escape.

  Susan walked up to the white wall of the fort, looked up at the empty battlements above.

  ‘Help!’ she called. ‘Down here!’

  All the robots looked up, scanning along the white wall, up at the crenellated parapet high above them. There was no reply. No sign of movement. The fort might as well have been deserted.

  Karel turned to look down the empty street behind him. There was nowhere now to run. He heard the stamp of feet approaching around the corner.

  The Turing Citizens looked at each other in despair. Susan came close to Karel. She took his hand.

  ‘What about Axel?’ she asked, despairingly.

  ‘Someone will look after him,’ said Karel, trying to sound confident.

  The sound of approaching feet grew louder. Karel and the rest drew into the corner, wedged between the pile of gangue and the sheer white wall of the fort.

  The marching grew louder still, and there they were. The first of the Artemis infantry appeared around the corner, their dull grey bodies all in a line.

  ‘Where is the City Guard?’ complained Karel bitterly.

  Olam

  It was so easy to kill. The discovery had been a revelation to Olam.

  Just point the rifle, pull the trigger, and watch as another robot slumped to the ground in a cloud of blue wire. All the fear, all the uncertainty of the last few days evaporated as Olam raised the rifle and squeezed.

  He marched through this strange city, with its iron arches and shattered glass and, where once he would have felt timid and uncertain, he now felt invincible. He was the man causing the fear, not the man feeling it. He was in charge, in control.

  ‘Don’t be careless,’ warned Doe Capaldi, walking at his side, scanning the upper storeys of the galleries that surrounded them.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Olam. ‘Hey, look over there.’

  A glint of reflected sunlight, so easy to miss. Fine, powdered glass, trodden into the plastic matting at the entrance to a store. A trail, leading into the building.

  ‘Someone went in there,’ said Olam, the lust rising within him. ‘Someone sneaked in after we smashed the glass.’

  Olam didn’t like the look Doe Capaldi was giving him. ‘I’ll send Janet in,’ he said.

  ‘No way,’ said Olam. ‘I know the orders: maximum disruption. I spotted it, I get to go in.’

  He was off into the store before Doe Capaldi could tell him otherwise. Zig-zagging across the shop floor, keeping low. Dodging for cover between the plastic sheeting that was hung on display all through the shop. Pushing past sheets of plain red, green, yellow and blue. Slipping past black and white checks, turquoise and purple knotwork; through a riot of paisleys and tartans.

  Olam found the shop disorienting after the grey of the Zernike plain. This city was so colourful: there was barely a place where plain stone or metal could be seen.

  He heard a mechanical whirring, the faintest click. Someone was upstairs.

  Hot and lovely current poured into his electromuscles, his movements became staccato and excited. Up the stairs, gun at the ready. The sound of footsteps, over there behind the green door.

  He moved forward, gun at the ready, kicked the door open with his foot . . .

  There was a woman inside, two children sheltering behind her. She held an awl in her hand. She dropped it as soon as she saw Olam.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Please!’

  Olam raised his gun and felt the current surge inside him. He held it in check as he pointed the rifle at the child on her left, held it there a moment and then moved the gun to point at the child on her right.

  ‘Please,’ she said, her voice emitting electronic squeaks of fear. ‘I’ll do anything!’

  ‘Anything?’ said Olam. He pretended to think about that, but the urge was too strong and his finger squeezed. The head of the child to the right of the woman exploded, the twisted metal of its brain tangling over its mother’s shoulder. The woman cried out; the other child stared at him, frozen in fear.

  ‘Would you really do anything?’ said Olam, his gun now turned to point towards other child. He pretended to think some more. ‘Then come here and kneel before me . . .’ he said.

  Sobbing, her eyes fixed on the gun, the woman did so.

  Olam felt so strong. He felt like an aristocrat. The current was constantly building inside him. He couldn’t control it; he dropped his rifle, seized his awl and plunged it into the head of the woman who knelt before him. The remaining child screamed, but Olam stabbed again and again, his electromuscles crackling with energy.

  Maoco O

  Maoco O waited in darkness, cut off from the world.

  How long had he waited here? Did it matter?

  They had lost forty soldiers in the explosion at the station, a further forty were badly damaged and in need of urgent repair. There was talk of a counter-offensive, but for the moment they had been told to hold position. Maoco O waited patiently. He was a soldier, and his mind was woven so that he could wait for ever, if need be.

  And then, something odd: he heard Susan somewhere nearby. Close enough to touch, even. He could feel her fear. Not just for herself, but for the other robot that stood by her: her husband. Susan and her husband. That was not all. Maoco O sensed eight other Turing City robots standing not an arm’s length away.

  And now, finally, he felt the approach of the Artemisian troops.

  So many of them, and so close.

  It was time . . .

  Maoco O exploded from the gangue, white dust billowing and shrapnel stones ricocheting and ringing off the bodies of the surrounding Turing City robots. He had fired six head shots before the Artemisian infantry had time to react, their bodies slumping to the ground, tangles of wire unwinding from their minds as they fell.

  He was calm. Away in the distance, undetected by regular robot senses, he saw more infantryrobots standing on the metal walkway between two buildings, exposed against the skyline. One, two, three shots and they fell to the ground in a rattle of broken metal.

  In slow motion, the brightly painted Turing City robots were turning to gaze at him with a mixture of fear and awe. There was Susan. Did she rec
ognize him? He doubted it. The robots were edging closer to him for safety, but not too close, wary of the black spike of his rifle, the needle points of the armour-piercing bullets emerging from the cartridges on his belt, the razor curve of the sword fixed on his back. Gangue was slipping back into the hole from which he had leaped, dust was settling, blown in eddies by the cold wind, the ground still slipping beneath their feet.

  Maoco O took all this in, and he was bored. The attack had finally arrived, and it was so much less than he had been expecting.

  Maoco O heard the grinding noise first, but the edgy crowd of Turing City robots soon picked up on it too. Someone was approaching. Someone in incredible pain.

  A robot dragged itself around the corner. A child. And it was burning. White flame at its joints, its paintwork blackened and peeled away, its mouth locked in an endless scream. It was trying to say something, trying to modulate that endless electronic squeal.

  A woman was screaming. And another one, transfixed by the sight of the burning child, the hot metal over its chest beginning to sag.

  Maoco O shot it in the head. A merciful end. More footsteps. He could hear more Artemisian troops approaching.

  ‘Get behind me,’ he said to the Turing City robots. He was calm. This battle was a dance, and he was following the steps. He shifted, and the extra metal that he carried around his body fell away. No civilian had ever seen the true shape of a Turing City City Guard Robot. They did now.

  From behind him he heard stunned gasps, the sound of applause, and it was a moment before Maoco O realized it was himself that they applauded. His body. They were looking upon perfection for the first time. He tried to remember what it must be like for them, it was so long since he had first seen such a body as his own. He had felt himself special too, once. But now he was just calm.

  He went to meet the foe.

  Everything about him was curved and sharp. Curved arms swept forward to hands like blades, his body curving from his hips to his head, poised ready to strike; his legs curved and sprung. Everything about him suggested smooth, slicing motion. As he walked he sliced the cold wind in two, he cut a path through the settling dust.

  The Artemisian robots let loose a volley of shots, but Maoco O was already leaping through the air in a smooth silver curve, punctuated by the launch of four silver shuriken that went spinning from his hands to lodge themselves in the wrist and knee joints of four of the attackers.

  Maoco O was calm as he descended, as he stepped lightly onto the raised barrel of a rifle, the face of the infantryrobot below gazing at him in slack incomprehension as it pulled the trigger, but Maoco O had already stepped forward onto the tip of the awl held up by the next soldier.

  A crowd of them, milling beneath him as he danced on their confusion. Conscripts, Maoco O guessed, judging by their poor order and discipline. They all sought to turn their rifles on him, but Maoco stepped lightly from barrel to barrel just as the shots were fired, he danced on the tips of the awls, he was a quicksilver blade that reflected the cold sky and the dust and metal of the city, too fast to catch. And, as he danced, he reached down and broke the coil of a robot, or hooked his awl into a skull and jerked it back with blue wire wrapped around it. Beneath him, the infantry upon whose guns he danced were beginning to panic, but Maoco O was still calm.

  All too soon they were nothing but dead, grey metal at his feet. Up on the gangue heap, the painted robots of Turing City looked on in awe and fear. But what did they know? Maoco O did not care for them, he realized suddenly, any more than he cared for the Artemisians. For what was it to be a citizen of Turing City but to be willing to fight for it? To die for it? Those citizens, with their handmade bodies, were almost a separate species to him.

  The crowd began to applaud, to stamp their feet in a crunching of gangue, and Maoco O realized that they had only just caught up with events. His mind was made of pure electrum, he thought so much faster than they did. They were shouting encouragement to him, yet he took no pleasure in their adulation. Where was the skill in what he had just achieved? Merely following the steps of a dance?

  And now the dance resumed.

  Another robot was approaching. A different robot this time. Silver-grey katana metal, bladed hands and sharp feet half drawn. Recessed eyes. An Artemisian Scout. The cold wind chilled Maoco O to his soul, but not with fear. This was the best that Artemis could send up against him, and it would not be enough. The Scout raised her gun and fired, and Maoco O leaned out of the path of the bullet, reading her moves perfectly. He was calm. She was calm, too. She fired again, and again, and each time Maoco O leaned out of the way. Now she was firing one-handed, reaching with the other for one of the grenades attached to her waist. She lobbed it towards Maoco O, still firing as she did so, and Maoco spun a shuriken to meet it. The grenade exploded only just beyond her hand, shattering it. Three fingers fell to the ground, the others were left a twisted mess. Still she fired at Maoco O. Bored, he raised his own gun and shot her through the head.

  Another Scout approached, walking slowly towards Maoco O, not even keeping cover. Simply raising its gun and firing. For the briefest of moments, Maoco O’s calm gave way to confusion. What were they playing at? Why advance like this, one at a time: why not rush him all at once?

  He heard the noise then, the high-pitched whine coming from within the Scout’s body. And then he recognized the way that she was walking. Not dancing, not leaping along like a Scout would, but rather walking with the slow, steady trudge of an infantryrobot. And he realized: this wasn’t a scout at all. This robot was wearing another robot’s body, and inside it there was . . .

  ‘Get down!’ he shouted to the Turing City robots that were lined up behind him. He flung himself forward, just as a flare of brilliant white shone at the robot’s arms and legs and neck . . .

  Kavan

  There was a dull crump in the distance as another robot exploded somewhere in the city, and Kavan gave a nod of satisfaction.

  ‘It won’t work, Kavan,’ said Eleanor. He ignored her. Before him, the lines of grey infantryrobots and Scouts stood in patient silence, their rifles held at the ready. The sergeants stood at the head of the lines, sending the soldiers out one by one into the frightened city. Some of them were armed with bombs, some of them weren’t. Nobody knew which was which, save for the soldiers themselves.

  Kavan crouched at the edge of the forward command post, pouring gangue from one hand to the other, studying the composition of the spoil. Behind him, the railway station was still burning, white and orange flames dancing inside its black skeleton. The last of the injured City Guards that put up a struggled resistance before the building had just been put down with some effort. Even damaged, they still fought like ten Artemisians. White dust fell in the burned streets; it blew through the shattered windows of the soot-covered buildings that surrounded the square. There was a shout, and another set of infantry were sent off through the streets of the city to find the enemy.

  ‘I said it won’t work,’ repeated Eleanor. She was standing just behind him, her voice still crackling with the after-effects of the nuclear explosion.

  ‘Maybe not,’ replied Kavan. ‘You know that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.’

  ‘Kavan, there’s not enough of us!’

  He straightened up. The engineers had moved fast. A second railway line had already been laid from the undamaged section beyond the station, and flat-bed trucks were now rolling into Turing City, laden with more troops and weapons. It was an odd sight: an engine would pull up in the middle of the damaged square, and the troops would dismount and then turn on their transport and quickly dismantle it to make room for the next train. The separated parts were neatly packed into boxes and stacked at one edge of the square. The trains could be rebuilt later on, should this attack prove successful. If not, then the metal would be available to Artemis at a later date, when they finally seized full control of Turing City. Turing City’s defeat was, after all, inevitable in the long run.
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br />   Kavan turned to Eleanor. ‘You know, if we had to fight thirty thousand robots, I would say you were right, Eleanor. We wouldn’t have a chance. But we’re not fighting thirty thousand robots. We’re only fighting the City Guard while the rest of Turing City is hiding behind their precious champions, waiting to see what happens. The City Guard may be our superiors in combat, but there are more of us than them.’ He looked over to the ruined body of a Guard that lay nearby, his dented head pierced by many bullet holes. He had taken some finishing, but now he was dead.

  ‘You know, if an Artemisian is damaged he can take spare parts from any of his comrades,’ he said, wonderingly. He pointed to the dead Guard. ‘They get wounded and they can’t properly repair themselves. I tell you, Eleanor, they may construct better robots here in Turing City, but we have the correct paradigm for war.’

  A shout, and another set of infantryrobots peeled away from the head of each column, heading into the city beyond. Eleanor could hear the humming coming from within their metal shells. These were all walking bombs.

  ‘They’ll soon figure out what we’re doing,’ said Eleanor. ‘Then they’ll just pick them off at a distance.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kavan. ‘But that’s to our advantage. We can’t beat them at close quarters, but if we reduce this battle to each of us sniping at long range . . .’

  Eleanor said nothing. Kavan glanced back at the burning railway station. It reminded him of something, the way one side of its curved shape had collapsed in on itself . . .

  ‘I can’t believe we got this far,’ said Eleanor, suddenly. ‘If I’m honest, I didn’t think we would do it.’

  ‘What we think isn’t important, Eleanor. Artemis does what Artemis will.’

  He looked back at the railway station and he had it now. The whale. The railway station reminded him of that whale, back in Wien. The place where General Fallan had fallen.

  There was another shouted command, and the next set of infantry headed into the silent city. Kavan watched them go.