Twisted Metal

by Tony Ballantyne

  ‘The Wizard is the ruler of the North Kingdom. He is a sterile man. You understand, a man who cannot make the wire that a woman may shape?’

  ‘I know what sterile means,’ said Kavan.

  ‘And yet it is said that the title of Wizard passes to the Wizard’s son! This is some of the magic of the North Kingdom!’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in that sort of thing,’ remarked Kavan.

  ‘I don’t,’ said the prisoner, ‘but—’

  ‘I think I have heard enough,’ said Kavan. ‘Rumour has settled on this land like rust on untreated iron. If left too long it could weaken even the strongest army. We cannot remain here, counting metal and reading reports, while these stories spread further.’

  He turned to Eleanor. ‘Send out the signal. We move out within the hour. We are heading north!’

  Kavan

  Kavan marched north.

  The temperature had dropped, the rain had turned to snow, the wind had increased in speed. Even the elements seemed to be attempting to slow the Artemisian expansion. Still, Kavan marched on, disregarding the omen of the weather for what it was: mere superstition. Kavan’s army was on the move, heading north with Artemisian efficiency.

  Silver Scouts cut along the mountain tops, the blades at their feet and arms slicing the wind in two. They reconnoitred the land ahead, leaving signs indicating the best paths for the advance. Already they had been up to the borders of the North Kingdom, setting traps and devices in place for the coming attack.

  Black Storm Troopers marched the trails blazed by the Scouts, smashing aside obstacles and crushing what little resistance to their advance that there was, mostly just a few poor robots who were too slow or weak to run.

  Behind them, grey infantryrobots trudged through the rocky valleys, the wind driving snow inside their cold metal bodies. They were guarding the engineers who directed the laying of ballast and the construction of bridges, the blasting of cuttings and the supporting of walls.

  And behind them all, trains rumbled along newly laid tracks, tilting and clanking as the freshly laid ballast slipped into position.

  Kavan, Eleanor and Wolfgang marched amongst a troop of other infantryrobots. The mountains were slipping away behind them, now they made their way through the empty wind-blasted lands and snow-filled valleys that led to the stone circle of the North Kingdom.

  ‘Don’t you think we’re stretching ourselves a bit too thin, Kavan?’ asked Eleanor.

  ‘No. Spoole will send us more troops as long as we keep moving north. He can’t be seen to let us fail.’ He wiped snow from his face and peered into the distance. ‘Someone is coming,’ he observed.

  A Scout slipped towards them through the wind. Her blades were retracted, her eyes pulled in tight.

  ‘Small group approaching from the mountains,’ she reported.

  ‘They’ll be wanting to parley,’ suggested Wolfgang.

  Eleanor raised her rifle by way of answer. ‘Artemis does not parley,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Kavan. ‘I want to speak. We know so little about them. I want to know what they think is important. Call a halt. Tell the troops to stand at ease.’

  The message went out and the army emptied itself into the available cracks of the land as troops sought shelter in the lee of rocks to adjust electromuscle and clear away snow. But Kavan and Eleanor remained standing, waiting, the blizzard whipping around their bodies.

  Two Scouts came forward, leading a third robot between them.

  Kavan had never seen its like before. The newcomer was so small and thin. It wore no plating, leaving its bare electromuscle exposed to the wind. Kavan found himself trying to peer beyond the muscle, to see if it were true, that the robots of the North Kingdom really wore wooden bones.

  The strange robot raised a hand. ‘The Wizard of the North Kingdom sends his greetings, Kavan, by way of his servant, Banjo Macrodocious.’

  Wolfgang spoke at Kavan’s side.

  ‘A slave name. This robot will have no sense of self.’

  ‘I suppose that is why it has been sent to speak to us,’ he mused. He looked down at the slave robot, at its small body and ridiculously oversized head. He didn’t bother to raise his own hand in reply.

  ‘You describe yourself as the Wizard’s servant?’ he said. ‘In Artemis there are no servants, for we all merely follow Nyro’s philosophy. Well, Banjo Macrodocious, take this message to the Wizard, that Artemis welcomes all those robots that wish to follow Nyro’s philosophy.’

  ‘I have no orders to take messages to the Wizard,’ replied Banjo Macrodocious. ‘Rather, I am here to bring this message: that the North Kingdom is mentioned in the Book of Robots, and there it is written that no one shall enter it uninvited. Those who seek to do so are working contrary to the true purpose, and therefore they will fail.’

  ‘I don’t believe in the Book of Robots,’ said Kavan. ‘I say that we have no creator, we have no purpose, save that which we choose ourselves.’

  Banjo Macrodocious ignored this – as he would have been told to do, realized Kavan.

  ‘It is written in the Book of Robots that those who cross the line of the mountains will have their true nature revealed to them in three ways,’ said Banjo Macrodocious. ‘First their artefacts will fail, then their bodies will fail, and finally their minds will fail. For all that is twisted in metal was originally written in the Book of Robots, along with the works that they should perform.’

  ‘Kill him,’ said Kavan, and the blade of one of the Storm Troopers swept out of the blizzard, slicing the head of Banjo Macrodocious neatly in two. Kavan peered closely at the wire that lay inside, and saw that it was just like the blue wire of any other robot. Well, almost the same; it had an odd greenish tinge to it, as if the metal used were not quite pure. Probably due to the scarcity of metal up here, he realized. Thoughtfully, he squatted and pulled aside the electromuscle of the dead robot’s arm. There was metal beneath, not wood.

  He straightened up.

  ‘Was that wise, Kavan?’ asked Eleanor.

  ‘Better that than he continues to spread superstition amongst the troops.’ He looked to Wolfgang. ‘Get somebody to check that body over, and then recycle the metal. Get the troops to fall in. We march on.’

  Susan

  Nettie was speaking again at the front of the lecture hall, as the women sat and listened in self-satisfied silence. They were the mothers of Artemis, they wove minds, they were respected. The shouts and the screams of Turing City could only be faintly recalled now, the memories of loved ones fading with time.

  Susan still sat a little apart from them, still the outcast. And yet now it wasn’t so bad, as she had found a friend in Nettie. Nettie the childless woman. Nettie the mother to all those Artemisian minds they wound in the night.

  They were supposed to be debating, rehearsing, discussing the way in which Nyro wove a mind. Instead, Susan’s mind was wandering.

  The mark? Nettie had mentioned the mark. She had said that Susan had woven it into her own body, and yet Susan could see nothing. It couldn’t even be said that she still wore the same body. Over the weeks, the women had all been slowly replacing parts of themselves with Artemisian spares. They were all gradually assuming the same short, stocky appearance of Artemis robots. Yet Nettie said she could still see the mark there in Susan’s body.

  Susan looked from herself to Nettie, looking for what they had in common, looking to see how they differed from the other robots. She could see nothing obvious.

  And then there was the knowledge. That fragment of purpose in her mind that Nettie had told her would be there. Something woven by her mother. Some understanding or philosophy. She searched her mind again, just as she had done so many times before. At night, kneeling and twisting wire, in lectures, in muttered conversations with Nettie. Nothing. There was nothing there.

  Someone was watching her. The woman in the next seat was smirking at her. It made her think of something that Nettie had said while they had been cro
ssing to the forge, across the moonlightfilled yard.

  ‘Why do robots smile, Susan?’ Nettie had asked. ‘Why do we have mouths? All we need is a speaker, and yet we weave electromuscle and construct mouths to communicate, visually. Where did that idea come from? I’ll tell you – from The Book of Robots! We all still refer back to the original plan in subtle ways. Listen, Susan, we take so much for granted in this world.’ And she had stopped, there in the middle of the yard, her body shining dully in the moonlight. ‘There are clues all around us, and they are so big that we don’t notice them.’

  Clues everywhere and we don’t notice them, thought Susan, as she gazed at Nettie, still talking away at the front. Nettie raised an arm and swept it around, pointing out something written in the metal of the wall behind her.

  And then Susan saw it: the mark. It had been there all along, and she had never noticed it. Big circle, little circle – it was built into Nettie. Susan had built it into herself all this time without realizing that was what she was doing. She had built herself that way because it seemed right, because her mother had twisted it into her mind, just as she had twisted the knowledge that she should have two arms and two legs.

  It was so obvious now. How long were her arms? How big was her head? What was the ratio between the length of her foot and her leg? Between her hips and her torso?

  Always the same. The same as the ratio between the two circles that Nettie had drawn. That Maoco O had drawn. That Banjo Macrodocious had drawn.

  She was excited now, though she tried to hide it. That other robot was still smirking at her. They all were, she realized. All those women smirking at her, showing their contempt.

  She ignored them.

  She had seen the mark. Now she needed to see the memory. What was it exactly that her mother had woven into her?

  And then she had it. It had been there all along. It had been there all of her life.

  It was the story of Liza, the robot who had made Karel. It was the story of her husband.

  It was the memory of his first days on Penrose.

  Liza

  It was morning, and the flare of the previous night’s battle had long since burned out. Somewhere across the Zernike plain, Bethe had fallen. The rising sun cast long shadows and, walking through those shadows, Liza entered Turing City, her newly made child in her arms.

  ‘What’s the matter, Liza?’ asked Llywber, his body still slick with the oil from the great pistons that he was helping to build down near the forges.

  Liza was silent but for the low buzzing sound that emerged from her voicebox, the unstoppable feedback of grief.

  Echecs had seen her distress, and she came running across the white marble flagstones to comfort her friend.

  ‘What’s the matter, Liza? Where’s Kurtz?’ Echecs looked down at the little metal bundle in her arms. ‘Is that your child? Oh, isn’t he adorable?’

  She didn’t sound as if she meant it. She was too busy checking the child for signs of damage, wondering if Liza had made a mistake and twisted the mind improperly.

  ‘Can I take him?’ she asked. ‘Can I hold him?’

  Still Liza marched on, through the wide spaces where the galleries were being extended. Sheets of multicoloured glass were stacked in piles across the ground.

  ‘Where’s Kurtz?’ Echecs muttered to Llywber. ‘Go and find Kurtz!’

  The oil-covered robot nodded and made to go, but at that moment Liza spoke.

  ‘Kurtz is dead,’ she said.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Killed. Shot by an Artemisian soldier.’

  ‘Shot? What’s an Artemisian doing out here? I thought they were all over in Stark!’

  ‘Hush, Llywber, she doesn’t need that now. Go and tell Kobuk what has happened. I’ll look after Liza.’

  Llywber did as he was told. He dashed off, leaving a trail of oil droplets on the white marble.

  ‘Come Liza, I’ll take you home. You’re safe now. To think of it! Those Artemisian Choarh, shooting a man who has just become a father . . .’

  At that the buzz from Liza’s voicebox rose louder.

  ‘No, Echecs, Kurtz had not become the father. Not properly. He died before . . . before we had finished . . .’

  And at that the buzzing feedback of grief became too much . . .

  Susan

  Was that it? wondered Susan. Surely that had nothing to do with the Book of Robots?

  It was her mother’s memory, for Echecs was Susan’s mother. She had been there when Liza had returned to the city, and she had woven the memory into Susan’s mind. But why? Why was that so important? What did Karel have to do with the Book of Robots?

  And then something else occurred to Susan. Had Echecs also woven it into her mind that she should marry Karel? Susan was a little younger than her husband, so Echecs would have witnessed Liza’s return to Turing City before twisting Susan’s mind.

  But why? Arranged marriages were not as common in Turing City as some other places, but they were by no means unknown. And Susan had always loved Karel, right from childhood. There had never been another for her. Had that been her mother’s design?

  Nettie continued speaking, and Susan continued wondering.

  Olam

  Olam and Doe Capaldi stood waiting at the foot of the hills, along with the rest of the squadron.

  ‘It looks like a huge crater,’ said Parmissa. ‘Like someone dropped a huge stone in the mud and the sides all squished up.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ asked Olam.

  ‘A Scout,’ she replied. ‘She’d been up there scouting. Seen over the edge into the North Kingdom itself. She told me what it was like. Once we get over these mountains, it’s all rock and mud.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Olam.

  ‘She says it could be true,’ continued Parmissa.

  ‘What could be true?’

  ‘You know. The Book of Robots.’

  ‘Keep it quiet,’ called Doe Capaldi. ‘We need to be ready to move.’

  The gale had dipped for the moment, but not before it had piled up long drifts of snow in front of the scattered rocks and ledges that surrounded them. More snowflakes drifted down from the silent clouds above, to settle on their grey metal bodies.

  ‘Aw, they’re pretty!’

  Olam didn’t like Parmissa. She played cute. He knew that Doe Capaldi didn’t like her either. She gossiped and spread rumours.

  Olam gazed up at the slope before him and suddenly felt as if his lifeforce was draining away. He only had six months to live: that was what Doe Capaldi had told him. What was he doing wasting the rest of it here, at the end the world? More than once, on the long march north, he had thought of making a run for it, slipping away into the night and heading south to find his way to one of the little kingdoms. Maybe there would be one or two still unconquered, hidden away on some forgotten peak.

  ‘Have you heard about the curses?’ said Parmissa suddenly.

  ‘What curses?’ asked Olam.

  ‘There are no curses,’ snapped Doe Capaldi.

  ‘They were laid upon Kavan when he killed the Wizard’s herald. First our machinery will be cursed, then our bodies, and then finally our minds!’

  ‘Now listen,’ said Doe Capaldi, raising his voice so that all the section could hear, ‘this is a kingdom like any other we have conquered. If anything, it is weaker because it has so little metal. The only thing that makes this kingdom strong is superstition. It is woven into the minds of the robots that live up here. Would you allow yourself to fall prey to children’s stories?’

  Doe Capaldi looked up and down his troops, frost patterning their metal skins in cold loops.

  ‘I thought not! Now, the attack won’t be long. Wait for the signal.’

  ‘There are Scouts busy trying to find a way through the maze,’ explained Parmissa. ‘That’s what I was told.’

  Doe Capaldi laughed contemptuously. ‘Since when did Artemis try to find its way through mazes?’

  At that moment there was a gi
ant, rumbling, earth-shattering roar, and Olam recognized the sound of an atomic bomb detonating.

  Doe Capaldi laughed again. ‘That’s how Artemis traverses a maze!’ he shouted.

  Spoole

  The map of Shull was almost complete.

  Spoole stood alone in the command room gazing up at it, wondering.

  ‘He’ll be coming back soon,’ said Gearheart.

  ‘Oh, be quiet, Gearheart.’

  ‘No, I won’t be quiet. This is your fault, Spoole, my being crippled. I was made to be your companion, that was twisted into my mind. You knew that, so you should have protected me. You shouldn’t have let that assassin get so close to me.’

  Spoole didn’t reply. What she was saying was all too true.

  ‘Did you protect your child, Spoole? Is it still alive now, I wonder?’

  ‘Oh yes, the child is still alive. I’m sure of that.’

  Gearheart gazed at him. ‘I wonder what it’s doing now? Artemis or Turing City? I suppose it doesn’t matter. But I wonder which way she twisted the mind?’

  ‘I think I know,’ said Spoole.

  Spoole and Liza

  ‘Hello, Karel,’ murmured Liza. She looked down at the dead body of her husband. ‘Here he is, Kurtz. We did it. Here’s our little boy.’

  Carefully she placed the mind inside the tiny body.

  ‘All finished,’ she told Spoole.

  Spoole looked from her to the child. ‘Did you really do it?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ replied Liza.

  Spoole called her bluff. ‘Then I shall say goodbye, Tokvah.’

  ‘Then shoot me. But you’ll never know.’

  Spoole stared at her, red eyes glowing. Did he care, how she had twisted the child’s mind? What difference did it make, really?

  But he wanted to know.

  Spoole was miles from where he should be. What difference would a couple of extra hours make? He had to know.

  He came and stood in front of the woman.

  ‘There is a way to find out,’ he said.