Twisted Metal

by Tony Ballantyne

  What had Kavan done, to throw away his advantage so?

  Oh, Nyro, she thought, what would you have me do here?

  Eleanor didn’t believe in signs. She wasn’t superstitious, like these robots of the north, but if she were ever to believe in such things, it would have been then. Because at that moment there was a rumbling and a shaking. A scraping noise screeched out into the night, and something came skidding and tumbling along the newly laid track.

  A train. It ran to the edge of the rails and then slewed across the empty sleepers, tumbling and skidding its way down into the bowl of the North Kingdom.

  What had caused it to do that, wondered Eleanor? Then she saw the second train that pushed along the first, saw how it was desperately trying to brake. Without success. It too came off the end of the rails, but this one skidded to a slow halt, only the engine and the first wagon resting on the freshly laid ballast. Slowly, that second engine tipped over and landed with a crash on its side.

  An accident, she realized. There were always accidents in war. This was not a sign: Nyro was not speaking to her.

  And then she recognized the train.

  Kavan

  First their artefacts will fail, then their bodies will fail, and finally their minds will fail.

  ‘Superstition,’ declared Kavan.

  ‘That black smoke, full of carbon particles from the burning trees,’ said Wolfgang. ‘It’s getting into the electromuscle of the troops. It shorts out the spaces between the weave, stops it working properly. Wipe the residue away and they’ll be fine.’

  An aide pushed her way forward. ‘What about the machinery?’ she asked. ‘The engines have stopped working,’ It was Ruth, General Fallan’s former aide, now wearing a Scout’s body. If only she had a Scout’s courage, thought Kavan. She had never dared to question him until now. Funny how people gained a little courage when things started going wrong.

  ‘It’s sabotage,’ said Kavan, firmly. ‘We are fighting a clever enemy, nothing more.’

  ‘Don’t forget the atomic bombs,’ said Ruth. ‘They didn’t go off either, and that was before the fires started. What about them?’

  ‘They obviously found our bombs in time and disarmed them. These things happen in war. The attack is otherwise proceeding satisfactorily.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Ruth. ‘We’ve lost too many troops on the left flank. The smoke is lifting now, and our troops that were fighting there have disappeared. So have the enemy, what little of them there was for us to engage with.’

  ‘They’ll be falling back to the centre,’ said Kavan. ‘Make no mistake, they will attack us, but, when they do, we will be more than their match.’

  ‘No,’ said Ruth, gaining confidence all the time. ‘We should stop now; send for reinforcements from Artemis City. The railway lines are in place.’

  ‘No,’ insisted Kavan. ‘We still have sufficient numbers. There are three companies of infantry in reserve on the right flank. They will be enough.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Ruth.

  Kavan gazed at her, wondered if he should discipline her, decided against it. She was merely raising valid concerns.

  Just for one treacherous moment he wondered if three companies would be sufficient, but those doubts were quickly quashed. Yes, he decided. Yes, they would be enough.

  It was at that same moment that the darkness over to their right lit up. They felt the wind increase. Kavan turned away, only just managed to turn down his ears in time. The explosion hit them with so much force it knocked them off their feet.

  Even as he fell, even as he rolled himself to safety, Kavan realized that the explosion was centred just where his reserve troops had been waiting. Even so, he took a certain pleasure in realizing where his two missing atomic bombs had got to.

  Interlude: Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah

  Halfway around the world of Penrose, the continent of Yukawa baked in yellow sunlight. All was in harmony.

  It was the time of morning changeover.

  In the silver cities, lower-caste robots gave way to their superiors as they stepped from the shade of metal awnings into the cool dimness of the lime groves.

  In the farmlands, robots harvested the hemp and cotton that would be spun into a rope or thread more flexible than could be made from any metal, their silent labours observed by the aesthetes of the upper class, who relaxed in their woven pagodas.

  Around the mines of the central plains, the gentle wind peeled thin streamers of brown dust from the baked land and sent it ribboning south. The son of a mine prefect watched the unfolding streams of dust and saw a poem written in the air, a poem speaking of the harmony of the Yukawan Empire, its peoples unchanging throughout all these centuries.

  It was a harmony that would soon be lost.

  Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah strode across the runway, his steps too light in his flying body.

  Flying required a body made to be as light as possible, and so Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah wore aluminium bones draped with thinly knitted electromuscle that was only just sufficient to control the aeroplane. He wore a mesh skull and plastic fingers. And as for his panelling . . .

  It was a fine day for flying, at least in Yukawa. According to the meteorologists, there were ice storms over Shull, but that was another continent, far away. For the moment, it was enough that the sun polished the shiny green leaves of the organic life that waxed strongly along the edge of the runway, it was enough that the sun reflected brightly off the simple aluminium roofs that covered the flight buildings.

  The sun did not reflect from Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah’s body, however, for Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah was dressed in organic matter. Not half an hour before he had stood in the centre of the dressing room, arms held wide, as two young women stripped away thin aluminium panelling from his body. They had oiled his joints, straightened the weave of electromuscle in his arms and legs with their delicate fingers and then they had brought forth the flying skin.

  Stored in a box made from organic matter – black polished wood from one of the tall trees that grew in the plantation just south of the airport – the flying skin was cut from a living animal by specially trained women. Working with sharp knives, they held the terrified, kicking, bleating animal between their legs as they drew the short blades up the creature’s seams. Along its legs, under its belly, around its throat. The skin had been removed in three parts, and then it had been taken to the tanning room, where it was smoked and stamped and cured. It had been cut and shaped and sewn to make the garment that was now carefully rolled over Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah’s body.

  Up his arms, over his feet, and up to his thighs. A waistcoat was then fastened around his chest by long, clever fingers, and Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah, only half immersed in the dressing contemplation, wondered at what minds these women would make, should they ever be allowed to twist metal.

  It took time to dress for flying – the ritual could not be hurried – but eventually it was done, and now Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah caught his reflection in the polished aluminium side of the aircraft as he climbed up to the cockpit.

  His body was short and thin, and pale. He looked almost like an organic creature himself. Like the Nightwalker from the old legends.

  He settled into the cockpit.

  Me-Ka-Purhara helped to strap him into position.

  ‘All is Harmony?’ asked Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah.

  ‘All is Harmony,’ replied Me-Ka-Purhara.

  There was a high-pitched whine as the turboprop awoke.

  Cha-Lo-Ell-Curriah lost himself in the takeoff contemplation.

  Kavan

  Kavan stood in the middle of the chaos, thinking.

  The howling wind of the nuclear explosion was dying, the flames of the trenches and the trees had gone, their fuel charred and evaporated by the blast. Dark shadows cast by their bodies were scored into the grey ash, and stone covered the ground.

  The snow that had been blown away by the atomic blast was only just returning; melting even as it mixed with the ash from the fallou
t.

  Down below, Artemisian troops were milling, disorientated. A white glare erupted on the battlefield, followed by another and another, as a few of the more experienced commanders set off magnesium flares.

  More flares were ignited alongside the railway line that had been laid into the kingdom. Kavan was pleased to see figures down there, already darting about, beginning to clear the wreckage of the trains.

  Nearby, his aides were becoming frantic. Kavan decided it was time to rejoin them.

  Ruth wasted no time in offering her opinion. ‘We should withdraw now,’ she called. ‘We need to regroup and prepare for the second attack.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Kavan.

  ‘Why? Isn’t it obvious? They are all over us! We don’t stand a chance against their . . .’ She stopped herself just in time.

  ‘Their what?’ asked Kavan. ‘Their magical powers? Are you so gullible? They operate by superstition alone! Look at them. Yes, they have severely disrupted our attack, our troops are milling in confusion, but ask yourself this: have they pressed home their advantage? No! And why not? I suspect they have nothing to attack us with. Why else would they have destroyed a major part of their own kingdom? This last display was nothing but desperation on their part.’

  ‘Desperation? They are destroying us! We gain nothing by continuing with this attack!’

  ‘We weaken them! I tell you, you have become too soft after the easy victories of the last few months! You forget what it is like for us to fight as people of principle. Are we only to fight when victory is easily grasped? Now that you finally encounter a people such as these, physically weak but gripped by great principle themselves, would you just give up? If so, then you’re not acting as Nyro would wish you!’

  That silenced Ruth. That silenced all of them. But Kavan pressed on.

  ‘And should the worst come to the worst and they defeat us tonight, then what of it? Artemis will return in greater force and reclaim the metal of our bodies.’

  It took a moment, but Kavan noted the horrified realization creeping across their faces as they understood that he really meant what he was saying. He lowered his voice.

  ‘For did not Nyro say, there is no mind, there is just metal?’

  He turned back to the centre of the bowl, which was now filling with the light of magnesium flares, and he gazed over at the skeletal tower.

  ‘I think it is time to see what we all really believe in, both us and the Northern Kingdom. Get the wreckage of those trains moved. I want railway lines laid right into the heart of this place! Tonight, we will conquer, or we will die!’

  Olam

  Olam was dragged through rocky alleys, his useless electromuscles cold with the muddy slush that filled his metal shell. He tried to see where he was going, tried to look at who had captured him, but he couldn’t move his head, only gaze up at the sky as he was dragged left and right, deeper and deeper into the shanty city, until finally he was pulled through a doorway. His last sight was of the night lighting up with the glare of the nuclear explosion, and he felt a surge of hope. Artemis was still attacking. They would surely find him!

  But that feeling soon passed as Olam was dragged across the floor and manoeuvred into a sitting position, the walls and floor of the stone-built shanty in which he found himself vibrating with the shock of the explosion. Loose fragments of rock were shaken down from the ceiling.

  Now that he had time to look around, Olam saw that there were other grey robots in the room with him. With growing horror, he recognized Doe Capaldi and Janet. And now Parmissa was being dragged into the room, and he finally got a look at their captors. To his surprise, they were nothing special. They were just the same thin, poorly made, pig-iron robots that he had killed so many of. They propped Parmissa up against the wall right beside him and then they moved to the centre of the room. There was a poor fire burning there, a little forge, but the warmth it gave off was enough to melt the snow from his broken body, sending dark rivulets of water running away from him across the floor.

  The door opened, and a new robot came in, this one better made than the rest. Its panelling was of good-quality steel, polished to a shine. It moved with the grace and poise afforded by finely tuned electromuscle.

  It took in the captured Artemisian robots at a glance. ‘Bring one of them to the middle,’ it commanded.

  The other robots immediately deferred to it, two of them dragging Janet’s limp metal body to the centre of the room.

  The steel robot ignored her. It turned instead to the remaining captives, bending forward a little as it addressed them.

  ‘Artemisians,’ it said, ‘the twisted metal of the mind is a wonderful thing.’

  Somebody took hold of Olam’s head, turning it slightly so he could see the steel robot all the better.

  ‘Metal can move, it can bend and crack and snap. Metal can melt, it can be drawn, it can conduct electricity.’

  The steel robot turned its attention to Janet. Ever so carefully it began prying apart the metal of her skull. Peeling back the pieces and dropping them on the floor, as the poor thin robots hungrily watched them fall.

  ‘What is he doing?’ asked Janet, her body still immobile. No one spoke; no one interrupted the steel robot.

  ‘But when metal is twisted just so, it transcends itself,’ it said. ‘It becomes a mind.’

  ‘Tell me what it’s doing!’ Janet looked around the assembled captives, pleading for an answer. She tried to look up, to see what was happening.

  Now the blue wire of her mind was exposed, nestling in the cup of the skull base. Olam watched, terror struck, as the steel robot ran a hand over that wire.

  ‘The metal becomes a mind,’ repeated the steel robot. ‘This is written in the Book of Robots.’

  Now he was peeling back the base of the skull, exposing the mind completely. The blue wire seemed to shiver, and Olam felt himself willing his immobile electromuscle to tense, as if that would hold the wire of Janet’s mind together, stop it slipping and unravelling.

  ‘But this mind here is not the mind described in the pages of that book,’ continued the steel robot. ‘The minds that are woven today are but pale shadows of the true mind, for over the years the knowledge of the strength and purpose of a robot mind has been diluted and forgotten.’

  The steel robot now scooped Janet’s mind from her skull, lifted it carefully into the air. The long braided length of the coil was still attached to the body, and Janet’s eyes still rolled upwards, looking in horror at what was being done to her.

  ‘For, even today, twisted metal has more lifeforce than many realize, yet that lifeforce is but a fraction of that enjoyed by the first robots.’

  ‘Put her back!’

  Doe Capaldi’s voice rang across the room. The steel robot turned to gaze at him, the blue wire of Janet’s mind wobbling in his hand.

  ‘She is perfectly safe,’ said the steel robot. ‘Or at least, she will be if her mind is twisted true. It all depends on how far she has diverged from the plan laid down in the Book of Robots. Even then, you may be surprised. As I said, the mind has more lifeforce than robots realize.’

  And then, so quickly that Olam could barely follow it, the steel robot pulled out a detonator cap and pushed it between the slippery coiled wire of Janet’s mind, pushed it deep inside. Carefully, he dropped the mind back into its skull cradle.

  ‘What has he done?’ whispered Janet. ‘What has he done to me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ called Parmissa, her voice strangely modulated. ‘He hasn’t done anything.’

  ‘He’s put a detonator cap in your skull!’ said Olam. ‘Parmissa, why lie to her?’

  ‘Why lie indeed?’ asked the steel robot, bending down before Janet. ‘Just a small charge. You have the strength, you know – the lifeforce to keep your mind together. All you have to do is concentrate. To really, really concentrate. Here it comes . . .’

  ‘No! Take it . . .’ began Janet, and then there was a muffled crack, and Janet died. Blue wire expl
oded in a tangled mess.

  ‘No!’ called Parmissa, and then she was silent. They were all silent.

  ‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ said the steel robot. ‘The power of the mind?’

  They had all seen it. The blue wire had exploded in a tangled ball, but then it had happened, something that they had never seen before. The wire had contracted. It had tried to pull itself together again. It had almost made it, too.

  ‘This is the knowledge of the Book of Robots. The lifeforce.’

  Olam barely heard him speak. Janet had almost made it. She had used her lifeforce to almost pull her mind back together, but not quite. Blue wire slipped and flopped across the rough stone floor.

  ‘Now,’ said the steel robot, brightly. ‘Who’s next?’

  Eleanor

  Eleanor ran to the front of the train. Burning diesel was spilling from one of the fuel tanks, and she splashed her way through a puddle of orange flame that sizzled as it burned its way through the snow. The front of the train lay on its side, one uncoupled wheel still spinning slowly. She looked along the train’s underside, searching for a likely panel or access hatch, but there was nothing there, just the wheels and springs and drive coupling.

  A muffled whoosh and a wave of orange flame swept over her, covering her with greasy soot. She felt the heat in her electromuscles as the light grew brighter. The flame was spreading.

  Quickly, she scrambled up the bogie, on to the top, or rather side, of the train. Again, she looked for an access panel, hoping that the train had not fallen onto it. Finally, she spotted it, its outline painted in red and yellow stripes. She unsnapped the catches. There was another muffled thump and another wave of heat, much stronger now. She flung the panel aside and dropped inside the train.