Time Was

by Steve Perry

  —that’s when Zac giggled insanely, drunkenly, staggered a few more inches, then fell to one knee, clutching his stomach. “Whoooo-doggy!” he exclaimed. “I think I had me a bit too much rotgut, know what . . . what I mean?”

  The kid shook his head in disgust, kicked out at Zac’s head and missed, then settled for laughing at him.

  “Maybe I’ll bring your face back, too,” he said. “We get extra points if we can take out a human and a Scrapper at the same time. Shows we got what it takes to beat the mechanical man.”

  “Ooooooooh, my,” spluttered Zac, falling facedown into the mud.

  The kid laughed, pocketing the Magnum.

  Killaine began to move from the shadows.

  And Zac came up off the ground so fast no one was ready for it.

  He held a jagged section of 2x4 in his hand, which he threw like a boomerang straight at the kid.

  The kid protected himself not with his right arm but with his left, pulling the electron gun away from Singer’s cranium. Zac’s 2x4 connected solidly with the kid’s arm and he dropped the gun, lost his balance, and started going down on one knee as he pulled the Magnum from his other pocket.

  Killaine was lightning.

  Out of the shadows, leaping over Zac and shoving Singer out of the way in the same movement, then spinning around and bringing up her left leg, connecting solidly with the kid’s chest and sending him flying back into a row of overflowing garbage cans.

  The Magnum discharged but didn’t hit anything.

  Cats screeched as the kid hit the trash.

  A dog snarled.

  Several plump, hairy rats, their slumber and feasting disturbed, scattered in all directions.

  Killaine grabbed both weapons and handed them to Zac, then stormed over to the steamy pile of garbage where the kid lay and yanked him up by the collar of his duster.

  He was stunned and groggy, but still conscious.

  “Nap time for baby,” she whispered.

  She slammed him against the back of the building—not hard enough to leave any permanent damage, but enough that his head got a solid whack of brick and mortar and put him out for a while.

  Probably a good while.

  Killaine stared down at the kid’s splayed form.

  Yes—definitely four, maybe even six, hours.

  She dusted off her hands and turned back toward Zac and Singer. “This is actually a very nice coat he’s wearing. Zachary. Would you like it?”

  “Not particularly, but you might want to empty his pockets of any more weapons.”

  She did so. A deadly switchblade, two pairs of brass knuckles, a second electron gun, three extra clips for the Magnum, and something that looked like an old-fashioned cherry bomb.

  “It’s a Russian-manufactured device from about twenty years ago,” Zac told her. “A small grenade. Wouldn’t know it to look at it, but this little thing is equivalent to about fifteen sticks of TNT. You activate it by pressing this little button on the side—see? Then you’ve got about seven seconds. Nasty piece of military paraphernalia, this.” He shook his head as he wiped the mud from his face and hands. His clothes were ruined.

  “Ah, brave new world,” he said. Then: “Thanks, Killaine.”

  Singer echoed Zac’s sentiments.

  “You surprised me, Zachary. That was a stunt Itazura would have been proud of.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t have his speed.”

  Or aim, said Singer’s hands.

  “Stuff you,” snapped Killaine at the robot. “Zachary hit him squarely on the arm.”

  “I was aiming for his head.”

  “Oh.”

  Zac retrieved his duffel bag as Singer signaled them to hurry.

  They continued on.

  22

  * * *

  Robert Arthur Pendleton III, Chairman of the Board of Directors of WorldTech, was in a hurry.

  His mistress had called him a few minutes ago from the apartment he kept for their rendezvous in the Taft Hotel.

  She was very much in the mood for him.

  And he was very much in the mood for her.

  He’d called his wife and canceled their luncheon engagement, told his secretary he’d be out for the rest of the day, and taken his private elevator down to the lobby.

  He was nearly out the doors when a busty, luscious-looking blonde came jiggling up to him with a clipboard in her hands.

  “Mr. Pendleton?”

  He checked his watch. “Yes, what is it, dear? I’m in a hurry.”

  She giggled. That giggle told him everything he needed to know about her IQ.

  But look at the package, he thought to himself.

  Yum-yum.

  “I’ve got some forms that Mr. Marsh needs for you to sign.” She offered the clipboard to him, along with a ballpoint, and as Pendleton took them he couldn’t help but notice how her hands brushed against his own, then lingered for a few moments more than were needed.

  He looked at her azure eyes.

  And felt his temperature rise slightly as she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  No doubt about it, something was passing between them.

  Something delicious.

  Usually Pendleton would have read over the three short forms—at the very least, glanced at them—but today hormones overrode business savvy and he signed without examining any of them. They most likely were Marsh’s invoices for the monies spent on Anton Tyler’s covert operations at Annabelle’s office.

  Ever the accountant, eh, Marsh? Thought Pendleton as he handed the clipboard back to the blonde.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” he said to her, noting how, even though she clasped one end of the ballpoint, she had yet to remove it from his fist.

  “No, sir,” she said in a breathy, smoky voice that Pendleton could almost feel with his fingertips. “I just started a few days ago. I’m sort of the Accounting Division’s gofer.”

  “Seems a pity.”

  She stepped closer to him, part of her wondrous bosom pressing against him. “I think so, too.”

  Her thumb stroked his.

  “Well,” he said, visions of her undressed undulating through his mind, “perhaps we can discuss your future over dinner some night.”

  She moistened her lips again. “Mmmm. I’d like that.”

  “How’s tonight?” The hormones again. They got him every time.

  “Tonight is perfect.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got several valuable talents that have yet to be tapped.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Shall I pick you up or—”

  “Oh, no, sir. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea—even if it’s the right idea.” A smile, then, girlish, filled with promise.

  A smile to make Pendleton Think Things.

  “I’ll be finished at six tonight,” she said.

  “I’ll reserve a table for us at the Clarion.”

  A wink. “I’ll meet you.”

  She started walking away.

  Slowly.

  Pendleton was appreciative of the view.

  Suddenly, a thought came to him, and he caught up with her in three long strides and made a show, for any inquiring eyes, of returning the ballpoint to her. “I’m afraid I neglected to ask your name, dear.”

  “Tawny,” she said, slinking away.

  Tawny, he thought.

  Oh, my.

  The idea of Yum-Yum twice in the same day made his middle-aged heart increase its beating.

  What a day; a tryst with Kimberly, and dinner—probably much more than that—with Tawny.

  And from all that Marsh had promised, he’d have Annabelle Donohoe right where he wanted her by day’s end.

  Life was good.

  He headed out the doors, then took the “Executives Only” elevator up to the private parking garage.

  He did not see Tawny cross the street outside and hand the forms to a large, well-dressed man wearing a bowler, nor did he see the man h
and Tawny a rather thick envelope.

  No; the hormones were raging in full force, and he couldn’t wait to get to his mistress.

  He found his car, deactivated the alarm, and climbed inside.

  Oh, the things he and Kimberly were going to do today.

  She’d remember this morning for a long, long time.

  He put his key in the ignition and turned it.

  The electronic doors suddenly locked.

  The CVD player in the dashboard suddenly came on.

  “What the—?”

  “Hello, Robert,” said Annabelle’s voice from the speakers. “I guess you’ll never learn. But thanks for signing over fifty-one percent of your stock to me. Don’t worry about the wife and kids, they’ll be well-provided for—I’m not a complete bitch.”

  Pendleton tried unlocking the doors but the controls wouldn’t respond.

  He tried rolling down the windows.

  Nothing.

  “Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your years of loyal service to my company,” said Anabelle’s voice. “Mark those words, Robert—my company.”

  Pendleton was sweating now, nearing panic.

  He pulled back and slammed an elbow against the driver’s side window.

  Nothing.

  Not even a crack.

  “You’ll be missed, Robert. Say ‘Happy Trails!’”

  And that’s when his car exploded.

  Where there had once been silence, there was now rumbling, merciless thunder.

  Where there had once sat metal and rubber and safety glass, there was now rolling yellow flames and curling, crawling gray smoke.

  Pendleton had one second in which to scream, and he did, but there was no one there to hear him.

  Glass shattered.

  The gas tank added a second explosion moments later.

  Flaming metal blew upward, slammed against the parking garage roof, then clattered down to the concrete below.

  The cars parked on either side of Pendleton’s exploded a few seconds later.

  Then the cars parked next to them.

  And the ones beside those.

  Hormones will get you every time.

  From the safety of the street below, Simmons watched as the clouds of fire, metal, smoke, and glass blew outward from the fifteenth-floor executive garage.

  Around him, people ran in all directions, panicked and screaming, trying to avoid the falling debris.

  Sirens approached from the distance as several security officers, weapons unholstered, stumbled around as if they had some idea of what to do.

  Simmons looked at the forms Tawny had given him, smiled a tight British grin, then folded everything neatly and slipped it into one of Annabelle’s personal envelopes—the lovely ones with the exquisite calligraphy embossed on their surfaces.

  Something that appeared to be a twisted, flaming fender landed with a deafening clatter a few yards in front of him.

  “My goodness,” he said to a nearby security officer. “It seems you’re going to have your hands full for a while.”

  Not waiting for a response, he courteously tipped his bowler, then, whistling “God Save the King,” went about his business.

  23

  * * *

  The Scrapper Camp was a slaughterhouse.

  At times like this—and there had been far too many times like this for her liking—Killaine was glad that robots didn’t have blood coursing through their complex systems; if that had been the case, she would be standing ankle-deep in gore.

  Arms here, legs there, scorched torsos every which way—it looked like some juvenile comic book artist’s depiction of a street fight.

  Singer led them over to one of the robots and signed: This is Falkirk, our leader. Please tend to him first.

  Falkirk, a very rare IA–2112 model, was enormous. Even though he sat propped against a wall with legs splayed in front of him, his head was a good six feet from the ground.

  “I haven’t seen the likes of him in years,” said Zac, opening up his duffel bag and removing his myriad tools.

  “What was it designed for?” asked Killaine.

  Zac shot her an irritated glance, “He was designed for mining selenium on Mercury. Thousands of his model were produced, but the majority of them wound up doing most of their mining on Earth.”

  He looked at Falkirk’s eyes.

  Their bright red glow was fading fast.

  Zac worked the chestplate away to reveal the layers of old McGuffy gears within.

  “Oh, no,” he whispered.

  “What is it?”

  Zac ignored Killaine’s question, directing his attention to Singer. “When was the last time any of you saw a Public Maintenance Technician?”

  Singer’s hands: PMTs don’t like coming to this section of the city.

  “That stinks, Singer. On ice.” He pulled a portable halogen lantern from the bag, activated the light, and instructed Killaine to hold it over Falkirk’s chest.

  “Damn politicos,” snarled Zac. “Their constituents dump the robots into the street, then, to ease their consciences, politicians allot a few measly million dollars for PMT crews to check up on the Scrappers, and everybody’s supposed to be happy. Except that the bastards don’t bother with the quarterly maintenance sweeps unless someone with money needs a specific model from a certain year—then they’re more than happy to carry out their duties.” He reached up and moved Killaine’s arm a little to the left so the light would land where he wanted it.

  Falkirk shuddered.

  “Oh, no . . .” choked Zac.

  What? asked Singer.

  Zac rubbed his eyes, exhaled a breath that was both sad and furious, then asked: “He was hit with an electron shot, wasn’t he?”

  Yes, but the blast was weak and only got him in the chest, not the head, and—

  “There’s no and to it, Singer. Look.” He pointed to the tiny two-inch sphere of atomic energy that was this robot’s life. The sphere itself was intact, but all of the gear and wiring surrounding it was blackened, charred, and sputtering.

  “That sphere is a nuclear power plant designed specifically for this particular model—one with an exceptionally high power output, able to function for decades without recharging or maintenance. It serves a similar function, theoretically, as a human heart. It’s one of the reasons that this particular model hasn’t been produced in years. That sphere will vaporize a city block if it’s overloaded or deformed. Of course, the engineers put in every fail-safe they could think of to prevent such a thing from happening. When the blast penetrated Falkirk’s chest cavity, the sphere remained unharmed, but everything powered by the sphere absorbed the damage.”

  What are you saying?

  “The gun used to shoot him wasn’t fully charged. . . . If it had been, none of you would have survived the sphere’s explosion—hell, most of the block would be gone right now. The remnants of the electron charge are snaking through Falkirk’s system now, moving toward his brain, little by little. He’s suffering the human equivalent of a massive stroke. There’s nothing I can do to save him.”

  Singer stared down at his fallen leader.

  After a long, agonized silence, Killaine whispered: “Is he suffering, Zachary?”

  “If you mean is he in pain, then the answer is no—not like you or I would feel pain. If you mean is he aware that something is terribly, horribly wrong, that his entire body is betraying him, that he’s dying slowly, then, yes. He’s suffering.”

  Zac looked at Killaine.

  Then Singer.

  Then the other Scrappers who were assembling nearby.

  “I need those two crates over there,” he said.

  Singer and Killaine retrieved the crates, then—per Zac’s instructions—stacked them one on top of the other.

  Zac took something from Killaine, then climbed up to stand face-to-face with Falkirk.

  For a moment, the dying robot’s eyes glowed bright red, as if communicating a last message.
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  Zac took a deep breath.

  “Sometimes I wish it were still yesterday,” he whispered. “Summer camp. The Moon shot. Playhouse 90. ‘American Pie.’ One enormous yesterday with everything crammed into it like Fibber McGee’s closet. I’d open the door and let everything cover me.”

  He looked into Falkirk’s eyes. “Rest now, good fellow.”

  The robot gave a weak nod of its head.

  Zac shot him square in the head with the electron gun.

  The robot shuddered one last time, its legs kicking out in a death spasm and knocking the crates out from under Zac, who rumbled to the ground with a loud thud!

  Killaine helped him to his feet, thinking, Oh, Zachary.

  Swallowing back his anger and grief, Zac wiped his eyes and said, in a voice eerily devoid of emotion, “We have to take him apart and salvage what parts we can.”

  This was done quickly, with little conversation.

  Then, one by one, the damaged Scrappers came forward, carrying with them their dismembered arms, chestplates, faceplates. Some had to crawl for help, their legs having been ripped or shotgun-blasted from their bodies.

  And there, in the alley, under a tarpaulin placed atop wooden boards to form a tent to keep away some of the rain, DocScrap repaired as many of the robots as he could.

  Many of them walked away with some small part of their fallen leader within them.

  “Maybe it’s a way for him to live on,” Zac said three and a half hours later, as they were making their way back toward the large cement drain that led into the sewers.

  “You had no choice,” said Killaine. “He was suffering.”

  “So it’s he now, is it?”

  “Zachary, please—”

  “Don’t tell it to me.” He pointed toward Singer. “Tell him.”

  “You’ll not even let me apologize?”

  “What good will your apologizing do, Killaine? ‘The moving pen writes, and having writ,’ and so on.”

  “But I am sorry, Zachary. And I want . . . I want to change. ’Tisn’t right, the way I treat Singer, the way I look down at the Scrappers. I know this. It’s just that there’s something . . . something hateful in me that I cannot define—and if I can’t define it, then how can I defeat it?”