Tin Men

by Christopher Golden

  Mavrides shot him twice in the chest.

  The crowd screamed and separated, some hurling themselves to the ground and others retreating. A handful knelt by the rabbi, trying to help.

  “What about now?” Mavrides howled. “Is He listening now?”

  Kate led the way into the bank. At first glance, it seemed deserted. Beyond the front doors there was no visible damage, though a stack of deposit slips had been scattered onto the floor. A row of teller windows ran the length of the counter on the right, and at the rear of the bank on the same side she could see the massive vault door hanging open.

  With a gesture, she sent Birnbaum to check the desks for anyone who might be hiding there.

  Ping.

  All three of them froze. Kate stared at the open vault door. She glanced at Danny, wishing they still had the ability to communicate through private channels. Maybe this was some kind of ambush after all. An image swam into her head of a robot torso—no head, no limbs—lying on the floor just inside the vault, transmitting whatever radio signal gave off that—

  Ping.

  —because the beacon was coming from inside the vault.

  Birnbaum clanked around behind the desks—Tin Men weren’t much for stealth in a place like this—then gave a thumbs up: all clear.

  Kate gestured forward and all three of them advanced toward the vault. She pointed to the teller windows and Danny started in that direction.

  Ping.

  “Screw it,” she said, and then raised her voice. “This is Sergeant Kate Wade. Sixth Battalion, USARIC. We are receiving your distress signal. If you do not show yourselves immediately we will assume you are hostile.”

  Something clanked behind the teller windows. Danny and Birnbaum leveled their weapons, taking aim in that direction, but Kate kept her gaze fixed on the open door to the vault.

  “Oh, Zuzu, you idiot,” said a voice from behind the counter, and then a figure rose up behind a teller window. A robot, hands raised, Batman symbol painted on his chest. “Sergeant Wade, I’m Lieutenant Tom Randall. Fourth Battalion.”

  “Are you alone, Lieutenant?” Kate asked.

  Another robot rose, further along the line of teller windows, this one emblazoned with a stylized eagle carrying lightning bolts in its talons.

  “Wish I were,” Lieutenant Randall said. “This is Private Mimi Nguyen.”

  “The ping’s coming from the vault,” Birnbaum said.

  Danny kept Randall and Nguyen covered, but Kate and Birnbaum were more interested in the vault now.

  “Come out, you assholes,” Lieutenant Randall called.

  “Who are you calling assholes?” a female voice replied from inside the vault, and then two other Tin Men stepped out into the bank. One of them had no markings save for a double X on his forehead, while the other had colorful flowers painted on her chest plate.

  “You must be Zuzu,” Kate said.

  “Shit, I don’t even know what that means,” the bot said, in a deep, very male voice.

  Kate stared at him, then glanced at the bot with the double X on its head, realizing that this was the female who had spoken.

  “Tanya Broaddus,” she said, then slapped Zuzu on the back of the head. “You had it right, though. This is Zuzu. He’s never seen the movie.”

  “Fucksake, what movie?” Zuzu asked, exasperated.

  Kate understood, then. Every platoon shared robots with two others. Whoever had Zuzu’s bot for one of the other shifts had arranged for the flowers to be painted on its chest and it was clear that he wasn’t happy about it.

  “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Danny said.

  “Zuzu’s petals,” Birnbaum said. “Come on, everyone’s seen that movie.”

  Kate held up a hand. “Enough.” She turned to Randall. “You didn’t seem happy to see us, Lieutenant. Which is weird, considering you sent out that distress signal.”

  “Zuzu did that,” Randall replied, still behind the counter, watching her through the teller window. “Did it on his own initiative, for which I’d kill him if we hadn’t already lost six good soldiers. I’d forgotten all about it until you walked in.”

  “There were only ten of you?” Danny asked.

  “Ten,” Randall confirmed. “We were only deployed here as a deterrent to terror attacks on the port.”

  “But you’re not at the port,” Kate said, unable to keep the disapproval out of her voice.

  Randall gave her a hard look. “We were ambushed this morning. Tried to fight them off but they had these new rockets—cause some kind of chain reaction in a bot’s core if they score a direct hit. Blew our guys to hell. Drove us back here about four hours ago and we’ve been sitting tight ever since. I’ve checked outside every half hour and they’re still out there, waiting for us to make a move. They’re keeping us pinned here for now.”

  “We just walked in,” Danny said. “There are no Bot Killers out there.”

  “I’m sorry to say there are,” Broaddus said. “We’re surrounded. And now you are, too.”

  Kate hung her head. Of course the Bot Killers had let them walk right in. Why wouldn’t they? Just more flies for their web. Right now they probably had rockets aimed at the TSV. She glanced up at Danny.

  “We’re on a clock here, Lieutenant,” Kate said. “In more ways than one. The thing that’s ticking most immediately is that there are more Bot Killers on the way. They’ve been trailing us since we left Damascus. We killed a lot of theirs and they killed some of ours. We don’t know how many of them there are, but we’re not waiting to find out.”

  “Sergeant?” Randall said, and in his tone was a reminder that he outranked her.

  “Sir,” Kate replied, “the G20 Summit began today. The President may already be dead, but if not, he is likely trapped in Athens. We intend to commandeer a sailing vessel and make all speed for Greece. I don’t know how many Bot Killers have you surrounded here, but my squad is getting out of here before the others arrive.”

  “Holy shit,” Randall muttered. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sergeant Wade, but half of you will get your asses blown off if you go out there without a plan.”

  “All due respect, Lieutenant, but you’ve been here four hours and apparently still don’t have a plan. I’ve got people still out front. As for half of us getting our asses blown off…I guess the other half can still make their way to Athens and try to protect their Commander in Chief.”

  Randall glared at her.

  “Damn,” Zuzu whispered.

  From outside, there came the sound of gunshots.

  “We’re going,” Kate said. “If you’re lucky, we’ll take down most of the Bot Killers for you, clear you a path.”

  Lieutenant Randall actually laughed. “Now you’re just rubbing my nose in it. All right, fuck it.” He turned to his three surviving Tin Men. “Let’s go!”

  Alexa moved without thinking, pushing open the Humvee’s door. Some people stayed on the ground while others rushed screaming for cover, running in a crouch and hoping they didn’t get a bullet in the back for their troubles.

  “What the hell was that?” Lahiri shouted. He kept his weapon trained on the civilians, aiming at the two cops who had accompanied the rabbi.

  A grim young woman was one of several people who knelt around the rabbi, trying to staunch the bleeding with the dying man’s own prayer shawl. Alexa found herself standing only a few feet from Mavrides, staring at the blood that had begun to pool on the pavement around the rabbi. The young woman’s skirt had been a summery yellow, but now she knelt in blood and the yellow fabric had begun to soak crimson.

  It was the prayer shawl that bothered Alexa. The man had come in peace seeking answers, seeking help, and now his prayer shawl, this sacred cloth, was being pressed to his chest in a desperate attempt to stop his bleeding.

  “Alexa!” a voice shouted behind her. She glanced back and saw Torres halfway out of the Humvee. “Get back in here!”

  “Mavrides, stand down!” Lahiri barked, still ai
ming at the two cops.

  The TSV shifted and Alexa looked up to see Hawkins still on the vehicle’s roof. Like Lahiri, he aimed his weapon at the crowd, but his gaze was locked on Mavrides. His smiley-face with crossbones gleamed in the sunlight and seemed almost to mock the dying rabbi.

  “Do something!” she screamed at Hawkins.

  Mavrides had been standing still as stone, watching the efforts to save the rabbi. Now her voice shook him out of his reverie and he spun to stare at her.

  “I did do something!” he shouted.

  Alexa felt tears welling in her eyes. “I wasn’t talking to you! You’re as bad as the ones who killed my father!”

  Rage boiled up inside her. She hurled herself at him, shoved him with both hands, but the robot didn’t move an inch.

  “Fucking asshole!” she screamed.

  Mavrides struck her with the back of his hand. The blow rattled her brain and she crashed backward into the Humvee. The scent of blood filled her nostrils and she knew it was her own blood.

  “Zack!” Hawkins barked furiously from atop the vehicle. “You raise a hand to that kid again—“

  Torres and Travaglini were shouting from inside the Humvee-TSV, but they had their orders and weren’t moving. Alexa stared at Mavrides, but then shifted her gaze to look beyond him. He had turned his back on the crowd for a few seconds but they were already in motion. The two policemen rushed at Mavrides and several others joined them.

  “No!” Lahiri screamed. “Keep back! You’re only going to make things worse!”

  Mavrides turned just as the two cops reached him. He threw back and elbow that caved in the skull of one, grabbed the other by the hair and shot him through the left eye.

  The screams of the crowd tore at the sky. The grim young woman trying to keep the rabbi alive rose from her crouch, his bloody prayer shawl clutched in her hands, and Alexa knew the man of God had died.

  It all turned to chaos, then. The others who had rushed at Mavrides jerked backward, trying to get clear of the bloodthirsty soldier, but more people shoved forward, rushing at him. Lahiri fired two shots into the air and Hawkins jumped down from the roof. Alexa stared in horror at the sight of them lining up beside Mavrides as if they approved of what he’d done.

  “Get back!” Hawkins boomed, taking a step toward the crowd.

  The crowd seemed to take a deep breath, wanting justice but weighing the cost. Encouraged, Mavrides raised his weapon and took aim at a hard-looking woman at the front of the crowd. Hawkins spun and shoved him into the Humvee. A teenage girl might not be able to move one of the Tin Men, but they could certainly move each other.

  “Stay there and don’t move!” Hawkins roared at him.

  Mavrides glared. “You had my back! You always said you had my goddamn back!”

  “That’s when you were a soldier,” Hawkins replied.

  “Murderer,” Alexa whispered, staring at Mavrides. Grief had lit a fire inside her, and it felt good to let it burn.

  Mavrides turned his gun on her, aimed right between her eyes.

  Alexa held her breath, crying silent tears as she realized she was about to join her father. Then Hawkins stepped between her and Mavrides, tore the gun from his grasp and slammed him against the TSV again.

  “You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” Hawkins growled. He held his own gun against Mavrides’s robot eye.

  “What are you doing, Hawkins?” Lahiri demanded.

  Hawkins never had a chance to answer. Shouts rose above the noise of the people in the street. Alexa stood and peered through the broken TSV windows and saw Kate and Danny rushing out of the shattered bank doors with other Tin Men in tow. Birnbaum had been the only robot to enter the bank with them but now there were four more.

  “Alexa!” Torres shouted from the Humvee. “Get your ass in here!”

  Hawkins yanked open the door and shoved her in. Torres hauled her across the seat. In the rear of the vehicle, Hanif Khan crouched, a thin smile on his face, amused by the conflict and bloodshed.

  “Drive, Trav!” Kate yelled, waving them away. “Get out of here! Meet us at the harbor!”

  Trav didn’t wait for an explanation. The engine roared to life and he dropped the Humvee-TSV into gear and hit the gas. Alexa scrambled around in the seat to look out the rear window, over the wrapped corpse of her father. Khan had twisted around as well, his expression troubled.

  Gunfire erupted all along the street, hitting Tin Men and civilians alike. Bullets struck the Humvee-TSV and Torres shouted for Alexa to get her head down. She obeyed, but a moment later she heard the scream of multiple rockets and she lifted her head up for one last glance.

  She saw the rocket hit Lahiri, saw him explode in flaming shrapnel. Other rockets struck the street, killing and maiming the people in the crowd who ran screaming and died without a word. A rocket hit a second robot, but she couldn’t see who it was. Please not Danny or Kate, she thought. Then: please not Hawkins.

  Trav skidded the Humvee around a corner and Alexa could see no more of the melee in front of the bank. She could hear the guns and the shriek of more rockets, the thunder of further explosions.

  She looked around the inside of the TSV and felt her chances at survival shrinking. Trav and Torres were the only protection she had left. The only other flesh and blood people inside the vehicle were a dead man and a man she wished dead.

  Stop, she chided herself, staring past Khan at the thatch of her father’s hair. Stop wishing people dead.

  Alexa had seen enough death to last her a lifetime. But she feared it was only beginning.

  “Take ‘em out!” Danny shouted, ignoring the bullets that ricocheted off his carapace. “No more running!”

  Fifteen feet away, Kate stood on the patch of pavement the Humvee-TSV had occupied thirty seconds before. She shot him a grim look, but he only glanced at her for a second. A head popped up on a rooftop and Danny put a bullet through it, telling himself that civilians wouldn’t be that stupid. The people on the street were running for cover. The only faces coming into view on rooftops and broken office windows were those of the Bot Killers who’d pinned down Lieutenant Randall and his squad.

  Danny heard the whistle of a rocket and spun to see the man who’d fired it crouched inside a broken window in the bank’s office tower. He darted to the left, made it eight steps before the rocket hit the spot he’d left behind, then threw himself forward. He hit the ground and rolled, then rose and shot the rocket-man, who crumbled and fell out the broken window, rocket launcher tumbling beside him.

  “Move!” Lieutenant Randall shouted. “Don’t make yourself a target!”

  Danny saw Randall and Zuzu heading back into the bank building, where other enemies had appeared in upper floor windows. Nguyen had already been destroyed, parts of her bot scattered in the street with whatever was left of Lahiri.

  “There!” Hawkins shouted even as he shot a rocket-man perched on the edge of a four-story boutique hotel off to the right.

  The rocket launched as the bullet struck the man. It fired wild, screaming over their heads and striking a stalled Mercedes. As the Mercedes exploded, its gas tank rupturing into a cloud of flames, Danny saw Birnbaum and Broaddus heading into the building next to the bank. Across the street, Kate and Mavrides were rushing into an older office building. He scanned the rooftops again, then saw Hawkins rushing toward the little hotel, bullets raining down on him from the Bot Killers on the roof and in the windows of the hotel—a lot of them.

  Danny spared one last glance for Kate. He had caught a glimpse of Mavrides pointing his gun at Alexa Day and Hawkins standing in the way. Whatever ugliness had gone down while he was inside the bank, Mavrides had gone too far and he didn’t like leaving Kate on her own with the little prick.

  Queen of the Tin Men, remember? he thought. Kate Wade can take care of herself.

  He dashed across the street after Hawkins, crashed through one of the elegant front windows of the little boutique hotel, and hit the stairs only a doze
n feet after Hawkins himself. Danny felt a dreadful chill spreading through him, as if his bot’s circuits were ice, and he understood that this same chill had been settling inside him all day. All his life he’d been a shark, swimming to live, but now the water was freezing solid around him, claustrophobia setting in.

  No more running, he thought.

  First the Tin Men would kill Haifa’s Bot Killers, and then they would make sure any of the bastards who had followed them from Damascus joined the others in their graves.

  ~19~

  Alexa huddled on the floor of the Humvee, right behind the driver’s seat. She wished she could sink down into the metal, become a part of it, imbue herself inside the steel the same way that the Tin Men inhabited their robots. She wanted to be bulletproof, to wrap herself in metal and feel nothing.

  No, she thought. You saw Danny and Kate. They feel.

  Even Mavrides felt something, she realized. Felt enough to drive him right over the edge. Alexa could never forgive him, but on some level she understood. Desperation, sorrow, helplessness—these things bred madness.

  She tried to push away the things she had seen, tried to focus on what would happen next, but there was one image that she could not erase—Lahiri and Hawkins standing side by side with Mavrides against the crowd, even after all that Mavrides had done.

  They take care of their own, she told herself. Hawkins wanted to deal with Mavrides himself.

  The logic felt genuine. Still, she could not forgive them, either.

  Her eyes were itchy and dry and she pressed the heels of her palms against them. The Humvee rumbled over a curb and she swayed as it went around a corner. Torres and Travaglini kept silent, focused on finding the harbor and watching for any sign of further attack. Alexa began to think about the harbor, about the boats they hoped to find there. The end of this journey would bring her home to her mother and Alexa told herself that she could endure anything as long as she made it home. Whatever the world had in store for her now, she would be all right as long as she didn’t have to face it alone.

  A frown creased her brow. Despite the breeze blasting through the broken windows, despite the scent of the sea, she caught the trace of a different odor inside the TSV. Once upon a time their house had lost power while she and her mother had been away for a few days. This smell reminded her of the stench that had wafted out of the refrigerator upon their return. Not as strong, but growing worse.