Tin Men

by Christopher Golden

  “But…” Felix managed.

  He saw the hopeful expression on President Matheson’s face and the grim smile on Syd’s, but still he could not make sense of what he’d seen. There were three Tin Men out there, but they had emerged from the subway station with only two. He stood up, pressed his back to the building and stole a glance around the corner, where Chapel and Bingham were out of ammunition and had taken to close combat themselves. Bingham’s carapace had been splashed with blood.

  “Up on the roof!” Rostov said. “Look!”

  Felix glanced up just in time to see two more Tin Men rushing along the opposite rooftop, robot frames almost golden in the moonlight.

  “Where did they come from?” Rostov asked.

  Felix only smiled, not daring to hope.

  Further up the street, past the university building where the student revelers had scattered, more of the anarchists came around the corner and he knew there would be more—the entire coterie of killers who’d hemmed them in on the other side of the building before they’d made their escape.

  An escape still in progress.

  “Syd,” Felix said, reaching down to grab her arm. “Get up. We’re running.”

  Pale but steady, hand clutched at her shoulder wound, Syd slid her back up the wall until she managed to stand.

  “Not sure about the running, but let’s give it a shot,” she said.

  Matheson smiled at her, nodded, and then turned to Rostov. “We go.”

  With the battle still unfolding around the corner, they left Chapel and Bingham to the fighting and hurried into the street to meet the newly-arrived Tin Men. Felix glanced southward. They were so close now that he could see the marina and the dark, moonlight-tipped waves beyond it.

  Then they were amongst the Tin Men and his view was blocked by a robot with a target painted on his abdomen.

  “Mister President,” one of the other Tin Men said. “Come with us, sir. We’ve got a boat waiting.”

  Felix made a tiny sound. It surprised him, coming from deep within him. He knew that voice. As President Matheson replied, Felix could only stare at her, this robot soldier whose carapace had been charred so black that he could barely make out the devil horns painted on her skull and a tiny pitchfork on her left cheek.

  “Is it you?” he asked, his voice very small.

  The bot shifted her eyes only slightly, then returned her full attention to the president. The other Tin Men watched her and Felix realized that she was in command.

  “Get us all out of here,” Matheson said. “President Rostov and I have work to do.”

  She saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  A rocket seared the air, shooting into the face of a nearby building. The explosion sent glass and rubble flying. They all turned from the blast, peppered by bits of debris. Glass cut Felix’s arm and stone struck him on the back. A chunk of debris hit Rostov in the temple and he swore in Russian, clapping a hand to his face as he went down on one knee. Matheson went to his aid, calling for him to get up, to run with them. Rostov glanced up and Felix felt ice trickle along his spine when he saw the bloody ruin where his left eye had been.

  “Here they come,” one of the Tin Men said.

  The rocket had been fired from the midst of the battle around the corner. Now the rest of the fight followed. Five robots came racing out of the side street, Chapel and Bingham among them.

  “Run for it!” Chapel roared. “We’ll cover you!”

  Felix caught one glimpse of the dozens of anarchists rounding the corner behind them. Six rocket men knelt in the street, away from the rest, and shouldered their launchers.

  A robot hand closed around his wrist and then Felix found himself running.

  “It is you, isn’t it?” he asked. “Katie?”

  “Run for it, Dad,” she said, one hand on his back, hustling him along.

  The presidents were ahead of them. One of the other Tin Men had picked up Syd, her blond hair hanging over his arm as he carried her toward the marina, running effortlessly despite the burden. His chest burned as he ran and his legs felt numb and rubbery, but he kept going. All he had wanted was to live to see his daughter again and fate had granted him that wish—though not at all in the way he’d imagined. Now he wanted more than just to see her. He wanted to know this woman she’d become—he had much to atone for.

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said, his voice breaking as he ran toward the marina in the distance. “And I never thought I’d see you like this.”

  “This is who I am,” Kate said, and her voice seemed as cold and mechanical as the robot she piloted.

  Humphreys Deep Station One was a sprawling complex. Air could be drawn from aboveground but once the anarchists had attacked the airfield overhead, defense protocols had kicked in. For several days—Aimee didn’t know how long—the air underground would be filtered and recycled to protect against the possibility of some kind of gas being pumped down into the Hump from above. An air conducting system that large and that powerful required ducts and vents equal to the task.

  “This is stupid,” Aimee said, crawling on her hands and knees inside the tunnel of metal ductwork. “You don’t think they’ll look for us inside the stupid air vents?”

  North followed behind her, moving smoothly and quietly. She would have felt his presence even if she couldn’t hear his breathing—his urgency and malice gave off a kind of dark energy that made her want to move faster.

  “They’ll look here,” North admitted, “but they won’t look here first.”

  The duct was not tall enough for them to stand but not small enough to force them to shimmy or drag themselves through. Still, Aimee felt the metal constricting around her.

  “I can’t breathe,” she said, hating how pitiful her voice sounded. “It’s like we’re trapped.”

  “Just keep going,” North said. “It won’t be long.”

  “What if I—“ she began.

  “There’s a junction coming up. Turn left,” North said. “Meantime, breathe. You’ll be out of this soon. When the anarchists get in here, I’ll make sure you’re not hurt. Just play ball, Aimee. I can’t save everyone but I can save you, as long as you don’t try anything stupid.”

  She faltered, pausing on her hands and knees.

  “Keep moving,” North warned.

  “No, listen,” she said, trying to twist around to see him in the darkened duct. “Just tell someone. Turn yourself in now and—”

  “They’ll execute me the first chance they get,” North said, eyes narrowed.

  “Maybe before the Pulse, but now?” Aimee replied. “I don’t think they’d be in such a hurry to kill a guy who has intel on the enemy.”

  North glared at her. “Just crawl, please. I wouldn’t like to kill you, but don’t think I won’t.”

  She exhaled, thinking of her mother in her little kitchen at home, worried about how long the food that had been in the refrigerator would last. The milk would already have soured. Meats would go bad quickly. Elena Bell would be feeding the neighborhood, trying to keep herself occupied so she wouldn’t dwell too much on her daughter’s safety. In the back of her mind, Aimee had an image of her mother that reminded her of Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz, appearing in the witch’s crystal ball, so worried for Dorothy.

  You’re not Dorothy, honey, she thought to herself. And this isn’t Kansas. Dorothy had killed the witch by happy accident. Aimee knew that when she got her shot at North she would not hesitate, and it would not be an accident.

  “Go,” North said.

  Aimee went, crawling on all fours, and when she came to the junction she turned left, just as North had instructed.

  Biding her time.

  By now the bodies of Major Zander and the MPs had been found. The hunt would be on for the escaped prisoners. If the techs hadn’t gotten the internal cameras working yet they would manage it soon. Not long after that, she and North would be discovered and whoever had taken command would order them both shot on sight. He
r only chance at persuading them otherwise would be to get away from North and lead them to him.

  Cool air blew all around her and she shivered.

  “Turn right,” North instructed.

  Aimee did as she was told, though this new duct was smaller and narrower than the others and she had to scramble forward on her belly. Her knees thumped the metal duct and she slowed, afraid that the noise would give them away, afraid to be found with him. After only a minute of this shuffling crawl, she came to a grate that barred her way.

  “Roadblock,” she said, thinking North must have some kind of tool to remove the grate.

  “Knock it out,” he said.

  “What?” Apparently she was the tool he’d had in mind. “You know how much noise that will make?”

  “Better move fast, then.”

  Aimee cursed under her breath but she didn’t hesitate. Lying on her belly she reached out and slammed the grate with both hands, once and then again. Bracing herself against the smooth bottom of the duct with the toes of her boots, she slammed her palms against the grate a third and fourth time, pulling screws out of the wood and plaster around the vent. The grate dangled by a single screw and she hit it one final time, knocking it to the floor with a clatter.

  The room ahead was dimly lit. Nothing but goods piled on shelves, with pipes and hanging light fixtures on the ceiling. Aimee peered at the nearest shelf and saw the word KETCHUP printed clearly on a box. She furrowed her brow in confusion. What did North think he could accomplish from here?

  “Go,” he said from behind her.

  Aimee fought the urge to kick back at his face. She crawled forward, pushed her head and shoulders out through the vent, reached up for a pipe overhead and seared her hand on its hot metal. Swearing, she grabbed the one beside it, this one cool enough to soothe her burn, and hauled herself out of the vent. Dangling, she dropped to the floor and then she took off running.

  The first bullet took a chunk out of the concrete floor. The second struck a shelf just ahead of her. So many shelves, and no idea where the exit might be, she darted to the right into another row of shelving, breath coming fast. She heard North drop down from the vent and land on the floor.

  “I told you I would shoot you,” he said as he hurried after her.

  “Maybe I don’t mind,” she said. “You put a bullet in me and they’ll know I’m not on your side.”

  “I’m sure that’ll be a comfort to your mother when they bury you.”

  Aimee froze. She took a deep breath full of fresh hatred for him.

  “You just sit tight,” North went on.

  Back to a shelf full of cereals and other dry goods, she listened as he moved through the stock room. After a moment she heard a clanking and then the sounds of North grunting as he moved boxes, piling them up somewhere. Then came the screech of metal on concrete as he dragged a shelf across the floor.

  “Fuck it,” she whispered.

  With a glance around the corner, she set off in the opposite direction. The storeroom seemed enormous but she soon discovered it was not some endless warehouse floor. Forty feet along the aisle in which she’d hidden, she came to a wall and turned left for the simple reason that she could see a corner to her right. She raced along until she came to an open space with two doors set into the wall. One of them opened into a cubicle with sheaves of paper on a desk, an empty coffee cup, and a computer workstation.

  The other turned out to be not one door, but a ten-foot wide freight elevator.

  “You can hack this station.”

  Aimee spun to face North, who had slipped up quietly behind her. His face looked flushed from effort but his grip on his weapon did not waver. He held the gun aimed at her chest.

  “You blocked the door into the kitchen,” she said.

  “And jammed it,” he agreed. “But the first thing you’re gonna do when you hack in is reset the coding so none of the kitchen staff’s keycards will be able to get them in here. Then you can get around to the real work.”

  “What if I can’t get into the defense protocols from this station?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Aimee. Freight elevator goes all the way to the top. There isn’t a way out of the Hump that doesn’t have defense systems in place, which means the work station here has got to be wired in. If I had the time, I could hack it from here. Which means it should be no problem for you. Get into the system—“

  “They’ll have locked me out by now,” she argued, sweat dampening the back of her neck. “My access codes will never work.”

  “You’ll get in.”

  “I’m telling you—“ she began.

  North strode over to her and pressed the gun to her forehead, pushed her back until her skull thunked against the elevator doors.

  His eyes were full of emotion. More pain than cruelty, she thought, although North seemed to have deep reserves of both.

  “You will get in,” he said.

  He was right, of course. She could hack the defense protocols from here. At the very least she could bypass them and unlock this one elevator. The only question would be how long it would take. How long could she take, she wondered, before North would realize she was stalling and decide he didn’t need her any more.

  A clock on the wall inside the workstation booth ticked loudly. It felt as if the hands of that clock were counting down the last minutes of her life.

  How many minutes? she wondered.

  How many seconds before the bullet?

  ~25~

  Alive.

  All of Kate’s thoughts had been pushed from her mind to make room for that one word.

  Alive.

  Entropy existed at all times. Her high school English teacher, Mr. Herlihy, had assigned her class a report on the great poets of history, choosing one poet at random for each student. She had gotten Yeats and thought she would hate every minute of the task, until she had started reading.

  Things fall apart, Yeats had written. The centre cannot hold.

  The words had stuck with her—so powerfully that she had once shared the poem with her father, hoping to make him understand her—and they had come back to her when she had lost her legs. For her, they were a reminder to appreciate what she had in any moment, because that moment would pass. Entropy eroded everything. Time wore on and the world—and all that existed within it—wound down like an old clock, never to chime again. The Pulse had sped entropy forward toward the disintegration of human society. It might not be too late to slow it down again, but that would depend entirely on people. The future of the human race would be defined by what they did next. What they did now.

  Sailing across the Mediterranean, she had thought a great deal about entropy and come to the conclusion that her father must be dead. The President had Secret Service agents and Tin Men around him, their sole purpose being to keep him alive, but Felix Wade had only himself. The idea that he might survive a full-scale assault on the G20 Summit had begun to seem like a fantasy.

  Yet here he was.

  “This way,” she said, taking his hand and guiding him toward a side street full of hotels that backed up to the marina.

  Gunfire ripped the air and she heard a bullet zip past her head. With a single motion she stepped behind her father, shielding him as they hurried onward. She felt bullets strike her back and she moved even closer to him, matching his steps. Then they were in that side street and he was out of danger. Kate pushed him up against a wall with one protective arm and took a look around. Torres, Hawkins and Birnbaum were back with the President’s two Tin Men, killing anarchists as fast as they could, trying to stem the flow of the attack. Trav had reached the side street before Kate and he still held the blond woman with the gunshot wound. Danny had the two presidents up against the wall a few feet away, using his guidelight to examine the wreckage of Kazimir Rostov’s eye. Rostov would never see out of it again but if he could keep it from getting infected, he would live.

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” her father said.


  Kate laughed. “I can’t believe I found you.”

  “Chapel said something about a signal,” he said.

  Ping, Kate thought. If not for that signal—if Zuzu hadn’t used it in Haifa—she’d still have been searching for him. For the first time, she realized the enormity of the task they’d set for themselves in coming to Athens in the first place. It might’ve taken them days to find the President if they had found him at all, yet here they were.

  President Matheson grimaced, and for the first time Kate noticed the way he’d been clutching at his arm.

  “Sir, are you injured?” she asked.

  Matheson twisted around to show her the bloodstain on his shirtsleeve.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just a graze. Now’s not the time—“

  “Agreed,” Kate said. She pointed at the second hotel along the street. “We want that door—The Agamemnon. Let’s move!”

  Danny covered them, watching the rooftops and the main street from which they’d come, waiting for the battle to reach them. The hotel doors opened for them and the two presidents ran inside. Kate had her weapon ready, watching for trouble as Felix followed.

  “Woman’s lost a lot of blood,” Trav said as he carried the blond past her.

  Kate shouted for Danny and then went in behind Trav.

  “Woman can hear you,” said the blond in Trav’s arms. “Woman has a name.”

  Felix smiled as he went to her, but Kate could see the worry in his father’s eyes.

  “You’re all right, Syd,” her father said to the blond. “You’re too mean for one bullet to do you in.”

  “Damn straight,” Syd replied, teeth gritted.

  Danny came through the door. Bullets shattered the glass behind him.

  “Our guys have thinned them out some, but they’re still coming,” he said.

  “They’ll keep coming,” Kate said. “Till they’re all dead.”

  “Fine by me,” Trav chimed in. “Let’s oblige them.”

  Kate spun around, frowning. Someone had opened the door for them but she hadn’t spotted anyone.

  “Broaddus?” she called.

  Movement in the shadows behind the concierge desk. Alexa Day stepped out into the moonlit gloom of the lobby.