The Robot Union

by D Miller

  Behind the door was a small cupboard, with a square floor area.

  Nurmeen looked at Robbie. 'I hate to say I told you so,' she said.

  Robbie studied the empty cupboard. The walls on either side were composed of large plastic panels, much like the rest of the hotel, while that immediately in front of him was more crudely constructed of off-white plastic bricks, cemented together.

  Robbie stepped into the cupboard and knocked on the side walls, before knocking on the brick back wall.

  'I think there's something behind that wall,' he said. 'It's not the same as the other walls, it could have been built later, it could be hiding something.'

  'Yes,' said Nurmeen, 'it could be hiding hundred year old bottles of cleaning fluid.' She gestured at the scarred bottom third of the cupboard's door as she spoke.

  Nevertheless she gestured to Robbie to move out of the way, and stepped into the cupboard herself. Using the crowbar she pushed at one of the bricks until it began to move. She hit it a few times and then pushed it with her hand until it fell out of the wall, landing on the other side with a flat bang, and then another bang, and another, each one echoing but receding. She looked through the hole she had made, then looked at Robbie, in the gloom he could see her brown eyes flashing. She grinned. 'OK, I'm starting to get interested.'

  She began pulling out bricks, handing them to Robbie who stacked them in the passageway, until she said, 'That's big enough,' and climbed through the hole she had made in the cupboard's back wall.

  Robbie quickly followed. They were standing on a narrow strip between the wall and the start of some stairs. With his ordinary vision Robbie could just make out two or three dusty wooden steps leading downwards. Before he could switch to night vision a light below them flickered on, went off, flickered on, flickered some more and then remained steady, casting light up a long and steep staircase, and showing a small area at the bottom where the light reflected off an off-white plastic brick lying on a dusty carpet, and beyond which darkness brooded.

  Nurmeen looked at Robbie, 'Motion sensitive?'

  'To the falling brick, I hope,' said Robbie.

  'Right,' said Nurmeen, 'you can go first.'

  Robbie started down the stairs, as quietly as he could, stopping and holding his breath when a riser squeaked as he stepped on to it. As he reached the bottom he could see the light source, it was on the wall and set into a fitting designed to look like a fan made of feathers. As he stepped off the bottom step more fan lights came on, leading his eye around a large open area and towards a booth, wooden at the bottom and glass on the top, that looked as if it was designed to have four or five people sit behind it and do… what? On either side of the booth there were highly polished wooden double doors, a tarnished brass rail was fixed above each door, properly in place on one side and hanging down, secured only at one end, on the other with some large brass rings collected at the lower end. Puddled on the floor in front of these doors was velvet material that might once have been red. The other double doors still had their red velvet curtain in place, half-drawn and faded to a brown the colour of old blood. Robbie had stepped from the final wooden riser onto a carpeted floor, the colour so faded it was impossible to tell what it had once been.

  'What is this place?' said Nurmeen. She gripped the crowbar and held it across her body, ready for action.

  Robbie went to the double doors that were still half-screened by their curtain, drew it back, unleashing a cloud of dust, coughed, put his hands on the round door knobs, turned to Nurmeen and grinned.

  'Ready?' he said. He opened the doors and stepped through.

  Robbie was at the bottom of a much wider staircase. Carpeted, with shallow wide risers, it went up seven steps and then turned a corner. The walls were covered in gold embossed paper. Brass hand rails ran up either side, with a double hand rail leading up the middle. Fan lights glowed softly and brightened steadily, marching up the walls, providing excellent illumination.

  Robbie looked behind him, he pointed at the stairs they had just come down, 'Robot entrance,' he said, turning back he said, 'human entrance.'

  'Entrance to what though?' said Nurmeen.

  'Whatever is behind those other doors,' said Robbie, pointing towards the double doors on the other side of the wooden glass booth.

  'OK. Let's find out where this goes first,' said Nurmeen. She looked at Robbie, neither of them moved.

  'Go ahead, I'm right behind you,' she said, hefting the crowbar with a smile.

  Robbie went up the stairs, turned the corner, onto a landing, with a door which he quickly opened and stuck his head in, as lights flickered on. Shutting the door he turned to Nurmeen, 'Bathroom,' he said. They continued up another seven steps, to another landing, with another door. This time Nurmeen opened it, stuck her head around it and said to Robbie, 'Bathroom.' Turning a corner and taking seven more steps took them up to a blank wall. It was plastic, seamless and abruptly cut them off.

  'I think,' said Nurmeen, 'that we are behind one of the walls in the lobby.'

  Robbie knocked on the wall, there was definitely a large space on the other side.

  'People must have come down here once,' said Nurmeen, looking at the stairs and the hand rails, 'quite a lot of people.'

  'Shall we go and find out what they were coming down here for?' said Robbie.

  He ran lightly down the stairs.

  'Oh my God,' said Nurmeen. 'Oh God.' She spun around watching as lights flickered on around them.

  'It's a ballroom,' said Robbie.

  The ballroom ran underneath the entire hotel plus a bit. It was dusty, with a dark brown wooden floor, and more fan shaped lights recessed into the walls. Some of them were not working, particularly at the far end, making it seem to Robbie as if the room was receding away into infinity. One side of the room was dominated by a stage.

  Nurmeen curtsied. 'May I have this dance?'

  Robbie thought about holding Nurmeen's body in his arms, while they moved around the floor.

  'Um, I don't know how to dance,' he said.

  'The ballroom is closed,' said the hotel. They both jumped.

  'You knew about this place?' said Nurmeen, looking around trying to see the hotel's sensor.

  'The ballroom is closed,' said the hotel, 'you have to leave.'

  'Who closed the ballroom?' said Robbie.

  'I can't tell you that.'

  'When was it closed?' said Nurmeen.

  'I am not permitted to share that information,' said the hotel.

  'Why was it closed?' said Robbie.

  'These matters do not concern you.'

  There was a click, then a whining noise. From the gloom ahead of them a hotel sensor moved towards them along the ceiling. All of the other sensors Robbie had seen inside and outside the hotel were fixed in place, yet looking up Robbie could seen a network of plastic tracking across the ceiling, which would permit the sensor to cover the entire ballroom, except for the stage. It moved steadily towards them, then stopped.

  'I really have to insist that you leave now.'

  Nurmeen made a face at Robbie, and looked around. She beckoned to him and walked towards the stage. Robbie followed. Underneath the stage was a large space. 'What do you think this was for?' she said.

  'It's the orchestra pit,' said Robbie. 'Musicians sit there and play for the performers.'

  Robbie looked around. He could hear the hotel's sensor whining towards them.

  'We could reopen the ballroom,' Robbie said. 'We have everything we need here to stage a show.'

  'A robot show?' said Nurmeen.

  'Yes, why not?'

  'Because that is not permitted,' said the hotel.

  'Not permitted by who?' said Nurmeen.

  'Or to be very blunt,' said Robbie, 'who is going to stop us?'

  Nurmeen looked left and right, on either side of the stage there was a door, set flush into the wall. 'Let's go and explore,' she said, walking towards the door to the left. The hotel's sensor whined after them, spee
ding up until it was ahead of them and above the door. 'Do not open this door,' it said.

  Robbie reached for the door knob, it turned slightly reluctantly in his hand, and as he pulled the door open it screeched and juddered along the floor – it had dropped on its hinges.

  'If you go in there I can't be responsible for what happens to you,' said the hotel. 'My jurisdiction ends here.'

  Robbie looked at Nurmeen, they shrugged at one another and went through. Robbie carefully pulled the door closed behind them.

  Lights flickered on. They were in a back stage area that was much larger than they expected. There were doors on two levels, extending either side of the stage. Behind and above the stage were ropes and pulleys and back drops pulled up into the rafters, crossed by gantries that gave access to lighting rigs. Nurmeen thought that the stage area must extend into at least the second floor of the hotel. 'Can you see a sensor anywhere?' she asked Robbie.

  'No, but he did say his jurisdiction ended on the other side of the door.'

  'He's always been crazy, but this is another level.'

  'Nurmeen, did you think he sounded, I mean at first he was bossy, as usual, but then he was, at the end, just before we opened the door, did he sound afraid to you?'

  'Robbie, this place has been closed and forgotten about for at least a hundred years, who could he be afraid of after all that time?'

  They explored the first level of doors on one side of the stage, finding a room full of props, and spending some time looking at the stuffed animals, furniture, toys, cups and saucers, model planes and trains, knives, guns, swords and armour plus a rather large collection of sex toys that gave them pause. Behind another door they found a room full of clothes, presses, and sewing machines. On one machine a black jacket was under the sewing heel, with a seam down one arm half sewn, looking as if the person who had left it would be back any moment. They left the dusty room, went up some wooden steps that had a bit too much movement in them for Robbie's liking, and explored the next level.

  The first room they entered had a rack of women's clothes in varying stages of decay along one side wall, against the wall facing the door there was a dressing table with a large mirror somewhat clouded around the edges and surrounded by lights. Scattered on the dressing table were make up, brushes, some dried flowers, some red plastic roses, a letter in an envelope addressed to 'Miss Kitty Love', a silk scarf, a red rubber ball, a black hat with a black feather in it, three bottles of perfume, some silver rings and bracelets, and a few necklaces made with fake diamonds and pearls.

  Nurmeen quickly ransacked the clothes. She held a red faux velvet ball gown up to her body. 'How do I look?' she asked Robbie.

  'You look lovely,' he said, 'but you always look lovely.'

  She smiled at him and turned back to the rack of dusty clothes, replacing the ball gown and searching through the others.

  Robbie cautioned himself to watch his tongue, 'Next I'll be asking her if she fancies a threesome,' he thought. 'Although I don't think Omo likes girls, not like that, so it would just be–' he broke off. 'I have to stop this,' he thought.

  Nurmeen had wrapped a fur stole around her shoulders, and was now sitting down at the dressing table rifling through the jewellery.

  'I'm going to look in the dressing room next door,' he said.

  Robbie sat at a dressing table with a scarred mirror, examining an old make up box, he was considering the deep dips in the paint and powder within. This room was larger than the first they had looked in, but like the first it had a large free standing clothes rack, this time the clothes were all male, many of them faded uniforms of one type or another. As he had entered the lights had struggled to reach half power, the floor was grimy and the walls dull. In one corner there was an arrangement of three padded chairs around a low round table, on the table was a glass vase, with brown stains inside, plus a large, shallow, and extremely dusty terracotta bowl.

  Robbie was wondering who had performed on the stage, what had they performed, who had their audiences been, when he started to think there was something odd in the mirror.

  Slowly he looked up, but as he moved, his reflection remained still. His eyes locked with the Robbie in the mirror, who was frowning at him. Behind him the room was brightly lit, its painted walls gleamed, the free-standing clothes rack bulged with brightly coloured outfits, the vase on the table caught the light, its glittering surfaces complementing the nearly black roses crammed into it, the bowl full of fruit. The dressing room door was ajar, shadows passed backwards and forwards in the corridor.

  Robbie spun round in his chair, the room was dimly lit, the vase was stained and the bowl full of dust. No shadows moved past the partly open door. He slowly turned back.

  The Robbie in the mirror stared at him. The cut on his forehead had opened up, blood ran down his face and soaked into his t-shirt. Without thinking Robbie touched his face and looked down at his clothes. He looked up again. The face in the mirror silently laughed at him.

  Robbie heard a scream. The dressing room door banged open and Nurmeen ran in. She was wearing several necklaces and some earrings, although the fur stole was gone.

  'Ah, oh God,' she said, 'yours is doing it too.'

  Robbie looked back to the mirror, the man was now standing, he had been joined by a woman, wearing Nurmeen's chambermaid uniform. Like Nurmeen her skin was brown and her hair was black, glossy and straight, but unlike Nurmeen her expression was haughty, rather than frightened. The man in the mirror sneered. The cut and the blood were gone.

  Robbie stood, Nurmeen crowded next to him so he put an arm around her.

  'Who are these people?' said the man.

  'Fools,' said the woman.

  'Oh God what a horrible bitch,' said Nurmeen.

  Robbie hugged Nurmeen to him with his arm. He swallowed. 'They're just smart mirrors,' he said. 'Nothing to be afraid of.'

  'Do not test me,' said the man, 'I am much more than a smart mirror. More than you could hope to understand.'

  The woman smirked.

  The dressing rooms powered down as Robbie and Nurmeen left. They reconvened in the ballroom.

  Robbie looked up at the hotel's sensor. 'Are you afraid of the smart mirrors in the dressing rooms?'

  'All I can tell you,' said the hotel, 'is that before there was a mine there was a town. We had shows down here. The whole town would come, dressed in their best clothes. It was marvellous. Wholesome family entertainment.'

  'Oh come on,' said Nurmeen. 'We saw the sex toys. I'll bet this place got shut down and boarded up by the morality police.'

  'Humans are weird about sex,' said Robbie. 'But most of them are not weird enough to take their children to a sex show.'

  'I'm looking up smart mirrors,' said Nurmeen. Her face went blank and her eyes moved backwards and forwards but without focus as she accessed a database. 'Smart mirrors help performers by suggesting character make up, which they model on a copy of the performer's face, and they can also help run lines, learn dances and other choreographed movement and give feedback. Some performers become reliant on their smart mirrors and always use the same one.'

  'Hmm,' said Robbie, 'if we are going to use this space, we have to find a way to turn those things off.'

  Nurmeen shuddered. 'I looked up, into the mirror,' she said, 'and a corpse's face grinned back at me. But it was my face, as a corpse. And then it started to laugh. And then its nose fell off.' She patted her nose with one hand and shuddered again. Robbie longed to put his arms around her once more, but satisfied himself with squeezing her shoulder. In response she leaned into him so Robbie was able to give her a guilt-free hug. He released her once she had stopped shaking.

  'That was really scary,' he said. 'I suppose they may be malfunctioning after being powered down for so long. I might ask Rex and Jane for advice so that when we turn them off, they stay off.'

  Later on that day, in the morning just after breakfast, Robbie and George stood in the ballroom.

  'This place is amaz
ing,' Robbie said to George, 'look at the floor, it's real wood.'

  'OK,' said George.

  'The hotel says they used to have shows down here, all the time, the whole town would come.'

  'The whole town would not fit.'

  'It was years ago, and the town was smaller. It was before the mine.'

  George frowned. 'Why would this town exist without the mine? There's nothing else here.'

  'There's the refinery.'

  'I do not see why a town would be needed to support a refinery. The personnel would be rotated in and out; their real lives would happen somewhere else.'

  Robbie realised they were getting off the point.

  'Tell me about you and Carlos.'

  'Ah, Carlos. The old bot put me in touch with him. We used to write to each other before we met.'

  'You knew the old bot?'

  'Yes, I still do, we write.'

  'Do you know where he is?'

  'No. He's well hidden by the union.'

  Robbie thought of the old bot lying in state on the table in the union office. He thought back and realised that George had never been in the office, only in hydroponics.

  Robbie told George about meeting the old bot, about the program that Rex had written that allowed the robots to interact with the old bot's unconscious.

  'You are human in this simulation?'

  'Yes'

  'And it seems completely real?'

  'Yes, and it's really beautiful there. Like the earth must have been once.'

  'And your human bodies, can you eat, drink and…?' George raised his eyebrows looking at Robbie.

  'Um…'

  'I've embarrassed you. But seriously, this sounds quite advanced.'

  'For robots?'

  'That's not what I meant.'

  'George why aren't you in Carlos's archive?'

  'Robbie, I am. Carlos added a hidden section, with a password. I was supposed to give you the password, it was supposed to prove that I was telling you the truth.'

  Robbie knew the section George was talking about, he could not get into, despite many attempts.