by Andrew Fish
whether they had really served their purpose. The outer part of the city, which wouldn’t have been protected by the walls, was cleaner, richer and generally a better place to live than the inner part and there were rumours that the suburban dwellers were lobbying for a new city wall to keep the inner-city people in.
The club itself was located in the basement of a tall, rounded building and Ben followed the winding staircase down from the street until he reached the entrance. He reached out a hand to open the door and then winced as a metal arm grasped him firmly by the wrist.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ a voice asked from the shadows. It didn’t sound like a robot. Then a figure stepped forward, revealing itself to be a man – tall, with a square jaw and flat head. One of his arms was prosthetic from the elbow and his sleeve was rolled up so that the metal limb glinted in the cold, hard light that filtered down from the street. Ben tried not to stare at the point where the metal and flesh joined, though curiosity made him wonder how such a feat was achieved.
‘I’m supposed to be meeting someone here,’ he told the man.
The bouncer stared at him, but said nothing.
‘A robot,’ added Ben.
This resulted in a slight lightening of the man’s visage. He released Ben’s arm and opened the door. ‘Go on,’ he said, stepping aside. Ben hurried through, his attention still firmly locked on the bouncer. Since he wasn’t really paying attention to the room in front of him, he almost fell over a small table just inside the door.
‘Hey, look where you’re going,’ a woman snapped at him.
‘Sorry,’ Ben replied, turning to look in the direction of the voice. Seated around a small gaming table were three women; the one who had spoken to Ben was in her late thirties and would have been extremely attractive had she not had artificial eyes. He stared involuntarily; there was something repugnant about the sight of something so cold and clinical as glass and metal when set in the smooth and natural skin of a beautiful young woman.
‘What’s the matter,’ the woman asked. ‘Never seen eyes before?’
‘Sorry,’ Ben apologised. ‘I just didn’t expect…’
The woman picked up on Ben’s tone and her own softened. ‘You not been here before?’ she asked.
Ben shook his head.
‘He’s new here,’ the woman told her friends and then turned back to Ben ‘You’ll find there’s a lot of us halfies hang out here,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ben. ‘I didn’t…’
The woman shrugged. ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said. ‘Most normal people prefer to pretend we don’t exist.’
‘Is that why you’re in here?’
‘It’s somewhere to go. And the robots don’t have a problem with us.’ She placed a hand of cards on the table and the luminous surface pulsed as it added the hand to her total, neatly displayed just in front of her. ‘Personally, I think that robot eyes are a damn sight better than being blind,’ she added.
Ben nodded mutely, his gaze darting around the bar nervously as he tried to avoid eye contact with the woman.
‘If you’re after the auditorium, dearie - you need to go through that door over there,’ one of the other women pointed out, motioning towards the door in question. Ben looked at her; she wasn’t obviously equipped with any artificial attachments.
‘Some of us are quite human, I assure you,’ the woman told him, noticing his gaze. ‘I just happen to like it here.’ Ben nodded again and then headed for the door from the bar to the auditorium. He opened it and stepped through, this time keeping his eyes straight ahead.
The club was only of moderate size, and had there been more people present, would probably have been described as intimate. A few people were dancing in front of the stage, on which a band were playing synthesisers. Their music didn’t seem radically different to anything that Ben had heard in the charts, but it seemed more natural and gave the impression that it was being played by people who cared more about the music than the money.
Bands who cared about money didn’t play venues like the Turret – it was in an unpopular part of town and couldn’t take a fraction of the audience of the city’s larger venues. For those who frequented the club, however, there was something special about the place: it may have smelt of oil and sweat and may not have attracted any of the big names, but it had a good atmosphere and the beer was cheap. Ben ordered himself a drink from a robot waiter who appeared at his elbow, then stood at the back of the room, listening to the band.
Keys arrived at precisely nine o’clock, accompanied by Vid and another robot, whom Ben hadn’t seen before. The new arrival was carrying some kind of oddly shaped bag in his hand and walked with an easy stride, as if the gearing on his legs needed adjusting. Keys, who was carrying a keyboard, looked around him and, seeing Ben, floated over to him. Vid and the other robot followed.
‘This is Riff,’ Keys introduced the new robot. ‘He works at the museum of musical instruments.’
‘Keys here was telling me you dug his playing,’ said Riff. His voice was deep and mellifluous.
‘Dug?’
‘Enjoyed. Do you listen to much real music?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Not until I visited the store,’ he said. ‘There was a guy with a harmonica outside.’
‘Not many of those around anymore,’ Riff observed. ‘Not very popular with your mainstream acts.’ He unzipped his bag and pulled out something which Ben recognised as a guitar. Guitars were an uncommon sight in the modern world, although his parents had tried to encourage him to listen to guitar music when he was young.
‘Is that what you play?’ he asked.
‘Amongst other things,’ Riff replied, twisting a couple of the tuning pegs and plucking the strings.
‘I thought nobody played them anymore,’ said Ben. ‘They’re rather primitive, aren’t they?’
‘So’s a human being, but I don’t see you guys throwing in the towel any time soon.’
‘My parents listened to guitar stuff. I thought it was an old person thing.’
‘It can be. If it’s being played by old fogeys. If you play it properly, the guitar is the king of instruments.’
‘I doesn’t look very sophisticated.’
‘And it isn’t, but it’s like with a drum: you can hit it, or you can play it. And I strongly suspect the fogeys you heard weren’t playing it.’
‘They weren’t hitting it.’
‘No, but they were probably just strumming it.’ The look on Ben’s face suggested an explanation was required and Riff made stroking motions with his hand over the fretboard. ‘Just gives rhythm if you do it that way,’ he pointed out. ‘Now, if you know how to play a guitar it’s the best instrument of all.’
The band on stage drew their act to a close and received some half-hearted applause from the audience.
‘Shall we show them how it’s done old man?’ Riff asked Keys.
‘If you think you’re up to it,’ said Keys.
The two robots took to the stage. Keys stood his keyboard on one of the stands that had been vacated by the previous act. Riff fastened a strap to the guitar and slung the instrument over his head, so that it was supported by his shoulder and left both hands free to play. There was an expectant pause as the two robots exchanged glances, then Keys began to play, a simple melody, less… polyphonic than he had played in the shop, but varying in tempo and intensity in a manner which suggested there was another tune somewhere inside it. Riff nodded along with the beat and then began to finger the strings of the guitar. Ben listened in amazement as the robot’s simple finger movements began to coax a complex array of sounds from the instrument. Periodically, his left hand changed position on the neck of the guitar, or one of his fingers tapped a string, adding harmonics against the melody, but most of the action seemed to be in his right hand, where he plucked and bent the strings with an almost casual grace. He nodded his head gently in time to the beat, paying no attention to anything outside of his own little musical wor
ld. The audience, finding the complex tune difficult to dance to, gradually abandoned the hall leaving Ben alone with the three robots. Such was the spell cast by the music it took him several minutes before he realised.
‘Where’s everybody gone?’ Ben asked Vid.
‘Out to the bar,’ said Vid.
‘Don’t they like the music?’
‘It’s not everybody’s thing.’ Vid shrugged and a digitised eyebrow raised itself expressively. ‘That’s the thing about real music – not all of it is appreciated by everybody.’
Ben nodded. The tune was different to anything he’d ever heard, but somehow he could relate to it. It was expressive, energetic and complex, but it had a kind of energy – almost a soul.
‘Why don’t people play guitar in normal bands?’ he asked.
‘There was a time when they did, but they fell out of favour.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Too difficult to play. Most people can barely finger a chord, let alone improvise a solo like that.’
‘Improvise?’ Ben was astounded. ‘Do you mean he’s making that up as he goes along?’
‘Yes and no. There are rules, of a sort, but in jazz, it’s about expressing yourself within the confines of the rules.’
The two robots came to the end of their piece, playing a sweet sequence of soft chords that seemed almost to hang in the air. Then, they put down their instruments and came down from the stage.
‘Looks like we’ve emptied the place,’ Keys observed.
‘Seems that
