Runaway Robot

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  The helicopter’s tail lurched back and forth as it tried to hover in one spot. It wasn’t coming down. But we were. They were lowering the metal cable that Eric and I were dangling from.

  For the first time in a while, I could hear something louder than helicopter blades.

  I looked down.

  Beneath my feet was something way more frightening than a sixty-metre drop. Beneath my feet – and getting nearer by the second – was a metal crusher. Huge steel teeth were gnashing at the empty air, getting ready to chew Eric to pieces. And me along with him.

  Because no one knew I was there. They thought they were going to destroy a robot. Not a mostly fleshand-blood kid.

  ‘Eric!’ I gasped. ‘We’re going to be crushed to death!’

  Eric tucked up his knees, the way you do when you’re going to dive-bomb in the pool.

  ‘Great. Well, that’s going to give us an extra one and a half seconds of life.’

  I couldn’t just hear the noise of the crusher now. I could smell the diesel from its turbines and catch the wind from its exhaust. We were just a few metres from its jaws.

  Eric leaned to the left. The cable swung a little. He leaned to the right. It swung a bit more. He rocked from side to side. The cable swung wider and wider. What was he trying to do? I looked up. The helicopter was really struggling. Maybe it would give up and fly us out of danger? Maybe it would crash.

  Eric kept rocking and swinging, reaching further and further out. Finally I looked down and saw that we were swinging out over a skip full of tree branches and grass cuttings. We skimmed back across the crusher, into the air on the other side and back across the garden-waste skip. And that’s when Eric dropped me.

  I landed on a pillow of stinging nettles. But I didn’t notice the stings until later. What I noticed was that I was not dead. Because Eric had saved my life.

  Eric had saved my life, but now he was going to lose his. OK, he doesn’t exactly have a life because he’s a machine – but, if someone saves your life, it doesn’t matter what they’re made of. You can’t just stand back and watch them being crushed into a metal cube.

  The sound of the helicopter was getting quieter and quieter. That could only mean they’d dropped Eric and were now flying away. I flung myself over the side of the skip and ran to the crusher. There was a big steel handle with a perished rubber cover, covered in oil. I threw myself at it. I tried to push it up.

  The crushing machine spoke: ‘Are you sure you want to close down action now? Closing down action will result in metal object not being crushed.’

  ‘Yes! Stop! Now!’

  The machine went slightly quiet, like it was thinking.

  There was a sound like it was raining buckets and kettles. It had let go of Eric. He clattered down the feed slide and landed just a metre from me.

  My ears were still ringing, but a voice chainsawed through the sound.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  A woman with a lot of tattoos and a shiny silver helmet was striding towards me, waving her fist.

  ‘Get away from that thing!’ she shouted, pushing back the visor on her helmet. ‘No unauthorized persons in this yard. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, you know –’ I shrugged – ‘I just dropped in.’ Which was true after all.

  As she got closer, I whispered to Eric, ‘Sit really still. I’ve got a plan that will get us out of here. But you need to sit very still.’

  ‘You just,’ growled the woman, ‘dropped in?’ She made it sound like the most unbelievable thing anyone had ever said. ‘Well, you’d better just hop out again. This is a dangerous environment. We’re in receipt of an unauthorized robot, which Health and Safety have declared a danger to life and limb.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that’s interesting.’

  ‘No, it’s not interesting. It’s dangerous. Get out of here.’

  ‘OK.’ I made as if to leave. ‘Before I go . . . see that suit of armour over there?’ I pointed to Eric. ‘I was wondering if I could take it. For school. We’re doing the Wars of the Roses.’

  ‘Rusty!’

  I thought she was being rude about Eric’s complexion – there are bits of rust on his cheeks – but it turned out to be someone’s name: a man with red hair who came running up from somewhere behind the large-domestic-items skip. He was wearing goggles, and on his back there was a yellow gas canister. In his hand, he was carrying a long metal wand. At the end of the wand was a hissing blue flame. He waved the flame around as he trotted towards us.

  ‘This is the best flame I’ve ever mixed,’ he said. ‘It will cut through this joker like a hot knife through Nutella. Just you wait and see.’

  He bent down over Eric. He was about to start slicing him up! I couldn’t look. It was horrible. Rusty pulled up his goggles and looked at Tattoo Woman.

  ‘Would you mind moving its head,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the way it’s looking at me. It looks . . . sad.’

  Tattoo Woman rolled her eyes. ‘Give me the cutter,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it. I don’t care if it looks at me or not.’

  Rusty sighed. ‘OK – I’ll try again . . . I’ve never got the flame this fierce before. I want to try it out.’ He pulled down his goggles and stepped closer to Eric.

  ‘NOOOO!’ I leaped forward and tried to grab hold of the cutter. It didn’t work. I forgot that I wasn’t wearing my Osprey. Instead of grabbing the cutter, I just nudged it downwards. Blue flames clawed at Eric’s chest, instead of his head.

  Rusty jumped back. ‘Whoa – what are you doing?’ he roared. ‘You could’ve burned my leg off!’

  ‘But this suit of armour could be of great historical importance,’ I said. ‘If you destroy it, you could end up in big trouble.’

  ‘It’s not a suit of armour. It’s an illegal robot.’

  ‘Well, we’re doing knights of old in school,’ I said, ‘and that definitely looks like a suit of armour to me. I could take it away. No charge. Then it won’t be cluttering up your yard.’

  ‘It’s a robot,’ said Rusty. ‘It nearly killed a kid at the airport not half an hour ago. Stand well back.’

  I’ve learned that if you keep talking long enough sometimes people just give up. So I started to explain about the Wars of the Roses and what the different parts of a suit of armour are called.

  ‘Nobody cares about the Wars of the Roses!’ said Tattoo Woman.

  ‘Controversial,’ I said. ‘Without the Wars of the Roses—’

  ‘How can it be a suit of armour?’ said Rusty. ‘It’s only got one leg!’

  ‘Maybe it’s a suit of armour for a one-legged knight,’ I said. ‘Not everyone’s got loads of legs and feet and hands, you know . . .’ As I said this, I lifted my right arm so he could see I had no hand.

  Works every time.

  Rusty was one hundred per cent embarrassed. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I never thought of that. So. You want this suit of armour? For school? No problem.’

  Tattoo Woman was about ninety-three per cent embarrassed. ‘You can borrow a SmartTruck to get him to school, if you like. Make sure you send it straight back though.’

  I’d never seen a SmartTruck before. It’s basically a big adjustable seat on wheels. The smart thing is, you don’t have to push it. It synchs with your phone and follows you around. Tattoo Woman slipped the seat under Eric, pressed a few buttons, and it lifted him into place.

  ‘You take him off to your school,’ she said. ‘The SmartTruck will bring itself back here when you’ve finished. Good luck. Hope you get top marks.’

  I’ve saved Eric, I thought. Which is when a police car swung in through the scrap yard gates and did not stop until it was dangerously close to us, right on the ramp of the crusher.

  An officer wound down the window and called out, ‘If I could just ask you to turn your crusher on now and put the target in the machine.’

  ‘What?’ said Tattoo Woman.

  ‘The robot. We dropped it into the crusher. Can I just ask you t
o crush it now.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘There’s been a mix-up. It’s not a robot. It’s a suit of armour. From the Wars of the Roses.’

  ‘No mix-up,’ said the police officer. ‘It’s a highly dangerous, unlicensed robot, which almost killed a kid this morning and subsequently kidnapped him.’

  ‘That was me!’ I said. ‘And I wasn’t that kidnapped.’

  The police officer rolled his eyes.

  ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘how could it kidnap me? It’s just a suit of armour. Of purely historical interest. It doesn’t even move, does it?’

  I said this a little bit louder than normal, to remind Eric not to move.

  Finally, and with an air of menace, the police officer got out of his car. He looked down at me and at Eric and snarled, ‘This machine has already caused disruption at the airport. It has distressed the little boy . . .’

  I told him that I wasn’t distressed, but he just said, ‘You THINK you’re not distressed now, but you will be later. And you’ll be even more distressed if you don’t follow the instructions and TURN THE CRUSHER ON.’

  That’s when I first noticed that Eric is – above all – very eager to please people. Because the moment the police officer said ‘turn the crusher on’, Eric said:

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT.

  Eric reached out and pulled the start lever.

  Tattoo Woman told me later they normally do ten different safety checks before starting up the crusher. Eric just pulled the manual override. Thinking about it now, it wasn’t Eric who parked the police car on the crusher’s lifting ramp, was it? It was the police officer. So, when the crusher hoisted the police officer’s car into the air and tilted it towards the mouth of the crusher, that was nothing to do with Eric.

  Also, why didn’t the police officer do something, instead of standing there watching as his car was tipped into the crusher mumbling, ‘No, no, no, no, no’ to himself? Did he say or do anything to stop it? No. When the police car lurched off the end of the lift and rolled into the crusher’s jaws, did he push Eric aside and try to put the machine into reverse?

  Well, not going to lie – he did try. But Eric is hard to push. The back end of the police car buckled. Inside its huge cage, the crusher woke like some terrible beast. The pistons of its stomach punched upwards. The panels of its side moved in and out. Even the police officer couldn’t help watching, transfixed. It is quite a spectacle. Especially at the end when everything goes very, very quiet, and then there’s one last absolutely deafening CLANG.

  A panel opened and, instead of a police car, one beautifully perfect cube of metal about the size of a washing machine slid down the chute. The officer looked down at it. You could still make out the ‘P’ of Police on one of its sides.

  That, I thought, is definitely controversial.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ sobbed the police officer.

  I’M SORRY, I CAN’T ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

  The police officer stared at the metal block. Tattoo Woman placed her hand on his shoulder. Rusty didn’t seem to know what to do, so he turned off the flame cutter out of respect.

  ‘What am I going to tell them at HQ?’ said the police officer.

  ‘Tell them you can’t remember where you parked your squad car. Tell them it was stolen.’

  ‘Or tell them it was squashed by a giant robot.’

  While they were coming up with explanations, I walked slowly back towards the exit.

  The SmartTruck, with Eric sitting in it, followed me. Its electric engine was silent as a smile.

  Out on the road, the bus was coming. If I could just get Eric on board and get out of there, we’d be OK. But the bus had other ideas.

  The doors hissed open. I tapped my travel card on the card reader and requested the access ramp. As the ramp slid down, the bus spoke. ‘Unexpectedly heavy weight on the access ramp,’ it said.

  Mum says that back when the buses had drivers you knew who to speak to if there was a problem. When the bus speaks now, the voice just comes at you like God on High is talking. You don’t even know where to look.

  So I said, ‘It’s lost property,’ to the air.

  Which probably would have been a good explanation, if Eric hadn’t said:

  I AM ERIC. HOW DO YOU DO, AND WHO ARE YOU?

  ‘Unexpectedly heavy item speaks,’ said the bus. ‘Please pay full fare.’

  ‘Are you saying that if a thing speaks, it must be a person? What about you? You speak. You’re not a person. You’re a bus.’

  This was probably not the right thing to say. It seemed to be news to the bus that it wasn’t a person. It switched its engine off. It went very quiet.

  I looked back down the road to see if the police were coming. We had to get out of here fast. We got on the bus.

  The only other passenger was an old lady who was shouting jokes at her grandchildren on FaceTime. She looked up for a second when the engine went off, but then went back to her phone.

  I KNOW HUNDREDS OF AMUSING JOKES AND FACTS.

  ‘Lost property knows jokes,’ said the bus.

  ‘So now if you know stuff, you’re a person. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Full fare, please.’

  ‘My phone knows nearly everything, AND it can talk. Are you going to charge my phone full fare?’

  ‘Philosophy,’ said the bus, as if it was thinking all this over.

  There was still no sign of the police officer. I suppose he was busy trying to explain how his car ended up as a small metal cube.

  Then the bus said, ‘Philosophy is causing delays to the service. Please sit down. End philosophy.’ The engine started up again.

  Eric tried to get up, but I told him not to.

  ‘Stay in the SmartTruck until I find your missing leg,’ I said.

  The SmartTruck followed me down the aisle and backed itself into the wheelchair space.

  ‘Remember, the police are after you,’ I whispered. ‘Try not to attract attention. Just sit there and be boring.’

  The old lady looked up from her phone and stared at Eric. He tipped his head towards her and said:

  I AM AT YOUR SERVICE.

  I smiled at her. She stared at Eric. I thought I’d better explain.

  ‘Suit of armour,’ I said. ‘School project.’ Then I whispered to Eric, ‘Just sit tight. We’ll be on the estate in a few minutes.’

  I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO BEING OF SERVICE TO YOU, SIR, ON YOUR ESTATE.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, looking out of the window. ‘We’re just arriving on the estate now.’

  Eric looked out at the rows of little houses with neat lawns and big windows. I somehow don’t think Skyways was the kind of estate he had in mind.

  The woman squinted at Eric. ‘Is that suit of armour talking?’ she said.

  ‘My friend,’ I explained, ‘is inside. It’s for a play. About the Wars of the Roses.’ I checked the app on my phone to see if I could figure out where my hand was.

  Eric seemed to think this meant he ought to carry on the conversation with the old woman.

  I CAN ALSO ASSIST AT SHOOTING PARTIES.

  ‘Shooting parties?’

  SHOOTING PARTIES ON YOUR SHOOTING ESTATE.

  ‘Shooting? On the estate?’ gasped the woman.

  I AM ABLE TO CLEAN AND LOAD GUNS.

  ‘He means historical guns. From history,’ I said.

  ‘You want to get your facts straight,’ said the old lady. ‘They didn’t have guns during the Wars of the Roses.’

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘fire arms known as arquebuses were used at Bosworth Field, the last battle of the Wars of the Roses.’

  Is it weird, by the way, that I could remember the Wars of the Roses but not my own accident?

  ‘I stand corrected,’ said the old lady. ‘It’s a very impressive suit of armour. Can I get a selfie?’

  ‘No,’ I said, a bit too quickly. ‘Please. We don’t want anyone to steal our idea. We’d really appreciate it if you kept this to yourself.’
r />   ‘It cheers my heart,’ said the old lady, ‘to see a young person make such an effort with their education.’

  When she said that, a memory was triggered. This happens to me sometimes. I can see something I’d forgotten all about, playing like a YouTube clip in my head.

  This time, it was school, back when we really were doing Wars of the Roses and making cereal-packet castles. I could see the faces of friends I’d forgotten: Christian Walker, who never stopped talking; his brother Benedict, who never stopped telling him to shut up; Agnes, who was always crazy early. I’d hardly seen any of them since I started at the Limb Lab. But one day soon I’d be back at school, and maybe on the first day they’d be like, ‘Hey, Alfie – what’ve you been doing?’ And I’d say, ‘I’ll show you. Come in, Eric.’ And in would walk my gigantic mechanical knight . . .

  I was still daydreaming when we got to Stealth Street. I always have to stand on tip-toes to get the facial-recognition lock to open the front door. Then it says, ‘Good afternoon –’ pause while it scans your face – ‘ALFIE!’

  It always shouts my name like I’m the last person it’s expecting to see. Even though there are only two of us living in the house, and it sees me every day.

  The door clicked open and said, ‘Please go through.’

  I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT, said Eric.

  And then he did go through. Right through the door. He put his one massive foot against it and pushed it clean off its hinges. Like I said, Eric has a tendency to take things a bit literally. The door see-sawed down on to the step, and got wedged in the entrance, making the perfect ramp for the SmartTruck to zoom up and into the house.

  ‘That,’ I said, ‘is definitely going to be controversial.’

  You know when you get a new phone or something, and you just want to rip the box open right there in the shop, and you’re so excited that you don’t even read the instructions?

  That’s what I was like when I got Eric home. I didn’t even CARE that the front door was broken. I just wanted to get him inside and see what he could do. He looked like the kind of robot that could shoot lasers from its eyes. Or bullets from its fingers. Or could transform into a fast car. Or a rocket.