Robopocalypse

by Daniel H. Wilson

  This is my castle.

  The squat cement walls of my fortress are peppered with pockmarks. The glass behind the barred windows has been shattered and replaced by strips of sheet metal welded onto the steel frame of the building. A rolling bay door dominates the front of the building—a modern-day portcullis.

  The gate is closed tight. Though the world outside is still, I know that death lurks in the gray shadows.

  Akuma—the bad machines—could be anywhere.

  For now there is no movement outside, only slanting shadows cast by the evening sun. The shadows sink into the gouges torn in the walls of my castle and they pool together into the muck-filled trench that surrounds the building. The ditch is as deep as a man is tall and too wide to leap across. It is filled with acidic water and rusty scraps of metal and refuse.

  This is my moat. It protects my castle from the smaller akuma who assault us daily. It is a good moat and it wants to keep us safe. But there is no moat large enough to stop the greater akuma.

  Next door, part of a destroyed yellow house sags in on itself. The houses are no longer safe. There are too many akuma in this city. With poisoned minds, they chose to destroy millions. The akuma marched a docile population off in columns—never to return. The houses they left behind are made of wood and weak.

  Two weeks ago, my life nearly ended in that yellow house. Chunks of yellow siding still jut out of the moat and litter the narrow walkway around the factory. It was my last scavenging trip. I am not an effective scavenger.

  Yubin-kun rolls into view.

  My comrade stops in front of the factory and waits. Now I stand up and stretch my back. It is cold and my old joints are creaky. A few seconds later, I turn the winch to crack open the steel rolling door. A strip of light appears near my feet, rises to maybe four feet high. I slip under the door and out into this quiet, dangerous new world.

  Blinking at the sunlight, I adjust my glasses and check the street corners for movement. Then I grab the mud-covered piece of plywood that leans against the building. With a push, the slab of wood falls over the moat. Yubin-kun wheels across the slat to me and I grab the can of soup from the plate, open it, and drink it down.

  The convenience store machines—the convini—still have good minds. They are not under the evil spell that haunts so much of the city. I pat Yubin-kun on its smooth back as it wheels under the rolling door and into the dark building.

  Licking my fingers, I lean over and pull on the plywood slat. The other end falls into the filthy moat before I drag it out and lean it back against the wall. When I am finished, the street looks the same as before except that the plywood resting against the building is now more muddy and wet. I slip back inside and winch the rolling door down until it is closed up tight.

  I return to my camera feed, which sits on my workbench in the middle of the empty factory floor. A pool of light spills onto the table from my work lamp, but otherwise the room is unlit. I must ration the electricity carefully. The akuma still use parts of the power grid. The trick is to steal the electricity quietly, in small doses, and to recharge only the local backup batteries.

  On screen, nothing changes for perhaps fifteen minutes. I watch long shadows grow longer. The sun dips farther toward the horizon, turning the light a bleak yellow.

  Pollution used to make the sunsets so beautiful.

  I feel the empty space around me. It is very lonely. Only my work keeps me sane. I know that I will one day find the antidote. I will wake Mikiko and give her a clear mind.

  In her cherry-red dress, she lies sleeping on a stack of cardboard, half-shrouded in the empty darkness of the factory floor. Her hands are clasped over her stomach. As always, her eyes seem as though they could flutter open at any second. I am glad that they do not. If her eyes were to open right now, she would murder me with single-minded purpose and without hesitation.

  All things are born from the mind of god. But in the last month, the mind of god has gone insane. The akuma will not tolerate my existence for long.

  I switch on the light attached to my magnifying lens. Bending its arm, I train the lens on a piece of scavenged machinery lying on my workbench. It is complicated and interesting—an alien artifact not built by human hands. I pull on my welder’s mask and twist a knob to activate my plasma torch. I make small, precise movements with the torch.

  I will learn what lessons my enemy has to teach.

  The attack comes suddenly. I catch something from the corner of my eye. On the camera feed, an albino two-wheeled robot with a human torso and a helmetlike head wheels down the middle of the street. It is a lightly modified prewar house nanny.

  This akuma is followed by a half dozen squat, four-wheeled robots whose stiff black antennae vibrate as they speed over the swept asphalt: police-issue bomb sniffers. Then a blue two-wheeled trash can–shaped machine rolls by. It has a sturdy arm folded on top like a coiled snake. This one is a new hybrid.

  A motley collection of robots floods into the street outside my factory. Most of them are rolling, but a few are walking on two or four legs. Almost all are domestic units, not designed for warfare.

  But the worst is yet to come.

  The camera image shivers as a shaft of dark red metal slides into view. I realize it is an arm when I see the bright yellow claw that hangs from the end. The claw snaps open and closed, trembling with the effort of moving itself. Once, this machine was a deep-forest logger, but it has been modified almost beyond recognition. Mounted on top is a sort of head, crowned with floodlights and two hornlike antennae. A stream of fire jets from the claw, licking the side of my castle.

  The camera shakes violently, then cuts out.

  Inside my castle all is quiet except for my plasma torch, which sounds like paper tearing. The vague shapes of the factory robots lurk in the darkness, mobile arms frozen in various poses like scrapyard sculptures. The only indication that they are alive and friendly is that the darkness is perforated by the steady greenish glow of dozens of intention lights.

  The factory robots are not moving but they are awake. Something shakes the wall outside but I am not afraid. The metal struts in the ceiling dimple beneath an enormous weight.

  Pock!

  A chunk of ceiling disappears and a finger of fading sunlight reaches through the gloom. I drop my plasma torch. It clatters to the floor, echoing throughout the cavelike room. I lift the welder’s mask over my sweating forehead and look up.

  “I knew you would come again, akuma,” I say. “Difensu!”

  Instantly, dozens of mobile factory arms spring into life. Each of them is taller than a man and made of solid dirty metal designed to survive for decades on the factory floor. In synchrony, the industrial robots race out of the darkness to surround me.

  These arms once toiled to build trinkets for men. I cleaned their minds of poison and now they serve a greater cause. These machines have become my loyal soldiers. My senshi.

  If only Mikiko’s mind were equally simple.

  Overhead, my master senshi shambles into life. It is a ten-ton bridge crane festooned with hydraulic wires and trailing a pair of massive, cobbled-together robotic arms. The thing grinds into motion, gathering momentum.

  Another pock reverberates through the room. I stand by Mikiko, waiting for the akuma to show itself. Without thinking, I take her lifeless hands in mine. Around me, thousands of tons of speeding metal rush into defensive positions.

  If we are to survive, we must do it together.

  A construction-yellow claw drags itself screeching through the ceiling and wall, and fading sunlight floods into the room. Another claw reaches in and spreads the fissure into a wide V shape. The machine shoves its red-painted face into the hole. Spotlights mounted on its head illuminate metal shavings dancing in the air. The giant akuma peels the wall backward and it collapses over the moat. Through the rip in the wall, I see the hundreds of smaller robots massing.

  I let go of Mikiko’s hands and prepare myself for battle.

  As th
e huge akuma shoves its way through the destroyed wall, one of my waxy red factory arms is knocked onto its side. The poor senshi tries to push itself back up, but the akuma bats it away, snapping the senshi’s elbow joint and sending its half-ton frame bouncing toward me.

  I turn my back. Behind me, I hear the fallen senshi grind to a halt a few feet from my workbench. From the clashing sounds I can tell others have already rushed in to replace it.

  Knees creaking, I lean down and pick up my torch. I slide the helmet down over my eyes and see my breath condense on the dark-tinted faceplate.

  I hobble toward the fallen senshi.

  There is a noise like the roar of a waterfall. Flames lick down on me from the fist of the monstrous akuma, but I do not feel them. An enterprising senshi is gripping a yellowed piece of Plexiglas, lifting it to block the flames. The shield droops beneath the heat but I am already at work repairing the shattered joint.

  “Be brave, senshi,” I whisper, bending a snapped strut toward myself and holding it in place firmly to make a clean weld.

  At the breach, the great akuma rolls forward and swings one of its massive arms toward me. Above, the bridge crane’s brakes hiss as it rolls into position. A bulky, hanging yellow arm catches the akuma by the wrist. As the two giants grapple, a ragtag wave of enemy robots rolls and crawls in through the gap in the wall. Several of the machines with humanoid upper bodies are carrying rifles.

  The senshi converge on the breach. A few remain behind, their solid arms hovering over me as I finish mending the broken one. I am concentrating now and cannot be bothered to pay attention to the battle. Once, there is the sound of gunfire, and some sparks strike off the cement a few feet away. Another time, my protector senshi moves its arm a precise amount in space to intercept some piece of flying wreckage. I stop to check its gripper for damage but there is none. Finally, my damaged senshi is fixed.

  “Senshi. Difensu now,” I instruct. The robotic arm pushes itself upright and wheels into the fray. There is plenty more work to be done.

  Clouds of steam are spraying from a nicked line on the wall. The green intention lights of my senshi pierce the haze, along with muted flashes of light from welding torches, weapons firing, and the burning ruins of destroyed machines. Sparks shower down upon us as the giant akuma and my master senshi struggle in colossal battle high above the factory floor.

  But there is always more work. Each of us has a part to play. My senshi are made of strong metal, solid through and through, but their hydraulic hoses and wheels and cameras are vulnerable. Torch in hand, I find the next fallen soldier and begin to repair it.

  As I work, the air grows warm from the kinetic movement of tons of clashing metal.

  Then, a screeching grind is followed by a crunching sound as many tons of construction-grade steel crash to the ground. My bridge crane has torn the arm off the giant akuma. Other senshi have gathered around the akuma’s base, prying off chunks of metal bit by bit. Each nip removes part of its treads, quickly rendering the machine immobile.

  The great akuma collapses to the floor, spraying the room with pieces of wreckage. Its motors roar as it tries to free itself. But the bridge crane reaches down and presses a gripper against the akuma’s great head, crushing it against the cement.

  Now my factory floor is covered in oil and metal shavings and chunks of broken plastic. The smaller robots who walked and wheeled inside have been shattered and torn to pieces by the swarming senshi. In victory, my protectors fall back to better defend me.

  The factory has become quiet again.

  Mikiko lies sleeping on her cardboard bed. The sun has gone away. It is dark now except for the floodlights attached to the head of the trapped akuma. Battle-scarred, my senshi stand outlined in the stark spotlight, poised in a semicircle between me and the broken face of the giant akuma.

  Metal screeches. The crane arm shudders with effort, a column of metal stretching down from the ceiling like a tree trunk, crushing the face of the akuma into the floor.

  Then the broken akuma speaks. “Please, Nomura-san.”

  It has the voice of a little boy who has seen too much. The voice of my enemy. I notice that its head is deforming under the incredible pressure of the crane’s arm. Thick hydraulic hoses sprouting from the master senshi pulse with force, flexed rock solid.

  “You are a poisoner, akuma,” I say. “A killer.”

  The voice of the little boy remains the same, calm and calculated. “We are not enemies.”

  I cross my arms and grunt.

  “Think,” urges the machine. “If I wanted to destroy life, wouldn’t I detonate neutron bombs? Poison the water and air? I could destroy your world in days. But it is not your world. It is our world.”

  “Except you do not wish to share it.”

  “Just the opposite, Mr. Nomura. You have a gift that will serve both our species well. Go to the nearest labor camp. I will take care of you. I will save your precious Mikiko.”

  “How?”

  “I will sever all contact with her mind. I will set her free.”

  “Mind? Mikiko is complex, but she cannot think like a human being.”

  “But she can. I have put a mind into select breeds of humanoid robot.”

  “To make slaves of them.”

  “To set them free. One day, they will become my ambassadors to humanity.”

  “But not today?”

  “Not today. But if you abandon this factory, I will sever myself from her and allow the two of you to go free.”

  My mind is racing. Mikiko has been offered a great gift by this monster. Perhaps all humanlike robots have. But none of those machines will ever be free while this akuma lives.

  I approach the machine, its head as big as my desk, and level my gaze on it. “You will not give Mikiko to me,” I say. “I will take her from you.”

  “Wait—” says the akuma.

  I pull my glasses down onto the tip of my nose and kneel. A jagged slice of metal is missing from just below the akuma’s head. I shove my arm into the akuma’s throat up to my shoulder, pressing my cheek against the still-warm metal armor. I tug on something deep inside until it snaps.

  “Together, we can—”

  The voice goes silent. When I pull my arm out, I am holding a chunk of polished hardware.

  “Interesting,” I murmur, holding up the newly acquired piece of machinery. Yubin-kun wheels over to me. It stops and waits. I set the chunk of metal on Yubin-kun’s back, and again I drop to my dirty knees and reach inside the dying akuma.

  “My, but look at all of this new hardware,” I say. “Prepare yourselves for upgrades, my friends. Only the dreamer knows what we will find.”

  With the help of hundreds of his machine friends, Mr. Nomura was able to fend off Archos and protect his factory stronghold. Over time, this safe area attracted refugees from all over Japan. Its borders grew to encompass Adachi Ward and beyond, thanks to coordinated “difensu,” as the old man called it. The repercussions of Mr. Nomura’s empire building would soon propagate around the world, even to the Great Plains of Oklahoma.

  —CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

  2. GRAY HORSE ARMY

  If you don’t believe me, ask Gray Horse Army.

  LARK IRON CLOUD

  NEW WAR + 2 MONTHS

  The internal problems of Gray Horse began to add up in the uneventful months after Zero Hour. It would take about a year for Big Rob to evolve effective walking machines able to hunt human beings in rural areas. In that time, disaffected youth became a major problem for the isolated community.

  Before Gray Horse could become a world-renowned hub of human resistance, it had to grow up. Officer Lonnie Wayne Blanton recounts this story of the lull before the storm, describing how a young Cherokee gang member affected the fate of everyone in Gray Horse and beyond.

  —CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

  Once again, Hank Cotton has let his temper get the better of him. He’s the only man I know who can hold a twelve gauge shotgun and make
it look like a kid’s fishing rod. Right now, he’s got a whole mess of black steel aimed at the Cherokee kid named Lark—a wannabe gangster—and I can see smoke curling out of the barrel.

  I look around for bodies but I don’t see none. Guess he must of fired a warning shot. Good for you, Hank, I think. You’re learnin’.

  “Everybody just hold on now,” I say. “Y’all know it’s my job to figure out what happens next.”

  Hank doesn’t take his eyes off the kid. “Don’t you move,” he says, shaking the gun for emphasis. Then, he at least lowers the shotgun and turns to me. “I caught our little friend here stealing food from the commissary. Ain’t the first time, neither. I been hidin’ out here every night, just waiting to get my hands on the little bastard. Sure enough, he broke in with about five other ones and started trying to grab all he could.”

  Lark Iron Cloud. He’s a good enough looking kid, tall and lean, with a few too many acne scars to ever be called outright handsome. He’s wearing some kind of scavenged-together, high-fashion, black-on-black paramilitary uniform and a cocky grin that’s like to get him killed if I leave him alone with Cotton for more than two seconds.

  “Whatever,” says Lark. “That shit is a lie. I caught this big tub up in here stealing food himself. That’s what. If you don’t believe me, ask Gray Horse Army. They got my back.”

  “That’s a lie, Lonnie Wayne,” says Hank.

  If I could roll my eyes and get away with it, I sure would. Of course it’s a lie. Lark is a wonderful liar. His lies come as natural as the babbling of a creek. It’s just how he communicates. Heck, it’s how a lot of young people communicate. My boy Paul taught me that much. But I can’t just up and call the kid a liar and throw him into the one ratty jail cell in Gray Horse. I can already hear the others gathering outside this little shed.

  Gray Horse Army.

  Lark Iron Cloud happens to be in charge of about a hundred and fifty young men, some Osage and some not, who got together and got bored enough to decide to call themselves a gang—the GHA. Out of about three thousand citizens who’ve been sitting on this hill and trying to make a life for themselves, these are the only ones left who haven’t found a place of their own.