Twisted Metal (15 page)

Here came Eleanor now. What was it about her that Olam found so disturbing? She was so plain, so grey, so nondescript. So Artemisian. This was what he was signing up for, he realized. Eleanor was the embodiment of Artemis. Interchangeable. Not so much a robot as the realization of an idea. Did they all really believe, he wondered, or were many of them driven there by circumstance, like Doe Capaldi the aristocrat? Like himself, Olam?

Eleanor spoke.

‘Future Artemisians, you have made your choice and recognized that in Artemis there is a time for mercy and a time to kill.’

She paused to survey the crowd. Olam felt strangely calm. The sun was up and the sky was blue.

Eleanor resumed her speech. ‘But sometimes the merciful should kill, and sometimes the killers should learn mercy. And sometimes Artemis changes its mind, because Artemis has no ego, no pride. Artemis is Artemis.’

Olam felt a lurching in his gyros.

‘Those to the south will be spared. Kill
everyone
to the north.’

Nobody moved at first.

‘All of them,’ said Eleanor, without heat.

And then Olam saw the grey soldiers returning to the floor of the stadium. He heard the sound of bullets, the ringing of skulls being shattered.

He looked down at Doe Capaldi. Hesitantly, he reached down, took hold of the silver snake and slowly pulled it away from the man’s neck.

Slowly, the tall robot got to his feet. He looked down at Olam. ‘No hard feelings, boy,’ he said. ‘I told you, it’s nothing personal. I would have dragged you to the north. But that would have been a mistake wouldn’t it? We’d both have been dead.‘

Olam didn’t reply, just stared with hatred at the tall robot clad in whale metal, stared at his aristocratic curves. A passing grey soldier caught the look.

‘Hey, no need for that,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We’re all Artemisians now.’

Karel

Axel stood behind Susan, one dark iron hand gripping the exquisitely enamelled powder-blue panel on her thigh. He was staring up at his father, pleading.

‘I still say he is too young to attend the meeting,’ Susan was saying.

‘This is too important for him to miss. He needs to know what’s going on.’

‘He’s only four. He won’t understand. He’ll only be frightened. You know how people exaggerate.’

‘He’ll be just as frightened if we keep him in the dark. I think he should attend, and I’m not going to change my mind.’ Karel give her a bitter look. ‘You should know me that much, Susan.’

And so he had won the argument at least. Susan couldn’t say anything else, not after what she had said last night. And Karel knew it, and Susan knew that Karel knew it.

So they left their apartment and made their way from the smooth stone and metal of the residential district, and down the gangue mounds into the old town.

The oldest part of Turing City was built on a series of descending ledges, a legacy of the great open-cast mine from which their wealth had been dug. Karel and his family walked down steps, over metal walkways that ran from the edge of one ledge to the roof of a building and onto the next ledge down, over bridges that spanned the gaps between the piles of gangue: the waste material left after the metal had been extracted. They made their way along the grey lips of the retaining walls that held back the debris of yellowish stone, part of a growing throng of robots making their way to the parliament arena. It was a bright day, the sun warming their metal skins, the blue of the sky seeming to deepen as one stared into it. Karel wondered if they shared this same blue sky in Wien. Were the robots there taking any comfort in such a glorious day?

The air was filled with the sound of marching metal, the hiss and spark of bodies, the tread of metal feet on metal walkways and concrete paths, as the mass of robots converged on the parliament arena, which lay near the centre of the city. In the distance, to Karel’s right, the rails into the station could be heard singing with the sound of trains bringing to the debate robots from all four corners of Turing City State. From behind came the dying notes of the foundries and mills in the old town being stilled as the robots there left their work. The residential districts were being drained as entire families left their homes to attend. Even up on the rocky outcrop there was a suggestion of stillness over the square shapes of the fort and the silver needle of the watchtower, and Karel wondered if even the City Guard would be leaving their posts to come to the meeting.

‘Daddy?’ Axel stretched the last syllable of the word upwards.

‘Yes, Axel?’

‘Why are the Artemisians going to attack us?’

Susan gazed at him with an
I told you so
expression.

‘They’re not going to attack us, Axel.’

‘I know. But why would they? Why do people say that they will?’

Karel looked to Susan for support, but she looked away.

‘Well,’ said Karel. ‘I suppose in the end it’s down to basic geology. What have you learned about that?’

Axel spoke in his best classroom voice.

‘Penrose is made of many elements, but the five most abundant are oxygen, silicon, iron, aluminium and calcium.’

‘Well done,’ said Karel, impressed. ‘Hold on there.’

They paused at an iron bridge that spanned the gap between two buildings, waiting for two robots that were walking against the flow of the pedestrians to cross.

Axel and Karel looked down into the street below, saw robots riveting the last few slats into place on a metal fence. A fire glowed red beneath the rivet bucket. The robots were hurrying to finish their job, eager to be off.

‘So tell me,’ continued Karel. ‘What are those elements used for?’

Axel chanted as he watched the scene in the street below.

‘Oxygen is useless to us and always will be,

Silicon hides its mind,

Iron is the living element, it marks our birth,

Aluminium hides its face, it is the mythical element, and calcium completes the circle, useless like oxygen.’

‘That’s very good,’ said Karel. ‘But we use oxygen, you know. We use it to extract iron from ore.’

‘I know that,’ said Axel. ‘But it’s an old verse. Aluminium is just a story too, like Oneill. I know that.’

‘Well done. So, where do we find these elements?’

Axel began to chant again.

‘The elements are bound into minerals.

A solid mass of mineral grains is a rock.

Orthoclase is the most common,

Then sulphides and oxides and carbonates.

Magnetite and haematite contain iron.

They are mined from beneath the central mountain range of Shull.

This is from where the robots came.’

‘Good! And what about here? What about Turing City?’

‘There are mafic igneous rocks beneath Turing City.

From sulphides and oxides such as these we get nickel and cobalt and copper.

And gold and silver, platinum and palladium,

Which help make the metal out of which we twist minds.’

Axel smiled. ‘We have more of these metals than anyone else. That’s why the robots of Turing City are cleverer and more skilful than other robots.’

‘Not necessarily . . .’ laughed Karel.

‘No, Dad, it’s true. Deanne’s dad said that it was treason to say anything else.’

‘It’s not treason to state facts, Axel.’

But Susan was staring at him again.

‘What?’ said Karel.

‘You should be careful,’ she said. ‘You know what they say about you.’

‘No?’ said Karel, folding his arms. ‘And what exactly do they say about me?’

‘Anyway, it’s true, Dad,’ continued Axel, oblivious to his parents’ simmering argument. He was lost in a world of super robots, of perfect minds and the flashing silent blades of the City Guard. ‘Other robots may have more iron, they may have bigger bodies and more lifeforce, but they don’t have our minds.’

‘It’s not about minds,’ said Karel. ‘It’s about what those minds think. But Axel,’ he said, noting Susan’s glance again. ‘We were talking about Artemis. Why do they want to attack us? Can you tell me?’

‘Well,’ said Axel, carefully. ‘I suppose they want our metal.’

‘Partly right,’ said Karel. ‘Artemis is a barren country. They have had to fight for everything they need. That has been their weakness . . . and their strength.’

At last they approached the circle of brushed stone that immediately surrounded the parliament arena. Axel stamped down the steps, making the metal ring as he went. Other robots glanced at him and then looked away, and Karel became painfully aware there were few other children attending. Or was the look given because he, Karel himself, was attending? He placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.

‘Gently,’ he said.

Now they walked over bare rock towards the arena itself.

‘You know, this was one of the oldest parts of Turing City,’ said Karel to Axel. ‘Metal rots, but rock endures. The parliament is sited on one of the first mines dug here. When that mine was emptied, they dug down to the galleries and opened them to the sky. They peeled back the earth and carved away the stone to leave this. They wanted to make a point, Axel. What do you suppose that point was?’

‘I don’t know, Dad.’

‘That this place was important. That the parliament is a part of Turing City, that it is the very centre of Turing City.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

‘That’s important, Axel. Remember that. No matter what people say today in this meeting, no matter what they may say about Artemis, just take a look around you. It takes a lot of time to work stone. The people who made this place obviously thought that our parliament was important.’

Maoco O

Deep beneath the earth, Maoco O was dancing.

Long ago, the miners of Turing City had wormed their way down through the rock, following the deposits it contained. The galleries immediately beneath the city had long since been emptied of copper and nickel and silver, so the miners had turned their attention to the coast, eventually tunnelling out beneath the seabed.

Now the City Guard had requisitioned the excavated spaces beneath their own rocky outcrop. They had chiselled and filed the passageways smooth, they had widened them and filled them with armour and weapons and, all the while, with the efficient silence of their duty.

Stone corridor after stone corridor filled with polished bodies, sanded stone, oiled machinery and emptiness. The robots that moved through those quiet passageways did so without disturbing the peace that had taken hold therein, and they barely stirred the air. They passed almost unnoticed, except by the other robots that shared those deep places. No wonder each robot found itself alone, reflected Maoco O. No wonder they felt themselves separate from the city above, separate from their companions, separate even from their own selves in these perfectly engineered bodies.

The only sense of connection the robots felt was like now, when they danced. All war was a dance, he understood. The dance of two combatants moving around each other, seeking the perfect stance from which to swoop forward for the climax. Two robots, two sides, it was all the same thing. And so Maoco O and the others danced in the darkness; moving with grace and elegance through the silent spaces, they practised their craft.

In the silent darkness, Maoco O chasséd and spun in perfect synchronization with his partners.

Karel

Karel and his family made their way down the grey tiers of the parliament and found a place to stand on the third terrace. Looking up, they could see the brightly painted robots still spilling over the rim of the bowl.

‘Susan!’

Karel recognized the robot who had called out as one of Susan’s work colleagues. He was beckoning to her from a nearby set of steps that led to the base of the arena. He was an effeminate sort, his body constructed too thin and covered in flimsy steel.

‘Susan, there is a place reserved for you on the first level. You must join us.’

Susan glanced at her husband. ‘No, Shear,’ she said after some hesitation. ‘Go ahead without me. I’m not really needed. My mind is full at the moment. I’ll stay here with my family.’

‘You go,’ said Karel, gazing hard at Shear. ‘You know they need you. I’ll stay here with Axel.’

Susan sounded tired. ‘How long are you going to stay annoyed with me? I told you I was sorry.’

‘I’m not annoyed.’

They stared at each other, neither willing to back down. Reluctantly, Susan made her way along the row and then followed Shear down to the first terrace. Karel saw her take her place amongst other robots from the Statistics office.

And now three robots walked into the centre of the bowl.

‘Pick me up,’ said Axel.

Karel did so, impressed at how heavy his son was getting. To think that he could control that much metal already. His boy was growing up.

‘Look at them, Dad,’ said Axel in a hushed voice. Karel understood why. Their golden skins had been brilliantly polished; they reflected the sunlight in giddy patterns.