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Authors: Tony Ballantyne

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BOOK: Twisted Metal
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Eleanor

 

Wien had fallen long before most of the combatants were aware of it. Like old metal thrown on the family forge to be melted down and cast anew, the city stood apparently firm whilst all the time being on the point of dissolution.

The Wiener Stonewall Troops that had organized the last solid resistance were not to know that behind them the core of the city was already breached. The Artemisian Storm Troopers repeatedly breaking themselves against the marble ramparts that ringed the city did not realize that the terms of surrender were already being discussed at gunpoint. They weren’t to know that one resourceful Artemisian unit had already breached the city’s security and made its way to its heart.

Wien was a beautiful city, built half on land, half on the handful of islands that dotted Wien bay, but above all built on the riches brought by the plentiful coal fields that sloped from just below the city out to the seabed. While the aristocracy walked the marble bridges linking the lush green islands – their polished bodies rippling with the sunlit reflections of the calm silver water – the working classes laboured deep beneath the earth, dressed in iron that glowed dull red with the heat of radioactivity and the friction of the continental plates.

For the working classes things would change little, but the aristocrats were due a rude awakening. They would not enjoy their way of life for much longer.

Wien had fallen to Artemis.

Twenty-four hours later and Wien City reverberated to the steady stamping of victory. Artemisian robots marching to take key positions stamped to the rhythm; Artemisian robots guarding forges and metal stores struck time with their feet; Artemisian robots plundering the defeated kept up the shaking beat.

The cracks in the broken streets of Wien City were shaken wider, black lightning zigzagging up the white marble towers until yet another wall collapsed in a white rockslide. Bouncing rubble tumbled over the robot bodies strewn through the streets. There were too many to completely remove, even for the plundering victors and the desperately scavenging defeated searching for upgrades or replacement body parts.

So many dead bodies. Dirty smoke rising into the sky; bent, scorched metal; twisted wire spilling from skulls, twisted wire wound amongst the broken machinery of war, like the trap webs of metal spiders from childhood tales. And everything shaking and rattling to the relentless stamping of the victors. Stamp,
stamp
, stamp; stamp,
stamp
, stamp.

Here another cracked marble tower shook and slipped and fell in an accelerating avalanche of rubble that danced and slid through the wrecked streets. Broken stones bounced and rolled to a halt, and then began to bounce and shake again to the relentless stamping. Stamp,
stamp
, stamp; stamp,
stamp
, stamp.

Here a Wiener worker family, sheltering in the remains of their forge, heard the approach of Artemisian troops, heard the door slam open, saw the sleek, powerful bodies of their victors as they entered the room, their eyes glowing green in the half-light, their entry accompanied by that never-ending percussion: Stamp,
stamp
, stamp; stamp,
stamp
, stamp.

Here in an aristocrat’s hall, the finely engineered and oh-so-delicate bodies of a noble family were being pulled apart by the rough hands of the invaders, spring by spring, plate by plate, electromuscle by electromuscle. And all the while the noblemen thought on the folly of selling coal to the Artemisians. It had been such easy money at the time, but how it had come back to haunt them all.

White dust rose into the smoke-choked evening, the sun barely seen, merely a pale yellow shape across the silver sea. To the accompaniment of endless stamping, it was setting for the last time on Wien.

All that within twenty-four hours. And now the morning sun had risen on this newest corner of the Artemisian Empire.

The robot sat on the cracked rim of the marble fountain that occupied the middle of the square, his matt-black Storm Trooper body seemingly untouched by the bright sun up in the blue sky. He was picking apart the body of a dead Wiener commando with practised efficiency, running a finger down the seams, popping the rivets apart to expose the mechanism underneath. His assault rifle lay propped on the rim of the fountain beside him, matt-black too, even the cruel bayonet at its tip smoke-blackened after last night’s action.

The Storm Trooper had not noticed Eleanor yet; it was too interested in examining the composition of the body it was taking apart. Eleanor knew what it would be thinking: the Storm Trooper’s mind would have been woven by its mother to be a Storm Trooper, and so it would think like a Storm Trooper thought, and it would build its body like a Storm Trooper built a body. The design of the body it held in its hands would seem wrong: more crafted than built. The Wiener body would seem too weak and too fragile. No wonder the Storm Trooper found it so fascinating. No wonder it hadn’t noticed Eleanor’s approach.

Finally, it heard her, heard the measured tread of Eleanor and the rest of the troop as they moved into the square. Without pause, sleekly, silently, it took its rifle and rolled into a crouch position, sighted along the length of the barrel.

‘There’s a Storm Trooper training its gun on us,’ said Eleanor.

‘Ignore it.’

Eleanor did so. She walked on, one of nineteen infantryrobots, dressed in grey-painted armour, their bodies identically built and maintained. They had been walking through the broken city all morning, looking for a place to rest and repair themselves. The sun had nearly reached midday in a blue sky still tainted by streamers of rising black smoke. That same sunlight failed to find a purchase on the Storm Trooper’s matt body. Eleanor glanced back towards it and saw, to her surprise, that it had vanished.

‘It’s gone!’ she said, scanning the square for movement. There was a scraping sound, and rattle of bricks and suddenly it was there beside her, rising up behind another of the grey-painted infantry, an awl pressing up against the soldier’s chin.

‘Gotcha,’ he said, peripheral vision tracking the grey bodies that were still turning in his direction. He was already releasing the soldier, spinning around, coming to stand in the middle of the group. ‘My name is Arban. Who’s in charge here?’ he asked.

The infantry looked from one to the other.

Eleanor spoke up. ‘Our sergeant was caught by a grappling hook five days ago and dragged down into the sea.’

‘Dragged into the sea, sir,’ corrected Arban.

Carmel stepped forward, just another grey infantry-robot, identical in every way to Eleanor.

‘There’s no calling of “sir” in Artemis,’ she said calmly. ‘Why should there be when we are all nothing but twisted metal working to a common purpose?’

Arban exploded into flashing movement, pushing her arms to one side, reaching around behind her neck to snatch out the interface coil there. The light in Carmel’s eyes went out, and her metal body slumped to the ground. Arban held up the silver coil that was the link between the twisted wire of the brain and the rest of the body. Slowly, he crushed it between his fingers.

‘Answering back a superior? I don’t like this sort of thing, you know,’ he said, conversationally. ‘There are minds and there are minds. Soldiers who are more loyal to themselves than to the state. Only fighting when they can see the advantage to themselves . . .’ He dropped the broken coil to the stone flags and ground it beneath his foot. ‘. . . and not for the greater good of Artemis.’ His electromuscles were powering up with an audible hum. ‘Now, some people say you should blame the parents. Blame the mothers. They twist a mind that follows Nyro’s pattern for most of the way, making a child loyal to the Artemisian state, but then they leave that last little inch at the end, that little voice telling the child that when things get really tough, when things aren’t going well, they should just cut and run. Their mothers make them put their own survival first. Can you blame the child if its mother made it that way? They ask. Maybe they have a point.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘But I don’t think so.’

The remainder of the grey infantry looked on warily as Arban tapped the side of his head with one metal hand. ‘I wasn’t made that way,’ he explained. ‘My mother twisted my mind to think first and last of the greater good of Artemis. That’s why I keep my body strong and in tune. That is why I constantly seek to improve it.’

The power in Arban’s electromuscles was building to a peak.
It must hurt
, thought Eleanor. Arban held that pain for just a moment longer, revelling in it, and then he released it in one great explosion of movement, springing upwards and backwards to land by the soldier behind him, who had been on the point of raising his gun. Arban gripped the top of the soldier’s body armour and tore at it, electromuscles in his arm discharging painfully as he ripped the metal free of the man’s body. The mechanism beneath was exposed to the sunlight, pitiful and embarrassing.

‘Look at him!’ called Arban. ‘Look at yourselves. Identical bodies, identical parts, all so that you can rebuild yourselves from your comrades. Submerging yourself in each other for safety. You act like Nicolas the Coward.’ He pushed a finger into the mechanism in the chest of the man he now held, stopping a wheel that turned there. A whining noise emerged from the man’s mouth. The other soldiers shifted, distressed by their comrade’s pain.

‘And now you mill about in the midst of a conquered city, taking it easy, running from danger, avoiding the spoils that are rightfully ours. I tell you, better robots than you have died these past few weeks. Better robots than you have mounted attacks and been repulsed, and this is how you repay them. You are a
disgrace
!’

The whine had risen to a scream now. Arban looked down at the distressed man, tensed his hand as if he were about to rip the mechanism apart, thought better of it and released the man to collapse painfully to the ground.

‘I should kill you all now. You’re practically traitors! Any other time maybe I would, but not today. We are short of robots, even second-rate ones such as yourselves.’

The infantry looked on thoughtfully, the sun warming their grey skins.

‘You killed Carmel,’ said Eleanor.

Arban shuddered. ‘Even your voices!’ he shouted. ‘So grey and colourless! But, no, I didn’t kill anyone.’ He held up a hand, showing the silver spiral of an interface coil.

‘I palmed a coil, just like this one. You saw me crush the coil of a Wiener soldier, not your comrade. Artemisian troops are too valuable to waste. All I did was disconnect Carmel’s coil from her body. You can easily link her back up.’

Eleanor nodded to Hetfield, who bent down over Carmel’s body.

Arban turned to address the others. ‘While he’s doing that, the rest of you form yourselves into two lines. You are under my command now. There are still a few towers defended here in Wien. Still a few booby-trapped doors with aristocrats hiding behind them. Robots beyond hope and fear, robots who would rather die than give up what they have, and are quite prepared for their workers to make that sacrifice along with them. Well, my happy crew, you shall be the first to face them!’

Arban drew himself to his full height. The grey infantry weren’t moving. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ A note of anger in his voice. ‘I said line up!’

Slowly, the soldiers began to shuffle into position.

‘Faster! Do I have to really kill one of you to set an example? I don’t have any time for sulkers and shirkers who have spent the last few hours hanging around at the edges of the camps, waiting for the danger to pass so that they can creep in amongst the bolder robots and share the spoils and the glory. I tell you, I was the first into this city, and . . .’

‘No you weren’t.’

Everyone turned to look at the robot who had spoken. He seemed identical to the rest: thin grey-painted body armour, unexceptional machinery. He did not pause in the process of taking his place in the line.

‘What did you say?’ said Arban, his voice dangerously low.

‘I said that you weren’t the first into this city.’

It was so quiet in the square. From somewhere in the distance a crumbling crash of rubble could be heard as another marble tower slid to oblivion.

‘Are you daring to call me a liar?’ hummed Arban, his voice modulated so low. Eleanor reached slowly for her awl. Around her she was aware of other infantryrobots doing the same.

‘No,’ said the robot. ‘I believe you to be merely mistaken. You were not the first into this city. We were.’

Arban held the robot’s gaze. There was something strange about the man, something so still and unafraid. Eleanor felt it, they all felt it, yet they had worked and fought with him for so long. Arban laughed to cover the unease that suddenly arose within him. ‘Hey, who’s to know? We all had our part to play. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe I owe you an apology. Still, it isn’t done to disagree with your superior.’

‘I’m not sure that you are my superior. I’m not sure that such things exist within Artemis.’

Arban looked the plain grey robot up and down.

‘Okay, soldier boy,’ he said. ‘Single combat. You and me.’

The grey man seemed unimpressed. ‘Are you now going to kill us all one by one? What’s the good of that to Artemis?’

‘I don’t intend to kill
all
of you,’ said Arban. ‘Just enough to ensure discipline.’ And he sprang: his electromuscles had been charging even as he spoke. He went for the quick kill, landing on the man’s chest, his feet scraping down the chest armour and wrenching it clear of the body, his left hand pulling the coil from the back of the robot’s neck, his other hand . . .

BOOK: Twisted Metal
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