Love and Robotics (84 page)

“Did you want to punish him? Both of them?”

“No!” Then, since she was truthful, “Yes. A bit. I had a feelin’ that if I just let Josh walk out, he wouldn’t be back. I went to CER for help.”

“I wondered when they’d come into it. How did they react?”

Alfred sat up, as did Josh.  He could see Sugar out of the corner of his eye, growing agitated.

“They told me all sorts. They said Josh was under Lord Langton’s spell, he didn’t know what he was doin’. They said I should do another show, let him see what he was missin’.”

A cynical laugh, suspiciously like Cora’s. Claire blushed.

“I know it sounds stupid. They wouldn’t let me see him. One of the doctors - Malik, I think - said he had to go through a ... rehabitation programme.”

Feist didn’t correct her. “Did they tell you what this involved?”

“They said it was classified. But it’s not like it made a difference. He still got out, first chance he got.”

Feist let her go after that. Alfred wanted to protest, say there was so much more she could ask, but she was right. Claire looked wrung out and ill.

The rest of the testimonies were fleeting, not worth the paper expended on them. Dr Neal gave a limp, biased account and slunk off shamefaced. Breakwell followed, tittering at each disclosure. “He shows no guilt,” she kept saying. “I do not recommend him for release.”

Last was Lois Putnam, of all people. She claimed Josh and Abigail were “virtually engaged”; that her daughter was the happiest she’d seen her since her father’s death. Fortunately both Sir Matthias and Feist poured scorn on her story.

Alfred felt cheated. Josh was on trial for his life, for this? It seemed a shabby set of anecdotes - some speculation, others outright lies. Only Claire and Sugar were believable. The rest were amateurs drafted in from another play.

Which was where Sir Matthias came in. He had a gift for making half baked crap seem irrefutable. As he praised Lucy’s “excellent character”, Sugar’s “transparent honesty” and Claire’s “naivety and misplaced trust”, you could feel the audience siding with him. Somebody whistled as he stepped down.

Feist started by shaking her head. “Your Honour, I have yet to hear anything resembling a convincing argument. Captain Lucy’s testimony was full of holes, motivated by a grudge against my client. Though his sincerity can’t be doubted, Dr Sugar is blinkered and leaps to false conclusions. Claire Howey gave the best proof yet that Josh and my client were imposed upon. As for the rest, it can’t be dignified with the name of evidence. I would say there is no case to answer.”

Alfred thought,
Let that be it
, but Josh was more realistic.
That never happens. They have to hear both sides.

Justice Begum gave Feist a maternal smile. “Ms Feist, although I admire your faith in your client, there is little doubt a crime has been committed. It is therefore your responsibility to present your evidence tomorrow afternoon.”

Feist smiled weakly. “Thank you, Your Honour.”

“Is there anything else you need?”

“Both Lord Langton and Josh will be testifying. That is all.”

The reaction was indescribable. Cora punched the air, Nanny and Gwyn hugged each other, a hysterical girl wearing a dress made from blue roses had to be carried out. Captain Lucy spat, “He’s a Deviant! Deviants can’t testify!” Sir Matthias, looking his most superior, said, “They can in certain circumstances.”

As they left the hullaballoo, you had to wonder what was uglier, crime or the spectators picking through its bones.

***

Although she was too ill to attend, Fisk had followed the trial on veebox. She’d shuddered at Lucy, cursed Sugar and swallowed bilious jealousy at the sight of Claire. Of course she reserved the worst of her ire for Langton. He looked like a declawed lion in the dock. She sat in her pyjamas, absorbing every detail, until Feist’s announcement. “Both Lord Langton and Josh will testify -”

She did retch this time. What could Josh tell them, with enough persuasion? To have the dark secret of her heart dragged before a jury -

No. He couldn’t. She wouldn’t let them.

“Eric?”

He was always with her. She tried not to remember the other time he’d appeared on her doorstep, two and a half years after Marwood. He was fourteen, too young to have come this far alone.

“Eric? Where’s your dad?”

“He grounded me.”

“You’ve run away? I’m sending you straight back.”

He grabbed her wrist. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

“Why not?” She tried to make light of it, pretend it was a game.

“I love you more than anyone, Auntie Julia. Please let me stay.”

It wasn’t till the next day she learned Frank and Maria’s house had been burned to the ground.

“Yes, auntie?” He moved so noiselessly. She’d been sure he was in the basement.

“Josh is going to give evidence. I can’t allow it.”

Wretchedly, she explained everything that had happened between her and Josh. She stared at her hands, not wanting to see his reaction.

He laughed. Softly, caressingly. “Auntie, don’t you know I’m the only one who understands? I’ll make sure tomorrow never comes.”

Confrontation

Alfred paced his cell, watching the rain tumble from the sky. Twenty four hours and it would be over. But he didn’t want to live in the world of this time tomorrow.

He ran through his testimony for the fortieth time. He held onto that memory of Josh, his hand against the booth.
Be strong. I love you. We can do this
.

“The harder I fought, the more I was forced to realise ...” His throat was so dry. He went to the tap, gave it a twist.

“Langton. A visitor.”

It was one of the guards, a deference he’d never heard in his voice. Would he be ambushed by Brunowski’s heavies, throttled by the bedding? They’d know how to make it look like a suicide - or, failing that, frighten anyone from investigating.

He wanted to go out inflicting as much damage as possible. He ripped one of the shelves from the wall and slid it down the side of the bed.

“Open up, Alfie,” a familiar voice drawled.

He had to steady himself. Cora was outside, but how? He stood aside so the door could be unbolted, still expecting an inmate with a talent for mimicry.

“You look like hell,” she said.

“You look magnificent.”

She did. She’d ditched the ratty dog but still wore the fake furs and tea gown from earlier. “Designer trash,” she shrugged.

The guard lingered. He was one of Alfred’s enemies, a skin headed oaf. “Uh, Ms Keel -”

“Beat it, kid.” He was thirty if he was a day, but he retreated.

Cora followed Alfred into the cell and thought the door shut. It was like one of those dreams where anything is possible. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he could plunge his arm through the wall or float to the ceiling. He watched Cora kick off her boots, try to find a comfortable part of the mattress.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“You helped me when I needed it. Now it’s my turn.” She was unpinning the blue rose on her coat, making as if to offer it to him.

“I can’t, I’m afraid. No sharp objects -”

The pin travelled towards his face. He looked into her eyes, saw the glassy vacancy there, and knocked it from her hand. She sat on the floor, rocking frantically.

“It’s alright, I’m not mad at you. I know he made you -”

“Good evening, gents.” A hiss came from the speakers, the sound like a thousand wasps. Cora covered her ears, crying, “Get out of my head!”

“Try the doors,” the voice said.

Alfred heard the inmates draw back the bolts, surge into the corridors.

“This is your time, to do what you like with. Seize it. Seek vengeance.”

Cora was paralysed. Alfred lifted the lock behind her ear and pressed the offswitch. He laid her on the bunk and arranged the blankets over her.

“Hello, Eric,” Alfred said.

The voice exhaled. “Took you long enough.”

He hadn’t time for snark. “What do you want me to do?”

“Come to the governor’s office. I’ve something to show you.”

Alfred tracked Nick’s voice through an infernal tableau. The resident arsonist had already scorched a corner. Two of the inmates were fucking on the fire escape. Viewed from the outside, it was about pain and aggression, not love - though how could love flower in this hellish place? A guard had been overpowered; he was being force fed his own boots.

He passed Darvish, morose in his cell. “Aren’t you joining in?”

“It’s a trap.” He bolted the last of his grog and collapsed.

It was the first time Alfred had walked unaccompanied in months. He could see why freedom had gone to the inmates’ heads. He longed to smash windows, scrawl filthy words along the walls. But he couldn’t let himself be distracted. Mounting the stairs to Breakwell’s office, he nearly tripped. Something was blocking his path. He went to kick it out of his way.

Eustace Lucy lay dead on the bottom step. His top half was fully clothed, his bottom half wore tiger print underpants. A book jutted from his gaping mouth - the Gospels, if Alfred was any judge. Choking back his revulsion, he ran up the rest of the flight.

The door was ajar - Lucy must have been surprised waiting for Breakwell. The governor was nowhere to be seen.

“Hello, enemy mine.” Nick’s face might have been covered by a balaclava, but the slippery, high pitched voice was unmistakable. He was projected on the screen Breakwell used to spy on the men, tilted so it dominated the office.

“Cut the crap. What are you trying to do? Frame me for Lucy’s death?”

“Give me some credit! He was dead before I got here.” Like a child wanting praise for his cleverness, “You don’t seem very surprised to see me, Langton.”

The best plan was to keep him talking. “No. I assumed - hoped - you were dead. But Cora thought differently.”

He tried to see what was behind him. It looked like a room in a derelict house, jagged cracks in the ceiling. There was a bulky object in the corner, swathed with cloth. Nick guessed his game and moved so his view was obstructed.

“Cora.” He might have been talking about a long dead pet. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

A little ego massage went a long way with criminals. “Tell me how you did it. Few men could cheat death twice.”

He purred. “It wasn’t easy. I could hear the factory crashing down, felt the heat of the blast ... Clones are very hard to kill. I crawled out of the wreck, my clothes and hair on fire. There was a stream where the buildings dumped their waste - I made for that. I soaked in it all night, chilled and lividly burned, but alive.

I only travelled at night. I didn’t have any choice - I’d become an object of horror to everyone who looked on me. I couldn’t resume life as Nick Cole, nor could I take up my true identity. You had killed that years before.

There are always places you can go when you’re desperate, where no one asks questions. I rented a wretched room in a tenement, the only furniture an old veebox. It just showed the news, but that was all I needed. The landlord thought I’d been crippled in the line of duty. She called me a hero but shuddered when she came near me.

What an entertaining life you lead, Langton. Watching your beloved widget marry that little tramp - how you must have suffered! I won’t thank you for getting Cora out, or the defamation of my character, but it suited my purposes for everyone to think I was dead.”

“Which are?”

Nick ignored the question. He was in full flow. “You thought you were being so subtle. I bought the international papers; I knew what people were saying. And banging a rent boy who looked like him?
Duh
!”

There was a distressed gasp behind him. “What was that?” Alfred demanded.

“Nothing to worry about. Back to me -”

“I want to know what that was.”

He blew out his cheeks as though Alfred had spoiled his fun. “If you insist.”

He flicked a switch on the wall, throwing the room into sharp relief. Michael Derkins was strapped to a gurney, electrodes attached to his skull. “Alfie, is that you?”

“Let him go!” Alfred roared. “Do what you like to me, but there’s no way you’re hurting my friends!”

“It’s not just me, it’s -”

Nick leant on the controls. Derkins whimpered, his eyes squeezed shut.

“I could go up if you like.” Nick ran his hands over the keys like a piano. “Or little and often. Your choice.”

“Don’t hurt him,” Alfred pleaded. “What did you do next?”

A patronising smile. “Good. I bided my time, waited for you to slip up. I was living like a pauper, a cockroach. Lucky I still had Mace. He hacked into accounts all over the world, helped build a nice tidy sum. I thought I’d carve myself a new face, a new life. Might even go back to Lila.”

Derkins was gurgling behind him. Alfred pretended to listen to Nick, all the time concentrating on what his friend was saying.

“My contacts watched the pair of you. You tried to call it off - boring! But Josh kept moping; so did you. He had that spat with the missus and you scuttled round, his willing slave.”

“Hin, hin,” Derkins mumbled.

“Oh, the drama! The little skank lost it, you took the bot to Sugar -”

“Why are you telling me what I already know?” Alfred snapped.

“Win, win -” No, no clearer. Poor Derkins was determined to say whatever it was.

“Don’t interrupt!” Nick’s fingers strayed to the controls. When he saw he had Alfred’s attention he spidered them back. “When Foster started filming the second show I made my move. It was sooner than I would’ve liked - I still looked like this - but who would see me and think Nick Cole, man about town? Or Eric Spalding, boy genius?”

“Eric Spalding was
not
a genius,” Alfred said. “What you did was disgusting and immoral - ”

“Lighten up. If it stopped people molesting human kids -”

“It wouldn’t have worked. They’d get bored, find a real child - ”

“Gwyn, Gwyn -”

For the first time Alfred noticed a second gurney behind Derkins, a long tail of coppery hair hanging down. He cracked the screen with his fist. “What have you done, you animal?”

“I wondered when you’d twig.” Nick moved to the supine figure, pulled at the flex of hair and sniffed it. Gwyn was obviously drugged. “I caught them outside the Bustopher Club. Quite the firecracker - I’d love to break her in - ”

“You touch her and I’ll -”

“You’ll what? I’m here, you’re there. There’s nothing you can do but watch.” He licked the unconscious face. “Which is it to be? Your bestest friend or your ickle niece?”

Derkins tried to shake his head. “I’m not worth it. Tell Ffion and the girls I love them.”

“Michael, I would never do that.” Alfred flung himself at the screen. “You hold on - ”

“Eric, what’s going on?”

Nick tried to cut the transmission but it was too late. Fisk came into the room, shadows beneath her eyes.

“What are you doing? Who are you speaking to?” She saw the screen and jumped. “Langton!”

“Auntie, you should go - ”

She had seen the gurneys. “Who’s this? That’s his niece, isn’t it? Let them go!”

Alfred spoke before Nick could. “I know you and I have never been on friendly terms, but you must listen. Your nephew is a madman - ”

“I know,” she said flatly. “I’ve known all his life.”

Nick made a noise like a kicked puppy. “What do you expect? I learned from the best!”

She stared at him. “Eric, you don’t mean - ”

“Everybody hated you. They thought you were a twisted old loony. ‘She likes machines more than people,’ Dad used to say. It’s still true, isn’t it?” Giving her wrist a vicious twist, “Why don’t you tell Langton what you’ve been up to? What you’ve done with his boy toy?”

Alfred felt sick. “What does he mean?”

“So before you lecture me, remember why we’re here. Because you didn’t want Joshy boy to give evidence. I kept my word.”

He whipped the cloth from the shape in the corner. It was rusty and riveted in unusual places, but Alfred and Fisk recognised it with a gasp. A squelcher.

“That wasn’t the plan!” Fisk cried. “I only meant to rewrite his memory -”

“Rewrite him for
what
?” Alfred exclaimed. But aunt and nephew had flown at each other.

“I thought if I went into robotics you’d love me, or at least be proud of me - ”

“You were always an evil little shit, even as a child -”

“No wonder Uncle Joe left you -”

“You drove him away! You ruined my life!”

“How would I know what was right and wrong, with you as an example?”

At first the contest seemed evenly matched. Fisk was taller and surprisingly quick, but illness wore her down. Nick caught her in a headlock and, with a deliberation that was awful to watch, brought a gun out of his pocket.

“We’re miles from anywhere. Our only witnesses - ” he nodded to Derkins and Gwyn - “will die soon. Don’t struggle, auntie. Give yourself up to it.”

Alfred didn’t know what he felt as Nick cocked the barrel against Fisk’s ear. If what he’d hinted was true, the aunt was as evil as the nephew, and no great loss. But he couldn’t stand by and watch him commit murder. “You don’t want to do this,” he said.  

“What the fuck do you know?” Nick retorted. “Growing up in a compound, branded as bad from my first breath -”

“That’s no excuse. You make your own fortune.”

“Like I’m here and you’re in jail?” Nick sneered. His finger found the trigger. “Bye bye, auntie.”

The next few seconds happened too swiftly to follow. Something burst from the floor and pulled Fisk out of the way. As the doctor lay wheezing on the floor, Nick and the apparition grappled for the gun.

“I thought you’d been switched off!” Nick hissed.

“You thought wrong,” Josh said.

The struggle was short and violent. Josh dug his fingers into Nick’s eyes, bit him; Nick wrenched him out of shape, searched for his offswitch. He gave a yell of triumph, thinking he had found it. Josh said calmly, “Wrong button,” and tugged the balaclava round so it was back to front.