Twisted Metal (33 page)

The world outside of this nursery building was fading in her mind, her life with Karel and Axel now seeming like the empty shell of a ghost. She could picture the exterior appearance, but she could remember no life beneath the façade.

There was no chance to speak, and no one to speak to. The women were marched back and forth from the lecture room to the making-room: there was nowhere else they went. One hundred and forty-four steps to the making room over the iron and plastic floors, through corridors lit by single bulbs. Kneeling on the making-room floor before a succession of young men who spilled their wire into her hands, and later looked down with pale eyes as half-completed minds were brushed in tangled clumps from the floor. Didn’t they care what happened to their own wire?

Sometimes there was time for a brief exchange of words in the corridor, a chance for a quick snatch of conversation. She heard the other women exchanging names, words of support. But not to Susan. Word had spread, and the only word she heard from the others was
traitor
. Why? Because she had been spared death at the hands of the Scout?

Or something else? The rumours had followed her here from Turing City. She was the woman who had married Karel. They were convinced that Karel was a traitor, and now she was, too. Hadn’t she received special treatment?

And there was Nettie. Nettie remained friendly towards her. The other women had seen it. She was the favourite. No wonder they considered her a traitor.

But why? What had she done? Nettie and Masur and Maoco O. Each of them had drawn that same symbol; the circle with the dot at the top. Like it was a sign that she should recognize.

Back and forth along the iron corridor. How many days had she now been here? How many weeks?

It took two hours to make a mind. Over ten thousand twists, and Susan and the other women had been drilled on each and every one of them. Over and over again, so many minds half-made and then abandoned. She felt hollow inside.

Finally, though, the time came.

Nettie, her body as dull and unimpressive as ever, paused before the sheet of polished metal upon which she had sketched out her instructions, then laid down her stylus and turned to face the twenty-two remaining women.

‘And that, ladies,’ she said, ‘is the end of the training. So now we test you.’

There was nothing else, no congratulations. The women were stood up and marched down to the making room.

There Susan took her place, kneeling at the feet of a grey infantryrobot. She reached up and began to twist wire.

And then something happened. Something that had never happened before. The robot leaned down and spoke in her ear.

‘Hello, Susan.’

Susan paused. She glanced around the room. No one else had heard. They were all busy working away, twisting wire. She looked for the silver shape of the Scout. It wasn’t there.

‘Aren’t you going to speak to me, Susan?’

Hands still twisting, she looked up into the yellow eyes of the infantryrobot.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Banjo Macrodocious.’

‘Who?’ The name sounded familiar. Where had she heard it before? Had Karel mentioned it?

‘What do you want?’

‘I don’t want anything. That’s why I’m so special. I was made that way.’

‘Why?’

‘So I could do my job. We have two hours together, Susan, and I want to speak to you. I want to discuss philosophy.’

‘Why?’ she glanced fearfully around the room. ‘Are you trying to get us both killed?’

‘We will be okay. Nettie is one of us. No one else here will speak because they are too frightened of what might happen to them. Susan, have you heard of the Book of Robots?’

Susan felt a thrill. The Book of Robots. Maoco O had mentioned it, what seemed like years ago.

‘I’ve heard of it,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

‘Heresy. It contradicts everything that robots believe.’

‘Why?’

‘The Book of Robots is supposed to contain the map of a robot body.’

‘So? Any woman could twist a map of a body!’ Her tone was bitter. ‘I’ve just spent weeks learning one such map.’

Banjo Macrodocious leaned closer. ‘This is the plan of the
first
robot.’

Susan was genuinely puzzled, her hands still twisting wire.

‘What do you mean, the first robot?’

‘What if I were to tell you that robot life did not evolve on this planet, as we have all believed? What if I were to tell you that we, too, were
designed
, just as a robot would design a hammer or an awl or an engine?’

‘But that’s ridiculous—’

‘The Book of Robots is said to contain the plan for the original robot. It lays out the reason for our construction, the laws that we are meant to follow, the ultimate reason for our existence.’

Susan had fumbled a twist in the wire. She glanced around the room, checking that her slip had not been noticed. No one even looked; each lost in contemplation of the making of a mind. Around the room, the men leaned close to whisper in the ears of the women dutifully weaving wire in Nyro’s pattern.

‘I don’t believe it,’ whispered Susan. ‘That’s . . . wrong!’

‘How can it be wrong if it’s the truth, Susan? Just think about it, what if we were made to some purpose?’

‘It’s wrong!’ repeated Susan, her voice cold and low. ‘Every mother has the right to weave the mind that she chooses!’

‘You say that as you kneel there weaving a mind to Artemis’s pattern? Think on this, Susan, what if Artemis is right? Suppose Nyro’s philosophy is proving so successful because it is in fact our true purpose?’

‘No! I don’t believe that! I would rather not have lived than for that to be true!’

‘Interesting,’ said Banjo Macrodocious.

Susan wove in silence for a few minutes, while Banjo Macrodocious said nothing. He leaned back, his eyes dimming. Susan’s anger rose. She jerked on the wire.

‘Who are you? Why are you telling me all this?’

Banjo Macrodocious looked around the room before leaning close to her ear.

‘Keep your voice down! Do you want the others to hear?’

‘I don’t care!’

‘I don’t believe that, Susan. You’ve already had plenty of chances to speak out since your capture. The fact that you are here twisting metal suggests that you chose not to die.’

The robot’s words struck home, and Susan was silent for a moment, hands twisting away.

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.

‘For the moment, nothing. We just want you to know that we’re here. That you are not alone.’

‘But why me? Why speak to me?’

‘Because you are one of us.’

Banjo Macrodocious drew the sign in the air, the circle with the dot on the top.

‘The robots at the top of the world,’ he said. ‘There is a land at the top of this world: north of Shull, beyond the Moonshadow sea. The Book of Robots was said to be written in that land, and then brought to Shull by the roads that run beneath the sea. Brought past the house of the glass robots around which the whales swim . . .’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Susan. ‘Ghost stories of the north!’

‘Have you ever noticed how all the ghost stories are set in the north, Susan? And now Kavan has passed the mountains, now that he has begun conquering the states there, what do you suppose he will find?’

‘I don’t know. What does that have to do with me?’

‘Your husband travels north, with Kavan.’

‘Then he is all right?’ For the moment, Susan was filled with a fierce joy, the first time she had felt an emotion so strong since she had been brought here. But it quickly faded.

‘But what can I do, trapped here?’

‘For the moment, Susan, nothing. You must await your time.’

And at that Banjo Macrodocious fell silent. Nothing else that Susan said elicited a reply.

She returned to weaving the mind of her first Artemisian child.

Karel

Karel felt so
strong
. When he flexed the electromuscles in his legs, diesel engines roared and propelled him forwards. When he squeezed his fingers he felt the heat as he gripped the locomotive’s wheels. Even when he coasted, as he did now, following the curve of a mountain down into a wide valley, he felt the sheer mass of his body as it rolled smoothly along.

The northern scenery was awe-inspiring, terrifying and beautiful. Up here, organic life had not been eliminated to the same extent as in the south, so the low hills that rolled up towards the mountain peaks were green with grass. This land contrasted the organic smoothness of such hills with the sharp edges of mountain peaks that speared the sky: it was an unnatural, but strangely attractive, sight.

Karel only wished he could move his eyes. The track along which he ran skirted the edge of a reservoir, the wind blowing the rain in bands across its level surface. There were cylindrical buildings of smooth stone at the far end of the lake. Extremely well constructed, too: the robots who inhabited this state were expert stonemasons, no doubt compensating for the relative scarcity of metal. Karel wished he could turn his eyes to get to see it all properly. Up here there were castles on the mountain peaks, half seen as he wended his way through the northern lands carrying supplies and troops. He wanted to get a better look. The castles were rooted in sheer cliffs, their walls rising up to towers that sought the sun in the same manner as the strange plants that were allowed to grow here. Looping metal roads ran from their fortified entrances down along the valley walls. Karel felt he was travelling in the land of childhood myths and stories, carrying troops north and then bringing captured metal south, as plate, as pipes and as bundles of blue wire.

He felt as if he were being seduced by it all. His anger was there still, sharp and unpredictable as it had ever been, but Karel was gradually training it to burn slower and longer, just to keep alive the feeling of dull anger that reminded him of the great wrong that had been done to him. And yet, he was coming to understand the dark appeal of Nyro’s philosophy, of being a part of this powerful, all-consuming engine that was spreading across the surface of Penrose. To have no doubts. Most of all to be so
strong
. He could feel the pulse of the diesel, the incredible weight of the load that he was pulling.

Even so, there remained a sense of foreboding.

Day by day, the blanket of cloud that spread southwards over the sky had thickened and darkened, from pale to dark grey, to almost black. The cold rain fell constantly, sometimes in thin drizzle, increasingly often in heavy sheets that were transported up by the never-dying wind that blew from the north.

Karel was strong, and yet he had no control over the path he followed.

He wondered where it was taking him.

Kavan

There was a stone throne set in the very centre of the room, facing out over the mountains and valleys which this little kingdom had once ruled. One could sit there in this castle eyrie and gaze through the empty frame of the window with a sense of absolute power.

Kavan had seated himself on a little stool just by the window ledge, the foil sheets that surrounded him fluttering around the lumps of lead which weighed them down.

The conquest of Northern Shull proceeded apace. They had blasted through the major mountain range with little incident, and into the country beyond. It seemed that the summit of every hill and mountain here boasted its own castle, and every castle boasted its own king or queen ruling the land immediately around it. Kavan had picked off these kingdoms one by one without any trouble. Self-important little rulers who ruled over their pathetic lodes of iron. Life was too easy for them while they stayed put, squandering their resources on petty squabbles or on building ever more baroque displays of architecture to flaunt their wealth.

Kavan looked out over the view from castle Ironfist, smiling at the name. Queen Ironfist herself had surrendered without a fight then had willingly boarded the train taking her to the making rooms of Artemis City.

Down below he could see the grey bodies of his troops laying railways that would follow the curves of the iron-grey reservoirs, busily linking these lands to each other and ultimately to Artemis City. And then the rain rolled in again, a hissing sheet that quickly travelled the length of the valley. Brooding clouds enfolded the mountain tops, leaving him in grey isolation in his chosen eyrie. The cold wind fluttered through his sheets of foil, and he realized that it was time to move further back inside again.