His head was bouncing and banging against chain mail once again as Bob resumed running and Liam dared open his eyes to the upside-down world once more, to see they were nearing the edge of the camp clearing. Bob bulldozed his way past several old women scrubbing clothes in a large wooden tub.
A moment later they were crashing through bracken, twigs and branches, thorns slapping and tearing at Liam’s face as Bob continued to bound through the woods like the world’s clumsiest gazelle. Liam was still struggling to get some air as each loping stride brought his ribs crashing down against the hard slope of Bob’s shoulder and slammed his lungs empty of breath like a blacksmith pumping vigorously at his bellows.
‘Bob!’ he managed to gasp after a while. ‘Stop!’
‘Just a moment,’ his voice rumbled back. ‘We are not safe yet.’
Bob scrambled down a steep slope, almost losing his balance several times. At the bottom he waded knee deep through a stream, sending showers of spray up into Liam’s face. On the far side he scrambled up a slope then, finally reaching the cover of a large fallen oak tree, he bounded over its thick trunk and hunkered down on the far side. He eased Liam off his shoulder on to the ground where his grey eyes quickly studied him.
‘Are you hurt, Liam O’Connor?’
Liam struggled for air. ‘You mean … apart from a few cracked ribs?’
Bob scowled sceptically.
‘I’m … fine … I’m fine,’ Liam gasped, waving the comment away. ‘Just joking.’
From the far side of the stream, up the slope opposite, echoed the sound of dozens of voices calling out to each other. A search party already beating the woods for them. Liam wondered how much effort they’d put into that. Having the Sheriff of Nottingham as a prisoner might have been a bargaining chip if Locke intended to deal with John. But clearly that wasn’t his plan. The Grail was his true prize. Leverage that would work on Richard alone.
‘Bob,’ Liam whispered.
Bob was still scanning the slope opposite.
‘Bob! They have the Grail!’
The support unit turned to look down at him. ‘Are you sure?’
He nodded towards the slope and the camp back in that direction. ‘It’s over there. The leader of those bandits … he
‘Who has sent him?’
‘I didn’t really understand. But he’s … he’s come back to get it! The Grail. I think it’s back in that hut! Or, if not, Locke knows where it is.’
‘Locke?’
‘The leader! James Locke,’ he hissed impatiently. ‘The leader!’
‘I see. You wish to return to retrieve it?’
Actually no, he really didn’t. Going back to the camp was actually the last thing he wanted to do. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I think … we have to go back.’
Just then he felt the fallen oak tree’s trunk vibrate. He sat forward and looked along the trunk towards the splayed and unearthed roots at the end — and saw the dark, fluttering, wraithlike form of The Hood, crouched like a beady-eyed bird of prey looking for a morsel of food.
‘Oh, come on,’ he uttered, ‘give us a break!’
CHAPTER 60
1194, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
The Hood jumped down, and the trunk, free of its burden, flexed with a woody creak that disturbed several crows nearby. The shrouded form slowly pulled itself from a squat on the ground to its full height.
Bob turned to face it, his arms and legs flexed, ready for action.
‘Bob! Be careful! It’s a metal robotic thing!’
The Hood’s head slowly turned towards Liam. In the shadows he thought he saw the faintest blue glimmer of its LED eyes.
‘Warning!’ boomed Bob. ‘You are not authorized to participate in events that will change history!’
The Hood’s gaze smoothly panned towards Bob. There seemed to be an unspoken challenge in the way it silently regarded him. Then without warning its glove-covered hands pulled the cloak up over its body and tossed it aside.
Liam gasped at the sight, horrific in a way, yet also fascinating. Beneath the cape its form had looked so convincingly human. But now exposed, as he looked at the metal frame, specked with blisters of rust and flecks of old combat-green paint, he wondered how anyone could ever have been fooled into thinking this thing a man. Flesh-coloured plastic, in some places scorched black, in other places melted and bubbled like toasted cheese, hung from its arms and shoulders and neck. In some areas it was actually entirely unmarked and looked very much like real human skin, hanging in sagging loops like the putrefying flesh of some undead being.
‘It’s an old war robot,’ said Liam. ‘That’s what Locke said.’
‘Affirmative,’ replied Bob. ‘Configuration matches Korean model, dating from early 2040s.’
‘Right,’ nodded Liam. ‘Uh … does it — can it talk?’
‘It can communicate using synthetic speech circuits. Not convincing. This functionality may have been disabled.’
‘Does it understand us?’
Bob’s eyes remained on it, watching, waiting for the thing to make its first move. ‘Yes it does.’
‘Could we … could we convince it, you know, to n-not hurt us? Be our friend?’
The robot’s gaze swivelled smoothly towards Liam, its dented and corroded metal skull cocked on one side, blue lights regarding him with cold curiosity for a moment.
Bob regarded the robot. His database included a catalogue of AI variants — family trees of artificial intelligence code, from the first viable self-cognitive versions developed in the late 2020s right up to his version number compiled in 2053. Bob identified this model robot as an old North Korean combat unit. Mass-produced in the mid-2040s and used to devastating effect in the first Pacific Oil War. His records indicated that hundreds of thousands of South Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese as well as their own North Korean civilians were butchered by this model. They were unreliable, with a friendly/hostile identification software that was prone to error. Understandable, given the original AI was pirated code adapted to work with imported Chinese chip sets.
Bob decided to attempt a Bluetooth handshake. Beneath the Chinese or Korean language interface would be a common programming language.
[W.G. Systems AI V7.234c. Please identify]
The robot turned its gaze slowly on to Bob.
[SolSun Inc.: V3.23 -
: 29-06-45]
[Communication protocol. Please select: ASCII-English. Hexadecimal. Binary]
[Selecting Ascii-English]
‘We have a communication channel open,’ said Bob.
Liam nodded. ‘All right … Well, could you ask it to be a good fella and leave us alone?’
‘Negative. It will have mission parameters, just as I do.’ Bob decided that finding out what it thought its mission was would be the most useful line of enquiry.
[Specify mission parameters. Highest priority first]
[Mission Priorities — Primary:
FOLLOW ORDERS IDENT J. LOCKE
— Secondary: Locate, identify hostile forces in target combat zone]
Bob turned to Liam. ‘Its code has been hacked.’
[Identify ‘target combat zone’]
The robot’s gaze shifted to the trees, the thick branches of oak leaves and acorns above them, then back on
