be born in the midst of less than lovely times.
Liza and Kurtz crouched together in an old shell hole, the remnant of a long-spent war, making their own little expression of peace while electric bolts fanned across the sky, painting themselves on the canvas provided by Zuse, the night moon. Meanwhile, a low rumbling spread across the stone plain. Artemis machinery being destroyed: they had attacked Stark too soon.
The rhythm of Liza’s movements had changed.
‘What are you weaving now?’ asked Kurtz.
‘His sense of self,’ said Liza. ‘His sense of otherness. Isn’t it obvious?’
‘No, I see your hands move and all I see is twisting. It has no order or meaning to me.’
Liza smiled. ‘Now I am giving him your stubbornness.’ Her hands danced lightly, tweaking, turning, teasing.
‘I’m not stubborn,’ he protested.
‘You’ll stand your ground, even when you suspect you’re wrong. You’d rather see a bad argument through to the end than change your opinion. It’s not your most attractive characteristic, but,’ she shrugged, ‘there are worse things to be ashamed of.’
‘But I don’t want my child to be stubborn. Take it out!’
‘The weave must balance.’
Kurtz said nothing, and Liza knew he understood. He would have seen children who walked and talked and performed simple tasks and nothing more, seen the way other mothers would look at them with sympathy or disapproval. The mother tried too hard, they would say. The weave doesn’t balance.
The electrical storm was rising in intensity: an incredible tearing sound ripping across the world. White light poured down from the sky to the east, a waterfall of light increasing in flux. A curtain of electricity was fast being drawn across the horizon, a flood of light that blasted the plain; the squat iron plugs firing ultra-black shadows westwards. The reddish stones kicked across the plain by the metal feet of so many robots drew long lines of darkness towards Turing City itself.
‘What is going on out there?’ wondered Kurtz aloud. ‘Is that the battle or the elements?’
‘Shhh,’ said Liza. ‘Let the rest of the world take care of itself. We have our own child to attend to.’
‘Artemis,’ reflected Kurtz. ‘If we were Artemisians, we would be making this child very differently…’
‘Do you want that?’ teased Liza. ‘I could make Karel think only of the glory of the Artemisian state. Is that really what you want?’
To her surprise, Kurtz did not answer straight away.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, slowly. ‘There’s no denying how successful Artemis is. Their forges grow larger every month.’ He lowered his voice.
‘Is that what you really want?’ asked Liza, soft yellow eyes glowing, hands never ceasing their manipulation of the warm, pliable metal. ‘Tell me now, Kurtz. We are of Turing City State. We can make our child share its values, respect itself and others as individuals, or we can make our child strong and empty, just like an Artemisian. What do you really believe in?’
‘Liza, I don’t know. I know we agreed, but are we sure we are right to do this? Turing City will only succeed if all the children really believe in what we stand for. If just a few of them turn and run, the rest of us will fall. All it takes is a few children. Do we want to condemn our own child to be the one remaining while others are running?’
‘But if we all stand together we will have a better life. After all, we want what’s best for our boy.’
‘But which is the best?’
Liza couldn’t stop moving her hands: she couldn’t allow the pliable wire to set.
‘You choose,’ urged Kurtz.
‘No. You choose.’
‘But it’s such a huge responsibility. Choices like this could change the world.’
‘Never mind the rest of the world,’ said Liza. ‘This is just about us. Come on, individual or drone, which is it to be? Turing City or Artemis?’
The world seemed to pause. The wall of lightning held its breath, just hanging in the air in a blaze of white. The rumble of explosions to the east ceased. In that moment of stillness, Kurtz told her, and she nodded, and began the final part of the weave.
‘Almost done,’ she said.
The tearing noise stopped abruptly. The storm died, the wash of light fading, the stones and iron plugs of the plain inhaling their long shadows.
And the world changed.
Kurtz groaned, and Liza looked up, saw the green glow fading from his eyes.
‘Kurtz?’ she said. Slowly his body rocked forward and fell to the ground, just a collection of jointed metal.
‘Kurtz!’ called Liza. ‘Oh Zuse, no.’ She stood up, the blue wire trailing from her hands to where it emerged from Kurtz’s body. She looked around, barely comprehending what had happened. Had it been the lightning, she wondered; had it hit her husband? But the sky was now so still and dark.
Then she heard the sound of metal on bare rock. Footsteps?
Someone loomed out of the darkness. A metal body, dented and scarred. Red eyes glowing in infrared, iron hands gripping a projectile weapon. The dull grey paint-work of an Artemisian soldier. He walked easily towards her, rifle pointing loosely in her direction.
‘You killed him,’ said Liza.
‘I killed him.’ The soldier looked down at the warm wire, still being twisted in Liza’s hands.
‘You can let go now,’ he said. ‘There isn’t enough metal left there to complete your child.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Liza. ‘What would any man know about that?’
The soldier ignored her question. ‘I heard you both talking,’ he said. ‘Even through the storm.’ He tapped one of the overlarge directional microphones on the side of his head. Then he pointed at poor Kurtz’s dead body. ‘Do you really think he made the right choice?’
‘Of course I do.’ she said quietly. She was looking at the remaining length of wire, calculating.
The Artemisian robot shrugged. ‘You would say that, I suppose.’
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Liza. ‘Why are Artemis trespassing into Turing City State?’
‘Haven’t you heard? Bethe has just fallen. Artemis is the largest forge on this plain now.’
‘Bethe?’ said Liza. ‘I thought you were attacking Stark!’
‘Stark?’ laughed the robot. ‘Not likely. Not with their Tesla towers to defend them. No, that was just a little misdirection. Bethe first, then Segre. Then we’ll be right on Stark’s doorstep. And then we’ll see.’
Liza wasn’t listening. Kurtz lay dead at her feet, his wire still twisted around her hands, cooling, dying. She felt as if something was dying within herself too, leaving nothing but a cold emptiness inside her metal shell.
‘Kurtz,’ she whispered. ‘Kurtz, what am I to do?’
There was no reply. She was on her own now. A cold determination began to rise up within her. ‘Kurtz made his choice,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Kurtz was right.’
She had forgotten about those overlarge ears on the Artemisian robot. He picked up what she had muttered. He laughed.
‘That’s easy for you to say now,’ he said, ‘not that you will ever know. I saved you the choice. There is not enough wire for the child to be born.’
Again, Liza looked at the wire that trailed from her hands, recalculating.
‘There is just enough,’ she decided.
The dull grey robot’s hands tightened around his rifle. ‘I should dash that wire from your hands now; make you lose your place.’
Liza’s voice trembled. ‘But you haven’t.’ She clutched the wire tighter.
‘Go on,’ said the soldier. ‘Finish the mind. Finish it the way he said.’
Liza did nothing. With a low whirr, the soldier brought his gun to bear on her.
‘Do it, or, so help me, I will shoot you too. I have one charge left.’ He laughed. ‘Hey, you can be just like Nyro. You’ve heard of Nyro, haven’t you?’
The lightning flared again, and, just for a moment, Liza could have sworn that the robot flinched and looked
