‘Uphill, up towards the fort!’ called Karel. He pointed to the upper level of the fort, rising above the dirty brick and verdigrised roofs of the broken-down foundries that surrounded them.
‘Artemis!’
The call hissed with static. He heard a crackle of shots, the rattle of falling metal. Someone had been hit.
‘Colina!’
A robot tumbled to the ground, her head a mass of blue twisted metal.
‘Leave her,’ ordered Karel. ‘This way!’
Shots spat out around them, puffs of dust sprang up from the ground. They ran, around another corner, into a street where the buildings seemed better maintained, the gangue of the road well stamped down. A wide road, it curved upwards, following a gentle incline towards the fort. From behind, Karel could hear the stamp stamp stamp of Artemis troops, more of them, closing in on them, hemming them in.
Susan was listening carefully as she ran. ‘Still not enough troops,’ she said, ‘still not enough for an invasion.’
‘There’s enough to kill us,’ said Harman. ‘Keep running…’
They ran up the hill, around the curve, and then they stopped.
Karel looked on in horror. Up ahead, the road simply came to an end. The last two foundries were built into a great white heap of gangue, piled up against the sheer wall of the fort. They were caught in a dead end. There was no escape.
Susan walked up to the white wall of the fort, looked up at the empty battlements above.
‘Help!’ she called. ‘Down here!’
All the robots looked up, scanning along the white wall, up at the crenellated parapet high above them. There was no reply. No sign of movement. The fort might as well have been deserted.
Karel turned to look down the empty street behind him. There was nowhere now to run. He heard the stamp of feet approaching around the corner.
The Turing Citizens looked at each other in despair. Susan came close to Karel. She took his hand.
‘What about Axel?’ she asked, despairingly.
‘Someone will look after him,’ said Karel, trying to sound confident.
The sound of approaching feet grew louder. Karel and the rest drew into the corner, wedged between the pile of gangue and the sheer white wall of the fort.
The marching grew louder still, and there they were. The first of the Artemis infantry appeared around the corner, their dull grey bodies all in a line.
‘Where is the City Guard?’ complained Karel bitterly.
It was so easy to kill. The discovery had been a revelation to Olam.
Just point the rifle, pull the trigger, and watch as another robot slumped to the ground in a cloud of blue wire. All the fear, all the uncertainty of the last few days evaporated as Olam raised the rifle and squeezed.
He marched through this strange city, with its iron arches and shattered glass and, where once he would have felt timid and uncertain, he now felt invincible. He was the man causing the fear, not the man feeling it. He was in charge, in control.
‘Don’t be careless,’ warned Doe Capaldi, walking at his side, scanning the upper storeys of the galleries that surrounded them.
‘I’m fine,’ said Olam. ‘Hey, look over there.’
A glint of reflected sunlight, so easy to miss. Fine, powdered glass, trodden into the plastic matting at the entrance to a store. A trail, leading into the building.
‘Someone went in there,’ said Olam, the lust rising within him. ‘Someone sneaked in after we smashed the glass.’
Olam didn’t like the look Doe Capaldi was giving him. ‘I’ll send Janet in,’ he said.
‘No way,’ said Olam. ‘I know the orders: maximum disruption. I spotted it, I get to go in.’
He was off into the store before Doe Capaldi could tell him otherwise. Zig-zagging across the shop floor, keeping low. Dodging for cover between the plastic sheeting that was hung on display all through the shop. Pushing past sheets of plain red, green, yellow and blue. Slipping past black and white checks, turquoise and purple knotwork; through a riot of paisleys and tartans.
Olam found the shop disorienting after the grey of the Zernike plain. This city was so colourful: there was barely a place where plain stone or metal could be seen.
He heard a mechanical whirring, the faintest click. Someone was upstairs.
Hot and lovely current poured into his electromuscles, his movements became staccato and excited. Up the stairs, gun at the ready. The sound of footsteps, over there behind the green door.
He moved forward, gun at the ready, kicked the door open with his foot…
There was a woman inside, two children sheltering behind her. She held an awl in her hand. She dropped it as soon as she saw Olam.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Please!’
Olam raised his gun and felt the current surge inside him. He held it in check as he pointed the rifle at the child on her left, held it there a moment and then moved the gun to point at the child on her right.
‘Please,’ she said, her voice emitting electronic squeaks of fear. ‘I’ll do anything!’
‘Anything?’ said Olam. He pretended to think about that, but the urge was too strong and his finger squeezed. The head of the child to the right of the woman exploded, the twisted metal of its brain tangling over its mother’s shoulder. The woman cried out; the other child stared at him, frozen in fear.
‘Would you really do anything?’ said Olam, his gun now turned to point towards other child. He pretended to think some more. ‘Then come here and kneel before me…’ he said.
Sobbing, her eyes fixed on the gun, the woman did so.
Olam felt so strong. He felt like an aristocrat. The current was constantly building inside him. He couldn’t control it; he dropped his rifle, seized his awl and plunged it into the head of the woman who knelt before him. The remaining child screamed, but Olam stabbed again and again, his electromuscles crackling with energy.
Maoco O waited in darkness, cut off from the world.
How long had he waited here? Did it matter?
They had lost forty soldiers in the explosion at the station, a further forty were badly damaged and in need of urgent repair. There was talk of a counter-offensive, but for the moment they had been told to hold position. Maoco O waited patiently. He was a soldier, and his mind was woven so that he could wait for ever, if need be.
And then, something odd: he heard Susan somewhere nearby. Close enough to touch, even. He could feel her fear. Not just for herself, but for the other robot that stood by her: her husband. Susan and her husband. That was not all. Maoco O sensed eight other Turing City robots standing not an arm’s length away.
And now, finally, he felt the approach of the Artemisian troops.
So many of them, and so close.
It was time…
Maoco O exploded from the gangue, white dust billowing and shrapnel stones ricocheting and ringing off the bodies of the surrounding Turing City robots. He had fired six head shots before the Artemisian infantry had time to react, their bodies slumping to the ground, tangles of wire unwinding from their minds as they fell.
He was calm. Away in the distance, undetected by regular robot senses, he saw more infantryrobots standing on the metal walkway between two buildings, exposed against the skyline. One, two, three shots and they fell to the ground in a rattle of broken metal.
In slow motion, the brightly painted Turing City robots were turning to gaze at him with a mixture of fear and awe. There was Susan. Did she recognize him? He doubted it. The robots were edging closer to him for safety, but not too close, wary of the black spike of his rifle, the needle points of the armour-piercing bullets emerging from the
