the apartment and then take them.
And then get his whole family killed by the other soldiers who had invaded the rest of the rooms along the hall.
The two infantryrobots pushed him back into his apartment, into the forge room. Susan was crouching on the floor, her arms around Axel.
‘My name is Eleanor,’ said one of the robots. ‘I am a leader of the Artemisian army. Welcome to Artemis, fellow Artemisians.’
Susan attempted to say something, her voice whistling and squeaking. She tried again, and this time her voice was clear.
‘I am a citizen of Turing City,’ she said.
‘That state no longer exists,’ said Eleanor. ‘The population of this city is to be reduced by a third. Which of you will die?’
‘No!’ said Karel.
Susan gazed at him hopelessly. She had known, he knew. She had known.
Eleanor held her rifle aimed at the floor. ‘The woman or the boy? Which one of them dies?’
Susan gazed up at him. ‘I love you, Karel.’ Her voicebox whistled as she spoke.
‘Choose!’ The second infantry robot was younger, and he stabbed his rifle barrel at Karel’s head, knocking his gaze aside so that he could not focus on Susan properly. ‘Choose, choose, choose!’
‘Save my boy,’ said Karel, his own voicebox now crackling and shrieking. He looked at Susan in despair.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Eleanor turned her gun towards Susan’s head. Her finger tightened on the trigger. Susan gazed up at Karel. At the last moment, Eleanor jerked the rifle towards Axel and fired.
Axel’s head exploded in a cloud of blue wire.
Axel was dead.
The two infantryrobots left the room. Karel barely noticed their departure. Axel was dead.
Susan looked at his little body, her own covered in tangles of blue wire from his shattered head.
Her mind hadn’t yet caught up with events. All the blue wire, twisting and tangling in the night. All that blue wire of Karel’s that Susan had twisted that night, four years ago. All for this, to be blown apart by a single bullet.
Axel was dead.
Axel’s body slumped forward and fell to the floor with a clatter. Susan just knelt there, gazing at it.
Karel stared down at the body of his dead son. It still didn’t make any sense.
Axel was dead.
Karel’s son’s body lay on the floor in a slippery pool of blue wire. He saw the expression on Susan’s face, he read the fracturing of all her hopes, the death of the biggest part of her. He saw the gun of the infantryman swing in his own direction, and Karel tensed, waiting for the shot, but all the time he was thinking about his son. Had Axel suffered? Could a mind feel pain as it was expanding in an unravelling cloud of wire? Karel was himself going to die now, but he didn’t care.
‘No, these are both for collection.’ The female Artemisian had pushed the other infantryrobot’s rifle away.
‘With respect, Eleanor, it’s easier to kill the early ones and to keep the later ones. Prisoners only get in the way when you’re halfway through a clearance.’
Karel gazed at the young infantryman. How old was he? Eleven, twelve?
‘Thank you for your advice, Keogh. Nevertheless, I want you to take this man away now. See that his mind comes to no harm.’
‘I’ll do my best, but -’
‘I said only that his mind comes to no harm. Those are Kavan’s orders.’
Kavan? thought Karel. What does he know about me?
‘I’ll deal with the woman,’ continued Eleanor.
‘As you wish.’
The infantryrobot swung and fired into Karel’s left thigh. The surge of pain from the electromuscle was indescribable. The infantry man shifted his aim and fired again, and now Karel’s left bicep muscle crackled in agony.
‘Karel!’ Susan was screaming. He tried to look at her, he wanted to tell her he was okay, but the pain in his arm and leg was too great. It overwhelmed his coil, blocked the signals he tried to send to his mouth. He fumbled at the panelling on his left leg, trying to release it, to get at the electromuscle so he could unhook it.
‘Get back, Tokvah!’ Eleanor kicked Susan away from Karel. Susan fell over backwards, into the slippery pool of blue wire. She screamed.
‘Ignore her. Now stand up.’ The infantryrobot held an awl under Karel’s chin and slowly pulled it up, forcing Karel to stand, his left leg and arm exploding in pain as he did so.
‘Susan,’ said Karel. It was all there was to say.
Susan sat up, sobbing, as she peeled Axel’s blue wire from her body.
The infantryrobot began pushing him out of the room, and he took a last look at the painted walls, the scattering of tools on the floor, the distress of his wife and that tiny, broken scrap of metal on the floor that had been his son. And then he was gone, pushed out of his life in Turing City.
After that there were only fragments: disjointed pictures in his memory.
The hallway, metal doors to apartments broken and crumpled.
The stairwell, the broken body of another child, in a tangled metal heap at the foot of the steps.
Two Artemisian robots, stripping the decorative copper foil from the pillars outside the apartment block, rolling it up into bales ready for transportation back to Artemis City.
The dark streets, the bright stars above, the sounds of gunfire, the spark of cutting tools, the rolling of wheels. Dark shapes of Artemisians moving through the night, tearing the city apart.
And there, in the middle of the street, a terrible sight. It was enough to make even the young infantryrobot who pushed Karel along pause for a moment.
A City Guard lay dead on the hard-packed gangue of the road. His body was crushed and dented, exposing deep golden electromuscle of an impossibly fine weave. One of his legs was cut off below the knee, his head almost flattened. Yet he lay with his rifle in his hands, still aiming at some target down the road. A deep feeling of respectful awe crept over Karel. This robot, at least, had fought to the very end.
From somewhere to the west he heard a rending, tearing noise. The sky there lit up in brilliant whiteness, so bright it threatened to overload Karel’s eyes. A low vibration shook the metal of his body; it rumbled up through his feet, it throbbed in his electromuscles.
‘What is it?’ asked the young guard.
By way of answer the brilliant white light shorted out, leaving the night suddenly so dark by comparison. And then there was an explosion that shook the very earth, and red flames leaped up into the night.
Karel looked over to the west. He knew what it was. He knew what lay in that direction.
The fort of the City Guard had been breached. Turing City had fallen.
The ending had come so quickly. One minute he had been there in the darkness before the fort, the brilliant white bolts from the Tesla towers arcing down over him to strike the Artemisian forces that were massed just out of rifle range. He had been moving to the dance of battle, weaving through the night, forming patterns with Maoco L and Maoco P and Maoco S. Seeking out the few black-painted Storm Troopers that crept forward through the night, their bodies loaded with explosive, despatching them with a shot to the metal of their minds.
And then, the next moment, the Tesla towers seemed to be feeding back on themselves, the great white electrical bolts arcing down towards the earth and then jumping back to the towers. The current was building in
