The women sat in the room for hours, listening to Nettie lecturing them on the twisting of wire. The base knot, the deep brain, the emotion vectors – all those things that Susan had known instinctively were rendered obscene by the act of verbalizing. It was like the laying bare of lovers’ secrets; spoken out loud they became nothing more than a series of mechanical motions.
Worse than that, under it all, like a throbbing bass pulse, was Nyro’s philosophy, the skewed beat that drove the whole mind.
Susan’s gyros couldn’t spin properly, she felt dizzy and disoriented, as did all the others, but still nobody spoke. No one but Nettie, standing at the front of the room, declaiming in that thrilled, excited voice, laying down the pattern of Nyro‘s mind.
But the worst was still to come.
The lecture finally ended, and they were led from the room, heads spinning, and taken down the metal corridors to another room, one which was sealed with a great steel door.
The women stiffened, their electromuscle shorting with tension. They could sense something in the room beyond.
Something different.
Men.
The door opened, and they were led into the making room.
Twenty-four men were waiting there: young infantry-robots, standing in two rows before the chairs that lined both walls of the long room. The women were made to walk up the lines and forced to take their own places, kneeling before them.
Someone speak, thought Susan, as she knelt herself. The floor in here was covered in black plastic, which gave beneath her knees a little. The robot that stood before her wore a clean, unscratched body. A thin smear of oil leaked out at the joints of his knees; the plastic soles of his feet were fresh and unworn. He looked as if his body was newly built.
Nettie had followed them into the room. Her voice was more thrilling than ever, and then Susan realized that Nettie was ashamed and embarrassed too. She was trying to hide it. Well rust her, thought Susan, she’s not the one forced to kneel here.
‘Now, ladies, let us practise the first few movements! The base knot and the deep brain! Take hold of the wire and think on Nyro’s pattern as you begin the making of a mind.’
Susan looked up at the young man who stood before her. He gazed down at her awkwardly.
He doesn’t want to do this either, she realized, and then, for the first time since Axel’s death, she felt something else other than numb despair. Anger rose inside her like the bubbling, spitting steam that hisses from hot metal thrust into water. He doesn’t want to do this? So rust him! He’s part of this twisted state, but I’m not. I’m not going to do this any more. I’m going to speak up…
‘No!’
The voice wasn’t Susan’s. Another woman, down the other end of the line had stood up.
‘No!’ she repeated. ‘I’m not going to do this. I will not do this!’
Another Turing Citizen. Susan began to stand up; ready to join in with a voice of dissent, but it was already too late.
No one had noticed the Scout, polished and gleaming, who had been resting quietly in the corner of the room. Now she sprang forth, light flashing down the length of her body, her eyes extending, the blades on her hands and feet sweeping out and slicing through the body of the woman who had spoken, right down through her head. That same brave woman whose voicebox still went on speaking even as the top of her head fell to the ground.
‘Join me,’ she was saying. ‘They can’t make us allllll…’ Then her voice faded to nothing as the top of her head spun to a rest on the rubber floor, the coil of blue wire inside clearly visible, popping and curling out, ends shiny where they had been cut.
Then there was no sound but that of the stricken woman’s body collapsing to the ground in a grinding of metal.
No one spoke. All the other women looked on in horror.
‘Anyone else want to speak?’ asked the Scout, her voice thin like a blade.
The prisoners looked at each other, terrified. Susan felt her anger shrivel inside her. They can’t kill us all, she thought. Yes, they can, she realized.
‘This one moved too.’
Susan looked up in horror, yet contempt too unfolded inside her. It was her man that had spoken. The robot had looked so awkward and afraid she had almost felt sorry for him, but now she saw him for what he was: a coward and a bully, using another’s misfortune to hide his own fear, to massage his own ego.
‘You little coward,’ said Susan, her contempt now greater even than her fear. ‘You Nicolas.’
The Scout was behind her. She could feel the current from its electromuscle, so strongly. A blade hooked around her neck.
‘Shall I remove your coil too?’
A pause. Then Nettie was there. Susan didn’t turn around; conscious of the metal blade touching the wire of her coil, straining to hear the words Nettie urgently spoke to the Scout. There was a pause, and then Susan felt the blade withdraw. She heard footsteps as the Scout walked away.
Relief washed over her. She had been spared. But why?
The woman kneeling next to her was staring in her direction. Why was she looking like that? Susan had almost been killed. Why was she gazing at her with such hatred? The woman spoke, so softly that Susan barely heard the word.
‘Traitor.’
Traitor? Why had she said that? Because Susan had been spared execution? Nettie was speaking again. She raised her voice slightly. The scraping noise as the body of the woman who had dissented was being dragged from the room underscored her words.
‘Now, ladies, let’s have no more unpleasantness, shall we? Let us begin.’
Susan had never felt so alone. The woman on her left gave her a look of contempt.
The robot that Susan knelt before was gazing down at her with such a superior look as Susan reached up for his wire.
And then she realized that she couldn’t do it. Her hands dropped to her sides and she felt such a feeling of release. All her decisions had now been made, all fear had left her. She understood now: she’d rather die under the Scout’s blade. She heard a little voice behind her.
‘Please, do it. You must do it.’
Nettie. A copper hand reached forwards; a finger drew out a shape on the rubber floor. A circle. The finger reached out and placed an invisible dot at the top.
Susan stared in amazement. The same shape that Maoco O had drawn. The shape that Masur had drawn on her hand in the paint shop. Even here in Artemis City? What did it mean?
‘Please, Susan.’
Susan felt her resolve fade. Maybe it was the pleading in Nettie’s voice.
Slowly, so slowly, the male robot gazing contemptuously down at her, she reached up and began to twist metal.
Olam
Olam opened his eyes and realized that Doe Capaldi was speaking to him. Olam remembered to turn his ears back up.
‘… covered by the rock. Clear way out. Bit hard. Legs aren’t working.’
Doe Capaldi’s head was dented, his left shoulder wrenched out of alignment.
‘Need do it quickly,’ he continued. ‘Another blast twelve minutes. Farther away, but still might shake rocks further down. Got to move.’
Doe Capaldi turned and started to push at the tumbled stone behind him. Olam could see daylight through the cracks. He realized that they weren’t buried that deeply.
