Scrap, p.5
SCRAP, page 5
The mayor turned away from the window, glancing briefly at a wall of screens, relaying footage from the dozens of video-drones which patrolled the city, and made her way to the other side of the room. Dominating the space was her own operating table, surrounded by containers filled with enough parts to build a dozen cases – everything she needed to upgrade, away from prying eyes.
“Madame Mayor?” said a voice as the door to her office swung open. With a sudden whirr, Mayor Highshine’s outer shell closed around her, an armour of gleaming silver. Only then did she turn to face the doorway.
“Is it the worst thing in the world that I ask you to knock before bursting in, Domo?” she asked. “What if someone saw my recent improvements?”
“Yes, of course – sorry, of course,” muttered the spindly green robot. He rolled anxiously backwards on wheeled feet and closed the door behind him. A moment later, there came a knock.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake – come in, Domo!” said the mayor with an exasperated sigh. The door opened and the mayor’s deputy rolled cautiously into the room. Mayor Highshine strode towards him, her majestic silver case all the grander for the scarlet cloak draped over her shoulders. “All I mean is, we must be cautious. If even a dust-drone found out my secret, our bold endeavour might be put at risk.”
“It won’t happen again, Madame Mayor,” Domo said earnestly. He tapped the side of his head, a long antenna extending from his left ear. “I have B6-KL waiting on line two. She insists on talking to you.”
“Buckle? How lovely,” said the mayor delightedly, glancing down at the blinking light on her wrist radio. “Oh, don’t look so jealous, Domo,” she added without looking up. “You’ve been my right-hand ’bot for far longer than she ever was. I’m sure she’s happier playing the good Samaritan in the Outskirts than she was helping me to spearhead a robot revolution. What’s she after anyway? Have the lights gone out at Bad Knees again?”
“No, Madame Mayor,” said Domo hesitantly. He continued in hushed tones. “She wanted me to remind you of the so-called ‘mystery of the missing core’.”
Harmony Highshine froze.
Seven seconds of silence.
“King…?” she said at last. “King’s core?”
“The doctor believes – and I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Domo continued. “She believes she has located K1-NG.”
“…Located? You mean, she’s found his core? Where? On the Piles? How did it get there? How did she come by it?”
“Not just – it was an actual robot, Madame Mayor – with K1-NG’s core inside,” explained Domo. “Buckle claims to have treated a junk case from the Piles, and patched him up with a new arm. He called himself, wait for it, ‘Scrap’. Buckle found him to have, and I’m quoting her here, ‘a lot of heart’ – a core the like of which she has never seen.”
“‘Scrap’…” said the mayor, trying out the name. “Did she access his core? Did she confirm it was King?”
Domo shook his head. “She didn’t get his core-code, so she cannot know for sure,” replied Domo. “Nor can I imagine that K1-NG would be happy to live as a junk case. There is surely no worse fate for a once-mighty mechanoid! I for one suspect the doctor is mistaken. She’s probably been out in the desert for too long – all that sun and dust may be getting to her.”
“If Buckle says it’s him, it’s him,” Highshine insisted. “Is he still with her?”
“No, Madame Mayor. The doctor just watched him and two more junk cases stow aboard a hovertrain bound for the city.”
“He’s coming here?” the mayor said, her voice shaking a little. She pressed a button on her wrist radio, cutting off Dr Buckle’s call, and began to pace up and down, her cape swishing behind her. “OK, let me get this straight – ten years ago, King’s core mysteriously vanishes from his battered, beaten case, only to suddenly reappear in a junk case ten years later? How? And why would he return to the city?”
“To the scene of his defeat? Revenge is as likely a motivation as any, is it not? Without you, Madame Mayor, there would have been no revolution…”
“…And King would not have been defeated.” Highshine placed her hand on her core. “So in the end, he’ll come for me?”
“We must assume so,” said Domo nervously. “Shall I radio the sheriff?”
“The brightest thing about Sheriff Niner is his badge – he’ll only make things worse.” The mayor rested her thumb and forefinger on her chin in thought. “Keep your enemies close and your nemesis closer, Domo. We must keep a watchful eye on this ‘Scrap’ and hope that he reveals his intentions to us. You never know, we might even be able to offer him something to live for other than revenge.”
“Like what?” Domo asked.
“Upgrades, of course,” the mayor replied with a smile. “Get me K11-LU.”
Gnat was asleep in less than a minute.
As the hovertrain sped towards New Hull, Scrap and Paige stared out of the top of the carriage into a bright green-blue sky, doing their best to avoid eye contact.
“Y’know, I really can’t help you,” Scrap said at last. “I know your sister thinks I’m—”
“Gnat still believes in Father Christmas.” Paige spat out her interruption. “If you’re the King of the Robots, we’re as good as dead. No offence.”
“…None -zk- taken,” Scrap replied. Paige took a green ration ball out of her satchel and began chewing it joylessly.
“Mum never even got to test the core tracer,” she continued. She looked down at the armguard on her wrist and tapped one of its small screens. “The chance of it being able to pinpoint a specific core somewhere on this Somewhere is a thousand to one. It must have locked on to you by accident.”
“…Must’ve,” Scrap muttered.
Paige peered at the screen. “Is this right? Are we heading west?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I guess we’re going in the right direction.”
“Right direction for what? There’s nothin’ for you in New Hull besides trouble.”
“Not the city – the right direction for the ship,” said Paige flatly.
“Ship?” grunted Scrap. “What ship? What are you -zk- talkin’ about?”
Paige paused for a moment, a shiver of mistrust running down her spine.
“The rocket ship that brought all the robots here,” she said at last. “It’s still on Somewhere Five One Three. That’s the mission. Find the ship and get off-world. Find the Pink-Footed Goose.”
Scrap winced at the words. Memories that he had buried at the back of his brain-frame wrestled their way to the fore once again. So much had changed since he first set off for Somewhere 513, full of hope and determination, ready to claim this world for the humans and ready it for their arrival. So much change, and all of it bad.
“For cog’s sake – the Pink-Foot? The Pink-Foot is your mission?” he hissed. “That ship is on the other side of the -zk- planet! It’s in the middle of the Elsewhere!”
“I know,” said Paige, checking that Gnat was still asleep.
“Slap bang in the no-return belly of the Badlands!”
“I know. Keep your voice down.”
“You ever been to the Elsewhere? No, you haven’t – ’cause if you had, you’d be dead and dusted. If the meteor storms or hot hail doesn’t kill you, the glowsharks or batrillas will! Word has it, everythin’ in the Elsewhere wants you dead!”
“I said keep your voice—”
They both froze as Gnat rolled over with a throaty snore, then immediately fell back asleep. With her eyes still on her sister, Paige took a deep breath and said, “Well, that’s the mission.”
“A wild pink-footed goose chase, is what it is!” Scrap hissed. “So what’s the plan? Get the ship space-worthy, swing by the Foxhole to pick up your -zk- mum and then jet off to the nearest spaceport? The Pink-Foot doesn’t even have life-support!”
“Clause nineteen-nine of the Automated Colonization Provision Code,” said Paige, reciting the text with less effort than it took Scrap to remember the plants in his flower bed. “All robot ships must be fitted with five functional stasis pods in case said ship is called upon to divert its course for the purposes of retrieving or rescuing a life form or life forms in distress.”
“But that ship was stripped for parts and left to rot years ago – you’ve more chance of gettin’ off-world by flappin’ your -zk- arms than getting the Pink-Foot to fly.”
Paige’s small shrug was heavy with doubt but her reply was plain, slow and defiant.
“I guess that’s why Mum thought we needed help.”
“Your mum wasn’t thinking at all!” insisted Scrap. “I mean, you’ve been out in the world for three days and you’re -zk- already being hunted. What you need is to go home, back to the Foxhole – it’s the only safe place on the planet for you. Your -zk- mum must’ve been—”
“You don’t know anything about my mum,” Paige interrupted.
“I know no one in their right mind would send you out into the—”
“You don’t know anything about my mum!” repeated Paige. “And you don’t know me either! I can find that ship with or without you or the ‘King of the Robots’ or anyone else. I don’t need help.”
“I was just sayin’—” Scrap began.
“Well, don’t,” Paige said firmly. “When we get to wherever this train is going, I’ll make sure Gnat leaves you alone. You go your way, we’ll go ours.”
Scrap scratched his head … sighed as he discovered another dent.
“Fine,” he said. “OK then.”
He watched Paige shove the rest of the ration ball in her mouth and lean back against the wall. Even if she was too stubborn and too stupid to go home, Scrap thought, she was right about one thing – she and her sister were better off on their own than with him, and he was OK with that. Maybe if he was something – anything other than “Scrap” – he could have helped them. But as it was, he was the junkiest junk case he’d ever seen. He was in no fit state to help anyone.
Of course he also knew that Paige and Gnat didn’t stand the slightest chance of making it across the Elsewhere to the Pink-Footed Goose.
The humans’ mission was over before it had begun.
Paige did her best to stay awake, but before long exhaustion got the better of her.
Trying his best to ignore the humans’ gurgling snores, Scrap let his mind wander. The journey gave him plenty of time to wonder how on Somewhere he’d managed to find himself on a train with the two children of the human who had built him. Gnat seemed to genuinely believe he was the King of the Robots. After all these years, someone still believed he had what it took to be a hero.
Scrap shook his head at the thought of it. He knew Gnat’s misplaced faith in him couldn’t last. Even if he wanted to help the humans, which he didn’t – he didn’t – how could he help anyone in this useless, good-for-nothing case? How could he hope to take them across the Elsewhere to whatever remained of the Pink-Footed Goose, and finally get them and their mother off-world? No, Paige was right – they were better off without his help. He should go home. He should go to his Pile.
He should go back to where he belonged.
Two hours and eighteen minutes of snoring later, Paige woke with a pained wail.
“…You all right?” asked Scrap. “You were dreamin’.”
Paige rubbed her eyes, and immediately checked on Gnat. Still fast asleep. After a moment she said, “Don’t you sleep?”
“Every now an’ then, to pass the time,” Scrap replied. Another minute went by, then he added, “What did you -zk- dream?”
“Why?”
“Didn’t sound like it was -zk- much fun.”
Paige stared out of the carriage.
“Me and Gnat were on the roof of this big house,” she said after a moment. “Across all these fields, far off, was another house, and on that roof were a whole load of other people, and we knew we had to get to that other house. But in the fields were these giants – big, huge giants, roaming the fields and we had to get past them. So the people started turning into birds – into hummingbirds – and flying across the fields. At first the giants didn’t notice.” Paige paused.
“At first?” Scrap prompted her.
“Then they looked up, and there were all these hummingbirds flying overhead,” Paige continued. “The giants, they started to lick the ends of their fingers. They swung their arms up through the air and if they touched the hummingbirds, the birds stuck to the spit on their fingertips. Then the giants licked the birds straight off their fingers and ate them.”
“Well, that’s … disgusting.”
“Suddenly me and Gnat were turning into hummingbirds, and I know there’s nothing else for it, we’re going to have to fly over the giants … then I woke up.”
Scrap saw tears welling in Paige’s eyes.
“It was just a dream,” he said, quickly. “Humans think dreams are their brains trying to give ’em therapy,” added Scrap. “But they don’t mean anythin’.”
Paige looked down at Gnat, still sleeping soundly.
“…Yeah,” she said. Then, “Do you dream?”
“You think humans have got the monopoly on unconscious hallucinations?” Scrap grunted. With a sad sigh he added: “Yeah, I dream.”
“Can’t you just turn them off?” Paige asked.
“You first,” replied Scrap. In the gloom he saw Paige smile. Then it fell from her face as quickly as it had come.
“The ship,” she said after a moment. “Do you know where it is?”
“The Pink-Foot? No. And even if I did, which I don’t, there’s not a ’bot on Five One Three who can get you there safely. An’ that includes— Wait. Shhh.”
The hum of the hovertrain had suddenly deepened.
“The train’s slowing down…” whispered Paige, grabbing her disguise.
Scrap glanced up out of the carriage. He could already see New Hull’s cube-constructed buildings reaching into the sky above them.
“The city…” he muttered. “We’re here.”
Paige had barely squeezed her helmet back on her head when the hovertrain came to an abrupt halt. “What do we do?” she whispered, giving Gnat a sharp shake.
“I’m Gnat-Bot Ninety-Nine!” blurted Gnat, sitting up with a wave of her arms.
“Shhh!” said Paige, grabbing Gnat’s arm and giving it a squeeze.
“New Hull’s goin’ to be crawlin’ with ’bots – I don’t want anythin’ to do with ’em and if you know what’s good for you, neither do you,” whispered Scrap. “Just keep your helmets on and your limbs out of sight. We sneak out the way we came in and then—”
“We split up,” interrupted Paige. “Me and Gnat go right, you go left.”
“Sure … fine … good,” said Scrap. “Split up and -zk- run.”
“And then meet up later and find the ship and get Mum,” added Gnat happily. “This is a best plan.”
“OK, on the count of three,” he whispered. “One … two—”
“Wait,” said Paige, glancing down at her core tracer. “There’s something out there. Something—”
In a flash, a blur of coiling, metal tendrils rushed over the top of the carriage. It took less than a moment for Scrap, Paige and Gnat to be ensnared, the tendrils twisting swiftly around them. While the humans had the breath squeezed out of their lungs, Scrap struggled against the tightening coils. Once he would have been able to break free with a simple flex of his arms. Now he heard an unnerving creak as his fragile frame began to buckle. An instant later, all three of them were hoisted off the floor and wrenched out of the carriage.
Scrap looked down and came face to face with the tendril’s owner.
It was a robot.
A big one.
“You’re on my train,” the robot said. “And I’m gonna kill you.”
“Get … back!”
Paige’s cry was as defiant as she could muster, breathless in the grip of robotic tendrils. Scrap saw her arm was raised high above her head – she was brandishing one of the hunter’s grenades. “Kill you first!”
“Don’t!” Scrap hollered. In an instant, all three of them fell to the ground, the robot’s tendrils uncoiling as fast as they had snared them. The robot stumbled back, its tendrils whipping like wind-blown hair around its tall, gleaming frame.
“Whoa! Have you lost the pot?” boomed the robot. “What’s the pig idea?”
“Kill you!” Paige’s growl was animalistic as she got to her feet. She gripped the grenade tighter and put herself between the robot and her sister. “I’ll kill you first!”
“Kill? What are you— Oh, I see,” the robot declared, slapping a tendril against her forehead with a dull clang. “That’s my name – Gunner K11-LU … but my friends call me Gunner Kill-U.”
“Wait, what?” Scrap howled. He spun towards Paige. “Paige, wait! Don’t do it!”
Scrap heard Paige’s fraught, panicked breaths beneath her disguise, ready to blow them to kingdom come.
“Paige…?” said Gnat, looking up at her through her helmet. Finally Paige took her thumb off the detonator.
“You know, this actually isn’t the first time I’ve caused a ruckus just by introducing myself,” the robot confessed. “Now I come to think of it, it’s not even the thirtieth.”
“It’s the best name ever,” added an impressed Gnat.
Scrap found himself gazing at Gunner. He would never forget the K11s – the robot rebels’ first line of defiance in the so-called Difference of Opinion. But while this robot was easily as tall as a K11, she looked nothing like those broad-shouldered, battle-ready cases of yesteryear – her shimmering royal-blue case was lean and striking, and so brightly polished that she almost seemed to glow. Her oval, three-eyed head sat upon a long, curved torso tapering to blade-like legs, which bowed backwards like crescent moons. Dozens of long, brightly coloured tendrils flowed from the back of her head, constantly moving like impatient snakes. Two disc-shaped drones hovered around her, their sole purpose to brush flecks of dust from her case, or polish here and there to maintain her breathtaking gleam.
