Toby glanced at him impatiently. “She lost the real one in a car accident. If that robot had gone for her other arm she’d probably be dead by now.”
Marty flushed at Toby’s accusatory tone. “Listen, I just want to say—”
“Save it”, said Toby harshly. “We need some wood for a fire. She’s cold and she’s in shock.”
Marty nodded meekly and left. Toby unzipped Caitlin’s backpack and wrapped a blanket around her body. Caitlin moaned again, and her eyes flickered open. She realized Toby was rolling up her sleeve and her hand shot out to stop him.
“Hey, it’s okay”, Toby said soothingly and gently removed her hand.
“No… don’t…” Caitlin muttered.
“There’s nothing here that I haven’t seen already.” Toby unclipped the remains of the damaged cyber-prosthetic arm off the healed stump of her real arm and Caitlin looked away, ashamed. Toby talked as he worked, trying to put her at ease. “This won’t take a minute”, he said briskly, pulling his tool-kit out of his backpack. “I’ve deactivated all the neural connectors, so you won’t feel a thing.”
Caitlin nodded, only vaguely aware of what Toby was saying to her. His reassuring tone reminded her of someone and she suddenly realized it was his mother, Freya. She had spoken to her in the same calm, kind tone when she first been admitted to the clinic to have her cyber-prosthetic arm fitted. Toby had been with her at the fitting and the following physiotherapy sessions and Caitlin guessed he must have picked up something of her bedside manner.
Toby pulled a silver cyber-prosthetic arm from his backpack and placed it on the blanket next to Caitlin. He searched inside his toolkit and took out a small bottle of solvent and a cloth. He dampened the cloth then methodically started removing the silver paint from the arm, revealing the flesh-coloured latex underneath. He realized Caitlin was watching him. “I never thought I’d be doing this again”, he smiled.
Caitlin gave him a weak smile in return, remembering her initial surprise at seeing Toby at the clinic when she’d had her new arm fitted. It had taken her a few seconds to place Toby’s face before realizing she knew him from school; the shy, skinny boy at the back of the class who never spoke unless he was asked a question and who never seemed to have any friends.
“I skipped school so I never missed one of your sessions, did you know that?” said Toby, carefully aligning the prosthetic arm’s connectors with the neural pathways in the healed stump of Caitlin’s arm.
Caitlin nodded. She had found this out from Freya after she and Toby had become friends and she had been both touched and grateful. She had insisted to her parents that she go to the clinic alone as she was determined to be as independent as possible. But once she had arrived she was more nervous and apprehensive than she’d expected and seeing a familiar face was a welcome relief. Toby had been a dependable presence throughout her course of treatment and his kindness and unwavering support had helped her get through the worst of it.
Toby finished wiring up the neural connectors and snapped the outer casing back in place. “The thing I’ll always remember is how strong you were. I never saw you cry, not once.” Toby looked up, fixing Caitlin with his gaze. “Never cried, never complained. Just carried on like nothing had happened.”
Caitlin looked away, unsure from Toby’s tone whether this was meant as a compliment or a criticism. It was true what he said, she hadn’t cried. Not at the hospital, not at the clinic, not at home. Her whole world had fell apart overnight, but what good would crying about it do? She could scream and shout until the cows came home but would that bring her arm back?
Toby looked squarely Caitlin in the eye. “I always thought you were such a fighter.”
Caitlin shuffled uncomfortably, not acknowledging Toby’s implicit question. “I am a fighter”, she muttered. “I’ll always be a fighter.”
And in a way she felt this to be true. She had responded to her new situation with the same grim determination she applied with her karate training schedule. She put up with the pain while her arm healed, religiously did the physiotherapy exercises Toby’s mother set her, then returned to school in record time. She identified the yawning gap in her life where her karate training used to be and had met up with the trainers and asked if she could help out with the classes. They happily agreed and she soon settled into a routine of going to the institute every Tuesday and Thursday, just like she used to.
Sure there were setbacks. A lot of her so-called friends melted away when she returned to school, unable or unwilling to deal with her new disability. There was also a fair amount of prejudice towards her cyber-prosthetic arm that had taken her by surprise. Giggles and catcalls when her back was turned, robophobic graffiti sprayed on her locker. Still, she swallowed her anger and hurt, determined to have as normal life as possible. She had done her best. So why hadn’t it worked?
Toby saw that Caitlin didn’t want to talk and returned to fitting her arm. “Okay, all done”, he said briskly. “Try wriggling your fingers.”
Caitlin flexed her hand and a blade snapped out, exactly like Eve’s. She gazed at it in dismay.
“Remember this is just temporary until we get out of here”, said Toby.
Caitlin saw Eve looking curiously at her replacement arm and she smiled bleakly at Toby. “You won’t be able to tell which of us is which.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
A NIGHT IN THE PUB
De Coza’s gang had decided to make The Ten Bells their home for the night. It was the biker girls who had first suggested the idea, in fact they had insisted on it. One of the codes of the motorcycle club they belonged to was to never knowingly pass a pub or bar without going in, and even when it was explained to them that it was part of a film set and unlikely to contain alcohol, they stubbornly insisted on going inside. A pub was a pub and the odds of finding one in the middle of the jungle, hundreds of miles from anywhere was so remote, it was a crime not to. The argument would probably have continued indefinitely if McBride hadn’t noticed the power line running into the pub.
“I suppose it’s worth a try”, De Coza muttered, still in a bad mood after losing Toby, and the fire chief climbed through the broken window into the pub. He looked around the gloomy room uneasily, surrounded on all sides by the shadowy Victorian patrons. He edged past them, unnerved at being in such a crowded room where everyone was so stiff and still and silent. He saw where the power cable entered the building and followed it along the wall of the pub to a control panel behind the piano. He squeezed behind the pub pianist and flipped the power switch.
Suddenly the pub came to life, a cacophony of light and noise. The figures jerkily started moving, market porters swigging tankards of ale, bar girls drunkenly singing. McBride stared at the robots in panic then realized that they were just theme park animatronic dummies, programmed to repeat a simple cycle of movements. He flipped the switch again and the pub fell silent.
“Power’s on!” he called unnecessarily.
While Thumper and McBride ran a power line from the pub to the street outside to charge up the three robots, Coach Kennedy made a fire in the hearth using pub furniture smashed up by the biker girls as fuel. He heated some water in a copper kettle then made up a selection of trail-packs. Soon everyone was eating around the roaring grate apart from Bubba and Billy-Bob who were still in the street, tied to Blast Furnace. McBride tried arguing with De Coza, saying it was inhuman to keep two old men outside in the cold, but De Coza wouldn’t listen.
“They’re prisoners of war”, he insisted. “Agents of the Toymaker.”
“They’re two elderly professors competing in a game-show!” McBride retorted. “You’re losing your sense of perspective, Ray.”
De Coza looked at the fire chief uncomprehendingly and McBride felt a twinge of unease. Ever since they had been left alone on the island, De Coza had been acting increasingly strangely. At first he thought De Coza was just playing up for the cameras, but now he wasn’t so sure. The refuse collector seemed to be losing
his grip on reality.
De Coza remained adamant that his prisoners stayed outside so McBride had gone round the pub, collecting coats and shawls from all the animatronic figures and took them outside, along with a couple of trail-pack meals.
Bubba and Billy-Bob accepted the hot food gratefully and started to eat. McBride looked at the two old men shivering under the mound of coats and shawls and felt a pang of pity. The trek through the jungle hadn’t been kind to them. They both looked thin and exhausted, their faces burned an angry red by the sun.
“I’ll come back in half an hour with some hot drinks okay?” said McBride.
Bubba looked at him blankly and McBride suspected that he was suffering from heat-stroke. Billy-Bob didn’t acknowledge him either and McBride realized that he had dozed off, too exhausted to finish his meal. McBride looked to the ground, saddened to see the two friendly sharp-minded professors reduced to this. He’d struck up a friendship with them both on the ship and it soon became clear that Destroy All Robots wasn’t something they took too seriously. Redneck’s Revenge was just a project designed to keep their minds active during retirement and if they did happen to win, they planned on donating the prize money to the Louisiana Agricultural Institute. They were just looking for a bit of fun in their old age and would never have dreamed it would have ended like this.
Bubba finished his food and collapsed back into the mound of coats, exhausted. It suddenly flashed through McBride’s mind that he could release them, release them right now. But then what? They were in the middle of the jungle, no food, no water, they wouldn’t last five minutes.
“Don’t worry”, McBride mumbled. “It’ll all end okay, I promise.”
Bubba silently gazed up at the fire chief, the moonlight outlining his face in shadow. It looked drawn and cadaverous, the eye sockets black empty hollows. Like a corpse, McBride thought and felt a shiver run down his spine. “It’ll end okay”, he repeated and wondered who he was trying to convince, Bubba or himself.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
SOMETHING IN THE TREES
Marty stood at the edge of the clearing, not far from Toby and Caitlin, a small bundle of kindling clutched to his chest. The trees rustled, their branches eerily silhouetted against the moonlit sky and Marty looked at them uneasily. He had collected all the available twigs in the clearing, hoping that it would be enough, but clearly it wasn’t and now he was trying to summon up the nerve to venture out into the spooky jungle.
A flash of movement behind Marty and he spun round nervously. He exhaled, realizing it was just the robot dog playing on the other side of the clearing. “Hey, Scotty, get over here will you?” he called. “A guy could use a little company.”
Scotty trotted obediently over to Marty and looked curiously at the bundle of sticks in his hand. Marty grinned, struck by a sudden idea. “Wanna play a game?” he said, pointing at the forbidding jungle. “Wanna play fetch?”
Scotty cocked his head sideways, not understanding.
Marty waved one of the sticks he was carrying at the robot dog. “Go on boy! Fetch the stick!” He waved the stick again then pointed at the jungle.
Scotty looked at the dark jungle then looked at Marty again. He gave a little whine, not moving. Marty shook his head in disgust. “You need a job doing, you gotta do it yourself”, he muttered and stepped into the thick undergrowth. The jungle closed in around him and Marty stooped, picking up twigs and branches as quickly as possible. Scotty quickly caught on and started gathering sticks himself. Marty nodded approvingly. “That’s it boy, that’s the idea—”
Something rustled in the branches, high above Marty.
He jerked his head up, gazing fearfully up at the shadowy trees. A gust of wind blew past, rustling the branches and Marty shook his head at his own nervousness. He stooped to gather more twigs, then realized that Scotty hadn’t moved, his glowing eyes fixed up at the trees. The robot dog gave a whimper and Marty slowly inclined his head again, gazing up at the trees.
The rustling sound again, louder now and for a moment Marty thought he could see something moving through the tangle of branches arching over the jungle clearing. He looked at the scared robot dog again then at the tiny bundle of twigs in his arms. “This will be plenty enough”, he muttered. He turned and headed back towards the clearing. The rustling seemed to follow Marty and he broke into a run.
Back in the clearing, Toby turned as Marty emerged from the gloom, Scotty scampering after him. Marty deposited the twigs on the ground in front of Toby. “There you go”, he said breathlessly. “Firewood.”
Toby looked at the pathetic pile of twigs and glared at Marty. Marty turned away, a little ashamed. He saw Caitlin, now curled up asleep. “She okay now?” he asked.
“Why are you interested in our welfare all of a sudden?” said Toby.
Marty looked at Toby, struck by the coldness in his voice. “Honest to God, I had no idea how those robots got activated.”
Toby rose to his feet. “You know something? I don’t believe you.”
Marty looked at Toby uneasily. “Listen, I promise—”
“Why did you go back to the studio when we were at your house?”
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but—”
Toby advanced towards Marty. “What’s going on, you trying to give your show a ratings boost or something?”
Marty backed away, unnerved. Suddenly Toby didn’t look like a scrawny 15-year-old kid anymore. “Hey, I have no idea what—”
Toby grabbed Marty by the throat, slamming him into a tree. “I think you’d better start telling me the truth! You activated those robots, didn’t you?”
“I am telling you the truth!” Marty said, cringing.
Toby shook Marty until his teeth rattled. “Tell me the truth!”
“Please, I didn’t—”
“There is no ship, is there?”
“Yes there is and—”
Toby squeezed Marty’s throat, choking him.
“Okay, okay! I admit I did have the idea to keep the cameras rolling, try and salvage the situation a little when the show went up in smoke. But on my mother’s life, there is a ship and that’s exactly where I’m taking you.“
Toby looked at Marty for a long moment then shook his head in disgust. “You know what your problem is? You’ve been living on your fantasy island for so long you don’t know what’s real and what’s make-believe anymore.” He rapped Marty’s skull hard with his knuckles. “This is a reality check, Mr Shultz! We’re real people with real lives, not some of your goddamned puppets!” He pushed him aside contemptuously. “Get away from me.”
Marty looked fearfully at the jungle. “But there’s things out there.”
“Get the hell out of here!” Toby roared.
Marty slowly turned and walked away. Within seconds he was swallowed up in the gloom. From one of the trees, something watched Marty as he passed underneath. It scuttled after him, jumping from branch to branch…
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
LICENCE TO KILL
Ray De Coza had a thumping headache. Not long after dinner the biker girls had insisted that the pub pianist be turned on again and were now drunkenly dancing with the animatronic Cockneys to the tune of “Roll Out the Barrel” and “Knees Up Mother Brown”. Thumper, McBride and Kennedy had all had a few drinks themselves and were joining in with the Cockney sing-along, laughing and clapping.
De Coza scowled at them all and pointedly moved his chair to the corner of the pub and tried to plan what to do next. The trail had literally gone cold now that Blast Furnace’s tracking device had been rendered useless. There was still a good chance Badernoch was still following the same trail, judging from the smashed-up Ice Warrior robots outside, but De Coza wasn’t interested in good chances. Besides, why would Badernoch have headed for the one place he could shake them off and not take the opportunity? It didn’t make sense.
De Coza checked his watch and saw that it was approaching midnight. He had exactly one an
d a half days to find the Toymaker and stop him before he launched his next terror campaign. He couldn’t afford to lose Badernoch now. But how to find him? De Coza frowned, sensing he was missing something obvious. He wracked his brains and suddenly the answer came to him. He turned the idea over in his mind, then walked over to Gilbert and Kenneth Scannell.
The two dentists were sitting in the opposite corner of the pub, sullenly sharpening the shorn-off Tooth fairy appendages they were clutching. Both of the twins had taken the destruction of their robot badly and appeared to be an a state of bereavement. They carried the shorn-off robot limbs wherever they went, obsessively polishing the steel plating and sharpening the tooled tips. At first De Coza thought they habitually carried them as weapons, but now he suspected it was for more personal reasons. He remembered when his mom died of cancer several years ago he began carrying her wedding ring in his wallet. Having a memento of her was somehow reassuring, like a piece of her was still with him, and he guessed the strange dentists derived a similar level of comfort from carrying the robot limbs.
De Coza cleared his throat to gain Gilbert and Kenneth’s attention. “I’ve been thinking about that metal mutt Badernoch’s got hanging around with him”, he said, doing his best not to look at their faces which were pock-marked with scabbed piranha bites. Neither of the twins looked up from their spear sharpening but De Coza sensed they were listening to him. “Any ideas on how we could track it down?”
The question hung in the air.
Gilbert slowly looked up and his head swivelled towards the pub window. Bubba and Billy-Bob were just visible, huddled against Blast Furnace. “Perhaps our friends outside could help shed some light on the subject, Kenneth?”
Kenneth sharpened his spear with increased enthusiasm. “An excellent notion, Gilbert. Although I suspect they might not be entirely forthcoming about their canine creation.”
“I’m sure we could be persuasive…”
“If the situation demanded…”
They looked up at De Coza hopefully, their reptilian eyes bulging.