Inside the fortress, an elderly security guard called Hinks sat inside a small gatehouse, situated to the side of the entrance. He was absorbed with a car magazine and was paying scant attention to the gates and the bank of CCTV monitors stacked before him. The two white-coated figures tiptoed past him.
“Passes,” grunted Hinks, not looking up from his magazine.
Lloyd froze and made a pantomime of searching his pockets. “Er, I seemed to have mislaid…”
Hinks looked up from his magazine and eyed the two teenagers suspiciously. Lloyd gave him a smile and pulled a laminated ID card from his jeans pocket. “Maybe this will suffice. It’s my ID card from the Georgia State Hospital. I’m Dr Tunney and this is my esteemed colleague, Dr Dawson.”
Hinks scrutinized Lloyd’s identity card. “Says Janitor here.”
Lloyd edged around the security desk and pointed at the card. “No… See, Dr?”
Hinks squinted at the card. “Looks to me like someone’s scribbled out the ‘J A N I T’ and tried to turn the ‘O’ into a ‘D.’”
“No… sir…”
“You two guys to stay put”, Hinks said, reaching for his walkie-talkie. “I’m gonna get someone sent over.”
“You’re gonna make us late for the competition!” Lloyd protested. “We’ve got a lot riding on our robots here.”
“What robots?”
Lloyd propelled Dale forwards with a sweep of his arm. “Dr Dawson, if you’d care to do the honours.”
Dale pulled a small oblong box from his pocket labelled EXPERIMENTAL NANOBOTS – FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. Lloyd took it from him and shook it vigorously and from inside came the sound of angry buzzing.
“Hear ‘em getting all riled up?” said Lloyd, giving the box another shake. He beckoned the security guard to him, cracking open the box lid. Hinks peered inside and saw that it contained a slender hypodermic syringe nestled inside a protective foam tray. The chamber of the syringe was filled with tiny black granules that writhed and undulated like they were somehow alive. He watched the microscopic black dots, fascinated, as they rattled against the walls of their glass prison, trying to escape.
“There’s billions of ’em in there”, Lloyd whispered. “Specially made for dismantling cancer cells. Ferocious little critters, these minibots could chew their way through a whole cancer ward and still have room for breakfast.”
“Minibots?” said Hinks, checking the label on the lid. “Don’t you mean nanobots?”
Lloyd gave Hinks an irritated look. “I know what they’re called, buddy, I’m the one who invented ’em! Damn near won me the Nobel Prize, ain’t that right, Dale?” He turned to his friend and Dale inwardly cursed, wishing he’d never set eyes on the damned nanobots.
It had all started quietly enough, several weeks earlier at the Georgia State Hospital where he and Lloyd worked the night shift as janitors. They were the only human cleaners in the hospital, working alongside a fleet of cleaning robots that continuously patrolled the corridors, polishing and disinfecting wherever they went. The robots generally did a more thorough job than their human counterparts, but Lloyd and Dale were popular with the patients, many of whom hated robots, and so were kept on to clean the wards.
Even though the rest of the hospital was strictly out of bounds the two janitors had master keys for every building in the complex and once all the doctors and professors had gone home, they both took great delight in exploring the other departments. Georgia State Hospital was a major teaching hospital where a lot of important research was done and there always seemed to be something interesting to discover, particularly in the restricted areas.
It was during one of these late night expeditions that they found the nanobots in the cancer research lab. Lloyd had jokingly suggested they steal the nanobots and enter them into the Destroy All Robots competition and they had spent an enjoyable night, propped up against their mops, imagining what they would do with the $10-million prize money. They came back to the cancer lab the following night and then the night after that, the conversation always returning to the nanobots. Neither of them was serious about stealing them of course, it was just a good way to relieve the tedium of the night shift. They discussed in detail the specifics of the crime; how they would get the nanobots past hospital security, the fastest way to get out of the country before the theft was discovered, the safest route to the Toymaker’s island. And as the competition drew nearer, the daydream slowly but surely evolved into a plan.
Dale saw Hinks reaching for his walkie-talkie again and realized there was no turning back now. “I think it’s time for Plan B, Lloyd”, he said.
“Plan B it is”, agreed Lloyd cheerfully then shoved Hinks, sending him sprawling. “Run!”
They both sprinted past the gatehouse into the fortress.
CHAPTER TEN
ALL ABOUT EVE
Further inside the fortress, Marty continued with his guided tour, leading Toby and Caitlin down a long concrete corridor towards the robot workshops. He passed a metal booth, the size of a telephone kiosk bolted to the wall and paused, his expression serious. “Now, I’m sure Brad went through all this on the ship, but all audio-visual equipment is prohibited here. No videos, no cameras, those cell phones with the 3-D cam inside?” He gravely shook his head. “Any calls you wanna make to the folks back home, you make from this.” He patted the exterior of the holo-phone booth. “It’s constantly monitored, so watch what you say.”
Marty gave them both a stern look to show that he meant business. The matter of security had been a real problem for him in the lead up to the competition. The show had created a lot of interest in the media and several of the tabloid newspapers had offered big money for a sneak preview of the robot competitors. Sure enough, the robot audition tapes mysteriously vanished from the LA production office, and the following day the National Enquirer ran an exclusive on the show, complete with photographs. Worse still, the tapes were leaked on the internet, effectively destroying much of the buzz that Marty had been trying to create. Since then he had become paranoid about secrecy, even to the point of banning all cell phones from the island.
Toby and Caitlin nodded meekly and Marty started walking again, leading them through a large set of double doors into a cavernous open-plan workshop. Toby looked around the dim and greasy room and saw that it had been partitioned up into workstations, each section housing a bench, mechanical and electronic tools and a recharging bay. Every team had their own workstation and most were already busily unpacking and assembling their robots.
“We’ve put you down here”, said Marty, leading Toby and Caitlin to a section at the end of the room.
Toby saw that his robot was waiting for him, the long crate lying on the work-bench. Marty watched with interest as Toby unfastened the crate. “So that’s your dummy in there?”
Toby slid open the lid, revealing Eve, a beautiful silver android dressed in a figure-hugging catsuit. A small visual display unit was sewn into her breast pocket. “She’s no dummy”, said Toby, lovingly lifting Eve out of the crate. “Inside of that pretty head of hers is a processor programmed with the finest wargaming software this side of the Pentagon. She knows the moves of every robot in this room, their strengths, their weaknesses, their tactics.” He gazed at Eve fondly, absently running a hand through her long silver hair.
Marty winked at Caitlin. “When they tie the knot, you’ll send me an invite, won’t you?”
Caitlin didn’t return Marty’s smile and he shrugged, sensing that this was a sore point. “Okay, I’ll let you get your girlfriend ready for her close-up”, he said, glancing at his watch. “Speaking of which, I’m late for my intro. I’ll see you both later.”
Toby grunted without looking up and Marty left.
Caitlin suddenly became aware that the echoey clang of spanner against metal had ceased. She turned and saw that every roboticist in the room had stopped working and was watching Toby as he prepared Eve for the competition. She remembered that owing to Toby’s
late entry on the show, he hadn’t been present for the robot auditions and so had escaped having his robot leaked on the internet. This was the first time anyone had seen Eve.
One by one the other competitors returned to their robots. Everyone wore the same fanatical expression as Toby and the room thrummed with suppressed excitement. Caitlin guessed that every team had probably been preparing for this moment for months if not years. She watched them all toil lovingly over their robots and suddenly she felt very left out.
“Why did you have to tell him I’m the under-16’s karate champion?” she asked Toby abruptly.
Toby looked up in surprise. “Well you are, aren’t you? Technically?”
“I just wish you wouldn’t tell people that.”
“Okay, okay”, Toby muttered, his attention returning to Eve.
Caitlin shook her head moodily and looked around the dingy room again. “Three days of luxury on a tropical island”, she muttered. “I think I’m going to sue the tour operator.”
Toby looked up again. “All right, I may have taken a bit of poetic licence. But I had sell you the trip somehow.”
“Yeah? I didn’t know it was so important to you. You always seem so… preoccupied these days.”
“Of course it’s important to me”, said Toby, resuming his tests on Eve’s mechanical and electrical systems. “I know we only ever seem to see each other at school these days, but it’s been tough meeting the deadline for the show.”
Caitlin didn’t answer, somehow feeling hurt. She and Toby hadn’t been friends for long, probably less than a year, but in that time they had become very close. It was a friendship that on paper should never have worked. They were polar opposites, Toby quiet and reclusive, always holed up somewhere working on some science project, while she was sporty and outgoing, with a wide circle of friends. A lot of her friends on the team teased her about her ‘geek boyfriend’, but she didn’t mind. No one apart from herself seemed to see that Toby’s nerdy exterior disguised a kind heart and a dry sense of humour. She was just fine keeping Toby for herself.
Then Eve came along.
Caitlin remembered the first time Toby had introduced her to the robot, indeed it was difficult to forget the occasion. She had never been inside Toby’s bedroom before and she shuddered at the memory; it was like stepping into a morgue or the den of a serial killer. Untidy piles of pink body parts were strewn everywhere, stacked up on shelves, spilling out of the wardrobe and littering the floor. Toby, who wasn’t squeamish and barely noticed the severed hand collection on his bedside table, or the internal organs coiled over his bed-post, was quick to reassure her that these weren’t real body parts but artificial ones he had scavenged from the stockroom of his mother’s clinic.
While Caitlin was still getting over her shock, Toby had excitedly dragged her to what looked like a decapitated corpse laid out on his desk and told her that for the past two years he had secretly been building a robot for the Destroy All Robots competition. Caitlin was initially doubtful that Toby could pull off such an ambitious project but Toby assured her he had the technical ability. He was already an accomplished roboticist after years of assisting his mother at her clinic and carrying out his own experiments in his bedroom; dismantling limbs and organs, analysing how they worked and then reassembling them to his own design. Luckily his mother, who would have serious objections to the project, had long ago abandoned going into his bedroom, allowing Toby to create his robot unhindered.
And that was the last Caitlin had seen of Toby out of school. After swearing her to secrecy he had ushered her out of his bedroom, shut the door and effectively shut her out of his life.
Caitlin watched as Toby fussed over Eve and she couldn’t help feeling a pang of… what? Jealousy was too strong a word for it. She had never felt any physical attraction towards Toby, he just wasn’t her type. And besides, how could you be jealous of a machine?
Toby realized that Caitlin had gone quiet and looked up from his tinkering. “Seriously, Caitlin, I really appreciate you supporting me like this. I know you’re not exactly the show’s number one fan. To be honest I was surprised when you suddenly decided to come along. What made you change your mind?”
Caitlin looked away, not answering.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE ROBOT RIOTS
Stacey Lasalle hurried down the corridor towards the robot workshops, cursing Bill Hacker every step of the way. She’d had her doubts about her co-presenter from the beginning; as far as she was concerned he was a washed-up old ham with an unprofessional reputation and her misgivings had been proved correct. His prima donna act in LA had totally wrecked her carefully planned schedule and she now had less than three hours to interview all eight teams before the show went out live at midday. Not to mention film Marty’s introduction, which she hoped he’d forgotten about.
She paused for a second to give Jimmy and Chris, her camera crew, a chance to catch up, then resumed jogging down the corridor. Presenting Destroy All Robots was the big break she’d been waiting for, and she was damned if she was going to let Hacker jeopardize it. Her natural good looks had proved both a blessing and a curse in Hollywood as she had quickly got work as an actress but only in bimbo, airhead roles. Only Marty realized Stacey’s long blonde hair and statuesque figure disguised her less obvious qualities—a sharp mind and an ability to think on her feet—and had been willing to take a chance on her.
Stacey turned the corner and swore, seeing Marty hurrying towards her. “Hey Marty”, she called. “Um, I was thinking we could maybe reschedule your introduction until later.”
“Reschedule my introduction?” repeated Marty. He firmly shook his head. “Now I was thinking we could film it in my office in front of the awards cabinet”, he said, bustling Stacey up the stairs. “Give the whole thing a touch of gravitas, don’t you think?”
“I guess”, said Stacey unenthusiastically.
Marty glanced behind them, checking Chris and Jimmy were out of earshot, then leaned towards Stacey. “Actually, I’ve been hoping I could have a quiet word with you. It’s about Bill.”
Stacey bristled at the mention of Hacker. “What’s he done now?”
“Nothing, nothing”, said Marty hastily. “It’s… Well just be prepared to take over in case he dries-up on camera.”
Stacey looked at Marty shrewdly, realizing there was something he wasn’t telling her. “He’s drinking again, isn’t he?”
Marty shuffled uncomfortably, not answering.
“Dammit, Marty!” Stacey exploded. “Major Hacker’s turning out to be a major pain in the ass!”
“I know”, said Marty smoothly. “But this is exactly the sort of crisis I had in mind when I hired you. You’re smart, you’re spontaneous, you’re—”
“Okay, okay”, said Stacey, aware that Marty was buttering her up but feeling pacified anyway. She followed Marty down the corridor, turning the Hacker situation over in her mind. If the old drunkard fluffed his lines when they went out live, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. There was no way they could ship another presenter in at this short notice so she’d have to present the show on her own. Which would mean more responsibility, more exposure, and more money. Not a bad result all round.
Feeling a little happier, Stacey followed Marty into his office.
Stacey nodded to Marty, indicating that they were ready to start filming and he swivelled round on his leather executive chair towards a video monitor behind him. He pressed a remote control and news footage of a riot outside a robot manufacturing plant began to play. An angry mob brandishing placards pushed through a police cordon protecting the factory and started smashing up delivery trucks. Marty thumbed the remote again, freezing the video then zoomed in on a demonstrator holding a placard that read “DESTROY ALL ROBOTS!”
“There it is in black and white”, he announced, spinning around impressively in his chair to face the camera. “Destroy All Robots. Watching the robot riots on the news back in 2035 and seeing tha
t sign was a defining moment for me. I realized that if I could create a TV show, devise some sort of… arena, if you will, where people could channel their aggression and animosity towards robots in a safe and harmless fashion it would act as a sort of safety valve for society.”
Stacey nodded, secretly marvelling how Marty could keep a straight face while spouting such self-serving claptrap. Everyone knew that Destroy All Robots was trash TV of the first order with no socially redeeming features whatsoever. Violent crime against robots had actually increased since they first started broadcasting the teaser clips, although Stacey valued her job too much to bring this up in the interview. She knew that this so-called introduction was just an opportunity for Marty to defend the show from its detractors.
Stacey frowned thoughtfully as if Marty had spoken words of great wisdom. “So when people say the show is gratuitous, robophobic, pandering to the very worst in humanity…?”
Marty leaned forwards, his face a study in self-righteous indignation. “They’re missing the whole point! Let’s put it this way, you tell me which is best? A man taking a baseball bat to a Traffic Regulator that’s just stolen his job and pushed his family over the poverty line? Or him watching one of our robots on the show do the job for him?”
He settled back into his seat with a satisfied air and Stacey realized that this was her cue to terminate the interview. She turned to the camera with a professional smile. “Thank you, Marty Shultz.”
The red light on the camera faded and Marty rose to his feet. “I think that went very well, don’t you?”
Stacey nodded, trying not to catch Jimmy’s eye who was grinning broadly. “We’d better crack on with the competitor interviews.”
“Make ’em short and sweet”, said Marty, tapping his gold Rolex watch. “The clock’s ticking.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MEET THE COMPETITORS
Stacey strode into the robot workshop, mentally planning the first of her eight interviews. This was for the behind-the-scenes segment of the program, showcasing the real people hoping to win the $10-million prize money. Even though Destroy All Robots was dressed up to look like reality TV, with the competitors pretending to be patriotic roboticists doing their bit to fight the evil Toymaker, it was ultimately a game show, and the audience always liked to know who they were rooting for.