At the bottom, James dragged his mute brother down the main hallway and through a side door to the alley. Making sure nobody was watching, he laid him beside a dumpster that squatted on an oil slick of its own offal.
This is where the ambulance people would find him.
“Nnngh,” said Mike, eyes half-open.
They might wonder what happened to him. They might not. Even if the police bothered to come looking, they wouldn’t care much about a dirtbag like Skinny Mike. Assumptions would be made. Attention would be paid elsewhere.
Drug deal gone wrong. Case closed.
The money from the robbery was safely hidden in a hole in the apartment ceiling. Only Special Automatic could reach it.
“Get well soon, Mikey,” said James. “I’ll be here when you’re better.”
Skinny Mike had no response. Instead, he took deep breaths, mouth half-open, a sheen of drool collecting on his lower lip.
James left his brother in the alley and went back up the stairs. Reentering the apartment, he closed the door and leaned against it, taking a deep breath of his own.
It felt safer in here, as if a dangerous animal had been removed. Which was true.
James picked up his brother’s prepaid phone and dialed 9-1-1. After a moment listening, he lifted the phone to Special Automatic.
“Hello,” said the machine. “I need an ambulance on Brown and Millvale. There’s a man hurt, by a dumpster.”
James hung up the phone and disassembled it, dropping the pieces as he walked through the apartment.
Although what happened had been sudden, James felt confident. With the comfortable bulk of Special Automatic looming over him, he sat down in Mike’s La-Z-Boy. Lower lip twitching, James thought about what he wanted to do next.
And for the first time, he had the power to do it.
* * *
—
The corner boys watched in disbelief as the handicapped kid shuffled up the street. With his twisted lip, downcast eyes, and that shuffling duck walk, they relished whatever insanity had convinced him to show up.
Eyeing his friends, Marin hopped up and ambled down the sidewalk.
Marin had heard the retard had built a robot that had choked Claudell nearly to death but promptly dismissed it as made-up bullshit. Put on the line, even Claudell’s best friend had admitted that the fight hadn’t gone the way he described, telling them later that Claudell had slipped and fell and they’d made up the story to cover for it.
“Hey, Jimmy,” called Marin in a singsong voice, standing at the corner of the alleyway with his thumbs tucked into his pants. Marin had grown up with this weird kid and fought him countless times. But even if James was a mental case, it was also true he was from the same street. He deserved his one chance to run.
“You finally lost your fucking mind?”
James stopped at the other side of the alley’s mouth, keeping his eyes aimed at his feet. He had considered looking up but decided it wouldn’t matter. Struggling to push authority into his voice, James spoke.
“I’m here to collect. For Connor.”
Marin’s mouth split into a wide, gold-flecked grin. One hand flew to his forehead in disbelief and the other, out of habit, to the 9mm Glock tucked into his waistband.
“You are fucking crazy,” he said. Leaving the weapon tucked, he pointed at James. “For real. Who’s making you do this?”
James pulled his gaze up from the sidewalk and planted his dark eyes on Marin’s disbelieving, half-smiling face.
“Give me the money,” said James, inhaling. “And nobody will get hurt.”
Smile gone, Marin drew his gun. Behind him, four more boys spread out like jackals, eager to see the outcome of this joke gone wrong. Stone-faced, Marin aimed his weapon and took a step closer.
“You wanna die?” he asked James, unaware of the silver arm snaking out of the alleyway. Special Automatic clamped a fist onto Marin’s chest, audibly snapping his collarbone, and yanked his flailing body into the alley. Two expensive sneakers remained on the sidewalk, unlaced, perfectly clean, and still facing James.
Marin’s weapon fired once, wildly, into the air.
James turned and quietly walked back to the row house where he lived. He did not run because he knew it would cause the corner boys to chase him. Instead, he let them rush into the alley to find Marin.
As he walked, the look on James’s face was thoughtful.
In the alleyway, Marin was pressed against the brick wall, face-to-face with an expressionless monster made of scuffed plastic and metal. With a shake, it knocked the boy’s head against the brick and then everything began to feel like a dream.
“Leave the money in Mike’s mail slot,” it said, voice purring, reasonable and calm. “From now on. Do you understand?”
Marin opened his mouth and accidentally coughed blood onto the thing’s face. He could tell something was fucked in his chest. His neck felt like someone was fishing a red-hot wire coat hanger through it and trying to unlock something in his rib cage.
“Yuh—yes,” gasped Marin, heels scraping against the wall through his socks. “Yes, fuck.”
The hulking contraption dropped Marin to the ground in front of his astonished friends. Motors whining with power, it surveyed the boys without fear. Then, it shuffled away with slow steps, saying nothing, its unnaturally long arms hanging at its sides.
Marin waved at his boys.
“No,” he croaked. “Leave it.”
A block away, James walked into the row house and headed for the metal back door. He noticed the cloying smell of perfume and cigarette smoke in the long hallway, but dismissed it. Reaching the door, he met Special Automatic in the alley. As he turned to lead the machine back inside, James felt fingers digging into his shoulder. Someone had been waiting for him, hiding on the stairs.
Someone strong.
“Where’s your brother?” asked Connor.
The bald man’s bulk consumed most of the hallway, and he was flanked by two of his leather-jacketed bodyguards. Behind them, James heard the scrape of high heels on the lacquered wooden floor and saw Delia’s thin legs where she was waiting on the stairwell. She must have led these men here.
James said nothing, so Connor jabbed him in the shoulder with two fingers.
“Answer me, kid,” he said.
And in that moment, the boy raised his eyes.
“Mike had an accident,” he said. “He’s at West Penn.”
James’s hands had closed into fists.
“I’ll take his route,” he continued, looking up at the bald man. “I can do it.”
Connor’s eyes went wide.
“What?” he asked.
“I told you,” hissed Delia, from the stairs. “The kid is crazy. Dangerous.”
Connor pointed at the looming piece of machinery in the doorway, frozen in place but humming with potential.
“You retarded? They’ll eat you alive on the street. No science fair project is going to ever change that.”
There it was again. That word. Across all the years, and in all its variations, it had never lost its pinch.
Special Automatic turned to look down at Connor. The big man took an involuntary step back, sinking deeper into the cool, gloomy hallway. The two brutes behind him pulled weapons from their jackets and aimed them at the machine.
“No,” said Connor. “Aim at the kid.”
Two guns nosed toward James.
“How smart is that thing?” Connor asked.
“Mike said it does whatever he tells it,” called Delia from the stairs, voice echoing through a forest of leather jackets. “Calls it Special Automatic.”
Slowly, the great plastic head turned to James.
“He’s my friend,” said the boy, quietly. “He protects me.”
“Your
friend?” asked the bald man. “The kind of friend who was gonna help your dumbshit brother rob a bank?”
So Connor didn’t know that the robbery had already taken place. Mistaking James’s relief for surprise, the bald man smiled, his uneven teeth stained with nicotine.
“Take Frankenstein,” Connor said, stepping back between his men. “If the kid tries to talk to it, shoot him.”
“Please,” said James, putting a hand on the big machine’s scarred plastic forearm. “Don’t take him—”
The side of a gun popped James against the temple, jarring the lump of plastic tucked behind his ear and spreading black ink over his vision. He watched as the hallway rolled to the side, the floor coming up to meet him. After his face met the wooden floor, he wasn’t aware of much. Just a glow of yellow from somewhere high above. Gentle words. A husky synthetic voice.
“It will be okay, James,” said Special Automatic, knees dipping as the men wrestled the machine to the floor. “You are strong—”
* * *
—
The big fucking robot had not worked for shit since they took it from the kid. Connor’s guys had to drag it out of the hallway and cram its limp body into the back of an SUV. As impressive as it was when it stood around, the thing seemed pathetic without juice—a rag doll made of metal and plastic, mute, its scarred-up face lolling around on its loose neck like a fucking cripple.
Things were better once they had it back in the bar. Not that it was working, but at least Connor could have a drink while they tried to figure it out.
Making some calls, he’d scraped up the closest thing he could find to a professional. The skinny guy with glasses who had showed up—an addict, probably—was hunched over the machine where it lay across the pool table. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he tapped at the machine with electrician’s tools.
“The fuck is wrong with it?” called Connor.
The tweaker engineer just shook his head.
From the corner of the bar, one of the guys called out from a game of poker. “Give it some juice for chrissake, ya fuckin’ egghead.”
Eyeglasses glinting, the engineer glanced up. “It’s got power, all right,” he said. “Everything is online. I’m trying to figure out why it’s not doing anything.”
Connor ran fingers through his thick black hair, considering the shot of whiskey in his other hand. Something didn’t feel right. The machine was giving off a low humming sound that felt like atomic radiation.
This was turning into a bad scene.
For no reason, Connor’s mind turned to how the boy’s hands had collapsed into fists in that dark hallway. That was weird for a kid who never took his eyes off the ground, who never smiled or looked you in the face.
Kid should have been more afraid.
“It’s like it’s catatonic,” murmured the engineer. “Brain-dead.”
Delia pocketed her cell phone and hopped off the pool table, her sagging breasts bouncing around in a top that was too tight and too bright.
“All right,” she said. “I’m out of here. I gotta go see Mike. And I can’t stand looking at that…thing, no more today.”
Connor nodded, turned back to his whiskey. Tipping it to the side, he watched the amber liquid streak the thick glass.
“Can’t you turn off that fucking hum?!” Connor shouted to nobody in particular. He threw back the shot, letting the heat of it course down his throat.
The bar door squeaked on its hinges as Delia pushed it open. For an instant, the empty whiskey glass took on the blue gleam of daylight. And then the girl was screaming her fucking head off.
It was the kid.
James stood in the doorway, his small frame silhouetted by bright sunlight. Inside the dim bar, the guys were already up and aiming their guns. The tweaker stayed hunched over Special Automatic, curious and a little annoyed, pushing up his glasses and squinting into the rectangle of light.
“Jesus Christ,” spat Delia, pushing past the kid into daylight. “You scared the shit outta me, Jimmy. I hope you get what you deserve.”
Her heels clip-clopped away into the parking lot, door closing behind her.
“Special Automatic,” said the kid’s shadow.
Sighing, Connor leaned against the bar. It wasn’t fun anymore. In Connor’s opinion, some people were too fucking stupid or stubborn to know when they’d lost. Some people had to be hurt in order to learn. No big deal. But with a thick-skulled kid like this, Connor couldn’t take any pleasure in it.
“Bring him inside,” he said, tired, motioning to his bodyguards and setting the shot glass down on the bar. It made a startlingly loud thock. Connor looked at his hand, surprised at how loud it was. Then, in his peripheral vision, he saw that it wasn’t his glass that had made the sound. It was the tweaker engineer’s skull shattering as he bounced off the concrete ceiling over the pool table.
The shadow in the doorway had one hand raised.
On the pool table, the monstrous machine called Special Automatic also had one hand raised. Connor gaped at the body of the engineer as it landed in a limp heap.
The boy walked farther inside, into the light.
His warped lower lip was pulled to the side, flashing his lower teeth. As he thrust his arms out to his sides, the machine on the pool table rose up in all its horrible glory.
“No,” said Connor.
Suddenly animate, the machine lunged off the pool table toward Connor’s men, stepping through their flashing gunshots. In a swooping motion, Special Automatic flung the two former bouncers into a mirrored wall that exploded into a silver waterfall of razored glass.
Across the room, the boy’s hands pushed at empty air.
“No,” mouthed the bald man.
Illuminated by the shivering light of the swinging pool table lamp, James was looking at Connor now. Looking him right in the goddamn eyes. And behind the boy, a shadow rose, nearly seven feet tall, thrumming with raw power.
“You?” asked Connor. “You control that thing? Like a puppet?”
That’s why it didn’t work. It had nobody controlling it.
Connor noticed the lump behind the boy’s ear—the battery pack for some kind of an implant. It was why they called the kid handicapped. He had this piece of hardware stuck in his head to make his brain work. And maybe more than that.
The boy walked forward and the machine matched his steps.
“You nearly killed your own brother,” said Connor.
He knew the words were true as soon as they left his lips.
Special Automatic casually picked up one end of the pool table and flung it out of the way, the corner of it smashing through the far wall. Connor felt the bar pressing hard against the small of his back. No more room to run. He put his hands up, noticed with wonder that they were shaking.
“Hey, don’t,” he begged, surprising himself. “You don’t have to.”
Now the kid was standing only a couple feet away, his shoulders still slumped. The machine was a dark tower of hell behind him. Connor felt the strength go out of his legs. Knees buckling, he lowered himself down into an awkward kneel. He put his palms flat on the glittering tile and pulled his head back so he could look up at the kid.
The boy stood there, expectantly.
“What is it? What can I do?” asked Connor.
“James is your new partner,” said the machine, voice low. “James is a bad motherfucker.”
“Y-yeah,” stuttered Connor. “Okay.”
“Say it,” said the machine.
“J-James…,” said Connor, swallowing, licking his lips. Nearby, one of his guys was bloody and weeping. The other one wasn’t moving at all.
“Look at me,” said James, softly.
It was the first time Connor had heard the kid speak with authority. The low commanding tone snapped him back into focus. This
wasn’t a conversation, he realized. This was about survival now.
Kneeling in the remains of his bar, the bald man put his shaking hands up and locked his eyes on the boy. A brand-new future was coming to life in his mind, unimaginable a moment ago. When he spoke, his voice was hollow with fear and respect.
“Kid,” he said, “you are a bad motherfucker.”
And James smiled.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Growing up, I dreamed of writing the sort of fantastic short stories I so often read in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog, and Amazing Stories. I thank my high school English teacher, Mr. Paul Dykes, for facilitating that dream by reading and editing my early attempts with barely a wry smile. (And my thanks also to Three B’s used bookstore in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the endless supply of reading material.) Appreciation goes to my literary agent, Laurie Fox, for always advocating. And heartfelt thanks to my editors at Vintage, who helped beat this collection into shape, including Andrea Robinson, Andrew Weber, and Edward Kastenmeier. So many facets of my life, friends, and family have gone into these stories, and I must thank all of those people for putting up with me—especially Anna, Coraline, and Conrad.
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Daniel H. Wilson, Guardian Angels and Other Monsters
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