‘Once though he, Schmidt and I were talking, and Barclay told us the story of an issue that the then President was concerned about.
‘It related to the teachers in America’s toughest and most-deprived schools, and specifically to their safety. These were schools where the pupils would bring in automatic weapons – you think I’m exaggerating? – and where rival gangs would spray the outside walls with gunfire in drive-by shootings.
‘Such were the efforts of the staff to get the kids in and keep them there, that the places soon resembled nothing less than prisons, and even more so with the measures put in place to protect the pupils once inside.
‘Once in class, angry disadvantaged teenagers, penned in, undisciplined and angry, could turn the full force of their hatred onto the teachers. Guards were brought in, self-defence classes started. But there would come a crisis point, maybe once a semester, where a child would lose their rag at a teacher, start a class riot, reign blows down upon them, or simply lunge with a weapon intending to kill.
‘In my presence Barclay was not normally an overemotional man. Yet he was distraught as he told us of how America was losing five bright young graduate teachers a year. Only those who had no experience or couldn’t get jobs elsewhere were applying to the worst schools, and even those applicants weren’t staying long.
‘Barclay had offered the President an idea for a kind of invisible security vest worn beneath the teacher’s clothing. The President was far from convinced, but he was ready to consider anything. Yet he knew that the deployment of such a measure, after being found out by the pupils, could lead to them going at the teachers even harder.
‘For these frustrated teenagers, raised on gun-culture, and who were members of gangs outside of school, all they wanted was to get out of the lesson, out of the disciplined environment. In school they were subject to the teacher’s authority, were no longer king of the dust mound.
‘And then, after telling us all of this, Barclay smiled and joked, “Maybe what we need are robot teachers?” Only... in the years since, I’ve wondered whether it was a joke. Or whether that wasn’t what he had planned for me along?’
Chapter 67 – Robot ate my Homework
‘Could it work?’ asked Victor, whose capacity for the bizarre was now expanding exponentially.
‘Why not?’ answered Chris. ‘In fact, it could be a sensational success – imagine a teacher who the angry pupil could run up to and punch or stab or shoot, take all their frustration out on, yet who would remain standing face to face with them. The teacher still there, politely asking the errant charge to return to their seat; and then repeating the question from the blackboard to which they had yet to receive an answer.’
Beck took up the theme,
‘And that would be the key – being able to handle that one moment of utter, unmatchable, even fatal, violence without fear, and so gaining the aura of being someone the kids had to respect.’
Chris again, ‘This had once been possible with only a stern voice and a strong will, in the days before the flashpoint of petulant aggression carried a stabbing blade – inner-city children who recoil as they buckle under authority.’
All four had their heads filled with ideas now, though it was Ellie who got to the nub of it with,
‘And you think that our being on the run and this trade visit are connected?’
Chris pondered, before answering,
‘Barclay has been one of the few people these past eight years to know that “The Robots” were real and not an urban myth. Depending on how much Schmidt told him, he might also have been listening out for our damage signals during this time. What’s more, he would have had the clearance to know when GCHQ picked one up, even if they didn’t know what they were picking up.’
‘So he’d have had the jump on Eris!’ shouted Beck. ‘She didn’t work out what the signals were till Danny’s two days ago; whereas Barclay would have known the artifs were still active since your alarm months back.’ Beck went sheepish, ‘Sorry to remind you of it, old boy.’
Chris smiled, ‘Not to worry, old bean.’
Ellie said then, ‘The first signal was bad enough, but it was in isolation. It was the second that really troubled me. I was like a cat on a hot tin roof.’
‘You were that,’ agreed Victor.
‘And there the lady’s thoughts converge with my own.’ Chris was in full flood now, and would surely need charging soon. ‘For I wonder if our friend the Ambassador didn’t experience quite the same sequence of feelings, and of hearing of a second alarm could no longer bear to watch from such a distance as his offices in Washington?’
He continued, ‘Though actually, he happened to be rather a lot nearer. On my journey back from buying the paper, I worked out the sequence. The article explains how two days ago, the day of Danny’s alarm sounding, Ambassador Barclay was in Paris at a NATO conference – an appointment he cut short for these apparently urgent trade talks with the British Government.’
‘You think the trade talks are a front?’ asked Victor.
‘At the very least, convenient. And it goes higher than that. For I don’t believe an Ambassador would cut loose from something as important as a NATO conference without the full approval of the man he represents.’
Here Beck had to break from the consensus and turn away, declaring to the empty portion of the caravan,
‘I know that you guys are unique, and that these are extraordinary times. But you’re talking here about the President of the United States.’
Chris reasoned, ‘Sometimes the most extraordinary state of affairs is simply how it has to be. Barclay would have known other things too, things that not even the most dedicated “Robots” blogger could have known; such as that it was around the time the Robots were rumoured to have been released into the world that you, dear Doctor, the Professor’s assistant, abruptly changed jobs. Barclay may well have been watching you from a distance ever since, perhaps placing a trigger in the London Arboretum’s computer system to sound whenever you were unexpectedly absent from your post, or when any movement out of the ordinary was seen at your home. Each of which triggers would have sounded within hours of Danny’s alarm.’
Beck continued to stalk the darkened portion of the van, declaring,
‘This is paranoid, Chris. This is all so paranoid.’
‘All right,’ the artif admitted. ‘Perhaps I am making connections where there are none. But you must concede that the foundation is sound.’
And Beck did concede, because it was.
‘He’s retiring soon, Montand Barclay,’ said Victor. ‘I remember reading it now.’
‘Then this would be his crowning achievement,’ said Ellie, ‘bringing The Robots to America.’
‘Which is a little like me today,’ speculated Beck.
‘How so, Doctor?’ asked Ellie.
‘Well, from the moment I was called into the interview with Eris, I knew that my time at the Arboretum was over. And knowing something’s over gives a man freedom – the shackles are off.’
‘Very true,’ concluded Chris. ‘Barclay also has belief in our cause, has clout at the very highest levels, and the knowledge that we Robots are everything the media speculators believe us to be; and after the radio signals detected a decade after meeting me, the proof that we had excellent build quality. And he would have remembered his joke about the “robot teachers” that might not have been a joke. And he would have known that he had to hotfoot it to Britain right away to have any chance of capitalising on our re-emergence into the national consciousness.’
All pondered this phrase, Beck clarifying,
‘Well, that is a bit rich, Chris – two warning signals are hardly a “re-emergence into the national consciousness.”’
To which Chris answered, ‘Well, I’m afraid to say that since then I’ve rather taken matters into my own hands.’
Chapter 68 – Editors’ Conference at The Messenger
The Home and Features Editor of The London M
essenger had been called back early from his lunch. On a late shift, ‘lunch’ could happen anytime up to four or five o’clock, and would keep him going until the presses were rolling in the evening.
‘What’s this about?’ he asked his Editor’s secretary as he rushed into the Executive Office. ‘I’ve had my copy down since three.’
‘Not anymore,’ laughed the woman, half in jest and half in dread. ‘Whatever you were going to print, bin it. Everyone’s there, go straight in.’
Which he did. The conversation was already in full swing,
‘...of course it has to go straight onto the front page,’ was saying the paper’s Editor, as the visitor entered. ‘Ah, here’s Features now. Sit down, Bruce. You’ve heard?’
‘Not a dickybird, boss,’ he answered as he took his place among the other section editors.
‘Then you’re the last man in England not to have done. They’re alive!’
‘Forgive me, sir. Who are?’
‘The Robots!’
Bruce’s mind took a moment to catch on, before blurting, ‘How? What? Where?’
‘Asked like a true denizen of the British Press,’ said his superior, admiringly. ‘Can we get him a copy of the statement?’
Bruce of Home and Features read the statement that was handed to him, as millions across the Internet were already doing. It read:
THE ROBOTS ARE REAL, HAVE ALWAYS BEEN REAL, AND WILL BE AT THE U.S. BASE AT MARSHAM SANDS TOMORROW AT NOON. ALL WELCOME.
‘And we think this is genuine why?’
Entertainments answered, ‘We don’t, but the Web’s gone crazy for it, and that’s a story in itself.’
Their boss explained, ‘It was posted on half-a-dozen Robots bulletin boards simultaneously forty-five minutes ago. Our paper’s own website is already awash with readers wanting us to investigate its claims.’
Bruce reread, and then read again the twenty-three words.
Women’s asked, ‘But what if it turns out to be nonsense?’
Sports agreed, ‘It does have the feel of Wearside Jack about it.’
News and Current Affairs asked, ‘So if we don’t know if it’s real, or the stir we’ll cause by treating it as so, then why are we running it?’
Bruce finally responded, ‘I have to agree.’
‘I can’t believe this,’ their Editor thundered. ‘Even you pair, with the best nose for a story of any of us.’
‘I’m not saying don’t run it,’ defended Bruce. ‘If it’s a social media story, then that’s Entertainments; and if it’s ghosts and ghouls and folk devils, then I’ll whip up something for Saturday. I just don’t think it’s the front-and-centre hard news item we’re supposed to be renowned for.’
The Editor looked bitterly disappointed. Bruce knew the man well, was proud to work with him, but at that moment was utterly baffled by his enthusiasm. Eventually the boss left the table, walked around the room, and took a series of deep breaths, before returning and saying much more-calmly,
‘Bruce, you haven’t had as long with the statement as the rest of us. Take another look, and tell us what you make of it, honestly.’
Under absolutely no pressure at all, Bruce read the statement through for something like the fifth time. He delayed for as long as he thought he could get away with, before offering,
‘Well, it’s short, succinct, elegant perhaps, even slightly wistful. And those final two words...’
The Editor banged his hand on the table, ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell these numbskulls.’
‘Hey!’ complained the Women’s Editor.
‘Give it up, Jill. You know I don’t mean it. But Bruce, you’re reading between the lines, like I am. Don’t you see? This is what the earliest rumours always said about the Robots: that they’re clever, smart like us, not like machines. This statement isn’t in computer code, or geek speak, or making exaggerated claims, as someone would if it was meant to be a hoax. This is written like a party invite, “All welcome.” Why would anyone write it like that unless it happened to be real?’
Bruce was in full-on diplomacy-mode now, as he took the focus of his Editor’s attention, saying,
‘I concede, it is intriguing. And we should send someone to Marsham tomorrow, if only to record the fact of no one appearing.’
‘All the other papers will,’ agreed Sports.
‘But even so, Boss,’ argued Foreign Affairs, silent thus far, ‘we have good stuff for tomorrow. I don’t think this should be the front page.’
The boss replied, ‘Well, if it’s that good then it can wait a day. Trust me, this is all that any paper will be printing in the morning.’
But all eyes were on Home and Features, as the paper’s Editor again concentrated his arguments on him,
‘Bruce, this story falls right in your remit: Home and Features – this is both. You’ve been covering the Robots for years now. Why go shy?’
Bruce parried, ‘I don’t know. I suppose that if something happens at Marsham tomorrow, then of course we’d print it. If there was proof they were alive, of course we would. But this is before the fact, not after. It’s all speculation.’
The Editor took one last breath, before making what was clear to be his final statement on the subject, which was,
‘But, don’t you see, Bruce? This is how our role has changed in the Age of the Internet. We don’t write the news, we write the narrative; and the headline is already out there. I want every file emptied, every photo printed, I want our first eight pages given to this. Now, what are we all waiting for? Make it so!’
As he filed out of the office with his colleagues, Bruce went back to his desk with the knowledge that the next few days of his professional life had already been decided.
And he wondered: was it precisely because it was such a good story that he didn’t want to write it? Was he worried that the Robots could be real?
Chapter 69 – Africa – Keeping Watch
‘There were three of them today,’ said Bradley. ‘Three men on the wire. None coming closer though, not chancing it... yet.’
He was curled up with Ingrid in a huge armchair in the low-lit lounge. The lodge was quiet but not silent. The windows were open, and through the mosquito nets the sound of wildlife filled the darkness: from the distant call of big beasts to the incessant chirruping of insects. The staff were retired already, although Oman would be keeping a discreet watch.
‘Oh, B,’ said Ingrid sleepily (‘B’ being her Bradley). ‘There’ll always be photographers. They haven’t bothered you before.’
‘But there is something new about these ones,’ said Bradley. ‘The old photographers were furtive and obvious, playing a game of snapper and snapped, making efforts not to be seen but giving themselves away in their jumpy gestures and efforts to hide. These new ones, though, are fearless, uncaring if we see them or not.
‘And biding their time – they stand there for hours in the roaring sun. Yet I just know that to approach one would be to see them melt into the landscape like a dust devil.’
‘Well, we’ll check in the morning,’ were Ingrid’s final conscious words, before Bradley lifted her, already in her nightgown, and carried her to bed. There he would lie with her till she slept soundly, then creep away to read. Or to brood.
Chapter 70 – The Editor’s Son
It was after ten before Bruce got home, with the new front page having been faxed to the evening news programmes. Its headline read, in enormous bold print:
THE ROBOTS ARE REAL
‘And will be appearing at noon today!’ went the tagline below, beside a picture of a hulking metal creation culled from Fifties science-fiction.
‘I thought you were going to make an effort to make meal times?’ asked his wife, presenting her cheek for him to kiss. She said this with an air of not seriously expecting her husband to change the thing that made him what he was. ‘Though I suppose I never wanted a nine-to-fiver. If I had I’d have married a man in the city.’
‘And have fle
d through boredom after six weeks.’
‘That long?’ she asked. ‘Get you. How do you know I’m not having an affair right now?’
‘Because still you wear your best pyjamas for me.’
‘And how do you know that’s not a ruse to deflect suspicion?’
‘You’re going nowhere,’ he said with mock-seriousness as he hung up his coat. ‘I won’t worry till I see your luggage in the hall.’
Best pyjamas or not, she was bundled up in an enormous robe, and was padding through the house in moccasins. As they went into the kitchen, she asked,
‘I suppose you’re going to tell me it was a national sensation that couldn’t be left until the morning?’
‘You haven’t seen the news?’
‘Why would I, when I have you to tell me everything?’ She went to kiss him properly, but sensed something extra, asking, ‘What is it then, Bruce? Not the bomb over Washington?’
‘It might as well be.’
She gave him a playful punch, ‘Stop teasing. Now you have to spill the beans.’
‘I doubt you would believe me if I did.’
‘Bruce?’
‘Well, you remember those crazy stories of the scientist who built those robots?’
She got it in an instant, everything her husband had been so keen to deny to himself,
‘They’re real?’
‘Well, we might know tomorrow.’ He gave her a copy of the front page, as he always did as explanation of where he’d been on such late arrivals. ‘The picture wasn’t my choice,’ he explained.
‘Lord.’ She stood apart from him as she took in the sensationalised account – a dry run of what a million readers would see over their breakfast in the morning.
Another voice sounded then, accompanied by running feet,