‘They’re real! The Robots are real!’
‘What are you doing up?’ chided the little boy’s mother.
‘I told you we should take that thing off him at bedtimes,’ lamented his father.
‘It’s all over the Net!’ their son screamed, as he ran into the living room, waving his touchscreen tablet computer around above his head.
‘Jack, calm down. You’re blue in the face,’ called his mother, who had put the paper down and was now chasing after him. She tried to wrestle her son with little success, while her husband walked over to the kitchen units to look for what remained of his meal, saying to himself,
‘This is what I was worried about. Those blinking Robots – the mere mention of them sends the world half-mad.’
Day 4 – The Army
Chapter 71 – Café Preparations
At a café table, the four of them sat. They were near the back wall of the premises. However, the two of them facing forwards had a fine view of the front door, the other tables, and the street outside through the large plate glass window.
This was the Army town of Marsham, where Christopher had billed their forthcoming appearance. Not that any of them had any such intention of publicly revealing themselves. Though quite what they were intending to do with the situation, none was sure.
‘Here’s to Daniel,’ toasted Beck. ‘May he be doing even better than us at this moment.’
The others raised their cups, though Ellie and Chris weren’t drinking.
‘So how old are you?’ Victor asked them, as if suddenly realising he didn’t know. Chris answered, nonplussed,
‘Technically, I’m eleven from the moment my program was initiated. Ellie would be ten.’
Ellie chided him, ‘Christopher, don’t you know it’s rude to give a lady’s age?’
But the joke raised no laughter – they were all trying so hard to act as casually as possible, with Chris – who was built for this – maintaining his vantage point facing the street. From that seat, and while giving no outward sign of it, he could keep as keen a watch as could half-a-dozen private detectives positioned at all points around the building.
‘It’s bedlam out there,’ he commented as casually as before.
‘No less inside,’ remarked his sister, who required none of her sharp senses to see the busy locals and excitable visitors at every table. Ironically, it was the very hubbub they had caused that allowed the four to fit in – their voices were drowned out in the clatter of plates and the din of Robot speculation.
On the table before them, between their cups and plates, was a newspaper with the headline in bold:
ROBOTS: TO BE REVEALED TODAY!
It was printed full page, no picture (for no one had a picture). Idly flicking through the pages for something to do, Beck turned to an article inside, reading aloud for the table,
‘“THE ROBOTS: WHAT DO WE KNOW? Your indispensable guide to what the boffins tell us of the silicon superstars” dot dot dot.’
Beneath that intro were various asterisked points of apparent fact: on the Robots’ construction, operation, and recent hiding out. Beside these was a blown-up black and white picture of Gort, the robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
‘A personal hero,’ muttered Chris; as Beck read each ‘fact’ in turn,
‘“Rumours of the Robots first appeared eight years ago. Since then further rumour and speculative sightings have abounded, though none confirmed.”’
‘Too right,’ said Ellie. ‘We wouldn’t give ourselves away that easily.’
‘“The rumours differ, but most agree that the Robots escaped from a program at a secret military base. It is rumoured that the boffins who created them escaped too, and fled to China, where they are the brains behind that nation’s recent artificial heart developments.”’
‘I wondered if the prosaic reality would merit an asterisk?’ asked Chris, enjoying the reading.
‘“It is not known how many of them were created, though estimates range from a dozen to a hundred.”’
‘Jesus,’ said Victor. ‘With that many you could form an army.’
‘Or a commune,’ answered Chris.
‘Robotica,’ laughed Ellie.
‘“Nor is it known how many have survived till now. Certainly there are no rumours of Robot remains ever being found.
‘“Some experts have suggested that the Robots are living in remote forests or on mountains, to avoid detection.”’
‘And how do they think we’d recharge on a mountain?’ asked Ellie. ‘Build a wind farm?’
‘“Others have made the more sinister suggestion that the digital interlopers have been living amongst us in our major cities during this time.”’
‘“Sinister”?’ she asked looking around at the expectant crowd. ‘Yes, these people are clearly terrified of meeting one.’
‘“The current excitement stems from new rumours of a warning signal transmitted to the Robots on Tuesday of this week, though who sent the signal to them and what it signified remain a mystery.”’
‘A comforting level of inaccuracy there,’ noted Chris. ‘It shows we’re dealing with third-hand military gossip, and so no one really knows anything.’
‘“This excitement went public yesterday when a statement, apparently from the Robots themselves, was posted online, and was quickly decoded by boffins...”’
‘“Decoded”? It was in plain English!’
So pointedly did Chris state this, that even among the chattering patrons, faces turned their way. They had been intrigued by a detail perhaps not commonly known, and so accepted this knowledge as a badge of honour.
Beck continued,
‘“...It advised that the Robots would be in the Army town of Marsham Sands today, where this paper’s reporters will be among our many readers also hoping for a glimpse of the electronic outlaws. The statement read...”’
Here Beck stopped, ‘Well, no need to reread that missive. I think we all know how it goes.’
Chris was conciliatory, ‘Am I still eating humble pie?’
‘All day long.’
‘You’re still upset, Doctor. But I told you: we had to move quickly, and had I waited till we’d talked it through in the caravan, then we’d have missed yesterday’s newspaper presses and would have lost a day.’
‘And so instead you’ve thrown us into the belly of a media storm?’
‘As if we weren’t in one already,’ called Ellie.
‘The armpit of the tortoise,’ added Victor, who read a lot of old thrillers. ‘It’s the best place to hide.’
Chris offered further, ‘Think of the soldier, Doctor. What can he hear in his foxhole but the thud of faraway shells?’
Beck said smugly, ‘So he steps out of his foxhole and gets hit on the head by one?’
‘Can we get back to the article?’ asked Ellie, who like the others was enjoying it as much for its inaccuracies as for its slightly scary near misses.
Beck had reached the end of the first page. On the one facing was a new subtitle above a second list, although its contents were of much the same flavour. Next to this second list of bullet-points was a colour picture of Robbie the Robot from The Forbidden Planet. There was a lot of him about that day also – he and Gort should have charged a penny a paper. Beck resumed,
‘“SO WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT THEM? Here are the facts we have been able to verify:
‘“Before this latest alert, eminent professor, Dr Planter...”’
‘Eminent my eye,’ blurted Chris. ‘The man’s an ass.’
‘“...of Jesus College, Oxford has said that, ‘It is extraordinary that the Robots have kept going so long in the open world. Whoever built them must have made them ultra-reliable, or else a secret network is keeping them repaired.’
‘“The Robots require no sleep, but they do require batteries, stored in spaces in their chests.”’
‘That’s a bit close,’ said Chris. ‘A leak at the University?’
??
?Or in Eris’s department,’ thought Beck aloud. And Chris nodded to suggest this was more likely.
‘Is it true?’ asked Victor. There was so much Robot chatter in the cafe that nothing they were saying seemed exceptional.
‘It is,’ answered Ellie. ‘We need no sleep. Though I wouldn’t have minded a few hours’ shut-eye sat in that lockup garage night after night.’
Beck continued, ‘“It is believed that the Robots must look a lot like us, to be able to pass amongst humans undetected.
‘“However, they are likely to be made of heavy metal components, so look out for people leaving deeper footprints in mud or snow.”’
Ellie chortled at this, and even Chris relaxed again a little, as the trail went from hot to cold.
‘“Although they look like us, their strength may be up to ten times that of a human – so do not approach them!”’
‘After telling people the best ways to spot us?’ For all its fun, Chris was clearly also getting riled by the piece. And his mood wasn’t helped by Beck reading the next helpful ‘fact’,
‘“Although the Robots must be able to see and hear as well as humans, it is also speculated that they may have extra senses, such as night-vision, heat-detection, and sonar.”’
‘What, do I spend my nights detecting aircraft?’
Ellie slapped the table in glee. Victor the human smiled along with her, asking,
‘And is that...?’
‘No, Dear,’ answered Ellie with a shake of the head.
‘A few ideas there for the next prototype then, Doctor?’ offered Victor. But Beck was near the end of the piece, and wanted to finish the job, smiling before reading,
‘“There are believed to be both male and female Robots, with corresponding programming to ensure accurate behaviour... Does this mean then that someone has finally deciphered the female mind?”’
Ellie shook her head, ‘These newspapers are so crass.’
Beck pondered the indecipherable levels of meaning represented in that response.
The article concluded,
‘“IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE ROBOTS OR THEIR WHEREABOUTS, DON’T DELAY, CALL US TODAY! AND SEE YOUR STORY IN PRINT!”’
‘Excuse me a minute.’ Chris got up to go to the counter.
‘Is he off to make the call?’ joked Victor.
But no one confirmed or denied this. Once Chris was out of earshot, Ellie whispered,
‘So what do we actually do now we’re here?’
‘Leave it to Chris,’ answered Beck. He liked it no better than she did, but he knew full-well that his creation had outstripped him in a planning and strategic regard.
Chapter 72 – Eris’s Sensors
Eris strolled along the busy town street and banged twice on the side of the nondescript transit van. She wondered if she wasn’t fulfilling every spy movie cliché, as the back door opened to her signal and she quickly climbed inside. Once ensconced, she found a place to sit between the monitors, keyboards, and kit-bags strewn across the floor. The cab, with all its glass, was hidden by a curtain; leaving the back a dark, windowless space that smelt of men’s changing rooms. Eris thought a moment, and tried to remember where in her experience she could possibly recall that smell from.
‘Anything?’ she asked of the three present.
‘Nothing,’ replied one speaking for all. This was the ponytailed scientist, whose name it turned out was Nell. Sitting beside her was a young male who also looked as though he would be happier in a lab coat. Of the three, only Forrest wasn’t active at the keyboards – he was there for Eris’s protection. She asked them,
‘Tell me again how all this works.’
Nell answered, ‘Two cameras are hung from the telephone line that hangs across the busiest part of the High Street: one’s a regular visual camera, the other thermal, detecting heat. They have a motion detector, meaning that they become active any time a person passes under them.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Any time the cameras switch on, then an image from both appears on screen for us to compare.’
As she spoke, a flurry of dual-images were popping up on her monitor, momentarily replaced with the next pair, and then the next pair, as the enthusiastic crowd passed unknowingly beneath the two cameras. Nell continued,
‘But any pair of images which don’t match up, will trigger an alarm and remain on screen for us to analyse.’
Eris didn’t want to puncture their balloon, but had to ask,
‘You know that the artifs have artificial heat, don’t you? They were designed with warm water pulsing through the skin as if warm blood.’
But thankfully Nell wasn’t left despondent,
‘Indeed, Miss Eris. The file you sent us from your interview with Doctor Beck was very detailed. And the system that they have in place may well fool a person shaking an artif’s hand or brushing their face; but we don’t think it would be possible for an artif to replicate the precise map of warmth as emitted by a human.’
‘Artif,’ said Nell’s young assistant suddenly.
‘What did you say?’ asked Eris.
‘Oh, that’s what they’re called in your report, it means artificial hum...’
‘Yes, I know what it means.’
‘But interesting though, isn’t it? It raises philosophical questions. Like what is a human, and has anyone or anything the right to call themselves so?’
‘Well, I’ve had quite enough of philosophical questions, thank you. Can you keep an eye on those screens?’ She turned to Nell, though asked of her assistant, ‘And what’s he looking at?’
Nell answered, ‘He has access to the traffic cameras of the town, detecting any vehicles with military or police markings, and generally sight-scanning for anything unusual.’
Eris turned to Forrest, who smiled as he whispered,
‘They know what they’re doing. Trust me, they’re the best.’
To the group though, Eris asked,
‘And how sure are we that they will be here?’
‘Well,’ began Nell in a discursive manner, ‘from what you’ve told us, they have no support structure in the outside world. It’s amazing that they’ve kept going this long. But sooner rather than later they’ll need parts, batteries... and these might be bits you can buy at Halfords, or might not. There are also the facilities they might need to make repairs, and the matter of whether they can work on themselves or need assistants.’
‘So?’
‘So,’ the lead tech continued, ‘they’re essentially like us but more so – knowing they could be ill at any time, but without a hospital existing for them. They need to make contact with someone who can help them, and they know it can’t be our government.’
Eris fixed her in a look. Nell stammered,
‘Well, what with their misplaced fears of how they would be treated, I mean.’
Eris softened, as she asked Nell,
‘So you believe that the message sent to the newspapers was real?’
But it was the keen young assistant who answered,
‘Yes, undoubtedly. As Nell says, they need support, and quickly. There is also the residual confidence people have in America, the land of the free. We tend to think that we can trust them, and that they know what they’re talking about. Also, they’re the world leader in advanced tech and research spending. If I was an artif I’d be out there today waving the Stars and Stripes and hollering America the Beautiful.’
‘And the manner of the message? Creating this public scene?’ Even as Eris asked, she watched the video screens showing crowds of people swaying along the narrow pavements and spilling into the paths of clogged, slow-moving traffic. Around their necks were digital cameras and video recorders, and opened in front of them as they walked were newspapers full of Robot stories and maps of the town.
Nell’s assistant, while still watching these scenes, answered,
‘The artifs clearly have no way of contacting the US Government directly, so had to do so publicly. And o
nce that genie was out of the bottle, then their only option is to hide in the crowd.’
‘So they did intend this public scene.’ In the hours since the message, no one had explained the matter to Eris quite so clearly; and she placed a mental bookmark beside Nell and her assistant.
Chapter 73 – Riot on a Busy Street
Eris was still looking at the video screens, asking,
‘So tell me again why we chose that road?’
Forrest answered,
‘The town’s design is our friend here. It’s essentially one main road, leading from the nearest A-road, and heading directly to the US base. There are minor roads and backstreets too of course, but none that have the traffic and pedestrian volume that our robotic friends are seeking. Those are quiet streets, and I don’t think they’ll want to be too exposed. We don’t even think they’ll drive in – the distances are walkable, and they wouldn’t want to risk getting caught up in the jams.’
‘Years of security detail made you good at this kind of thing, eh?’
‘You know I’m not allowed to talk about it,’ he said with a glint in his eye. Was it only Eris’s imagination, or after months of working together, was Forrest softening to her? Was it the extraordinary demands of this case, that had everyone examining the way they lived their own lives?
But there were further questions she needed to ask, and she did so,
‘But surely the US trucks don’t pass along the High Street?’
‘No, they have their own road running through the fields behind the town. But that will be even more exposed than the town’s back streets, and unless the robots travel in a khaki-coloured Jeep, then they’ll stand out a mile.’
She mused, ‘You’re all very conscious of their trying to blend in to the urban setting. What makes you think they aren’t camouflaged and hiding in the fields?’
Here the young lab assistant piped up,
‘There’s a theory that they’ve been living in the outdoors all these years, but I don’t buy that. I reckon their success comes from living amongst us.’
‘You seem to know a lot about this.’
‘Oh, I’ve been fascinated with them for years. I read all the tech blogs.’
‘Right, and any more pearls for us?’
He went to speak, but Eris silenced him, ‘Well, they’ll have to wait till later.’ She gestured for Forrest to follow her as she left the van.