The Holy Machine

34

A few minutes after the ASPU house opened, I walked in and went through to the lounge.

Lucy was in her usual place. She smiled, stood up and came towards me.

I let her come close so I could be sure that she heard. Then I said: ‘No. I’ve seen a lot of you lately. I think I’ll try one of the others.’

This was the agreed signal to tell her that the day had arrived. She sat down, as I’d coached her again and again, but this time in a vacant seat near to the door.

I looked round the room. I chose the schoolgirl Helen with the scar on her upper lip. She led me up to her fake locker-room and I had her kneel on the floor with her back to me so she couldn’t see me. Then I threatened her.

‘I’m going to smash you with this iron bar. I’m going to break your head in. I’m going to cover the floor with your microchips and wires.’

The syntec issued a standard warning: ‘I will have to contact Security if you damage me in any way.’

I knew, from questioning Lucy about the house procedures, that Security would have already been contacted by ultrasound, and would already be on its way. But I wanted to make sure that Helen did not now send out a ‘false alarm’ signal, so I kept up the threats.

‘It’s too late my dear,’ I said, ‘It’ll be too late. By the time the security robot arrives you’ll be fit for nothing but the scrapyard.’

Then the door opened and Security came in.

‘Excuse me sir,’ it intoned gravely, ‘I understand that you’ve threatened to damage the equipment. I’m afraid that is strictly forbidden. Will you please follow me?’

‘What? No of course not! I was only having a bit of fun. Look, I haven’t even got an iron bar!’

‘Please sir, follow me, we cannot allow…’

The robot suddenly broke off, and for a moment it was as motionless as a statue.

I smiled. I knew why. It was receiving a message from another source. House Control was summoning it urgently to come and deal with an unprecedented event. One of the syntecs was leaving the building.

Security’s sad, blank face turned to the door and then back to me again. No doubt a feverish exchange of ultrasound messages was going on. Should it first complete the business of evicting me, or should it give priority to the new security threat? No doubt House Control was analysing all my previous visits to determine whether I had ever been noted as a possible hazard.

Abruptly, a decision was reached. Security turned to leave the room.

I stepped in its way. ‘Hang on a minute, you can’t just walk out like that! What do you mean by barging in if you aren’t going to do anything?’

(The seconds were ticking by. Lucy was making her way through the streets, through a world that she’d never before experienced. I only hoped that she was not so overwhelmed by the unfamiliar sensory data that she would lose her way to our rendezvous. ‘Walk, don’t run!’ I had repeatedly told her, unaware that running was something that she didn’t know how to do in any case.)

The robot’s silver face looked down at me.

‘Please step aside sir. An emergency has arisen elsewhere. Please report to Reception.’

I counted to five, then stood aside. But as Security moved passed me I put out my foot and tripped it up. It fell headlong, but then got up again and headed off with an unnerving burst of speed.

Lucy had gone to a public toilet, two blocks away from the ASPU House and adjoining a car park where I had left my car. I got the car out and stopped immediately outside the toilet, where I called her softly. She came out, followed anxiously by a middle-aged Croatian guestworker, who had been concerned to find a scantily dressed young girl standing inside the toilet door in a catatonic state.

‘It’s alright,’ I said, ‘She’s my sister. She suffers with her nerves. She gets like this sometimes.’

Clucking sympathetically, the woman helped Lucy climb awkwardly into the passenger seat.

‘There, there my dear. Your brother will see you are alright I’m sure.’

I headed out of the city, took a side road, pulled over into a layby, then helped Lucy to climb into the trunk of the car where I covered her with a rug, two suitcases and a bag. She accepted all this in silence.

‘It’s going great Lucy!’ I gabbled, my bloodstream awash with adrenalin. ‘It’s really going great! I’ll have you out of there in no time!’

I was elated at the success of my plan. I was amazed at my own audacity.

I dropped back onto the Ullman Expressway. I was heading for the border with Epiros which was now, after a stormy period and much covert diplomacy between atheist Illyria and Archbishop Theodosios at Ioannina, the calmest of our frontiers once again.

A high limestone escarpment, across the border in Eprios, loomed up ahead of me. Then I saw the frontier post, with the Illyrian flag fluttering above it, and the high fences of electrified razor wire on either side. My palms began to sweat with terror. Relatively peaceful this frontier might be, but it was still jealously guarded. I was gambling on the fact that the Illyrian authorities were more concerned about people coming in than people going out.

But all it would take to destroy the whole plan would be a very modest burst of zealousness on either side.

Against the dramatic backdrop of sheer grey cliffs, brilliant in the April sun, a big security robot held up its hand to stop me. Behind it in the shade stood a human customs officer.

My hands were now sweating so profusely that I could hardly get a purchase on the steering wheel. But I wound down the window and attempted a friendly remark:

‘Certainly a hot day isn’t it? If it’s like this in April, what’s it going to be like in August?’

The human officer smiled distantly, and left the business to the machine.

‘Are you on business or vacation?’ it asked.

The sun glinted on its silver skin. It was a Cyclops, a state-of-the-art model, many times stronger and faster than a human being and with senses many times more acute.

‘Vacation,’ I said, as the machine ran its thumb over my passport and my credit bracelet.

Then it hesitated and became completely motionless in that eerie reptilian way that robots have.

‘It’s sensed Lucy’s magnetic field,’ I thought. Yes, that was it. It had detected her field and was now savouring it, slowly sliding its readings up and down the electro-magnetic spectrum…

Or perhaps it was my credit number it was savouring. Perhaps it had radioed the number through to my bank and was now slowly considering the curious fact that over the past few weeks I’d withdrawn all my savings…

Or perhaps it had checked with O3, and found that I was listed as a possible AHS sympathizer…

Or perhaps the ASPU House had reported me to the police in connection with Lucy’s disappearance, and all frontier posts had been given my ID code…

Or…

‘Thank you sir. Would you mind opening the trunk please?’

‘Er… no… sure…’

I opened the car door and walked round to the back. It seemed to take a very long time, during which I was able to review every little detail of my plan for this escape and to see very clearly just how shoddy and amateurish it had all been. There were so many other angles I should have covered. It was as if I hadn’t truly grasped the terrible consequences of failure until now.

I slowly opened the trunk of the car. The Cyclops looked in.

There were two suitcases, a bag, a rug – and, poking clearly from beneath it, a corner of Lucy’s denim skirt.

A lark twittered in the blue sky overhead. Every fold and crack of the mighty limestone escarpment stood out sharply in the sun. The world carried on regardless, as it always does.

‘Open this suitcase please.’

I complied with difficulty. My hands were almost too slippery to operate the catch.

The android lifted the corner of a tee-shirt.

‘And this bag…’

I opened the bag. I waited for the next request. The sun shone. The Cyclops – very slowly – reflected.

After an immense silence, it spoke again.

‘Thank you sir, that will be all. Have a pleasant trip.’

Struggling to appear casual, I slammed the suitcase and zipped the bag, all the while thanking the Cyclops profusely, blessing it, wishing it an existence free from all sorrow and pain… (Which, thanks to wipe-clean, would probably indeed be its fate.)

I climbed back into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. Slowly the automatic barrier lifted…

‘Just a minute sir,’ called the human officer, coming forward for the first time from the shade of his post. I wound down the window again. The customs man smiled. I stared at him, swallowing.

‘Your luggage is hanging out.’

‘I’m sorry? Oh, I see! Thank you.’

I got out again, my knees nearly giving way as I repeated the long, long journey to the back of the car. The lark twittered. Something glinted at the top of the escarpment.

From the corner of the trunk hung that same triangle of blue denim. The customs officer stood and watched me as I opened the trunk, pushed Lucy’s skirt inside and slammed it shut again, whirling around hastily to give him a much too fulsome smile.

‘Hey!’ the officer said suddenly. ‘I know you! George Simling isn’t it? Well, well, small world. We were at school together. Remember me? John Wilson?’

I stared. Yes I did dimly remember him. He hadn’t been very bright at schoolwork. He was what in Illyria was cruelly called a ‘worthy’ – an Illyrian whose citizenship was derived from his parents’ educational achievements and not from his own.

I smiled palely.

‘John. How are you doing? Small world.’

‘Yep. Small country anyway. Strangest report has just come through on the radio. One of those syntec whores has just gone rogue and run off. Imagine that!’

‘Imagine!’

A ten-dollar tip in my passport took me through the Archbishop’s border post without any problems at all and, still hardly believing my own luck, I continued on the potholed Outland road which seemed to head straight towards the mighty wall of the escarpment.

The closer I got to it, the more utterly impenetrable the rock seemed, right up until the moment that it was almost on top of me. And then suddenly a narrow opening came into view. I entered a gorge that had been cut right through that immense mass of limestone over many millions of years by the quiet little stream that still flowed along its base.

As soon as the border posts were no longer visible in my rear view mirror I pulled over and released Lucy from her hiding place.

She looked around her. Her face was blank.

‘There appears to be some malfunction,’ she murmured, ‘please can you contact House Control…’

I laughed. ‘No, Lucy, no, you can forget House Control now. We’re free!’

I put my arms round her and kissed her beautiful face.

She smiled.

‘That’s nice George. Maybe you’d like a hand relief? Or perhaps you’d like me to…’