SCRAP, page 13
“We’re going,” insisted Paige, reconnecting a handful of loose wires hanging out of the side of the flight-cycle.
“Morten, I’m not asking you to do anythin’ I wouldn’t do myself – if I had the case for it,” said Scrap. “But I can’t -zk- help ’em like this.”
“Is that not what you have been doing?” asked Morten. “Have you not helped them? Was it not you who risked his life to save them from the hunter? If that is not helping, I do not know what is.”
“That’s -zk- different,” he said. “I can’t be who they need me to be.”
“Can too, you’re King of the Robots,” Gnat interjected.
“Please, Morten,” Scrap whispered, hand and claw pressed together. “They won’t make it without—”
“It would not work anyway,” Morten interrupted. “Morten’s core is not strong enough to power this case for more than a few hours. Morten must recharge every single day at least. Morten is just M0-TN the shovel-bot at core. The humans should stay here, where it is—”
The roar of the flight-cycle’s engines drowned Morten out.
“Fixed,” said Paige, revving the engines again. “Let’s go, Gnat.”
“But – but wait,” said Morten, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “There are other things. Toys. More toys.”
Gnat looked at her bear, then imploringly at Paige.
“Paaaaiige, he has more toys – can we stay for a little bit longer?” she said, and held her bear to her ear. “Mr Steven Kirby thinks we should have one more cupcake.”
“No,” Paige replied. As the flight-cycle’s engines growled, she grabbed her satchel, threw it over her shoulder and mounted the flight-cycle. “No more playing and no more games. We have a ship to find.”
“B-but she said you all have to stay,” Morten muttered.
Scrap froze.
“What…?” he blurted. “What did you say?”
“Uh, Morten said, please stay…” Morten answered, though the rumble of the flight-cycle’s engines drowned out his answer.
“Paige, turn that -zk- off!” Scrap snapped. Paige reluctantly turned off the engines as Scrap rounded on Morten. “You said -zk- ‘she’,” he snarled. “She who? Morten, did someone tell you to -zk- keep me here?”
“She said it was important…” Morten said, shifting from foot to foot again.
Scrap felt his core run cold.
“Who -zk- told you?” he said. “Who?”
“…Morten’s friend,” he said, edging nervously in front of the smashed window. “Harmony.”
Scrap’s jaw dropped. Not quite off, but close.
“Wait, Harmony Highshine?” he barked. “You work for Harmony Highshine?”
“Morten used to work with her, but now…” Morten trailed off and then pointed to a two-way radio fixed to his wrist. “She called in the middle of the ’Bot Bouts … said she needed Morten’s help. She said it was more important than the bouts … even more important than shovelling.”
“For cog’s sake!” Scrap cried. “Did she tell you to -zk- kidnap me?”
“Her video-drones showed Morten where you were hiding,” Morten replied. “But she did not say you were … you.”
“Does she know we’re here?” Paige asked.
“She told Morten to pick you up and keep you safe,” Morten said. “So Morten picked you up, and brought you here.”
“Answer the question, Morten!” barked Scrap. “Does -zk- Highshine know we’re here?”
“Oh, she knows,” said a voice.
Scrap spun round to face the doorway. A figure loomed, tall, broad and gleaming. Scrap recognized her from the countless signs and billboards, and on the very entrance to the city itself.
“Highshine,” he snarled.
“This place could do with a good clean,” said the mayor, wiping a single silvery finger along the door frame and inspecting it. Then slowly she turned to Scrap. “Hello, King,” she said. “At last we meet.”
“Paige, it’s actual Harmony High-Sign…”
It was Gnat who broke the silence. She stood in the middle of Morten’s apartment, halfway between the doorway at one end, and Paige, whose thumb still hovered over the flight-cycle ignition switch, at the other. Scrap glanced at each of the sisters in turn, and realized that neither had worn their disguises since before the hunter attacked Morten’s apartment.
They were well and truly discovered.
“Humans…” said Harmony Highshine on cue. She leaned down and stepped inside Morten’s apartment, her cape flowing behind her. As she raised herself to her full height once more, Scrap realized she was almost as tall as Morten Prometheus, with a broad, sparsely detailed case in glistening silver. “You know,” she added, looking from Gnat to Paige and back again, “I’d almost forgotten how … real you look.”
“What do you -zk- want, Highshine?” Scrap growled, and the mayor realized she’d been staring at the humans. She smiled and surveyed Morten’s devastated apartment.
“Is everyone OK?” she asked. “Except for a hunter on the pavement outside, who probably wishes he’d never met the mighty Morten Prometheus…”
“Morten did not mean to junk him,” said Morten guiltily. “Robot does not junk robot.”
“That’s more of a suggestion,” Highshine assured him. “Some ’bots just don’t appreciate the wonderful world we’ve made here, my dear Morten. That’s FreeWill™ for you. Who knows what might have happened to your new friends if you hadn’t—”
“I said, what do you -zk- want, Highshine?” Scrap interrupted, hobbling across the room towards her.
“The truth? I wanted to see you with my own eyes,” Highshine replied. Scrap stiffened up as her deputy, Domo, rolled into the room behind her, carrying a silver-grey cube almost half his size. “I had to be sure it really was ‘King of the Robots’,” continued the mayor. “Welcome back, K1-NG. It is good to see you alive and … well.”
Scrap was taken aback. However he’d imagined his first encounter with Harmony Highshine might go, it wasn’t like this.
“Is that why you’ve been -zk- after me?” he grunted sarcastically. “To welcome me back?”
“Ten years is a long time, even with a core that never runs out,” the mayor noted. “Where have you been, King? What happened to you?”
“You first,” Scrap said. “See, I’d never even heard your name before yesterday, but somehow you’ve turned every -zk- robot on the planet against the humans, and now you run this whole city.”
“What can I say? There’s no place like home,” Harmony replied. She leaned down to inspect Gnat more closely. Her smile was warm, her eyes wide and filled with wonderment. “And I see you still managed to find yourself a little reminder of the world you left behind.”
“I’m Gnat and I’m actually human,” Gnat said, deciding it was best to come clean. She held up her bear. “And this is probably Mr Steven Kirby.”
“Gnat … Brightside, yes?” Highshine replied.
“Leave her alone,” snarled Paige, frantically weighing up her options. She checked the flight-cycle’s control panel and saw its ammunition counter read zero. Nevertheless she added, “I’ll shoot you, Highshine. I’ll do it.”
“That’s Paige,” Gnat said with a shrug. “She doesn’t really like anyone.”
“Is that so?” Highshine laughed. “Well, she’ll like me, I guarantee it!”
“Hey! Back -zk- off, she said,” growled Scrap. “I haven’t forgotten how you rebel robots treat -zk- humans.”
“It’s your treatment I’m concerned about, King,” the mayor continued. “Ten years ago, a wrong was done to you. Robot Does Not Junk Robot. I’d like to make amends.”
“Amends?” Scrap scoffed. “An’ how -zk- exactly d’you plan to do that?”
Highshine took three strides across the room and placed her hand on Morten Prometheus’s shoulder.
“Did you know that my friend Morten here has been the champion of the ’Bot Bouts since it began?”
“Yeah,” Scrap replied. “Easy bein’ a champion when you’ve got that case.”
“When I first met M0-TN, he was quite different – a shovel-bot, and one of the best, I might add,” the mayor went on. “After the Difference of Opinion was over, I wanted to make New Hull somewhere robots actually wanted to live. Morten, meanwhile, was keen to get back to shovelling.”
“It is true, Morten likes to shovel,” Morten confirmed.
“Shovel, shovel, shovel,” said Gnat, eager to join in. Scrap glanced back at Paige, and hoped she wasn’t planning on doing anything characteristically drastic.
“What are you gettin’ at, Highshine?” he grunted. “I haven’t -zk- got all day.”
“You see, I needed Morten’s help,” the mayor continued. “I needed him to show the robots of Somewhere Five One Three that they didn’t need to settle for the case they were made with – to show them that they could upgrade. After your core was stolen, I decided not to let your case go to waste – I personally spent months repairing it – and disguising it of course, so that the citizens were not reminded of the Robot Renegade … the Mechanical Mutineer … the enemy of robot—”
“Get to the -zk- point,” Scrap snapped.
“After camouflaging your case, I asked my friend Morten to shift his core into it – to become the face of upgrading,” continued Mayor Highshine, patting Morten on the arm. “He was reborn as Morten Prometheus, champion of the ’Bot Bouts. Before long, nearly every ’bot on Five One Three wanted to be bigger and better and beautiful. They wanted to upgrade and, as it turned out, they were prepared to pay for the honour. Morten did exactly as I asked. But now his work is done.”
“Done?” Morten repeated.
The mayor nodded to Domo, who placed the crate on the floor. Scrap watched the sides of the crate fall away with a HSSSS. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see, but it wasn’t a small, boxy case, dull yellow and striped with black. In place of legs were four simple wheels, and mounted on its front, as wide as the case itself, was a shovel.
“Morten’s old case!” cried Morten in delight. “And you fixed the shovel!”
“I want to thank you for your service to robotkind, Morten Prometheus, but your work as my champion is complete,” said Mayor Highshine. “Domo, if you wouldn’t mind doing the honours…”
Domo raised his arms. Scrap watched as each long finger extended upon a fine wire before splitting into two, then each separated finger split further into four, and those four into eight, until his hands were a swirling, wiry mass.
“What’s -zk- happenin’?” Scrap blurted.
“Harmony, are you sure…?” Morten asked, his voice cracking with emotion. “Morten can really stop punching robots for show?”
Harmony placed her hand on his shoulder.
“It’s the least you deserve,” she said with a smile. “Your shovel awaits.”
Morten smiled more widely and warmly than Scrap believed was possible for a robot, and then held his arms out wide.
“Morten’s code frees Morten’s core,” he said. “M0-TN.”
With a hum, Morten’s vast chest folded open. The core inside was small but shimmered with new charge. Domo wasted no time in detaching the dozens of wires that held the core in place, before his whirling, wiry fingers gently plucked the core from within. With a crude CHUNG, the back of Morten’s old case popped open, and Domo placed the core gently inside, gracefully establishing the few connections needed for his old case to function. Within moments, M0-TN buzzed back into life, his shovel shaking with excitement.
“Morten is Morten again…” uttered Morten, his voice now tinny and thin. “Praise the Great Manual! Hail to the Sacred Toolbox!”
“You see, Scrap? In the hands of the right upgrader, core-shifting is child’s play,” remarked the mayor as Morten began eagerly shovelling up the scorched remains of his many things. Gnat giggled at the sight of it. Even Paige let her thumb drift from the flight-cycle’s ignition switch.
“Yeah, well, no one around here owes me any -zk- favours,” said Scrap.
“You’re a robot, King – whatever has happened in the past, you belong here, in a world of robots,” said the mayor. “Can’t we put the past behind us, and embrace our evolution?”
“Evolution?” Scrap snorted. “What are you talkin’ about?”
Mayor Highshine raised her arm and gestured towards Morten Prometheus’s old case – King’s case – its vast chest open and inviting, its core-cavity empty.
“I think you’ve been ‘Scrap’ long enough,” said Mayor Highshine. “Wouldn’t you rather be King of the Robots again?”
Scrap stared into the open chest cavity of his former case.
“So what do you say, Scrap?” asked Mayor Highshine. “Instead of running from your future, why not be King again?”
“Scrap’s already King of the Robots,” said Gnat matter-of-factly.
Harmony turned to face her.
“But does he know that, I wonder?” she asked. “Doesn’t King deserve to be the best version of himself he can be?”
“You can’t be better than King of the Robots,” Gnat replied with a dismissive shrug. “Unless there’s a Queen of the Robots.”
“You’re not -zk- seriously givin’ me back my case,” said Scrap, jabbing his claw towards his old case suspiciously. “After everything I did? What’s the -zk- catch?”
“Memories are short, King. I’m sure the robots of New Hull have better things to think about than a falling-out that happened ten years ago – including their next upgrade. You are the least of their concerns … or mine.”
Scrap’s eyes turned to Morten, giddily shovelling his way around his apartment.
“I…” Scrap began. “I just—”
“I don’t blame you for having doubts,” said the mayor. “But don’t you owe it to yourself to be whole again?”
Scrap looked over at Gnat, and then to Domo, his strange, wiry fingers dancing in anticipation, and then finally at Paige. She shook her head.
She didn’t like it.
But what was she so afraid of? Scrap wondered. What was he so afraid of, for that matter? Why would Harmony lie to him? What if she really wanted to make amends … to let bygones be bygones? There was no denying that she was right about one thing – this was his chance to escape his case – to escape his life. But more than that, he decided – this was the only way he was going to help the humans. His old case was the only chance they had of making it through the Elsewhere to the rocket ship – the only chance he had to get Dandelion Brightside and her children off-world.
You’d be doin’ it for Gnat, he told himself. For Paige and for Dandelion. You wouldn’t be doin’ it for yourself, you’d be doin’ it for them.
“I—”
“Don’t,” Paige said. Her hands shook on the flight-cycle’s controls. “Please don’t.”
“Your choice, King,” Highshine said with a shrug. “Spend forever as ‘Scrap’ … or become King again.”
Scrap looked away from Paige, back to his old case.
“Paige…” Scrap muttered. “It’s the only -zk- way.”
“Don’t!” Paige pleaded, but she knew Scrap’s mind was made up.
“My code frees my core,” he said. “K1-NG.”
His chest panel creaked open, and two bolts pinged loose and fell to the floor. His core shone so brightly it lit up the room.
“It’s beautiful,” said Domo in awe, the whirling mass of wires that were once his fingers quickly dancing around Scrap’s chest. “Hold still…”
With his core unlocked, Scrap had no choice but to hold still – he was paralysed – frozen to the spot. It was all he could do to move his eyes, but then he had no need – he was already looking at the one thing that mattered to him more than anything else in all Somewhere.
His old case.
He felt his core separate, circuit by circuit, moment by moment from his case, and the world grew dim. Then as he felt his consciousness slip away, knowing that in a few moments he would wake up in the body he lost ten long years ago, he smiled.
Then, blackness.
“Separation is complete,” said Domo, lifting the core free. “I have never seen a core like it.”
“Cool as cooclumbers,” noted Gnat.
“Do it, shift his core,” said Paige, pointing at the great K1 case. “Put it in the case.”
Domo looked at Harmony Highshine. “Madame Mayor…?”
“Oh no” she replied. “No, we’re not doing that.”
“What?” uttered Paige and Gnat together. They watched Highshine reach out for Scrap’s core. As she took it, the whirling mass of wires that held the core aloft instantly retreated to reform Domo’s hands, and he nodded obediently.
Harmony Highshine gazed at the core, glowing and pulsing, its light glinting off her case. “Not all robots are created equal,” she said. “But now we’re a little more equal than we were.”
“The core…” Paige blurted in horror. “You wanted his core.”
“This? What would I want with this?” said Highshine, and flung Scrap’s core over her shoulder. She turned to Gnat, leaning low. “But the King of the Robots did bring me something I wanted … he brought me you.”
Paige didn’t pause. The roar of engines filled the air as she manoeuvred the flight-cycle off the floor and pivoted it towards the window. The cycle swept across the room, banking towards Gnat, close enough that Paige could grab her arm.
“Get on!” Paige cried, trying to drag her sister on board.
“We can’t go without Scrap!” Gnat shouted, pulling against her as the flight-cycle tilted in the air.
“I can’t hold it!” Paige screamed, desperate to keep the flight-cycle steady as she clung to her sister. “Gnat, come on!”
“Don’t go yet,” Highshine called out. “I have a surprise for you…”
Gnat and Paige could barely hear Mayor Highshine over the din of the flight-cycle’s engines, but her actions spoke loudly enough. There came a sudden, deep hydraulic groan and a loud hiss as the mayor’s entire torso began to unfold, opening like the petals of a flower. Paige expected to see wires and servos and cogs and, of course, her core.
