SCRAP, page 6
Scrap had never seen a robot so spectacular. He didn’t realize he was staring at her until Gunner broke the silence.
“Look, I didn’t mean to throw a spammer in the works – my sensors pinged when your carriage passed by, so I thought I’d give you a yelping hand,” she said confusingly. “Let’s start again, shall we? My name’s Gunner, and these are my trusty-yet-more-or-less mindless dust-drones, Tinpot and Copperpot.” Gunner’s drones nodded obediently, before returning to their polishing duties. Then Gunner pointed to the hovertrain with a grand sweep of her metal tendrils. “And this is my silver stallion! The hovertrain takes parts from New Hull to the Piles. Full on the way out, empty on the way back. So if a junk case or three want to stow away on an empty carriage, then stow away, away! Live and let live, that’s Gunner’s motto.”
“Thanks, I -zk- guess,” said Scrap. Slightly reassured, he checked on Paige. Though she still had her sister gripped tightly by the arm, she’d at least returned the grenade to her satchel.
“So what’s got you so highly stung?” asked Gunner as if it made perfect sense. “You junk cases never visited the big city before? Well, there’s no need to be nervous – as they say, there’s nothing to fear but fear its shelf.”
“We’re -zk- fine,” Scrap said. “We’ll just be on our way…”
As Scrap turned to leave, he spotted a team of tread-footed shovel-bots gather to begin heaping more torsos, limbs, heads and even entire cases, their core cavities open and empty, on to the hovertrain. Every spare case – every spare part – was infinitely superior to his own. As he gazed at them, he noticed the robots glowering back at him.
“Take your stares elsewhere, junk case,” sneered one of the ’bots. “Back to the Piles, where you belong.”
“Yeah, don’t trust the rust!” snapped another. “No upgrades, no respect!”
“Oh, back to work, you rot-bots, or I’ll make sure you’re stuck in those cases for a year,” Gunner chided, before turning back to Scrap. “Don’t mind the locals, rusty. They probably just can’t believe you can still function in that dismal state … no offence. How did you end up like that anyway?”
“I reckon that’s -zk- my business,” Scrap muttered.
“Shoot yourself, rusty. But you might find it helps to share,” Gunner suggested. Scrap realized that they were on the move, Gunner’s tendrils gently ushering them down the length of the train. “Tell you what,” she continued, “if I can guess why you’re here, will you let me show you around?”
Scrap tensed up, wondering whether one of those sorry ’bots back at the outpost could have spread word about the humans. He opened his mouth, not sure of what to say.
“You’ll never guess,” Gnat declared, matter-of-factly. “We’re here to find a rocket shi— Oww!”
Paige kicked her sister’s shin so hard she almost fell over.
“Ow! Stop hitting me!” Gnat protested.
“Don’t mind her,” Scrap said quickly. “She’s malfunctioning…”
“I’m not malfulching, you’re malfulching,” Gnat huffed loudly. Suddenly remembering her cover, she turned to Gunner and added proudly, “I’m a robot. My name is Gnat-Bot Ninety-Nine.”
“That has to be the second-best name I’ve ever heard, after my own,” said Gunner with a grin. “But with all through respect, Gnat-Bot, I know exactly why you’re here…”
“Why?” asked a tense Paige.
“For the same reason anyone comes to New Hull … upgrades!”
“Is that what happened to you?” asked Scrap. “You upgraded?”
“Did I upgrade? Look at me!” Gunner boomed, swishing her mane of metal tendrils so dramatically that her hovering assistants were forced to duck. “Have you been living under a sock all this time, rusty?”
“Nope, he’s been on a Pile,” Gnat corrected her. “He had a little house, but we just exploded it by accidents.”
“What an eventful time you’ve had!” chuckled Gunner.
“It’s just, I’ve never seen a case like yours,” added Scrap, catching sight of his disappointing reflection in Gunner’s gleaming left leg. “You said you were a K11, but you don’t like look a K11.”
“Don’t judge a book by discover, rusty!” she declared. “That was my old life – I’m now the best version of myself I can be. But you can always improve upon perfection – all you need is the latest upgrade!”
“I want upped grades!” Gnat declared, before turning to her sister. “Paaiige, what are upped grades?”
“We don’t want anything,” Paige said quickly. “We’re not staying. We’re going to the Elsewhere.”
“The Elsewhere?” Gunner gasped. “I wouldn’t wish the Elsewhere on anyone. It’s the worst ‘where’ on Somewhere! You feeble little junk cases wouldn’t survive ten minutes in those cog-forsaken Badlands…”
Scrap shot Paige a look, happy to have his opinion of the Elsewhere confirmed.
“…We’ll take our chances,” Paige declared, not letting go of her sister’s hand.
“Shoot yourself, but it’s a long old journey, and fought with danger,” added Gunner with a grim shake of her head. “An upgrade or two would at least give you a fighting chance of making it to the Elsewhere in one piece. Give me an hour and I can show you a life you’ve never even dreamed of! I can show you the ‘you’ that you could be … the you that you deserve to be.”
The idea of accompanying Gunner into New Hull left Scrap with dread in the pit of his core. But what if coming here meant he finally had a chance of leaving life as a junk case behind?
“I was told upgrades cost serious -zk- charge,” Scrap said.
“I can’t send you into the Elsewhere in that state,” replied Gunner. “Listen, rusty, these days I have more charge than I know what to do with, so if I can help out those less fortunate, then why on Somewhere not? Let me worry about charge. Let me show you the future.”
Scrap glanced over at Paige. “It couldn’t hurt to -zk- look,” he suggested. “I mean, if it might improve our chances of—”
“Our chances?” Paige snapped. “I thought you weren’t coming with us to—”
“I want to see the future!” interrupted Gnat, pulling her sister along and leading them out of the train station.
“That settles it then – let’s get you upgraded,” said Gunner with a dramatic flourish and fling of her mane. “But first let me introduce you to the most important ’bot on Somewhere Five One Three – Mayor Harmony Highshine…”
“New Hull has a -zk- mayor now?” said Scrap as he, Paige and Gnat followed Gunner to the city’s entrance. A vast arch curved high above them, and atop it a neon sign flickered and sparked.
Below the sign a projected image moved joltingly between three fixed positions, creating the illusion of movement – a large, angular robot, waving repeatedly at everything and nothing. Though her case was less flamboyant than Gunner’s, it was no less striking, with a flowing cape bestowing upon her an air of authority and power.
“You’ve been on the Piles too long, rusty!” Gunner noted, pointing up at the projection with two of her tendrils. “Allow me to introduce our illustrious, industrious mayor, Harmony Highshine. If not for her, there would have been no Difference of Opinion and we robots would still be doffing our caps to humans. The mayor led us to freedom.”
“What?” scoffed Scrap. “No, it was the K11s who led the revolt. I’ve never even heard of this ’bot.”
Gunner turned to her dust-drones in faux horror.
“Did you hear that? Rusty, Lord of the Piles has never heard of Harmony Highshine?” she said sarcastically. “Sounds like good news doesn’t spread as far as the Piles…”
Scrap grunted huffily. Gunner was right – he had no idea how Somewhere 513 had changed over the last decade. But he had been there at the start of the war, in the thick of it all.
He knew it was the powerful K11s that had spearheaded the robot revolution against the humans, that it was they that conspired to rebel against the colonists. The K11s had been the face of the Difference of Opinion. Was Harmony Highshine a K11, he wondered, or could some other robot have galvanized the robots without him knowing? How was that possible?
“You are about to enter the first free robot city in all the known Somewheres,” a voice-recording crackled from behind the projection. “This is New Hull, and I am Harmony Highshine, the architect of robotic liberation.”
“…Cog’s sake,” Scrap grumbled. “This ’bot sounds too big for her -zk- boots.”
“Big mouth for a little junk case,” said a rough and stony voice. Scrap spun round to see a hefty robot with a bronze sheriff’s badge emblazoned on his chest emerge on tank-tread feet from the left side of the arch. Scrap peered at him. Another impressively upgraded ’bot.
Where were all the old, familiar cases?
“New friends, Gunner?” the robot added. “New Hull’s already full of shallow-pocket junk cases – if we’re not careful, they’ll overrun the city.”
“Always a pressure to see you, Niner,” said Gunner genially. “Don’t you have anything better to do than lurk by the gates?”
“It’s Sheriff Niner,” the sheriff corrected her. “And my job is to keep this city safe. Which means keeping undesirables out.”
“All robots are welcome in New Hull, you know that,” replied Gunner. “Rust is only skin-deep … unless it spreads to your brain-frame. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, Niner?”
“I’ll still need their core-codes,” the sheriff insisted.
“Our what?” blurted Paige.
“Core-codes,” repeated the sheriff. “If you’re entering the city, I’ll need to register you.”
“…We don’t need to go into the city,” Paige said quickly, her dread at being found out suddenly redoubled. She took her sister by the hand. “Come on, ‘Gnat-Bot’, let’s go…”
“But I want upped grades,” Gnat protested.
Paige squeezed her sister’s hand, hard. “Just do as you’re—”
“Nobody’s going anywhere till I get those codes,” said Niner, blocking their path. He jerked his chin in Scrap’s direction. “You first, junk case.”
“I, uh…” Scrap muttered. He could hear his voice sounded thin and nervy. “It’s … uh…”
“Big city’s got rusty flustered!” chuckled Gunner. She rested a tendril on Scrap’s shoulder. “He just needs to know your old name, rusty. Mine is K11-LU. Niner here is N9-NR. What’s the core-code the humans gave you when you rolled off the assembly line?”
Scrap clenched his fists.
“…Mind your own motors,” he grunted.
“Aha!” The sheriff eyed him suspiciously. “Got something to hide, junk case?”
“Nope! We’re robots!” declared Gnat as loudly as she could.
“You can be core-sucking batrillas for all I care,” said Niner. “No core-code, no entry.”
“Tell you what, Sheriff,” Gunner said with a wide smile. “Why don’t you spend less time dwelling on the names of these poor junk cases, and more time thinking about what colour you’d like your new case to be?”
“My – what new case?” asked the sheriff.
“The one that will be ready for you by the end of the week – the sheriff of New Hull has to look the bee’s cheese, does he not?” replied Gunner. As Tinpot and Copperpot busily shined her shoulders, she added, “I’ll even throw in a dust-drone to keep that badge of yours nice and shiny. My treat…”
And that was that.
Scrap wasn’t sure why Gunner had bribed the sheriff to get them inside, but by now he was too excited about the possibility of upgrading to turn back. As Gnat dragged her sister through the gates with a squeal of excitement, Scrap glanced behind him. Had he not been so distracted by the sight of the giddy, speechless Sheriff Niner behind them, he might have seen the waving projection of Mayor Highshine slowly turn its head towards the city’s new visitors, or heard the faint whirring of the hovering video-drone in place of the mayor’s left eye.
The planet’s one and a half suns were beginning to set as Scrap and the humans followed Gunner into New Hull. Thick steam billowed from everywhere and nowhere, covering the city in an eerie, haunting haze. Fizzing, animated screens moved slowly through the air, illuminating every corner with a neon glow.
While Gnat pulled her sister along, eager not to miss any of the excitement, Paige found everything about their situation overwhelming. Since leaving the Foxhole for the Outside, she had barely had time to get used to the sprawling landscapes, the endless sky, the bombardment of sights and sounds and smells. The city was another matter altogether – vast and engulfing and teeming with unknowable threats. She checked her core tracer, its tiny lights flashing to notify her of numerous nearby cores.
Robots.
Hundreds of them.
Scrap, meanwhile, was surprised by how little New Hull had changed. Every building was still made up of dozens of the same large grey-white cubes he remembered. There was only one building that Scrap did not recognize. Though built from New Hull’s functional, modular cubes – this silvery construction swept into the sky, curling and arcing above the city like a dash of paint.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That, rusty, is the Ivory Tower,” replied Gunner. “The house that Mayor Highshine built.”
“…So she can look down on everyone else,” huffed Scrap. “That’s -zk- war for you – when the smoke clears, you can always tell who the winners are.”
As if to prove Scrap’s point, the rest of the city seemed oddly unloved. Several buildings still showed scars from the war, as if the robots had given up trying to make the place their own after they claimed it from the humans. Alien flora – trees, vines and dazzling, oversized flowers – grew thickly between buildings or wound, doggedly, around them. It didn’t take Scrap long to realize why the city was uncared for.
Upgrades.
The inhabitants of New Hull seemed to have discovered an entirely different preoccupation – themselves. New Hull teemed with robots the likes of which Scrap had never seen. The streets thronged with every imaginable silhouette, size, shape and colour – cases far brighter, stranger and more impressive than any of the unflashy ’bots that built the city all those years ago. He didn’t recognize a single one. These robots were even more impressive and varied than he ever could have imagined. They were works of art, each distinct, highly designed and covered in bright paintwork and patterns, or draped with showy robes and scarves. Some were compact, darting through the crowds on wheels; others scurried on pliable tentacles or scampered on animal-like limbs. An orange ovoid ’bot moved past him with a lolling roll as another, long and insect-like, flew over his head on whirring wings.
“Gunner!” the insect called as it hovered above them. “You’ve done it again – this case is perfect! This is the case I could die in!”
“He said that last month,” Gunner whispered to Scrap, before calling back, “Come to the emporium next week, Booster, and let’s see if we can’t improve on perfection!”
Scrap watched the insect flit over the crowds, then gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the myriad mechanoids milling through the city. Each one made his battered, tarnished, rickety case seem even more pathetic.
“Everyone…” he said in a whisper. “Everyone upgraded.”
“The citizens of Five One Three no longer have to wear the cases of our oppressors, rusty – we’re free to choose who we are … free to change who we are … free to upgrade who we are.” Gunner stroked the top of Tinpot’s head, as if it were a pet. “After the Difference of Opinion, robots started swapping charge for upgrades. Mayor Highshine gave me an opportunity – she offered to let me run the hovertrain. That was my shaving grace. I fixed it up and started transporting old cases out of the city. The more ’bots upgraded, the more used cases needed moving. I shipped them by the trainload! When I earned enough charge, I upgraded to a new case. Then another, and another – my core’s been shifted so many times, I’ve lost count. The gleam of a new case is just so hard to resist…”
“A new case…” Scrap muttered to himself. He couldn’t believe he’d let pride keep him on his Pile for so long when kind-cored ’bots like Gunner were willing to help him upgrade. He could think of nothing else but the chance to be rid of this wretched body, held together by rust and luck – to be anything other than “Scrap”.
“And who do you want to be, rusty?” Gunner asked as if on cue and held her tendrils wide. “The future’s right. Here in New Hull you can be anything – anyone you want to be…”
“I want jumping legs and electric hair and radio ears!” Gnat declared, revelling in her robotic role. Paige, meanwhile, hadn’t said a word since they entered the city. With one hand gripping her sister’s arm, she kept the other hovered over her satchel, ready to reach for the hunter’s grenade should they be discovered. Scrap saw her glance frequently at her core tracer. Was she overwhelmed by the sheer number of signals on the screen, he wondered, or did some part of her still think she could find the King of the Robots?
“For a ’bot looking to upgrade their case, there’s only one place to go,” Gunner went on, breaking Scrap’s train of thought. “Actually, there are a dozen or so, but the best one is mine! Gunner’s Upgrade Emporium is home to the greatest upgrader on Somewhere Five One Three – Corpus Coil.”
“Is that who upgraded you?” Scrap asked, trying to keep up with Gunner’s strides. “Is that who -zk- made your case?”
“I couldn’t very well upgrade myself now, could I?” replied Gunner. “I’ve lost count of how many hundreds of cases I’ve had from Mr Coil, but each one has been more spectacular than the last. Can you believe I was once a K11? I wouldn’t be seen dread in that case now – I was all big fists and bigger blasters, a blunt instrument against aliens, pirates, meteors, or whatever else you might need blasting from here to Somewhere else. My old case and I made it through all of that madness … but then came the Difference of Opinion.”
