Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy, page 4
Guns and pry-bars, what a surprise.
“You’re a dead man!” the leader shouted as he slugged me deep in the gut. I buckled over at the waist and wrapped my arms around my throbbing midsection. Waves of pain and nausea began to resonate from the point of impact as the rough thumping of my heart smashed like a mallet in my skull. There at the man’s feet I fought for breath and tried to keep from vomiting. I wish I could say that this was all an act—just a clever ruse designed to misdirect, but in all honesty ...
It hurt like hell.
“What did I do?” I finally managed to mutter to the man standing over me.
Instead of giving me an answer he proceeded to step firmly on my back, flattening my torso to the ground, and tangled his fingers into a tuft of hair at the back of my head. He jerked upward, forcing me to look at the crippled man by the SUV.
“This man,” he began as he pointed, “this man is not only one of my best agents, he’s family and I trust him more than anyone. And it’s this man that has accused you of injuring his leg.” The leader spoke slowly and smoothly, his words flowing, viscous as venom—his hatred for me quite palpable.
“I’ve never seen that man before in my life,” I fibbed. “I stay out here all by myself. I go out of my way to avoid trouble. I’d never think of harming an agent.”
Mohammad warned me about this. I thought I’d be safe inside with a belly full of pigeon by the time they came around. I could imagine the look on Alice’s face. Surely she’d been watching this on one of the monitors downstairs, forgetting to breathe through a hand clasped over her mouth.
If it weren’t for her I would’ve put up a fight these boys would have never forgotten. Without Alice I had nothing and would have gladly taken a running leap off the face of this pit of a planet. Scared neither of death nor of pain, my only reason for living was to protect Alice. That is why I refused to defend myself. That is why I took the beating.
I also suspected they were bluffing—just roughing up random people, falsely accusing this way and that, and trying to scare someone into a confession. This was all about the transmission of fear and keeping the rest of us in check. I’d rattled their little base camp back at Zolaris, and now they were taking the necessary measures to keep it from happening again. What would happen to the government if there was no one left who feared them? That’s an answer they were working hard to avoid.
If I cooperate, if I remain timid, they should move on—please move on.
The leader released me and directed the other men to enter the junkyard. “Take a look around. Look for a motorcycle ... or anyone else here.”
They obeyed, splitting up to investigate as the leader stayed with me. I started to get to my feet, uncertain if he would strike me again. He instead looked off into the junkyard, waiting for a signal. I can only guess he was itching for them to find a motorcycle—any motorcycle—so they could call it a day and shoot me where I stood. Luckily I’d taken the right precautions after Mohammad had delivered the warning. The only vehicles they’d be able to find were the skeletons making up this massive fortress. I highly doubted any of them would find a photo-eye or any wiring that would lead to the hidden cavern beneath. I was golden—wasn’t I?
“Hey!” one of the men shouted. “Come and check this out!”
The leader grabbed me by the collar, his face twisting and distorting, as he dragged me over to his screaming colleague; the rest of the men were rushing to see as well.
“Look at this!” he blurted as we arrived. “It’s the body of an old ‘76 Monte Carlo! I know it is! My dad used to have one! He used to take me and my brother to ballgames in it! It was beautiful!” The kid was running his hands along the old Chevy frame as he lost himself within the fond memories of childhood, a goofy kind of nostalgic grin sliding over his lips.
“You idiot!” The leader hissed as he leaned in far enough to give the kid a solid smack on the back of the head, sending his cap flipping through the cabin of the Monte Carlo. The youngster quickly retrieved his hat and donned it once again, his face flushed with embarrassment.
The leader turned to me, apparently pondering my guilt and taking my timid nature into consideration. Surely I couldn’t be the man who did this. I was just a desolate coward on the outskirts of the city. Surely he’d be moving on to bigger—more suitable—prey. Instead, I was then seized by the back of the neck as the business end of his revolver was thrust beneath my chin.
“If I—for any reason—find out you were lying,” he started. “If I find out you knew something, we’re gonna come back to this shit-hole ... and we’re gonna cut your fingers off. You got it?”
I tried to nod, but found the weapon which threatened to add a skylight to the roof of my skull hindering the desired movement. He got the message nonetheless and released me.
Leading the way back to the gate, the chief stopped by my fire pit and reached into the bag. He pulled out all five seasoned pigeons, each neatly wrapped and ready to go, and tossed them to his men.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he sneered at me.
“Be my guest,” I said.
He chuckled a bit at my expense, adding a little insult to injury before vacating, but when compared to the many gruesome alternatives, it was actually quite a small price to pay.
I locked the gate behind them and watched as they left, suddenly feeling very much like vomiting again—not from the previous punch in the belly, but from something else entirely. As they pulled away in the white SUV, a fleshy object became eerily visible in their wake.
There, dangling face down from the tailgate by six or so feet of rope, was a man. Mouth gaping and arms wrapped well above his head, he’d been dragged for what looked like miles; and judging by the pasty color of his skin, I guessed he’d been dead for even longer.
The man trailed violently behind as they departed, his once-white hair now soiled and dirty and his clothes stripped to nothing but bloodied undergarments. I looked on in a state of shock and horror to find, despite his bloody appearance, that I could still recognize him as the old man from Zolaris.
5
WHERE AM I?
After the unpleasant altercation upstairs, I retrieved my weapon and went to find a weeping Alice just inside the refrigerator door. Upon my arrival she reached out and held me for what seemed like hours. I squeezed her tight, running my hand over her back and telling her I was fine—everything would be okay. Her bawling made me realize just how close to the end I’d actually come.
If I hadn’t gone there, if I’d stayed away, he’d still be alive. Beaten—but still alive. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for the man’s death, and the guilt had begun to take its first nibbles. It was a physical sensation, as though a single piranha was busily feasting a hole in my gut.
Men like to share outrageous stories with one another—embellishing the keenness of our instincts and exaggerating the metallic compounds which make up our genitalia, or “brass balls” as they say. But I think I’ve been fairly accurate thus far. If I were to fill these pages with tales regarding my fictitious bravado, then I wouldn’t be doing humanity the service it truly deserves.
If there’s one thing I want to share, it’s that not all of us were monsters. If one were to take only a glance, one might see nothing but selfishness and a deep sense of loathing. Yet I’ve found, within each of us, there lies a potential for good. Unfortunately it seems that potential decreases with every addition to the equation. Therefore, it becomes impossible to judge all as one. Each is unique— different. It is my hope that from this writing, at least one of us may be understood.
As Alice and I made our way down the stairs, she couldn’t seem to let go, gripping me by the arm and resting her damp face on my shoulder. We passed the yellow giraffe suspended on the bookshelf—it didn’t make a sound this time.
That bookshelf was one of many, each of which contained an admirable arrangement of literature. I wasn’t much of a reader before, but had come to find the wonderful escape of curling up and crawling inside someone else’s skin for a while.
Alice loved the books, too. She’d been through them all at least a dozen times, along with the standard novels, how-to manuals, and magazines.
I’d collected dozens of comic books as well. As a child, my favorite character was this rich guy who lived in a mansion above a cave in the earth. In that cave he had created all sorts of gadgets and gizmos during his extensive activity in the area of crime-fighting. By day he was a handsomely charismatic billionaire, and by night a foreboding display of a leathery-winged mammal. It’s after this dark character that I’ve nicknamed myself, Scrapman.
I see now that we, that character and I, have much in common—minus the theatrics, of course.
There was one thin and colorful book on a distant shelf, its spine worn from continuous use and its vivid cover faded where little fingers had anxiously held it. I knew that book particularly well and could easily recite it from memory. Being my daughter’s favorite story, I’d read it countless times.
She used to bring it to me before climbing into my lap and finally falling asleep with her head on my chest. I still remember the way she’d smell like sunshine, and the way she’d breathe after entering that wondrous state of dreaming. Her warm body would curl as I’d kiss her forehead, my wife eventually coming to scoop her up and tuck her in, so peaceful and serene.
The book was about a clumsy young girl who decides to follow an eccentric little rabbit down a hole. There she discovers a world completely separated from her own, a world where logic and reason no longer apply. It’s a place where a caterpillar spits out colorful rings of smoke, where talking animals come together for ridiculous tea parties, and a place where hallucinogens are readily available.
To thicken the plot a bit, the author added an antagonistic queen with an unusual affinity for decapitation, and a man with a terrible case of mercury poisoning. All in all, it’s a story that seems to have sprouted from between the cracks of someone’s psychosis, and then thrives in the pure lunacy that follows. And for all the reasons I’ve described, it will forever hold a special place inside my heart.
That night we finished the final touches on the ZEKE project—its metallic components laid out and connected, as we triple-checked every possible loose bolt and wire. The machine had been plugged into an AC generator as Alice prepared to hit the switch, giving the robot its first mechanical breath of life.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Are you?”
Alice smiled and flipped on the power. The lights within the ZEKE’s PLC switched on and blinked in a frenzy of yellows and reds before sustaining a somewhat rhythmic pattern of glowing greens. I heard a humming inside its metallic body as the parts became energized. Anxiously, we waited for a twitch of a finger or the jerking of an arm, anything to signify that it had reached a state of selfawareness.
For a while there was nothing more than the festive lights and that incessant humming. I watched as Alice’s brain moved into troubleshooting mode; she flipped open the manual, found the appropriate pages, and began to read.
It’s relevant now for me to mention that my father was an avid fan of science fiction. I remember him talking about a book where all robots were given three unbreakable laws by which to abide. If memory serves, the first law was that a robot may never harm a human. The second law was that a robot must always obey the orders given to it by a human. And the third was that the robot must fight for its own survival.
Of course, there were sub-rules and footnotes to take into account so that no rule could contradict another. If there was any question, the robot would always have to refer back to rule one; that was the golden rule for the robots in the story.
In the moments that passed, standing over the machine we’d constructed, I’d come to realize that this previously static robot had only a single rule to which it answered. There were no further safeties or restraints to its programming. The ZEKE was hardwired for only one thing.
It’s difficult for me to explain exactly what it was that happened next. I remember staring at that motionless accumulation of metallic time and energy, and then looking at a very empty workbench a moment later. I glanced up to see a horrified expression sucking the color from Alice’s pretty face, then the feeling of an unseen force around my throat, along with the deathly pinching of my windpipe.
The sensations offered enough information to know that I was not presently in the best of circumstances. Lifting my hands, I grasped something cold and cylindrical as it severed the supply of air I so desperately needed. Pulling at the arm and trying to wrench it free, I became certain of asphyxiation within the next ten to fifteen seconds; but the force applied to my neck had only grown stronger the more I struggled.
There are moments in every man’s life when we are presented with the frail truth of ourselves. Whether it’s a car accident, a bar fight, or a twenty-foot drop, there are times when we’re humbled by the vulnerability of our own physicality. The stress my neck was enduring was extreme. I felt the compression, along with the crunching of various muscles and tendons, and waited helplessly for the final sinuous snap of separating vertebrae.
I could hear the mechanism within the robot’s head as an internal shifting of cameras allowed it to view in a full 360 degrees. It seemed to be studying its surroundings intently as it emitted a guttural kind of howl.
“Where am I?!” the ZEKE shouted, its voice deeply hollowed and menacing.
Neither of us could answer at the moment—me, for obvious reasons, and Alice because of the frozen state of panic in which she’d currently been encased.
The robot, somehow able to detect the weapon, had pulled the Colt 45 free of my waistband and proceeded to shove it against the side of my head. It then repeated its previous question as I tapped hard on the arm, hoping it would loosen its grip enough for me to gasp out an answer.
“Where am I?!” the robot demanded of us again, “Answer me!”
“Let him go!” Alice shouted through the immense fear undulating within her nerves, her voice appearing shaky and questionable. “He can’t breathe!”
Despite her lack of conviction, the robot complied with Alice’s request and allowed me an extra quarter inch of breathing room.
“What are you?!” the ZEKE shouted.
Alice looked at me as I tried to swallow entire lung fulls of air, each set followed by a mixture of intense hacking and coughing. At this point I was just thankful to be conscious and coherent.
“Zeke, my name is Miles ... ” I started, trying to gain control of my nervous system as I continued to gasp.
“We built you this body ...
... out of spare parts in a junkyard ...
... We need you to help us ...
... because the woman across from you ...
... needs your protection.”
The ZEKE loosened its grip on me the more I spoke, apparently able to detect the truth of my claims and perhaps intrigued by what they might entail.
“The woman across from you ...
... is very special to me.”
The ZEKE lowered the 45 and tossed it to the floor. The weapon clanked and skidded to a halt somewhere on my left side as the robot released me completely.
I dropped and wrapped my hands around my sore neck, rubbing vigorously before looking up at it.
The ZEKE stood strong, a true marvel of modern makeshift engineering. It rotated its right shoulder and rolled its brazen dome like a hydraulics-driven kick-boxer. Lowering itself, it grabbed my arm and lifted me back to my feet. The robot had no visible eyes, only a blank and expressionless face; but something told me it hadn’t yet looked away from Alice.
The ZEKE remained there, seemingly stunned, for the next few seconds; and judging by the robot’s deadened silence, I could only assume it was waiting for me to continue.
“In the memory of my daughter,” I went on, “I’ve named her Alice. And just like you ... she is the last of her kind.”
6
TIMID TIMOTHY
Running diagnostic,” the ZEKE said, straightening its limbs and pulling back its shoulders. “Error: Code 216. My body is missing.”
“Yeah, that’s been established.” I smirked as I rubbed my aching neck.
In reality it wasn’t the body that was missing, but only the encoders and proximities which allowed communication between it and the PLC. Without that information, it had come to the premature conclusion that its entire body had vanished.
“Zeke,” Alice started, “is there a way you can bypass that fault? I’ve read that you were designed to adapt to any situation and any changes in your physical condition. Right now you’re missing some parts.”
The robot tweaked a bit, tilting its head from side to side, as if processing her question.
“Running emergency calibration.” The ZEKE lifted its metallic hands, articulating each finger as it thoroughly inspected every joint. The robot worked its way up its arms and down the rest of its body, turning, stretching and rotating as it did so.
“Emergency calibration achieved,” it informed us upon completion of the tedious process.
I observed it, fascinated and curious as to how the robot was able to leap off the table, steal my gun, and nearly choke me to death without first having to run this calibration program.
“So, they call you Zeke, huh?” I asked. “What does ZEKE stand for?” I’d been honestly unable to find the meaning behind the acronym within the manuals.
“ZEKE—Zolaris—Engineered—Kinetic—Entity,” the robot answered swiftly. Its body language had changed a bit since the recalibration. It stood almost at full attention, tucking its arms to its sides, as if waiting for an order that had yet to be given.
