Robot Wrecker Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Paul Tomlinson

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, or used in any manner whatsoever, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in the context of a book review.

  Robot Wrecker is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, to organisations, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

  First published August 2016

  Publisher: Paul Tomlinson 

  www.paultomlinson.org

  Cover image and design © 2016 by Paul Tomlinson 

  In memory of Harry Harrison,

  who told me to take out the 'curse words' 

  Chapter One

  Being banana yellow and adorned with black chevrons and fluorescent Large Vehicle signs, a Strider isn't exactly inconspicuous. I couldn't just slip one in my pocket and walk off with it without being noticed. And I didn't want to think about how I was going to get the twenty-foot tall iron chicken to dance. Finding a Strider wouldn't be difficult: Talos Industries were building themselves a new showroom across town, and were using their own construction machinery as a kind of long-term advertising project. They'd already demolished an old church, and the foundations had been dug and filled with concrete. Now they were in the process of erecting the steel girders, showing off the latest Striders to great effect.

  The challenge was issued while we were crowded round screens in the Nag's Head. A bunch of us had gone over the college walls after lights-out and were watching old science fiction movies. Our Way the Future Was nights were a kind of ritual, and you only got to be there if you were 'one of the guys.' Hurling abuse at the screen when the commercials flashed up was part of the ritual.

  "That's impossible, there's no way they could do that!"

  The ad in question was for a Strider. Instead of showing it up to its axles in building site mud, it featured a shiny new machine in a vast, empty hangar, backlit in blue and surrounded by swirling dry ice mist. The soundtrack was some old waltz, and the Strider was moving gracefully like a ballet dancer, using its hydraulic arms to lift heavy objects; nimbly stepping over obstacles, and finally lifting one leg to almost 'shoulder' height whilst pirouetting on the other.

  "They'd never have got that thing to balance like that. They have to have faked it, right?" He turned to me for support. He was a pale skinny kid in a baggy sweatshirt.

  I shrugged. I'd only recently graduated to being one of the guys, having earned my stripes with a stunt involving an old robot and a telepresence hook-up. I'd had my robot climb the clock tower outside a shopping mall like a clockwork Kong, and then I waited until a TV crew arrived before I launched my mechanical man's swallow-dive into the cement. As a result, I now found myself elected resident robotics expert.

  "I'm not sure it's impossible, but I don't..." I didn't get to finish my sentence.

  "There's only one way to find out, isn't there?" This came from a guy they called PacMan. He wanted people to think he was like the legendary old-school hackers, breaking into secure data sites and other phreaky stuff. His nose was out of joint because of the attention my simple robot hack had received. It was a challenge. "What about it?"

  "You don't control them like a robot," I said. "You drive them, like a bulldozer."

  "So?"

  "So I'm not an expert driver: to do what they did in the ad would take hours of practice."

  "Then practice. Friday evening, in the field behind the campus sports block. You can give us a demonstration and tell us, in your expert opinion, whether the ad was faked." He smiled. "Unless you can't manage it. It's a bit more of a challenge than the clock tower stunt."

  He was asking: Are you chicken?

  "Behind the sports block, eight o'clock Friday," I said.

  Perhaps he'd expected me to back down on the spot. There was a half-second delay before he managed a tight-lipped smile. "I look forward to the show," he said. His expression hardened. "But if you don't get the Strider, don't bother showing up in here again."

  I smiled. "If I do make it, first drinks are on you on Friday. For everyone. How's that sound?"

  There was a cheer from the crowd around us. PacMan smiled and shrugged. Okay. But I noticed a twitch in the muscle under his left eye: he'd been upstaged by the upstart again.

  There was so much machinery on display that security at the construction site was heavy. There was a chain-link fence all the way around, so that people could see the technology at work, but there were signs every so often warning that the fence was electrified. It was also topped with razor wire. And to further encourage spectators to keep their distance, there was a moat, a ditch eight feet wide and filled with filthy green-black water, on the outside of the fence. Inside the fence, the area was patrolled by guards in armoured exo-skeletons and packs of Robermans. Construction was shut down after dark – no point carrying on the show when the audience was home in bed – but the site was fully floodlit: no shadows for the concealment of thieves.

  "Getting one out shouldn't be too much of a problem," a voice behind me said.

  I turned. It was the skinny blond-haired guy from the bar who'd originally argued that the Talos commercial had been faked. I'd seen him in class a few times, but I'd never taken much notice of him. I didn't think he was one of PacMan's crowd. He didn't look much like a spy. He was wearing a big, shapeless sweatshirt with a faded Volkswagen logo, but it didn't make him look any less skinny. He had pale waxy skin and big grey Anime eyes, which never quite met yours when he was talking.

  "The Strider's cab is insulated, so you can take it straight through the fence, use the cutters if you have to. Maximum stride is ten feet, so if you time it right, the ditch shouldn't even slow you down," he said.

  "The problem is actually getting in there and getting one of those things started up without the guards and the dogs noticing," I said.

  "That's what I figured. You need some kind of distraction to occupy them while you get in. Did you have anything specific in mind?" He asked.

  "I think I have something that might keep them occupied," I said.

  He glanced through the fence again. "We won't have much time once we're in there," he said.

  "We?" I asked.

  "I got you into this, I'd like to help."

  "You didn't get me into this," I said. "If I hadn't wanted to do it, I'd have told PacMan to get lost."

  "I want to help."

  I thought about it. I wasn't feeling as confident about this little caper as I was pretending to be: a little moral support might not go amiss. I shrugged. "It's your funeral."

  "Nathaniel Rhodes," he said. "Nathan, or Nate, if you like."

  I thought he was actually going to offer to shake my hand for a moment.

  "Steven Houston," I said.


  Most of my friends called me Stevie, but I didn't think he qualified yet. Maybe later.

  "How do we get in?" Nathan asked.

  I held up a small box – a trackball and keypad combination I'd cooked up earlier. "Walk this way," I said.

  "Nice car," Nathan said.

  It was an old Ford, circa the mid-noughties, all rust and no hubcaps, bald tyres and a cracked windscreen.

  "It's a decoy," I said.

  "I'm no expert, but it looks more like a Mondeo to me," he said.

  I grinned. I was beginning to like him.

  "You sure you can operate one of those things when we get in there?" Nathan asked, nodding towards the Strider.

  "Of course." I wasn't, but how difficult could it be?

  "Do you have any plans for the Strider after you've performed with it at the academy?" Nathan asked.

  "I haven't really thought about it, why?"

  "Well, you can't just come and give it back, can you?" Nathan asked.

  "No, I guess I'll have to dispose of it somehow–"

  "I'll do that," Nathan said. He seemed kind of eager.

  I shrugged. "Okay."

  "Help me lay these planks across the ditch?" I asked.

  They were four planks from builders' scaffolding, covered in plaster dust, their ends bound with galvanised metal strips. We lifted the planks, sliding them across the ditch, a bridge for the car. I got to take most of the load: Nathan was favouring one arm, the other held close to his side.

  "Will it take the weight?" Nathan asked.

  "Probably," I said. I took the control box out of my pocket and punched in a sequence of numbers: the Ford's engine rumbled into life, a cloud of bluish smoke rising behind it. It smelt pretty toxic. "It's diesel," I said. "I didn't have time to convert the engine."

  He nodded, and maybe he even understood.

  I used the trackball to steer the Ford, lining it up with the planks, retrieved a large canvas holdall from the driver's seat, and then reversed the car up a ways: I figured I'd need to take a run at it. "Theoretically," I said. "We ought to be safe to go through the fence inside the car, the tyres insulate it from the ground. But I don't want to take a chance on that theory."

  He nodded, more enthusiastically this time.

  "I'll send the car through the fence: if it breaks the fence completely, the electricity'll be shorted out and we can go straight in behind it. If the fence doesn't break, we'll drop one of the planks over the flattened wire and go over that. Okay?"

  "Sounds good to me," Nathan said.

  It sounded perfectly insane to me, but an insane plan is better than no plan. Probably.

  "I'll steer the car as far into the site as I can. While the guards and the dogs investigate that, we'll head for that Strider on the right over there: it's closest to the fence, and the furthest from where I hope the car will end up. Ready?"

  Nathan nodded.

  I leaned in and released the car's handbrake. I revved the engine, then hit the button that slipped it into gear. The old Ford raced towards the make-shift bridge. The planks rumbled and groaned, plaster dust raining into the ditch, then the car hit the fence. I suppose I expected bright showers of electric blue sparks and the crackling sound you get in Frankenstein movies; instead, there was the chunk of metal hitting metal as the car nosed into the fence. The chain-link seemed to stretch, breaking free from the concrete posts, slowing the car. I had visions of the car coming to a complete halt, like Wile E. Coyote in an ACME giant rubber band, and then being fired back across the ditch to where we were standing. Something gave with a sharp poing, and there was an echo along the fence like an movie ray gun. The fence, breached in one spot, quickly gave way, its links snapping and loosed wires flying wildly apart. Suddenly released, the car shot forwards into the building site, its rear end fish-tailing until the tyres regained traction.

  "Watch the razor wire," I said. "I don't think that circuit's broken." I picked up the holdall and jogged across one of the planks, leaping the remaining strands of the fence.

  Swarms of exo-suited guards and baying Robermans appeared, closing in on the car. Almost immediately the guards opened fire.

  "I'm glad we weren't in the car," Nathan said, catching up with me. We ducked behind a stack of girders.

  The car was stationary now, its tyres flat, engine belching steam.

  "They'll start searching for us the moment they discover that the car is empty," Nathan said.

  "Then we'll just have to give them something else to worry about." I smiled and keyed an eight digit sequence into the car's control pad. "Count to ten, then run for the Strider. Don't look back," I said.

  I counted to six then took off for the Strider. Nathan was close behind. There was a dull whoomp and the ground shook under us. I glanced back over my shoulder. Where the Ford had been was now a cloud of fire and smoke, rising into the night sky. Concussion grenade with some harmless pyrotechnics for effect. Scattered around the burning wreck were fallen guards and dogs; stunned by the shockwave, their hardware blipped by a mild EM pulse.

  I stumbled towards the Strider, my ears popping. Nathan knelt beside me as I opened the holdall and went to work on the giant machine's left leg.

  "It won't take them long to find us here," he said. He pulled some kind of air-pistol from a holster hidden under his sweatshirt.

  "What are you doing?" I asked, concerned.

  "I'm going to take out some of those floodlights. Hurry up!"

  I hurried. I flipped open the control panel in the Strider's leg and connected my computer to override the locking mechanism. The Strider's motors hummed into life, and the cab lights came on. I was hardly aware of the pistol shots as I tried to persuade the Strider's firmware to talk to the control software on my computer.

  "We in yet?" Nathan asked, "because they're on their way."

  Obviously attracted by the lights in the Strider's cab. Or the gun shots.

  "Almost there," I said. Seconds later the cab door clicked open, and a little stairway descended on smooth hydraulics.

  "Crap!" Nathan said.

  I turned in time to see him stand quickly and train the gun on an exo-suited guard who had sneaked up on our left. The gun jerked and earth sprayed into the air just in front of the armoured security guard: a deliberate miss, I hoped. The guard hesitated, then ducked behind a pallet of insulation foam to await back-up. Smart man.

  "Let's go!" Nathan yelled, scanning the shadows for other attackers.

  "We're in," I said. I disconnected my computer and ran up the steps. I'd imagined something smart and high-tech, like an executive automobile: it looked like a spaceship cockpit from an old Flash Gordon serial. I dropped into the driver's seat, tearing open the control console and connecting my computer to override the Strider's own system. I heard Nathan climb onto the steps, and several shots rang out.

  "They're coming, and they don't look happy! If we're going to get out of here, we've got to do it now!" He squeezed off another couple of rounds, then came up the steps and stood behind me.

  "Hold tight," I said. "This is going to be a bit jerky until I get the feel for it."

  I raised the steps and closed the cab door. I called up the control software, and my mind was suddenly filled with a mass of data and menu trees. Damn! This thing was more complex than any robot I'd ever seen. I cleared the automatic functions, figuring they'd take care of themselves: why else would they be labelled automatic? Then I turned off the areas related to specific work functions – welding, cutting, painting and the like – so that I could concentrate on the key movement functions.

  "Just put one foot in front of the other and move!" Nathan urged.

  Proximity detection seemed standard enough, and the avoidance system was partially automatic. The gyros meant that balance would be maintained no matter what I did. In theory. All I had to do was control speed, direction and stride length. One foot in front of the other, easy. Of course, if I misjudged and tripped this thing, there was little chance of ge
tting it upright quickly, and we'd be caught like sardines in a can. But aside from that I had no worries.

  I once read somewhere, that walking is controlled falling. When a person has two feet on the ground, they are stable. When they lift a foot to take a step, they begin to fall forwards, and it's only when that foot reaches the ground again that the fall is stopped and stability is restored. As a person, walking had always come pretty naturally to me – except when I'd had a few beers – but in the Strider, the whole controlled-fall principal became sickeningly obvious. I had never been to sea, but I guessed that this was exactly like being seasick. Around us, the machine creaked and groaned as it lurched from step to step.

  "You want to hurry this thing along a bit?" Nathan asked.

  "You want us to end up head first in a ditch?"

  The trick was to keep the body of the Strider low, like an ostrich running with hunched shoulders, belly close to the ground.

  Guards and robo-dogs were coming towards us on all sides, and I could see the headlights of vehicles approaching, but they were having to avoid concrete-filled footings and cages of steel girders that slowed them down.

  "Ah, I was afraid of that," Nathan said. He was peering out of a side window.

  "What?"

  "They've got somebody firing up the other Striders, they're going to come after us."

  "Clash of the Striders! This could be fun!" I said.

  Chapter Two

  Now that I'd (almost) mastered the art of walking, I decided to check out some of the other functions, see if we had anything that could be used as a weapon. A hail of red hot rivets soon had the guards diving for cover, but the Robermans didn't recognise the danger quite so quickly, and I nailed a couple of them before the rest took off. I felt that we needed some appropriate music for the external speakers, though I wasn't sure what: then my subconscious threw up the perfect classic track, a rock version of These Boots Are Made For Walking. Ha, ha. I turned it up loud.

  "They're going to try and head us off before we get to the fence," Nathan warned.