Adam Christopher - The Age Atomic

The scrap was robot parts. Rad saw arms and legs first, then torsos and breastplates, some intact, some in halves like clamshells. Large elliptical waist joints were racked over poles like hula-hoops. There were limb components, individual feet and hands and elbows, and smaller parts that looked like shoulder collars or articulated elbow joints.

And heads. Stacked like coal scuttles, one inside the other in teetering, curved towers. Robot heads, or the external shells of them anyway.

It was a robot graveyard.

The huge stage was filled with materials too, but here the order was more regimented, the space a workshop. Trolleys, racks, shelves, and workbenches were arranged around three large tables, which looked to Rad like the slabs from a hospital mortuary. Every surface but the slabs was covered in more of the robotic parts, most in considerably better shape than the junkyard collection in the stalls. Metallic body parts that were not stacked and arranged neatly were held in various bench clamps and cradles, some opened like fruit, tools ranging from giant wrenches to fine surgical clamps protruding, wires thick and thin trailing out to the banks of equipment ranging from small tabletop boxes to floor standing cabinets. The equipment buzzed and the smell of ozone was rich in the air, and lights flashed red and yellow and blue.

“Rad, look.”

He felt Jennifer’s hand on his arm as she spoke breathlessly. He turned, and whistled.

The back of the stage was occupied by a tree, growing out of the floor on the left side, the trunk curving up towards the center. The tree was enormous, the branches starting just below the remains of the stage lighting rig hanging high above them. The branches spread out evenly and thickly, obscuring the ceiling in a mass of leaves that glistened wetly in the dark. It looked to Rad like the tree was growing into the structure of the building, the curve of the trunk almost penetrating the wall, some of the back branches growing flat against it.

“What the hell?” Rad whispered. He replaced his hat as he looked up at the tree. Jennifer turned to him, her eyes wide, a smile flickering across her mouth.

“Welcome to my workshop!” said the King, strolling towards them. He ignored the pair of them staring at the tree, and instead moved to one of the nearby benches, on which sat a phonograph, complete with large horn. The King flicked the machine on, and the workshop was filled with jazz. “As you can see,” he continued, “I have rather a lot of equipment, but the space here is more than adequate.”

Rad and Jennifer exchanged a look.

“Some hobby you got,” said Rad, while Jennifer walked over to the tree.

“Not a hobby, Mr Bradley, a vocation, a calling! My work here is very important, very important indeed. Believe me when I say that the future of the Empire State itself depends upon it.”

“The tree,” said Jennifer, looking up at it. “It’s… it’s beautiful.”

The King walked over to her, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. “The tree brings me luck. It was here before me, of course. The theater belongs to it, I think.” He pointed to a patch on the trunk that was worn smooth and shiny. “There. Rub it for luck. Go on!”

Jennifer looked at Rad but Rad just shrugged. Jennifer rubbed the patch on the trunk as the King watched.

“How does it grow inside, with no light, or rain?”

The King shrugged. “It was here before me. It’s part of the theater.”

“I think we got more important things to worry about,” said Rad. “Like the fact we’ve found the source of our robot problem.”

“Ah yes, the robots ,” said the King, rolling the “R” like a circus magician. “I’m sorry you got tangled up in that, but I did warn you not to come until very late. I can only keep the lantern lit for a few hours a night, and then it takes the rest of the day to recharge the power battery. You were lucky — my instruments reported movement a few blocks south, so I dispatched the Corsair to investigate. It seems like he reached you just in time.”

Jennifer scratched at the slab in front of her with a gloved finger. “The Corsair?”

“Ah, the Corsair!” said the King. “My… ah, assistant, shall we say? He’s not very talkative, but he is possessed of certain skills that come in useful.”

Rad raised an eyebrow. “He’d make a good getaway driver.”

The King clapped his hands. “Oh, isn’t that car something else? I built that as well. My own design, of course.”

Jennifer said, “What does the green light do, exactly?”

“It keeps the robots away,” said the King. “It’s not green; that’s just how we see it. But to them, the light is something else — it interferes with their sensors. More than that, in fact. I have discovered they will actively avoid it, as if it causes them pain, in some way.”

Jennifer nodded like she understood. Rad just shook his head.

“You’re gonna have to explain why there are robots roaming the streets in the first place. You seem to know a bit about that.”

“Oh yes,” the King said as he walked around the stage, bending down to inspect various readouts on the workshop equipment as he passed them by. He tapped his fingers along the bench tops in time with the music. “When Wartime ended the Naval dockyards were in full production for another Fleet Day. A day which, of course, will now never come. They claimed most of the robots were deactivated, but I think you and I both know that the crews of the Ironclads are not entirely mechanical. They are men — were men — and unable to be deactivated, short of killing them. So they were released.”

“Just like that?”

The King clicked his fingers. “Just like that.”

Rad and Jennifer exchanged a look, and she asked, “So why are they all up here? The Naval robot yards are a long way from Harlem.”

“Ah, that is my doing,” said the King. “I am from downtown, actually. One night, among the chaos, I had my own little encounter. I discovered the robots — all lost, afraid, hiding in the shadows.” He held his hands out. “I decided to help them.”

Jennifer stepped around the slab with a speed that surprised Rad. “Help them? How could you help them?” She leaned over him as she pressed her questions, her face pale.

“Ms Jones, please! I am both an engineer and a doctor. I thought there might be a way to reverse the process of robotization. If the mechanical and electronic parts of these poor creatures could be removed, maybe the men trapped inside their steel prisons could be freed, and return to normal life.”

Rad hrmmed . This sounded like the kind of endeavor Captain Carson would have had a hand in, being the guy who had helped invent the damn robot technology in the first place. The fact that Carson had instead vanished and this guy had set up what was starting to look like a crazy person’s backstreet robot surgery crossed Rad’s mind as not particularly good signs. He raised a hand, but stopped when he saw the look on Jennifer’s face.

She was standing even closer to the King now, her eyes wide, her lips parted. Rad could see the rise and fall of her chest.

“Is it true?” she asked the King, her voice a breathy whisper. “Can you save these people?”

The King still had the smile on his face, and he nodded.

Rad jerked his thumb over one shoulder. “What about those robots outside? They don’t look much fixed to me.” He stepped up to Jennifer and pulled her away from their host. When she looked at Rad there was a spark in her eyes: she was hot on the trail of whatever it was she was looking for. “And what about our erstwhile friend, the amazing Cliff? There’s warehouses full of robots just like him downtown, all packed up like toy soldiers, waiting for something. That anything to do with you?”