Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

“Let’s fight!”

An elephant roars with horror as our first bombs explode. We run forward shooting with our laser guns – which are computer-targeted on the DRs’ own guns, allowing us to disarm dozens of them in the first few seconds of our assault.

Then Three DRs run in front of me, and I unsheath my sword and sweep off their heads.

Flanagan throws a flare bomb and the square vanishes in a blinding light. With our eyes closed we run towards the Abbey, guided by the faithful voice in my head. Lena, run directly forward, take a kink to the left, Flanagan keep closer to her, keep your hand on her shoulder, DRs on your right, missile incoming duck and run…

We hurl a bomb at the doors of the Abbey and run inside. Our swords snick and shear and robot bodies die all around us Then I strike off a head and, shockingly, blood spurts. We’ve reached the human defences; we are killing men and women now.

Our robot bodies are abnormally strong and fast; and our human reflexes are honed and refined in battle. We carve a bloody path through the Abbey and run up the stairs. Door after door falls to our bombs and flares. Robots and humans lie thickly dead on the marble floors.

We breach the Cheo’s inner sanctum. The Cheo is waiting for us, with an entourage of his fellow directors, and an army of DR bodyguards.

“Lena?” he says, in a voice of bewilderment. I feel a momentary stab of satisfaction. We have caught him offguard. We…

Then I see a familiar look in his eyes. Triumph. Contempt. He’s played me for a fool. He’s killed the next-door cat and fed it in portions to the rats in the meadow. He’s put dog turd in a little girl’s lunchbox. He’s raped a girl and fooled me into thinking he is innocent. It is all there, in his stare. He knew we were coming.

Flanagan begans shooting at the DRs and the company directors, leaping and diving out of the way of the returning fire. But I stand still, in horror, for I see that my son is surrounded by a force field of a type I do not recognise, which is causing the air around him to shimmer and distort. And his skin is pale, with the texture of plastic… he is wearing the armoured skin of a Doppelganger Robot. With the combination of the armour and the force field he is, I realise, invulnerable.

Time stands still for me. I am swamped in a universe of regret. It is one thing, I realise, to kill your child. And another thing entirely to try to kill your child, and fail.

And now, Peter is levelling a plasma gun at me. His face abruptly distorts with rage and hate. I cannot blame him. But…

I lunge at him with my sword. I will kill him before he can kill me. I will…

But the attack fails. I am engulfed in tar and quicksand as the force field alters the air pressure around me. Then he releases the force field and Peter’s plasma beam hits me full on. My body sears, I feel the pain as if it actually exists.

Flanagan has killed or destroyed everyone else in the room; only we three remain. And now he moves past me, with astonishing speed. He takes advantage of the fraction of an instant in which the force field is down and Peter is unprotected and he strikes with his sword.

But the blade is a centimetre from my son’s skin when it comes to a shocking halt. The blade bounces back. Flanagan strikes again, but the force field is fully activated now. He strikes again, with dazzling speed, but the sword blade slows… it bounces off. Flanagan slashes and swings, his blade so close to flesh it feels as if he is skinning Peter. But none of the blows strike home. Flanagan finally stops, looking old, defeated, foolish.

Peter smiles, and scatters sparkly dust at us.

There’s a huge bang and we are knocked on our arses. My son is openly grinning now. He is clearly revelling in this chance to show his superiority. “You evil old bitch!” he says, and my spirit is scalded, and I decide…

Get me out of here, tinbrain! I can’t. My systems are disabled.

What?

“Yes, you old fucking whore bitch, you’re trapped,” says Peter. “You can’t escape, and you can’t kill me. You can’t…”

And he is engulfed in fire, and burns to the bone before our eyes.

There is a stunned, shocked, awful silence.

I howl with horror as my son dies in front of me.

Then the doors rip open and a new army of the Cheo’s guards move in on us. We slash and kill, slash and kill. Robot guards pour laser beams and missiles into us. Then one of them grabs a sword, and my eyes are whirling round madly. My head is off.

“Flanagan,” I murmur, but he can’t hear me, and I can’t speak.

Lena

I wake in my human body.

My nightmare begins.

I remember the moment of my birth.

It seems impossible I know. Perhaps it’s a false memory. But I always wonder… what if I evolved? In that long long period when I was a frozen fertilised egg. What if I became sentient? And began to think, before I was born?

I remember pain and blood and my mother’s screaming face.

And I can also remember my mother’s face screaming and weeping, after she was flayed. The tears rested like dew on the plastic that coated the ligaments and sinews of her skinless body.

And I remember my mother, asleep. Like a baby. A beautiful sight. When she lived with me on Earth we would watch old films together, and she’d fall asleep beside me on the sofa. And I’d cradle her, and study her, as she wheezed, and snored. Tender, lovely moments.

I know I have a cruel streak. And I admit, I am capable of exceptional violence. But I hope I will be remembered as a strong leader. A fair leader. A man who made humanity safe.

But perhaps, in fact, I will never die. Technically, it’s possible.

I sowed a lot of wild oats as a young man. I did things that, perhaps, I should not have done. But I’ve grown into a god. I have power beyond imagining. That is my rationale for doing as I have done. Though, of course, I need no rationale. Power is an essence; embrace it, it becomes you. Never look back, never regret, never leave a glass of wine half full. If I had a philosophy, it would be that.

I have only one fear. The death of soul. The loss of my ability to savour life. That is why I push to extremes. Rape, murder, torture, they give me zest.

Ah. I sense them now. My mother and her pirate have arrived on Earth. But we are ready for them. Their defeat will give me a new lease of life.

She comes to kill me, but I forgive her. When she attacks me, I’ll taunt her for a while. Then I’ll trap her mind in her robot body, and terrify her with my power, and eventually I will spare her. Flanagan will die, though. His mind will be trapped and tortured and, eventually, obliterated, leaving his body an empty husk on some faraway spaceship. But I will keep my mother alive. We’ll be together again. Friends, again.

I’m waiting for you, Lena…

That will do. Record these words, and replay it to me when we have achieved victory. Yes, Cheo.

Flanagan is tethered to the ship in his spacesuit, floating through ssspace. I fly next to him, and he tells me of hisss adventure, and hisss great victory.

There is a sssadnesss in his sssoul. I do not understand it. Should he not be happy? Exhilarated? I am puzzzzled, and the puzzzlement painssss me.

“What isss wrong?” I ask. But hisss answer alarmsss me. “What now?” he saysss, bitterly. “What now?”

“Now,” I tell him, “you mussst find a fresh challenge.” But he looksss at me blankly.

And I die.

And I am reborn. I sift through the memoriesss of the last ssssentience known as “Alby”, and I find much joy and hope and satisssfaction. But I find something new too. A wanderlusssst.

“Flanagan,” I tell him, “goodbye.”