Tony Ballantyne - Twisted Metal

But deep in the heart of the planet metal was heated and cooled. Metal ran in silver streams and metal cooled in silver webs, deep in the heart of the planet. Metal formed patterns, and the thoughts moved over those patterns, unknowing. But the metal formed shapes that took on meaning, and so the thoughts gained a window into the world. They saw rocks and the caves lit by the glow of molten metal.

And so the first eye was born.

Now the thoughts saw the sky and the sun, the two moons and the sea. And the thoughts thought about what they saw.

And as the thoughts thought, the metal churned in the caves, and still the metal formed shapes that took on meaning, and another window was pushed into the world, and through it came the sound of the wind and the sea.

And so the first ear was born.

Now that the thoughts could see and hear, they began to wonder at the order of things. They saw that day followed night, and that calm followed the storm, and that all hot metal must cool. And the thoughts wondered; must it always be so? Was it possible to change things?

Must a rock always stand where it had come to rest? And as the thoughts thought, the metal churned in the caves, and the metal formed shapes that took on meaning and the thoughts found they had moved the rock.

And so the first arm was born.

And then they sought to move another rock, further away, but they could not reach it. So the thoughts strove to reach that rock.

And so the first legs were born.

And they thought of day and night, and warm and cold, and calm and storm, and wondered that everything came in pairs. And so the thoughts built another, like themselves.

And so the first robots were born.

Karel smiled at his son as he finished the recitation.

‘And that’s where robots come from, Axel.’

Axel nodded slowly.

‘How long ago was that, Dad?’

‘We don’t know. Robots didn’t know about time back then.’

Axel was working on his legs. Lengthening them. The electromuscles he had put in place were too powerful for his young mind. Even if he could move them, they would bend the chassis out of true, but Karel let him continue. It was a mistake that every growing boy made: building a body too big, so that there was insufficient life-force from the mind to power it. That strength of life-force would come eventually as the twisted metal of the child’s developing mind continued to form new connections while it folded itself into shape, but in the meantime it did a child good to learn from his mistakes.

Karel looked around the family forge and felt a sense of warm satisfaction at what he had achieved. Karel was well paid for his work: in steel, copper and silver of high purity. Even a little gold. He and Susan could afford a good apartment in a good part of town – four decent-sized rooms with a view that looked into Turing State, beyond the city itself, out over the railway station and the galleries and the old town. In clear weather, one could even make out the coast.

The forge itself was small but hot, and Turing City afforded an excellent purity and variety of metal to work in it. Karel and Susan were built of tungsten and steel, of iron and brass and silver. Thriving on such fine-quality materials, Axel showed prodigious talent, already learning how to bend titanium into shape as he built his little body. Standing in the yellow glow of the forge that squatted in the middle of the stone floor, the room around it lit up in golden-orange, Karel felt at peace. Susan was out buying paint and tasting the world, storing up thoughts to weave into their next child. Axel was building himself into a great boy. All was well. Even the bizarre ravings of Banjo Macrodocious, the Spontaneous robot, could not disturb Karel.

‘Daddy?’ Axel paused in the act of fastening an electromuscle that was simply too big to work properly. Karel smiled at the serious look on his son’s face, felt a pang of sympathy at the disappointment he knew he was about to experience.

‘Yes, Axel.’

‘Daddy, why did you make me this way?’

Karel smiled.

‘Is this about us making you build yourself again? Listen, Axel, Mummy and I want what’s best for you. Not everyone can afford titanium and tungsten. Not everyone owns a forge as hot as this. These are advantages you have had from birth, you didn‘t earn them. But there is something that everyone can have, no matter how rich or poor their parents, and that is self-reliance. That’s what we are giving you Axel. That’s why you’re building yourself.’

‘No, Dad, that’s not what I mean.’ Axel gave up forcing the spongy knitted wire of the electromuscle for a moment and fixed his gaze on his father. ‘What I mean is – why am I the way I am? Why did you make me unselfish? Why do I always have to share with other people and take my turn and be part of the team? Why did you and Mum twist my mind that way?’

Karel didn’t speak for a moment. He came close to his son and crouched down so that their heads were nearly level. There was an asymmetry to Axel’s skull that his son hadn’t noticed, or was beyond his current ability to remove. Or maybe he just didn’t see the point yet. It took the onset of puberty for a robot to realize the importance of a well-built body as an advertisement to the opposite sex. Karel touched his son gently on the hand.

‘Axel, what brought this on? Have the other children been talking?’

‘Sometimes. But when we’re playing some of the other robots cheat. Or, when we’re picking at the metal scraps in the gangue, some of the others push in and take more than their fair share. Why did you build me so that I couldn’t do that?’

‘Because this is Turing City. We look after each other here. Together we are stronger.’

‘But other children aren’t made that way.’

‘Some other children aren’t made that way,’ Karel allowed.

‘But that’s not fair! They get to do what they want and I’m left just standing watching.’

‘It may not seem fair at the moment, Axel, but as you get older you’ll find out that those children aren’t lucky at all. They won’t be trusted; they won’t get chosen to join the best teams; nobody will want to spend time with them. Their parents think they are doing them a favour, but really they are not being fair to them at all.’

Karel was struck by how small his son really was: still just a four-year-old, with a perfectly formed little body. No, not perfectly formed, because children never were, that was just the way that their mothers and fathers saw them, but there was something about him, the way that everything was there, and working in miniature. Something formed out of Karel and Susan. Axel was fiddling with the electromuscle once more, serious again.

There was something else, though. Karel knew Axel wasn’t telling him the full truth: no mother would ever have twisted their child to be completely predictable. There would always be that last couple of inches, that last little part of the personality that could lie or cheat, if necessary.

‘What’s up, Axel?’ asked Karel. ‘This isn’t like you. Is there something else bothering you?’

Axel pulled at the muscle halfheartedly.

‘Dad,’ he said. He was coming to the point, but in his own time. ‘I know you’re right about the selfish ones. I’ve seen the way that they get treated. The way that people talk about them, behind their backs. That’s not what I mean, though.’ He paused as if unsure what to say next.

‘What do you mean, Axel?’

‘I mean, well, this is all very well in Turing City State, but what if… I mean, what about…?’

‘Are you talking about Artemis, Axel?’

Axel dropped his eyes to look at the floor.

‘Well, yes. They say that they have invaded Wien. And that we’re next.’