Steve Tem - Ubo

The chained bot snapped its teeth and shookits head.“Henry?”

The werewolfbot stopped, stared at him, then started shaking its head again. Danielbot studied the one who had been taunting him—that bot took one glance at him, turned his back and disappeared into the crowd. The werewolfbot made a high-pitched screeching sound. The chain was attached just below the neck joint. The bot kept running in circles, the chain stretched tightly to the ring. With each revolution he came perilously close to the edge of the roof. If he went off the edge he would hang himself.

When the manic figure wasn’t running in circles it would stretch the chain as far as possible toward the crowd, supporting itself on its analogs of hands and knees, its segments and joints rigid with tension, its eye globes vibrating from the strain, and it would make a coughing, almost barking noise through its teeth, because it had clamped its jaw shut, as if it were trying to prevent the noise from coming out.

Danielbot approached within a few feet. “Henry? Do you recognize me?”

Again the bot twisted its head sideways in a dog-like movement. “Are you the king?” it asked. “Are you His Majesty?”

Danielbot thought a moment, then remembering, reached up and touched the cylinders attached to his skull. “These? It’s not a crown. I was in an… accident.”

“I’ve never had an accident,” the werewolfbot said, “but I have made some.” Its eyes wobbled sideways. “I know your face,” the bot said. “It’s like everyone’s face.”

“Are you trying to get free? I don’t think they—”

“No! I have to be sure the chain is strong enough to hold me! I don’t know who there is left to eat, but I would have to eat somebody! But can I eat them? I’m afraid they would break my teeth!”

The werewolfbot capered about then, snapping its jaws as if anxious for a ball. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

The werewolfbot stopped and grew very still, staring with its eyes frozen in place. “I can still feel my fur,” he said. “But I can’t see it! It still itches and grows beneath my skin, but I have no skin. I deserve to be in Hell, but I had no idea it would be this bad!”

“You’re not in Hell. You’re in the future we’ve made for ourselves.”

“Are you a prophet? Jeanne d’Arc, that bitch, she was a prophet, among other things. Is it glorious being a prophet? Does it satisfy you? I crave such satisfaction, but it would seem I am far too itchy.”

“No. I’m a ma—. I am just like you.”

“A sorry end, isn’t it, to be like me? I only wanted to be admired, or at least remembered. I only wanted to be greater than myself—doesn’t every human being want to be greater than themselves? It’s the only thing which would made life tolerable, the only possible compensation for the grinding boredom of it all! You start out so full of promise, and yet you end up a corpse!”

“There are other ways to look at it, I think,” Danielbot said. The werewolfbot attempted to chew at its own parts with a rattling, metallic sound, and to howl, but the howl still came out muffled, which appeared to make the werewolfbot furious.

“I am the destroyer! I am the darkness at the end of time!” the werewolf screamed. “I am the slow corrupter, the rapid pestilence, the universal disassembler, the final stop on the journey! I am the madness without explanation! Love me and I will slaughter you! I will pick through your brains with my tongue!”

One of the guards pushed his way through the crowd of bots and aimed his electric rifle at the werewolfbot, who sniffed its barrel curiously, even though it lacked a nose. The guard pulled the trigger and held it as bolt after bolt wrapped the bot’s frame. The other bots scattered. The Danielbot shouted “No!”

When the guard finally loosened his grip on the trigger, the werewolfbot collapsed into a motionless pile.

“Why did you do that? He was chained!” the Danielbot cried.

The guard turned and looked the bot over. “It malfunctioned,” he said, and walked away.

Danielbot approached the werewolfbot’s collapsed form. He prodded it with his foot. Bearings turned and pieces pivoted on their pins as the lifeless parts rearranged themselves with the shifting gravity, then stopped.

He was walking back through the crowd when he saw a bot staring at him, and then attempting to hide in the debris. It was the one who had been taunting Henry, and—he realized—the boy without a name he’d met on the roof what seemed a lifetime ago. He walked over slowly, trying not to scare him.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You can come out now. I know you don’t recognize me, but we know each other. I met you on this roof a while back. You’d found a dead bird, remember?”

The bot came out. He looked no different than all the others, and they were all the same size. But he had the nameless boy’s voice. “I know,” the boy said. “I recognized you.”

“How’d you manage that—we all look the same.”

“I dunno.” There was no shrug to see, but Danielbot could hear it in his voice. “Maybe just because of the way you are. We’re all still different—at least I see differences.”

“Why’d you run?”

“Because of what I did, to that crazy one on the chain.”

“You tormented him. You were being cruel.”

“I was just having fun. He was just so crazy. I was just letting off some steam! Killing time! I’ve just got way too much time! I didn’t hurt him. That guard, he hurt him.”

It seemed pointless to be having this conversation. What do you talk about when it’s the end of the world? “So how are you doing?” he asked.

“How do you think? Look at what they done to me!” The boy’s voice rose. He stood up and spread his mechanical arms. “Look at me!”

Danielbot turned and left. The bots who had been watching this drama scattered, as if embarrassed. That left only Falstaff standing there.

Danielbot walked quickly to Falstaff and grasped his hand, covering it with both of his metal ones, trying not to squeeze too hard, as if it were a wounded bird he was trying to save. “Henry is dead!” He was upset, and whatever else this man was—imprisoner or torturer or protector—he had been a companion through part of this journey. “One of your—one of the guards killed him. And the boy tormented him! The boy was almost gleeful!”

“It’s adolescence. The boy holds onto our anger, and we hold onto the boy.”

“He follows me everywhere!”

Falstaff shook his hand vigorously, as if they were two old friends saying goodbye forever. “Our murderous companion. Our provocateur, our sidekick! A huge part of our problem, I think, is that the human race has largely failed to reach its adulthood.”

Danielbot could feel himself weeping, although he was aware that no actual tears were produced. “You’re saying goodbye. I won’t see you again. Be careful, my friend. God! Or the devil! I can see him in my head! The devil is on his way to Ubo!”

“I went down to the labs. I spent some time reconfiguring this bug in my head to your equipment.” He gestured toward Danielbot’s unwanted headgear. “Make yourself open to my signals. I’m going to rummage around below, see if I can take some of the electronic files with me. Maybe at some point someone can make better use of what we’ve done. Follow me if you can. At least maybe you’ll know what it’s like to escape this life.” Falstaff’s face began to break. “I’m so sorry.” He was weeping. “You were never supposed to know. This was never supposed to happen.”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? Things that were never supposed to happen, they happen all the time.”