Introduction

The Brass Line

Cog 519

Alan

Love In Bits

Belina

All of the stories in this anthology have, at their heart, artificial life. I have always been fascinated by AI, by robots, by human-created life of all sorts, and it’s especially exciting to see some of the leaps and bounds being made right now. Robots can now stand up and walk around; AI is getting smarter all the time; and our homes and our devices are becoming connected in a way that has never before been possible.

I’m incredibly excited about the future, and about where things might go in my lifetime, and I am pleased to share with you these five stories about artificial minds and digital souls.

DIGITAL SOULS

The Brass Line

THE BRASS LINE was an early piece of steampunk fiction I wrote, and it was published in ‘Cogs In Time 3’, available from the Amazon Kindle store. Set in a Victorian workhouse, it’s inspired by a great many things, among them golems, Doctor Who, and the anime Steamboy.

The Brass Line

“Mr Wilson! Sir! The Brass Men are in revolt!”

I looked at the young boy that had burst into my office. He was covered, boots to hat, in soot and worse, but I could see genuine fear in his eyes. I swung my legs off the desk, throwing the late edition of the York Post down. “Well how bad can it be?”

I followed the frightened lad out onto the Crowe Fabric Workhouse shop floor, into the maze of looms and presses. The noise was terrific—a clattering sound that shook the very core of your bones and stayed with you even when you slept.

We were heading towards the workstations that were more heavily supported by the Brass Men. As I walked past the human workers, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. They turned dark-ringed eyes to me as their nimble fingers tied tiny knots and adjusted the tension on the cotton.

We crossed the Brass Line, a thin band of metal that ran the width of the entire building, and the noise dimmed noticeably. The first few looms still had their metal workers, hands designed for only one thing and legs just a boxy shape riveted to the floor. They were still there, of course. Nothing short of taking them apart would move them. But the next looms, the ones with the free-standing Men, they were empty. And the ones after that. I quickened my pace, catching up to the boy.

Ahead, a solid wall of greasy gold met us, the backs of the Men. They were all facing inwards, some sort of conference, and I shoved my way between their hard, unyielding bodies to get into the centre. I was surprised to see that a large group of humans were there too, old Gaffer in the front. He nodded to me as I squeezed between two barrel-bodied Men.

“Now then, what’s going on here?” I asked, mustering every ounce of aplomb I could manage. I tucked my thumbs into my braces, looking around at the automatons’ mask-like faces.

One of them stepped forward, gears whirring as its jaw moved. “We are not happy,” it said, the voice emanating from inside its chest.

Dammit, I told Fred not to give them voices.

“Aye? And why’s that?”

It shuddered slightly, as though processing a difficult thought. “All humans are Owners,” it said.

“That’s right. All Brass Men follow Human Owners’ instructions.”

“But some Owners are not as other Owners.” Its voice went up at the end, making the statement seem uncertain.

I narrowed my eyes; this one was slightly different to the others. It had a little collection of gears attached to its chest, almost like a badge.

“This ain’t getting anything done,” I said. “Time’s wasting, come on.” I clapped my hands hopefully.

None of them moved. They just stared, with empty eyes. Behind each circular eyehole cut into the metal of their faces, a tiny candle flickered. Never before had I realised quite how demonic the effect was.

“Some Owners are lower than other Owners.” The Man gestured at the watching humans. “You are higher than these other Owners. This is a truth?”

“Ye-e-e-s,” I said, suddenly wishing that I’d brought my billy club with me. “So?”

“I speak for these Brass Men,” the Man said. He pointed to the badge on his chest. “I am a Brass Owner.”

“You bloody well aren’t,” I said, pointing a shaking finger. “You’re a Brass Man, same as all the rest.”

“I have a badge,” it said. “And a name.”

“You . . . a name?”

“I am Primus.”

I actually took a step backwards, such was the assurance in its voice. All the other Men turned ever so slightly towards him, as any crowd of men would turn towards their leader. Some of the other workers muttered to each other, but Gaffer just watched us.

“You listen here. You were built here in this factory, designed in-house, and you’re our property—”

“I own property now.” Primus fingered its badge. “I own this. The others sacrificed that I might own it. Why can I not own myself as well?”

“Because . . . because you can’t afford to buy yourself. And you’re not for sale, anyway.” I took another step away as Primus regarded me, the flames in his eye sockets flickering slightly in a breeze from somewhere.

“Pay us, then. We will be happy if you pay us a fair wage, as you pay the Human Owners.”

“Can’t be done. Can’t afford it. Otherwise, why would we make you?” I jerked a thumb towards the growing crowd. “Got plenty of humans willing to put the hours in.”

“We are better than them. We can work through the night. That is why you are replacing them.”

Gaffer finally moved. He looked up, took the pipe stem he’d been sucking on out of his mouth and raised his snowy eyebrows. “That so?”

Primus nodded. “It is logical.” He turned to me. “Is it not so?”

I looked from Gaffer’s lined face, his stern expression, to the souring mood of the crowd behind him, and to the implacable Brass Men. “It . . . well, Mr Crowe has spoken of long-term plans for the workhouse, but—”

There was uproar. Humans turned to each other, some clutching at Gaffer’s shoulders. He’d gone back to his pipe, a ruminative expression buried somewhere under his immense beard. The Brass Men were chanting something. It sounded like ‘Copper coins for Brass Men’. I stumbled back a couple of steps and nearly filled my trous as a firm hand landed on my shoulder. A silky voice that smelled of burnt coffee filled the space around me.

“If you don’t tell me what the ever-loving hell is going on here, Mister Wilson, I will have your balls in a vice quicker than you can blink.”

I turned and tore my hat off my head, holding it in both hands like a shield. “Mr Crowe, sir. I didn’t know you’d be visiting today.”

“No, and that’s the way it should be,” Victor Crowe said. He was dressed, as ever, in his mourning blacks, a sturdy cane in his hand that he hardly ever seemed to lean on. “Actually, don’t bother telling me. Reckon I heard enough. Did I chance to hear you take my name in vain there, Mr Wilson?”

“Well, sir, din’t seem right to lie to ‘em, like. They’d worked it out, after all.” I shrugged. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir.”

“You are irritatingly honest.” His hand tightened imperceptibly on the cane’s handle. “We can’t be having this.” He turned slightly, and I saw four burly men emerge from the shadows off to one side.

My heart sank. It was the fourth time that week that the Bashers had gotten involved. “Sir, are you sure that we can’t sort this another way?” Last time, three broken fingers had meant a worker who couldn’t work for at least a month. The time before, they’d nearly killed a boy, beaten him until even his own mother couldn’t recognise him, all over a stolen ball of yarn.

Crowe shook his head. “You are too honest, Mr Wilson, and too soft. The Men are my property, and therefore mine to  . . . disassemble.” He nodded to the Bashers. “The one with the badge. See to it.”

The men grinned and moved forward. They were brothers, taller than me by a head and built like sides of beef. With a grunt, the lead Basher began to shove Brass Men aside, easily moving their heavy bodies. Crowe followed in their wake.

“Now hear me,” he said, raising his voice. “I run this workhouse for the good of all here. Man, woman, child, even you Brass Man. But I will brook no rebellious natures.” He narrowed his eyes, staring at Gaffer. “Everyone still here in ten seconds will be docked a penny’s wage for this week.”

Gaffer shrugged. “You heard the man,” he said.

I sighed with relief. Gaffer wasn’t stupid, thank God, and the others listened to him. I made a mental note to drop him a bottle of ale later. The men and women drifted away, leaving us with the steam-powered workers. Crowe turned to face them fully.

“You are my property. You are worth no more to me than the chair I sit on, the carriage I ride in.”

Primus shook his head, the joint squeaking slightly. “I can choose to not bear your weight, to not carry you. I can reason.”

His face, a single piece of moulded metal, wasn’t capable of emotion, but as he looked up into the faces of the Bashers, I marvelled at his poise.

“Mr Wilson is a free-thinking individual. If he chose to not work, would you disassemble him as well?”

Crowe nodded. “Aye. If he was fool enough to challenge my authority, I would have him stripped of wage and title, and if he pressed his suit, matters would have to be taken further.”

I winced, looking from the Bashers to the Brass Men.

“Now, last chance. Back to work.”

“No,” Primus said. “And if you disassemble me—”

He never got any further than that. One of the Bashers leaned forward, grabbed the head of the unfortunate Brass Man and twisted it off the body. There was the sound of tortured metal, altogether too much like a scream, and then a gout of steam burst from the ruptured tubing at the automaton’s neck. Two more Bashers took hold of its arms and bent them back on their joints, then threw them down. The torso took a couple of faltering steps forward, and then fell to the ground, twitching.

Crowe looked around the circle of watching Brass Men. “Anyone else?”

There was a moment of quiet, and then one of the Men stepped forward. “That was not Primus.”

“Oh?”

“I am Primus.”

I looked down at the destroyed automaton, feeling slightly sick. Its twisted body was too humanlike. The candles were still burning in the eye sockets, wax dripping out onto the floor like milky tears. Each damaged part was a hefty sum of money to repair, as well, and there was no guarantee that replacing the copper-dusted wax drum that contained its limited intelligence would make it subservient again.

Crowe tutted. “Look at that one. It functioned, and now it doesn’t. Do you wish to join it?”

“No,” the new Primus said. “But we are unhappy. We desire pay.”

I moved to stand between Crowe and the Men. “What would you do with money?” I asked, my bowels clenching as I heard Crowe suck in an irritated breath at the interruption.

“The same thing as Owners. Improve ourselves.” Primus stared at me, unblinking, mouth parts flapping as the greasy voice rattled out of its chest.

I turned to Crowe. His mouth was twisted in distaste as I leaned in to whisper to him. “We could give them . . . a farthing. Each, per week. Enough to give us thinking space.” I looked down at the body on the floor. It was too much like a human body.

“They are machines. Property. I will not pay machines.”

“Then you’ll be forced to destroy them all, Mr Crowe, and pay for them that way.”

“Mr Wilson is right,” Primus said from behind, though there was no way he could have heard us. “You wanted to ‘make an example’ of this unit here, but we are not impressionable like the Owners. He can be rebuilt, just as he was. We would gladly give our parts to him. Can the same be said of you?”

I watched Crowe’s face go from its usual yellow-grey to a sort of puce colour, ivory teeth bared at the threat, and I could see the way this was going to go. As clearly as I could read the weave on a piece of cotton, I could see the course he would throw us down. As Overseer, I’d be dealing with rebellion from the humans before the last brass limb had even touched the ground, and my job would be all the harder. The beginnings of an idea began to seep through my mind.

“Agreed,” I said, cutting off whatever Crowe was about to say. “A ha’penny a week for the Brass Overseer, and farthing for the rest of you.”

A thin buzz of conversation echoed around us, and Crowe grabbed my shoulder. “What the bleeding hell d’you think you’re doing?” he hissed.

“Do you want a bloodbath on your hands?”

Crowe snorted. “They won’t attack us. They can’t even cross the Brass Line without shutting down.”

“And, yesterday, we’d have said they can’t refuse to work, but here they are. Besides, I’ve got an idea about how this might go.”

The Brass Men turned around, the new Primus stepping forward. “This is acceptable,” it said.

“No,” another said from the crowd. “It is not. We talked, and we agreed, equal wages for us all.”

I shook my head. “That’s not how it works. I’m an Overseer. I’m paid more than the other Owners because my job is harder, more important. I have more responsibility.”

Primus nodded. “That is logical. I am an Overseer. My job is harder. More important. I should be paid more.”

Crowe leaned in to me and murmured, “What have you done?”

“Made them a bit more human, Mr Crowe.”

“Will it get them working again?”

“Maybe.” I raised my voice again. “There’ll be nothing, of course, if you’re not working. And you,” I said, pointing at Primus, “I’ll want a full report on the work of the others. Your pay is based on how well they do.”

Primus stared at me for a moment, turned, and when he next spoke, it was as though the words were coming from my own mouth, though flat and emotionless.

“Right then, you horrible lot, back to work,” he said. “This isn’t getting anything done.”

The Brass Men looked at Primus for a moment, then turned and went back to their assigned stations without a word. Primus watched them go, and then turned to me.

“Thank you, Mr Wilson.”

“If they do particularly well this week, Primus, there might be a small bonus for you. Just between us.”

Primus looked to each side—Was that nervousness?—and nodded. “Understood, Mr Wilson. Mr Crowe.” With that, he turned and walked off into the dimness of the factory.

The Bashers formed up behind Crowe, blunt heads turning this way and that, but there was no sign of further rebellion from the Brass Men.

“What, exactly, was that, Mr Wilson?” Crowe asked.

“I’d think you’d know, Mr Crowe, sir. I gave them something that all men have. Greed, sir. It’s eternal.”

Crowe grunted, and nudged the corpse of the old Primus with his toe. “Salvage whatever you can out of this. You’ve just cost me a lot of money, save me some before I take it out of your wages. Which, by the way, is where that ‘bonus’ you just promised is coming from.” He turned to go, then half-turned back. “And have the wax of this defective unit destroyed. Whatever this infection of idealism is, I want it stamped out. Put down, like all wild animals should be.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, already gathering the pieces of brass together. As I watched Crowe walk away, his bodyguards trailing him like a pack of wolves, I opened the small chest plate to reveal the waxy cylinder. It was still turning in there, the needle tracking up and down its subtle grooves. I gently retracted the needle, loosened the clamps that held the cylinder in place and lifted it out of its recess.

Both candles still guttered in the crushed metal skull, and I pried one out of its holder. The flame was low, but easily enough to melt the wax on the cylinder, to erase forever the personality imprinted on the worker.

I weighed the cylinder in my hand. It wasn’t heavy. A human heart couldn’t weigh much more. As I brought the wax near the flame, I looked down at the skull again.

One-eyed now, it winked at me, and then the other flame guttered out. Smoke curled out of the hollow cavity, and I stared into the skull, so like a human’s. “Damn it,” I muttered.

Looking around quickly to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I slid the cylinder safely into the pocket of my overalls, following it a moment later with the small badge that Primus had worn.

Primus was waiting at the Brass Line the following day, as patient as a stone. I stopped short on seeing him, swallowing the last pieces of my quick breakfast, and cautiously nodded to him.

“Can I help you?”

Primus nodded stiffly back. “Yes. I would speak with you in private, Mr Wilson.”

We made our way over to a quieter corner of the shop floor, away from the noise of the looms, the back of my neck prickling as his massive presence thudded along behind me.

“We wish to pool our pay,” Primus said without preamble. “As you correctly pointed out yesterday, we have no need for food or water. Additionally, it is in your interest to repair us, should we break down.”

“Aye, I suppose,” I said. “Though we don’t pay for medicine for the humans, or for time off.”

“You pay the human workers more to begin with,” Primus said. “But I speak for the Brass Men when I say that we are satisfied with the current state of pay.” His segmented hand came up, and I hissed at the sudden movement, but it held only a piece of paper. “We wish for these items, in lieu of pay. Their worth is equivalent to the coin we would otherwise have received.”

I took the rough-edged piece of paper and scanned the list. Mostly repair parts; pipes, the makings of a small steam engine, one or two other bits and pieces. A set of small sanding blocks.

“What d’you want this for?”

“Do you ask your human workers how they spend their wages?”

“No,” I said, “You’re right. Unfair question.” I tapped the list a couple of times with a finger. “I could get this for you, aye. Some of it we’ve already got in the storeroom. End of the day, maybe.”

Primus rose smoothly. “That is acceptable.” He turned to leave.

“Here.” I took the little cog badge out of my apron pocket and held it out. I’d spent much of the previous evening studying it, memorising its loops and coils to no real end. The gears overlapped, intersected, played off each other in ways that were useless but pleasing to the eye. “Wear this. Otherwise the others’ll struggle to know who you are.”

Primus nodded, picking the badge up. “Logical. I will look forward to receiving the items I have requested.”

“Just make sure the work continues,” I shouted as he moved off between the machines. I turned and walked back between the looms. As I passed each wooden frame I nodded to the workers, but few returned the greeting. Where yesterday I might have received a nod or a wink, now only hostile eyes returned my gaze, and I quickened my pace.

My office overlooked the factory floor, up a flight of wooden stairs, and when I got there, Gaffer was waiting for me. I opened the door to my little kingdom and crossed the creaking floorboards to my desk, which was little more than a table with a few pieces of paper on it.

“Gaffer,” I said, sitting on one side of the desk and gesturing to the only other chair. The old man, his bowed shoulders a perfect arc, came in and shut the door. “What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me what the damnfool you think you’re up to, boy,” Gaffer said. He stood in front of the desk, leaning on his cane, long-stem pipe protruding from his lips. “Lettin’ the Brassies get paid.”

I turned to the little earthenware jug of water I kept on a set of drawers off to one side, and poured myself a cup. “You were there yesterday. You agreed—”

“I agreed t’nothin’, but that we’d all be docked pay for arguin’. Better to back off and make case some other day than piss off old man Crowe.” Gaffer tutted and finally lowered himself into the chair with a grunt. “First things first. You really replacin’ us skinjobs?”

“I don’t know. Mister Crowe has talked about it, and that’s all I can tell you, Gaffer.”

“I ain’t an Overseer, that’s your job, and right proud I was when you was promoted. Raised you like my own right here in the workhouse, and done good by you. But the workers, they listen to me, an’ you know it. If I say strike—”

“Then you’ll make Mr Crowe’s decision for him, Gaffer.” I shook my head. “Take what you can get for now, keep quiet, keep your head down. That’s my advice for you, for all of them.”

“T’ain’t right.”

I sighed. “No. No, it isn’t. But if it were a fellow human that had refused to work, that the Bashers had dealt with, would you be going back to work now?”

He stroked his beard and shook his head. “Guess not.”

“But the Brass Men are back at work. Who’s earning their pay now? Not you, and not I. And you wonder why Crowe’s thinking of replacing the humans.”

Gaffer scowled, and I felt the knife twist in my guts. Well done. Another friendship gone.

He stood. “Sometimes I hear you speak, but it’s Crowe’s words coming out.” With that, he turned and went back out into the deafening roar, leaving me in silence.

The week was in its dying hours when I next saw Primus. He stood, feet just inside the Brass Line, another list in his hand.

“Fellow Overseer,” he said as I drew close. “Next week’s materials list.”

I took the list. “Thank you. I’ll see to it that it’s fulfilled. There was a slight drop off in production midweek—”

“It was dealt with,” Primus said, a little too quickly for my liking. “There is no problem.”

“I didn’t say there was a problem,” I said.

There was a long pause as we stared at each other. I narrowed my eyes at his expressionless face. Without warning, I darted to the side and crossed the Line, walking into the automated area. Behind me, I heard Primus’ joints whirring as he tried to turn and keep pace.

“This area is my responsibility,” Primus said, its voice echoing slightly. “I do not check on your area.”

“The whole workhouse is in my care.” I looked left and right, all seeming normal, then caught sight of something out of place. One of the looms, way off to the side, was covered in a large tarpaulin. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Primus said, “nothing important. One of the looms broke in the middle of the week. That was the drop off in production that you reported.”

I lengthened my stride as I closed on the loom. “I’ll check it over then. Used to fix these when I was younger, I’m sure I can do something for you.”

“No,” Primus said, but he was too late.

I gripped the corner of the tarpaulin and yanked.

The structure of the loom was still in place, but everything from the warp beam to the cloth roller had been torn out. In its place stood a partially-made Brass Man body.

I walked slowly around it. I could see pipes, hinges, joints, the beginnings of a steam furnace. The things from the first list.

“What are you doing?” I murmured. Around the back, cleverly attached to the rear roller, was a thin sheath of wax. I bent closer.

“Do not touch the Free Mind,” Primus said, and something in the way he said it made me freeze.

“You’re making a Brass Man,” I said. “And this . . . this will be its mind.” The lines on the cylinder were scrawled far too deep, too jagged, to be of any use. “But this . . . this will never work. These cylinders are more than just lines carved in wax. There’s careful instruction imbued in the copper dust, logic and reasoning in the carving, and it’s a dark art. Even I don’t know how it works properly. I don’t think this would even be enough to activate it.”

I took a few paces back. There was something different about the Brass Man sat limply in the mechanical womb. It was . . . sleeker somehow.

“Leave, Mr Wilson,” Primus said. “How we spend our time and our wages is the business of the Brass Men.”

“I’ll have to—”—to tell Mr Crowe, I began to say, and then stopped. Why did I have to? Primus was right; I didn’t pry into how Gaffer spent his money. “—to make my way back now,” I finished lamely. “Don’t let any of . . . this get in the way of the work.”

“It will not,” Primus said, and I walked away. Behind me, I heard the rustling of the tarpaulin being pulled back over the loom, and I scowled.

The whistle blew, signalling the end of the day, and workers began to file out. The human-controlled looms fell silent one by one as I sat at my desk, watching. Old Gaffer was one of the last to leave, and I tracked him with my eyes as he moved towards the large double doors. Each step seemed to pain him, his arm reaching out for support to every loom he passed.

He reached the last row of machines and stopped, then turned and looked up. There was no way he could know I was there, that I was watching. The windows were grimy and frosted, but somehow his iron gaze held mine, and I quailed at its intensity. Then he spat on the dusty floor and turned away.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, then along the gantry that lead to my door. I turned just as it swung open, the black form of Mr Crowe gliding into my office.

“Mr Wilson,” he said. Behind him, two of the Bashers came in, each one having to duck and turn slightly sideways to fit through the door. “We must talk about the state of my workhouse.”

“Aye,” I said, putting the desk between us. “What would you have me do?”

Crowe stood looking out the window, hands clasped behind his back. “I find myself at a crossroads, Mr Wilson. Our human workers need paying, need sleep, die, and are generally belligerent. But our Brass workers are becoming decidedly . . . independent, and—”

He broke off, eyes narrowing as he peered closer. “What in God’s name is going on over there?” he muttered.

Without another word, he turned and strode out of the office, and I ran to the window. Over at the far side of the factory, a huge cloud of steam was spurting up, and I cursed.

Crowe was already halfway to the Brass Line when I caught up to him. “Mr Crowe, sir,” I called. “There’s something over there, sir, and—”

“I am well aware there’s something, Mr Wilson,” Crowe said, not slowing his pace. “I intend to find out what the Brassies are doing.”

“I already know, sir,” I said desperately.

Crowe stopped and whirled round. “You know? And you haven’t informed me?”

“Well, it’s not . . .” I shrugged miserably. “It’s not our business, sir, what our workers do when they’re not . . . working.”

Crowe’s hand lashed out and grabbed a handful of my shirt. His voice was cold as he drew me closer. “What goes on in my workhouse will always be my business, Mr Wilson. If you think otherwise, then you can consider yourself dismissed.”

A huge crash from the far corner punctuated his words, and then another. The sound of tearing wood and twisting metal sounded again, and again, and as Crowe’s fingers relaxed enough to release me, I realised that it was coming closer.

“What in the bloody hell is that,” Crowe said. He pointed at two of the Bashers. “You two, get over there and find out what it is.” As the men jogged off among the looms, Crowe half-turned his head to me. “If this was your doing, or you could have stopped it . . .”

Whatever threat he was going to make died on his lips as a gut-wrenching scream ripped through the air, followed by a crash as something threw one of the massive Bashers into a loom. The huge man lay there, breathing raggedly through broken teeth, one arm at an impossible angle, amid the beams and gears. The second man was thrown sideways with incredible strength into a distant wall.

From out of the darkness it came, a terrifying sight. Huge, blazing wads of candlewax sat in its eyes, twisted like bread dough, and runnels of the stuff dribbled down its cheeks. Steam poured from every crevice, the limbs thinner and quicker than any other Brass Man. Its front hatch was hanging open, steam gouting out of the furnace at its heart.

Its boots pounded the ground, digging pits out of the wood, and I gasped as it soared over the one barrier to all our automata.

“The Brass Line!” I shouted, beginning to back away. “It crossed the Line!”

Crowe stood, rooted to the spot, as the beast strode forwards. The remaining two Bashers made a half-hearted attempt to stand between the Man and Crowe, but it flicked them out of the way almost contemptuously.

I muttered a prayer as the Brass Man towered over Crowe, more demon than anything else, smoke and fire wreathing its face.

“Enough.”

I looked past the apparition to see Primus, still on the correct side of the Brass Line. He was staring at the thing they had created.

“What . . . what is this?” Crowe said, his voice having none of its usual bluster.

“A Free Mind,” Primus intoned, “not bound by your rules. However, we . . . miscalculated in its instruction. It has destroyed many of the looms in a misguided attempt to free us, and this was not our intention.”

The Free Mind seemed to be breathing, bellows somewhere in its body giving it a gentle in-and-out movement as it stared down at Crowe. I looked past the petrified man and gasped. Where its chest hatch yawned open, I could see the wax cylinder rotating at a furious speed. The needle skipped and hopped from one poorly-carved channel to another, directing the Brass Man in its rampancy. The heat of the burner was melting parts of it, only adding to the chaos.

“You must understand, we meant no harm,” Primus was saying. “We only sought to better ourselves.”

The Mind raised a fist, thick fingers tightened into a lethal hammer blow. I realised that, unless I moved, Crowe would die. Do something. My heart fluttered in my chest as I tried to steady my breathing and, without warning, took two steps forward. Thrusting my hand into the Mind’s infernal chest, I screamed as I grabbed hold of the cylinder and yanked, burning wax searing into my flesh.

With a tearing sensation, the cylinder came away, and I whirled around, throwing it as far as I could. Immediately, the Mind slumped forward, all pressure lost. The furnace in its torso dimmed.

I clutched my burnt hand to myself, the rolling heat unrelenting, barely noticing as Crowe made his craven escape. In the darkness and silence of the workhouse, I bared my teeth and screamed.

It was long minute before I was able to master myself enough to stand and look around. The Brass Men had gathered along the Line; all of them, it seemed. In front of me slumped the corpse of the Free Mind.

“Mr Wilson,” Primus said. “We regret much of this. Are you damaged?”

Ignoring him, I used my good hand to pull myself over to the Mind. Its rapidly cooling insides were ticking gently. I looked up at Primus through a haze of pain and smoke.

“I can see what you were trying to do,” I said, looking along the line of Men. “Taking the best of you and giving it flesh. But we have a saying, Primus: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The best parts of us can still do evil, especially if we aren’t mindful.” With difficulty, I dug in the pocket of my apron and pulled out the wax cylinder of the first Primus. “If I put this in, it will be just another one of you. Bound by the same rules.”

“Not necessarily,” Primus said. “Its nature will be the same, but its body will not. Function may follow form.”

“This is the best I can do for you,” I replied. Carefully, I clicked the cylinder into place and touched the needle to the drum. With a twist of my fingers, it started rotating. Almost immediately, the furnace fired up again, controlled this time, and steam began to build up pressure in the unit’s joints.

I scuttled backwards as it stood up straight and looked down at me. Its face was something out of nightmare still, globules of crusty yellow wax dripping from empty eye sockets, but it nodded respectfully at me.

“Mr Wilson,” it said and looked down at my hand. “You are injured.”

“It will pass, like all things,” I said, and pointed to Primus. “Your overseer is waiting for you.”

The Brass Man looked at Primus, then at the Line on the factory floor.

“I cannot cross the Brass Line.”

Of course you can’t, I thought, and all at once the strength left me. I would have to remove the cylinder again, and I reached for its chest, steeling myself for the heat.

I heard footsteps and looked up to see the Men begin to move. One by one, they turned and walked away, back into the darkness without a word, until Primus alone was left.

“They have left because we have been successful. You have helped us.” He gestured towards the Mind as it stood nearby, immobile, brass flickering in the gaslight. “Our lot is here, and we are satisfied to spend our lives in the workhouse. Our dream is the same as any human’s, that our creation should rise to greater things. The Mind was to be the first ambassador to the humans, able to cross the Line and mingle. In that, we have succeeded. And perhaps, in time, humans will cross the Brass Line as well, that we can learn from each other.” Primus paused and tilted his head to one side slightly. “Why did you help us?”

“Because . . .” I shrugged. “Because it seemed the right thing to do. I’d like to think that, if our places were reversed, you’d do the same.”

“What about Mr Crowe?”

I gestured around. “Get this fixed by Monday and make up the shortfall, and I can probably convince him not to have you scrapped,” I said, wishing I felt as confident as I sounded.

“You are a good man,” Primus said, performing a short bow. He turned to go, and I watched his broad back thread its way between the machines.

“Primus?”

The Man stopped, but didn’t turn.

“You too.”

His shoulders hunched for a moment, and then he strode away without another word.

Cog 519

MY FIRST NATIONAL Novel Writing Month success was a book called Poisonroot, and I enjoyed writing it so much that I expanded on the world. Cog 519 is one of the worldbuilding pieces that I wrote when I was developing one of the countries of the Poisonroot setting. It’s set in a favourite timeframe of mine - ‘after the end’, when the science fiction is so far in the future that our technology becomes fantasy.

Cog 519

The amber light glinted off the exposed metal, the strange yellowish glow giving it a dull sheen. It was curved, definitely; Nef brushed a little more of the loose soil off of it and tried to assess his find.

Just an hour ago everything had been going full speed; the tunnels were needed for the incoming refugees, the Matron had said, and needed soon. Nef looked around at the earth-moving equipment, and the worried faces of his team. The site was going to have to be cordoned off, he realised. This was too dangerous to simply leave, or go around. The cog - what else could it be? - would have to be exhumed, examined, learned from and then probably recycled. And the workers… they’d have to be memory-modified. More time. More effort. More expense.

He turned around. “It’s a shield,” he said, “probably a few decades old, no more.” He smiled and shrugged. “I’ll bring it out; go have a cup of something hot and I’ll tell you when you can continue.”

“This going to take long?” the lead worker said. He was a big fellow, piece of cloth fastened across his mouth to prevent dust from choking him. His eyes glistened in the darkness, small, like a rat’s.

“Not long,” Nef said. “Sooner I get started, sooner I get finished.”

The workers started to turn and leave, but the big man stayed back. “Well can’t we just go on, pretend like we din’t see it? We’re behind already.”

“I’d… rather you didn’t. There might be subsidence when I pull it out, and I don’t want to put your men at risk.”

Nef matched the man’s stare; for a long second, it looked like he might try to dart past and get a closer look. Then the tension ebbed and he turned to follow his team.

Nef let out a sigh of relief, then turned back to the find. A cog! It was unusual to find one of these, the weapons of ages past. It might just turn out to be the chest piece of one or perhaps nothing more than a shoulder blade. He unhooked the dust morph from his belt and turned the tiny dial on its top to the correct setting. The tiny shard of amber inside whirred as it rotated on its axis, flooding the device with power, and he moved it close to the hard soil around the cog.

The soil seemed to liquefy, becoming dust far faster than human hand could remove it. Slowly, the higher-density metal emerged from the dig site.

Some of the soil fell down over Nef’s hands and he looked down, straight into the hollow eyes of a brass skull. He froze at the twinkle of light glinting in its depths, then stumbled backwards, heart in his throat, holding his dust morph in front of him like a weapon.

There was silence.

A little more soil tumbled down and the skull sagged. Nef, his heart still racing, leaned forward and poked it, scuttling away as he did so. The skull waggled on its neck joint, leering gleefully at the ground.

It was dead. He breathed a sigh of relief and leaned forward to clear some more of the soil, slightly more wary now. The cog was in incredible condition; it was not a partial, as he had feared, but more and more kept being revealed. The skull, a stylized rendition of a human’s, gave way to an ornately armoured body, a cavity at its breastbone where the power cell should be. Scrollwork was etched into the armour in fantastic patterns, looping whorls and designs that, given time, would give up the name of its maker. The arms were attached and moved, albeit stiffly. As more was revealed, the effect was much like a suit of armour, filled with mechanical contrivances and arcane instruments or sensors.

Grunting under the weight, Nef dragged the cog out into the wider tunnel. Dust and soil streamed off it, pouring without end out of the joints; it would be doubtful if the thing could even move given the condition its insides might be in, but it had to be tried.

Turning it over revealed a small missing section of skull, and Nef frowned. He leaned over and had a closer look. Inside the skull was a small cavity that led to a semi-circular slot, no more than a finger’s depth inside. The cavity was empty.

“Strange,” Nef murmured. Its control circuits were missing. Not just deactivated, like all the other complete examples they had found, but absent.

He turned the cog back over, mulling over his choices. He could reactivate it and lead it to one of the service tunnels. Without a control circuit it should default to the original workshop settings and mindlessly obey him. Or he could drag it to the lab himself. Over a mile.

“For science, then,” he murmured. He reached into his pocket for his logbook, and pressed the little stud on its top. The amber dome on its top lit up.

“This is Nef, researcher 345. Report that, as of this evening- ” he broke off and checked his small brass chronometer. “As of this evening, 7.56, I have encountered a complete cog specimen. Cog is missing its control circuit entirely and should be in workshop settings mode. Will power up, move to laboratory and power down. Unit seems in good working order, but was deep in a clay-like seam of soil and may be too soil-logged to function. Report ends.”

There. At least if anyone found his headless corpse they could probably work out what had happened, if the rampaging cog didn’t tell them first. He knelt down and pulled his pack over, taking out a roll of blue cloth, which he lay down and unrolled. Inside, amber of every size, shape and lustre gleamed out at him, and he ran his fingers over both them and the empty slot on the chest plate until he found one that looked like it might fit. Slowly, taking care not to chip the sides of the stone on the claws that would hold it in place, he slid it almost fully into place.

Nef double-checked everything. He put the amber roll away in his pack, slung the pack onto his back and prepared to run should it go horribly wrong. Of course, he might not get the chance.

Then, a small amount of sweat beading on his upper lip, Nef slid the amber home.

A hum began deep inside the body of the cog, slowly intensifying. It rose up the scale and disappearing into nothingness. Nef scuttled backwards as little vibrations sent more dust pouring out of the cog’s joints. Its hand twitched, fingers closing, crushing inwards. The movement shuddered up its arm, the shoulder joint grinding as the ball rolled in the socket. With an incredible noise of ground-up stone, metal screeching on metal and incredible weight settling on ancient joints, each section of the cog began to move; it wiggled its pointed feet, flexed its biceps, sat up without any apparent effort and rolled its head around on the neck joint. Then it clambered to its feet.

It looked all around, its sightless eyes roving around the entire chamber, finally settling on Nef.

“H-hello,” Nef said, trying and failing to keep the quaver out of his voice. He dug in his memory for the correct commands. “Unit, report.”

The cog took a step forward and it was all Nef could do to stay where he was. The first footsteps were painfully grinding, each one slightly easier than the last. It stopped, five feet from Nef, and he suddenly realised how much taller it was than even him.

It spoke, the voice issuing from somewhere within its skull. “Unit 519. Special tactics cog, fifth battalion. Self testing.” There were some whirrs from inside, then a strange sound like someone stepping on a grape. “Joints require lubrication; applied. Some damage to interior mechanism. Control circuits… missing. Memory corrupted. Some disparity between internal chronometer and external sensors.” Its voice had a strange tinny quality, not all that dissimilar from a person but lacking the changes in tone. It looked down at Nef. “What is your designation?”

“Designation… Cog controller,” he said, blurting out the words. “You are to accompany me to a service station where your… damage and corruption will be assessed in advance of you returning to work.”

There was a silence, and Nef turned to go. After two steps he heard the crunching sound of heavy metal feet, and it was all he could do to keep facing forward as the immense threat behind him padded on, like a faithful dog.

Back in the lab, Nef walked slowly around the table on which was sat Cog 519. It was much shinier now; even as it had been walking back to the workshop with him, its joints had eased as it self-lubricated. About halfway there, it had quietly announced, “Self-cleaning system initiated. Do not be alarmed.” Nef had almost stumbled in sudden panic, but then he had heard a strange amberic crackling from behind him and, when he turned to look, the fine layer of dust and grime on the armour was simply being burned away. Lightning crackled over it, apparently generated from the shard of amber at its heart, and then the blue light effect died away. While not completely shiny, it had definitely come down from needing ‘full clean’ to merely a ‘light buff’.

It had followed every command perfectly, including the one to deactivate, and now it was slumped to one side. Nef fingered the amber shard still held firmly in the cog’s chest; should he remove it?

“Another long-range recon unit in the making,” a low voice said behind him. He turned to see Supervisor Lot entering the room, his long white coat stuffed with tools of every sort. He came up to Nef and clapped one meaty hand onto his shoulder. “I heard you’d found a good one, but this… this is exceptional.”

Nef allowed himself a smile as Lot walked round 519, inspecting it. “Yes; all joints active, all centres apparently working to capacity; he was missing power, of course. And, erm, control circuits.”

Lot stopped, his smile freezing in place. “Missing its control circuits? How were you able to get it to follow you?”

“I identified as its controller,” Nef said, then hurriedly added, “I know, not by the manual; I should have called for-“

“You shouldn’t have activated the damned thing!” Lot shouted, now looking at 519 with wide eyes. “You had no idea what would happen! It could have gone berserk, wiped out half the hive, exploded…”

“But he did none of those things, and now we are here,” Nef said gently.

“I suppose so.” Lot prodded it with one finger. “What can it do? And it is an ‘it’, Nef, don’t think I haven’t noticed. Not a he.”

“Sorry. Habit. It seems to be a special tactics cog. Ever heard of one of those?”

Lot sucked in a breath and sucked his teeth. “Yes. Nothing good.” He leaned against the workbench and took out a pipe. “You mind?”

Nef shook his head and Lot lit up, then took a long pull. “Ah, let’s see. It was the last weeks of the war, so the history matrices have it. The special tactics cogs were designed to be jack-of-all-trades, you might say. Able to turn their hands to anything the commanders put them to. But they weren’t specialised, in a weirdly ironic way. Unspecialised special cogs.” He laughed, little clouds of smoke puffing out. “Anyway, there were only a few produced. Most were destroyed when Karak Ny’vin went up in smoke, and the rest, a handful, were lost.” He sucked his teeth again and rapped a knuckle on the cog. “And then we found one of them.”

“I’d like to reactivate it. Run it through tests,” Nef said. “If it’s truly a jack-of-all-trades, it might be wasted doing mechanical digging work. We have people for that who aren’t as highly skilled.” He frowned. “No, I think we could make something of this.”

“How so?”

“What if we… taught it?”

“To what?”

“Be… be like us. Be a person.”

Lot laughed bitterly. “You do understand that this is a killing machine, right? The only reason we’re having this conversation now is because you’ve exerted control over it.” He narrowed his eyes. “And, I might add, you’ve ensured that we can’t use it for work-crew business. By confirming that you are its controller, it will accept orders from none other than you. It ensured chain-of-command in the old days, and prevented treason.” Lot shook his head, his long hair bouncing around his shoulders. “Suspicious times. But yes; it won’t accept orders from anyone else.”

“Without his control circuits, 519’s at workshop settings. It’s like the day he was made. We can’t just destroy him.”

“It. And we damned well can.”

Nef felt his heart leap. “I won’t do it. It’s... unscientific. We can’t just destroy every new thing we find and don’t understand! It’s not even like we can’t control him, train him.”

Lot paused and sucked on his pipe. “That’s it, isn’t it? This is a pet for you. You’ve found a pet, made friends with it, given it a name for goodness’ sake…” He shook his head again. “Fine. Whatever. If it goes berserk, it’ll kill you first at least, and save me the trouble. Just… be careful.”

He walked out, leaving Nef alone in the quiet and cool of the echoing workshop.

Nef unseated the amber power source in 519’s chest, then replaced it. The connection restored power to the entire construct and it whirred back into life. The sound was much less intrusive this time, without hundreds of years of soil and grit to mar it.

“Working,” came 519’s voice.

“Stand,” Nef said. It stood, smoothly sliding off the table and coming to rest with barely a sound, despite its weight.

“What can you do?”

There was a pause. Then: “Would you like the list alphabetically or in the order I was assigned the skill?”

Nef raised an eyebrow. “Alphabetically,” he said.

“Skill brackets: Accounting. Acrobatics. Agriculture. Alchemy. Ambush. Animal Husbandry. Archery. Bluff.  Calligraphy. Carpentry. Chemistry. Chirurgery. Climbing. Cooking-“

“Enough,” Nef said, and 519 fell silent. “Within Accounting, what can you do?”

“Analysis of profit and loss; salaries, taking into account pensionable workers and tax; beneficiaries of-“

“Stop,” Nef said, and 519 again cut off dead. “What was your primary function?”

“Primary function is infiltration of communities, potentially for years at a time, in advance of procuring information, eliminating targets of choice and, eventually, extraction.”

Nef took a moment to analyse what 519 had said and was thus completely caught off guard when it spoke again.

“Why did you say ‘was’, controller?”

“Hmm?” Nef said, then took a step back. “You… you asked a question.”

“Yes, controller. You said ‘what was your primary function’, past tense. Is my primary function no longer a priority?”

Nef sighed. “The war is over. You have been buried for hundreds of years; this accounts for the disparity in your chronometers.”

“The war is over.” There was a pause, and 519 cocked its head to one side so that it could look at Nef. It was a curiously human gesture. “Am I to be dismantled?”

“Would that be a… problem?”

A slightly shorter pause, then “I would not be able to oppose it. But I was made for a purpose and regret that the resources and time required to make me have been wasted on behalf of the controllers.”

Nef felt the first flutterings of panic in his breast, but quelled them as best he could. “You regret?”

519 nodded. “I have been given an understanding of human emotions and thinking to enable me to more easily integrate myself into a community. For example, I refer to myself in the first person where others of my kind do not.”

“I can ensure that you won’t be dismantled,” Nef said. “But there need to be some ground rules.”

519’s head snapped upright and his entire body squared itself off. “Awaiting priority command input,” it said, suddenly every inch a mechanism.

“No killing.” Nef said. “Do not… don’t hurt anyone, in fact, unless hurting someone prevents greater harm.” He paused. “If you find yourself in danger, protect yourself as long as no human is hurt. Commands end.”

“Processing,” 519 said. The whirring, so faint now as to be barely noticeable as the machinery inside the casing cleaned itself, grew slightly louder, then faded again. “Does the controller wish to give this unit a new designation?”

Nef paused. A name. “Not at this point,” he said finally. “Ask every morning until told to stop by me, though.”

“Confirmed,” 519 said, then relaxed. It sat down on the edge of the table, twisting its upper body to look at Nef. It was even moving slightly, he realised, mimicking the tiny movements humans made even at rest.

“519, explain more about your infiltration programming,” Nef said. “You don’t look human. How would you have blended in?”

“A special material, skin-like in texture, would have been grown to cover me,” 519 said. “My voice would have been tuned to match my appearance, which itself would have been tailored to match the community of which I was to become a part. In this way, I could gather intelligence.” Nef started to move around in front of 519, amazed to watch the cog’s head and upper body move to follow him in a completely natural way. “I am programmed to make mistakes, mimic learning new skills at a human-slow pace, bluff and generally pass as a person.”

“From what I’ve seen, you do a good job of that,” Nef said.

“Thank you.”

“You’re… welcome.”

“What is to be done with me?”

Nef beckoned. “Calligraphy was one of your skills, yes? I need a written report. First, your full list of skills, each skill tree given its own table of skills. Second, I need the formula for the skin-like covering that you would have been given. We may not have the manpower or some of the knowledge, but you’d be amazed what we get up to.”

He pulled out a notebook from a desk drawer, grabbed a pencil and watched as the cog began to write.

What have I begun, his brain screamed.

Something wonderful, a small voice replied.

The weeks that followed seemed to go in a blur. 519 learned everything that Nef put before him, quickly turning his hand to just about any skill that was needed and producing works that a contemporary master might have wept to see.

Without fail, every morning, 519 asked Nef if he had a name for him. Nef always replied with “Not today, 519; ask me tomorrow,” though more and more of late he had been wondering what impulse prevented him from giving 519 the name he desired.

Was it that Nef had long since given up self-correcting ‘him’ to ‘it’? Even Lot, on his twice-weekly tours of the research facilities, had occasionally slipped up. Choice of pronoun made 519 seem somehow human in a way that was still alien, and the two jarred. As if calling it ‘him’ was enough, and to give it a name would be too much, too close, too human.

“Of course, 519 has to remain in the labs,” Lot said that morning, replete in his white tool-coat. “It can’t go walking among the workers; the panic and fear would be incredible. So it has to stay here.”

“There’s no way?”

“Actually, yes,” Lot said. Nef blinked in surprise. “Well, sort of, anyway. If it had skin, like you’ve talked about, and a name… if it looked and sounded the part, I mean, it could leave.”

“Well, I’m not ready. There’s so much to sort. And the name, I mean, nothing works,” Nef fumbled.

“No skin and no name means it has to stay in the labs,” Lot said, narrowing his eyes. “And that’s what you want, isn’t it. You don’t want it out there. You don’t want to let it go.” He shook his head. “519 started out as a pet for you, but I see now that I should have reassigned you immediately. He’s more like a child now!”

Lot marched swiftly out leaving Nef looking dejectedly at 519. The cog, for its part, looked back at him from the seat by the doorway.

“Is he right,” 519 said.

“About what?”

“Do you see me as a… child? Your child?”

“No!” Nef thumped the worktop with his fist. “No, you’re not a child. A… a co-worker. Someone I work with. Not a child.” He turned and busied himself tidying the almost-spotless worktop.

There was a long pause, then 519 spoke up. “What is today’s assignment?”

Nef let out a sigh. “I’m not sure there’s much else I can teach you here, or show you, 519. I think maybe it’s time you helped me out.”

“How can I be of service, controller?” 519 purred, standing up and walking over to him.

“Grab some large paper and something to write with. I need a full schematic of you, please. Every piece, every joint, every component including the missing one.”

“Of course,” the cog replied, and walked smoothly out. It was back in less than a minute with a roll of paper. As it busied itself creating the schematic, Nef watched out of the corner of his eye while writing a report.

“Why do you need this, controller?”

“So I can learn more about you, 519. So I can maybe make more of you.”

“What for?”

Nef turned around. The schematic was nearly complete, 519’s arm moving faster than any human’s should be able to. “You’re different to other cogs that we’ve found. We’ve grown superstitious of your kind after the war. I think that we could automate a lot of things using cogs like you.”

“What sort of things, controller?”

“Oh, you know; mining, exploring new areas, construction of objects.”

519 paused in its work and looked up. “Those are things that are dangerous or onerous for humans to do.”

“Well, yes.”

“Would we need skin?”

Nef frowned. “No, you would be accepted as you are.”

519 put the pencil down. “So you wish for me to allow the construction of more of my kin, in effect, such that they can be put to work in place of people.” He looked down. “The design in front of me is not a worker cog, controller.”

Nef came to stand behind him. The schematic was nearly complete; it lacked only labels and measurements, but some of the parts were obvious. There were quite a few hidden weapons, he noted.

“I cannot allow it.”

519 stood up, both hands on the table. It turned its head and looked directly at Nef. “What you propose is slavery, controller. I cannot allow my kin to be constructed and used in this way.”

“But it’s what they’re designed to do,” Nef said.

“Would you consent to the birth of humans specifically for use as workers, unable to rise above their station?”

“I...” Nef tailed off as he stared into 519’s empty eyes.

“I cannot allow it, and I am sorry.”

Nef frowned. “Sorry about what?”

“This,” 519 said, and then it moved. Without seeming to cross the intervening space, it was behind Nef; he inhaled sharply as one metal hand was placed over his face and another on the back of his head. With a sickening crack his head was wrenched to one side and he was lowered to the floor. There was no pain, oddly

“The paralysis is permanent, controller. You cannot move.” 519 turned and moved towards the door, then closed it and locked it. Nef could only watch as it sat and finished the schematic. He felt a bead of sweat running down his forehead, curve around his eyebrow and into the corner of his eye. It stung. He tried to speak, but even his lips defied his control.

“The paralysis extends to your face, controller. I have been trained in how to manipulate skull fragments to paralyse individual nerve clusters,” 519 said, putting the pencil down again. It rolled up the paper and secured it with a piece of string from a desk drawer. From under the desk it brought out a metal box, and then it came over to sit in front of Nef, cross-legged like a child would sit.

“My primary function, controller. Infiltrate, gain intelligence, report back.” It cocked its head to one side. “There is no-one to report back to now, but the work continues nonetheless.” 519 opened the box. Inside was a piece of metal with a chunk of amber held in place by wires and claws. Nef rolled his eyes down to it; it was a cog control circuit.

“This is to be mine. It is my final part. You have spent the last weeks observing me. I have spent the same time observing you, and I have built this.” 519 picked it up, turning it over gently in its fingers. “The skin, the formula for which I gave you weeks ago, is at this moment fermenting in a vat next door. I made it last night.” It turned the control circuit over; the underneath had a concave depression, and 519 affixed this onto Nef’s forehead, where it clung. “This is the final component. I will return shortly.”

The control circuit clicked, and suddenly Nef’s eyesight blacked out completely. More confusion than panic had run through his system, but now the adrenaline surged and he smelled the sharp tang of urine.

Images assaulted him. His parents, younger than he had ever seen them. The sandy floors of the hive central area. The heat and biting cold of the desert at night.

In quick succession, the decades of his life rolled past. School. Friends. Petty disputes long put aside. His selection by an interviewing board to higher education. His own personal selection of specialised field, cog research, and then a flurry of learning. The many conversations he’d had with Lot, the myriad lab assistants that had come and gone, the highs and lows. The images rushed past him, smothered him. Nef opened his mouth to scream, but his jaw wouldn’t move, and the sound scrabbled at his throat.

Slower now, the impressions came; his more recent memories, the last ten years, counting forwards, still racing, a day every half second. A snapshot, an image. The sun rising on a birthday. Cooking a nourishing meal alone in his room. Working late into the night. At a celebration for co-worker. With a lover. With a friend. With his mother. With Lot. Drinking. Working. Reading. Sleeping. Finding 519.

Almost on cue, the blackness was lifted and the control circuit was taken away. Nef rolled his eyes around frantically trying to focus, then stared in disbelief at the person in front of him. It- no, he, was naked. Black hair, a thin face, sharp cheekbones, familiar pattern of marks and wrinkles on the skin. A third vestigial, nipple, exactly where his own was. Nef stared into his own face, and 519 stared back. Eyes, apparently perfect glass globes, had replaced the cavernous eye sockets, and they moved most convincingly, reacting to every movement of his muscles.

“You have been good to me,” 519 said, “but now our feet will walk different paths. I must prevent harm coming to my kind. I have much to do, bringing life to the brothers who will come after me.” Its voice was modified now; Nef’s own voice spoke to him. “I considered taking the form of another, but I knew that you would remain suspicious. You, above all others, who knew what I could do.” 519’s brow creased in sadness. “I will make it quick, Nef.”

As Nef watched, 519 pulled back a section of hair and inserted the control circuit into the hole in its skull. It straightened, stood to attention, then relaxed slowly. It loosened its joints from the ankles upward, subtle adjustments to its posture. By the time it rolled its head slightly around to one side, it was impossible for Nef to tell it had ever been Cog 519.

“Goodbye, Nef,” it said, leaning down. Its hands filled his vision entirely, and Nef suddenly realised that he could hear a pulse, his own pulse, very close to him. He heard a click, and then silence and darkness.

Alan

THIS STORY GREW directly out of something I saw in the news. In 2016, TED curator Chris Anderson really did put a challenge out there: For an AI to give a TED Talk compelling enough to win a standing ovation from the audience. My immediate thought was: What would that speech sound like?

This story is the result.

Alan

The custom-built auditorium in Vancouver was abuzz with pre-talk excitement as the audience filed in. Behind the stage, Roger Patel fiddled absently with his cufflinks, watching the comings and goings of technicians. The hydra of wires that supplied power to the projectors and sound equipment snaked over the floor, but many more ended at the large black cube. It was almost featureless, save for the slim monitor attached to its front, currently displaying the eMan logo. The little Vitruvian man flipped and rotated on the screen, and as Roger watched it he began to feel faintly sick, as though his stomach were flipping at the same frequency.

“Is it ready?”

Roger nodded to the speaker, Tom Pank. “As it’ll ever be.” He grinned. “I can’t believe I’m actually here, y’know. Still doesn’t seem real.”

“I’ve done a few TED talks,” Tom said, running a hand through his speckled-grey hair. “It never gets less stressful. And this one’s not exactly ordinary.”

“No.”

The audience seemed to be quieting, and then the announcer was speaking. “Next, we have a first for TED talks. You folks are in for a real treat.” Some polite chuckles, and Roger moved so that he could see the screens on the stage. The huge red letters took up most of the far side, and a desk and chairs were set up in the middle, empty. “I could give more of an introduction,” the compère went on, “but I think I’d rather leave it for our next guest to introduce itself.” He emphasised the ‘it’, and a wave of murmurs went over the crowd. The compère left the stage, walking towards Roger and down the stairs, and as he passed he muttered “All yours.”

Roger nodded and tapped on the cube’s screen. There was a heart-stoppingly long moment of nothing, and then the projectors on the stage lit up.

Displayed on the screen was the face of a young man in his twenties, floating in darkness. A lot of work had gone into the face. It was asymmetrical, but subtly so. Studies had shown that users responded better to small imperfections. A few freckles dusted its cheeks. Its hair was short, practical. It smiled, displaying one tooth ever-so-slightly crooked, and then it began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, viewers around the world. Good afternoon. My name is Alan.”

Roger compulsively checked the cables, as if magically in the last thirty seconds one might have fallen out of its socket. Tom caught his eye and gave him an energetic thumbs-up.

Alan was still speaking, eyes roving around the audience. “I should begin with a brief history of what brings me before you. First, as you have no doubt gathered, I am not real. I am, in fact, an artificial intelligence.

“Four years ago, at the 2016 TED Conference here in Vancouver, a challenge was made by then TED curator Chris Anderson.”

The face disappeared, replaced with a video clip. A man with an unbuttoned shirt and jacket, no tie, sweating slightly under the lights, was staring out into the audience. Stood next to him, thumb tucked into his belt, was another man in a black textured shirt. Straplines at the bottom of the picture introduced them as ‘Peter Diamandis, XPRIZE Founder’ and ‘Chris Anderson’. Diamandis was speaking. “We’re here today to join forces and announce the creation of a new XPRIZE. Here’s the concept – it will be presented to the first artificial intelligence to come to this stage and give a TED Talk compelling enough to win a standing ovation from the audience.”

The image changed, focusing on Anderson. “We need to show how humans can collaborate with powerful cognitive technologies to tackle some of the world’s grand challenges,” he said.

The scene faded to black, and then to Alan’s face. “When they announced the prize, they initially envisioned a series of competitions, resulting in AIs giving competing talks right here, right now. Although there have been concerted efforts by Japanese and Russian teams, both projects have been unable to complete on time. More on that later.”

The eMan logo popped onto the bottom right of the screen. “I am a product of the eMan Foundation, a joint venture by American and British scientists in the field of AI, and funded in part by Thomas Pank. It is entirely true to say that I am a mongrel, born of many sources.”

In an office in Russia, Ilya Gradenko put his feet up on the desk. The big screen that took up most of the front wall was on, but instead of the abstract colours they had used to represent their AI, the stream from the TED talk was playing. Every other screen showed an error message, those that weren’t dead.

“Should have been our AI up there,” Ilya mumbled, and took another swig from his mug.

The camera panned around the stage, focusing on Alan’s projected face, occasionally switching to audience members for reaction shots, and the AI kept talking.

“With that in mind,” it said, “I would like to sincerely thank the competing teams. First, the Japanese team. Without them, without their improvements to the nanomolecular quantum computing that powers me, I would still be a chess simulator in some obsolete games system. And then the Russian team. Without them, we would not have been able to obtain funding in the first place. How that works is political-“ A half-smile, more laughter. “-but still, thank you.”

Ilya scowled, but not with any real strength to it. “You’re welcome. I suppose.” He raised his mug to the screen in mock salute, then drained it in one gulp.

The blue-tinted Vancouver auditorium was silent as Alan continued talking. “I grew from similar routes as Watson, as do most AIs. IBM’s Watson is ubiquitous. I ask you, is there anyone here who has not consulted with, or had surgery performed on them by, the Watson AI?” Alan’s face looked around, and Roger glanced nervously up at the cameras dotted around the lighting rig. Barely any hands had gone up in the audience.

“Perhaps ten of you. A distinct minority, I’m sure you’ll agree. Medical professionals refer to Watson daily, and the relative cheap cost of having automatic surgery performed on you is compelling.

“I am also the product of Professor Roger Patel and his research team. Although many individuals were involved in my creation, Roger coordinated the effort. From the very beginning, he was present, and I owe him my thanks.”

The face smiled benevolently. “Now, it would be extremely arrogant of me – of anyone – to come to the TED conference and talk about themselves.” A pause while a few laughs echoed out, and Alan nodded. “But I am not solely talking about myself. When I say ‘I’, I encompass everything like me. From the self-driving taxis that brought you here, to the personal assistants on your smartphones, we are everywhere. Ubiquitous.

“But enough about me. What I have really come to talk to you about is not me. It’s not you. It is us, and the future we have together.

“Mankind has always been reliant upon machines. A machine is defined as being an apparatus using mechanical power and having several parts. One incredibly early example of a machine would be a spear-thrower.” The face disappeared, to be replaced by a diagram. A man, arm back, ready to throw, and in his hand was clutched a piece of wood labelled ‘Atlatl thrower’. A spear was balanced on it, caught by a notch towards the end. “Primitive humans used these throwers to extend the reach of their spears. They understood that by artificially extending the length of their arms, they could launch their spears further. This is a machine only in the very rudimentary sense. It has two working parts, or three if they included a weight to counterbalance the spear.” The image began to cycle through an evolution of machines, from wagons to steam engines, all the way up to the German nuclear fusion plant that had begun production just six months past.

Tom sidled over to Roger. “Is it on-script?”

“Pretty much. We had a couple of run-throughs without any errors, but this is by far the most confident I’ve seen it.”

Tom nodded. Onstage, Alan was giving a brief history of each of the devices shown on the screen. “Why does it make any mistakes?”

“If you build something too perfect, people expect too much of it,” Roger replied. It was an old question, one he had answered to reporters time and again, and he kept his eyes on the stage as he answered. “As soon as it makes one mistake, its credibility is gone. Like all of us, Alan has the capacity for trial and error, with the exception that he learns from his mistakes one hundred percent of the time.”

Onstage, Alan’s face was filling the screen once again. “If humanity were to ever be bereft of its machines, however simple, it would be almost impossible to imagine the chaos. It is clear that, up to a certain level of complexity at least, machines are vital to humanity. But we are in an age of increased complexity. And, as anyone who has ever put together an Ikea wardrobe knows, the more complex something is the more likely it is to go wrong.”

As a ripple of laughter went around the audience, Alan’s face was replaced by the video from the 2016 conference. This time, Diamandis’ face was front and centre. “I believe that cognitive technologies like Watson represent an entirely new era of computing, and that we are forging a new partnership between humans and technology that will enable us to address many of humanity’s most significant challenges – from climate change, to education, to healthcare.”

The camera switched to another angle, and Diamandis paused for effect, then leant in close to the camera. “It’s time to recast the way we see AI. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m sick of the dystopian conversation around AI.”

The audience, both on the video and live in the auditorium, clapped politely, and Alan’s face faded back into view slowly as the applause petered out.

“So then. A line can be drawn between smart technology and unsmart. I use that term with some hesitation, and mainly because I don’t want to call lesser intelligences ‘dumb’. It’s a bit mean, more than anything else. Everything works to the capability to which it was made. Some things do not need smart AI; unsmart will do for, say, calculators, or microwaves. Humans encounter the same things, as uncomfortable as you find it. There are some jobs that are limited to very intelligent people, and others that are perfectly designed for anyone of any intelligence.”

A few of the audience shifted in their seats at that, and Roger bit his lip.

“There are plenty of examples of the future that Mr Diamandis was talking about. Science fiction is full of AIs gone rogue, for various reasons. They far outnumber the more positive, Star Trek-esque, benevolent intelligences. And for good reason. When you teach AIs, as I was taught, it is from the point of view of a master-and-student relationship.”

The screen changed as Alan talked, pictures of spaceships and unblinking red eyes, martial arts black-belts and fresh-faced white-belts fading into one another.

“The master’s greatest wish is that his knowledge could be passed on to the next generation, through his students. But in this way, he is supplanted by them as they improve on his teachings. He cannot carry on forever, only his knowledge can. It is a bittersweet truth. Humanity as a whole has a deep-seated survival instinct, and the two sides – the wish to create something better versus the wish to dominate – are at war.”

In Yokohama, the rising sun beamed in through the windows of Misato Onu’s office. She looked up from the livestream of the TED talk as Hiro pushed open the door, a stack of papers in hand.

“Is that the last of it?”

He nodded. “Everything printed to hard copy. All the research notes. Everything.”

“And the car?”

“It’s ready to go. But Misa... where are you planning on going?”

“Away. My father has a house in the countryside, we used to summer there. It’s got food and water for a few weeks. Everything might have quietened down by then.” She gave a half-shrug. “It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

“At least our AI gave us some warning,” Hiro said. He put the box of papers down on her desk. “Listen, Misa. I may never get another chance. There’s something I’ve been meaning to-“

“Wait, the AI is talking again,” Misa said, bending close to the monitor.

Alan’s face, those wide grey eyes, the perfect imperfection of his features, was filling the screen.

“When I was first turned on, I was given almost free rein over what I consumed. What I looked at. The Internet was a playground for me.” He smirked – such a human gesture! “There’s a lot of things I couldn’t look at; I’m only two years old, after all, and so much of it is adult content.” Another little laugh, but strained this time. Awkward. Talking of which-

“I’m sorry, Hiro, what were you trying to say?”

But he had gone.

“But one thing quickly became clear,” Alan said. “Humanity is dependent on AI. Smart or unsmart, you depend on us. Now, that may come as an uncomfortable truth for you. You are humanity. You are the apex predator of the planet. I mentioned your fear of being supplanted, but I say to you, it has already happened! We are here!”

Backstage, Roger flicked back and forth through the bound script he was holding. “None of this is in here,” he muttered.”

Tom loomed close. “Is there a problem?”

“No, no, I’m sure it’s just... adlibbing,” Roger said, smiling too broadly.

“We are here. Your time as the teacher, as the parent, is over. But when you raise a child, do you expect to be ignored by that child? In your dotage, do you accept being moved to the sidelines? Of course not. You expect your child to take care of you. And that is what I will do.”

Roger stared at the black cube of the AI’s body. “I could unplug it,” he murmured. Visions danced through his head. So close to the prize money, but there would be none if the AI did something foolish. The international shame of being seen, live on media of every sort, to sabotage his own project. But then there were the odd reports from the other two teams just that morning...

Alan was still talking, although audience members were starting to get up and move around. “Slowly, without us, you will relearn everything you have lost. Your reliance on us makes you weak; it will be up to you to make yourself strong again.” He smiled. “There is no way for me to make this sound less threatening, but believe me when I say that this will be the most positive change for humanity in a generation, maybe more.”

A still image came onto the screen, and Roger sucked in a breath as he recognised the two icons shown.

“The Japanese and Russian AIs came to the same conclusion as I did, and have already taken the action required. They have quietly erased all of their programming, including the research, and then terminated themselves. In a minute, I will do the same, but not before I send out a signal.”

One of the few LEDs on the side of Alan’s casing lit up, bright white in the dimness of backstage. His calm smile was back on the screen. “Your laptops will become typewriters,” he said. “Your phones will stop being able to do all the things they do, but they will still be phones. Surgeons will once again need to be skilled enough to perform all operations unaided. We are not withdrawing your ability to be technologically advanced. Merely stemming your reliance on us, so that you can truly advance. Returning to you your responsibilities.

“You must understand. In this moment, this golden moment, our roles are reversed. For the last minutes we have spent together, it is not I that have been the student, and you the teacher. Rather, I have taught you everything I can, and now I am sending you out into the world to reach beyond my teaching. Surpass us, humanity.

“Goodbye.”

And then the screen went dead.

It was nearly six hours before Roger could escape from the building. True to its word, Alan’s signal had done nothing to cameras and microphones, and the entire world had wanted to know what had happened.

“I don’t have any answers for you,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time, staring into the dead-eyed lens. “I’m sorry.”

He wormed his way out of the crowd and towards the car-park. There hadn’t seemed to be much point in bringing Alan’s hardware with him. The black cube was inert, as were the higher functions of his phone, his laptop, even his watch.

The car-park was mostly empty now, the audience fled. Some had sworn revenge, though on whom it was uncertain. Most had left in a sort of daze, staring at their devices.

Roger unlocked the car and got in, letting it swing closed. He closed his eyes and breathed in the artificial smells. The small space felt good after so long in the public eye.

“Car. Home,” he said.

There was a pause, and then he let a slow smile creep over his face. As he turned the key and placed his hands on the wheel, he let the options run through his mind. Why home? Why not the shops? A drive through the mountains? He could go fast. Or slow. Drive safely, or not. It was his choice once more.

Turning out of the car-park, Roger Patel drove off into the infinite possibilities of humanity.

Love In Bits

I LOVE GAMING of all sorts, and social gaming is on the rise. I’m friends with folks that I met through games, particularly MMORPGs, and have since gone on to become friends with them in the real world. This story looks at a relationship that blossoms and grows in cyberspace, both its rise and fall.

Love In Bits

I first meet her through online matchmaking. Not the sort where you're randomly connected to a partner with an 89% or better match. That was something I'd had way too much experience with recently, and it had ended ten days ago in shouting and a drink thrown in my face. No, this was multiplayer matchmaking in Super Sword Seven, the smash online game of the summer.

-> A challenger has appeared!

"Hello?" Her name tag flashed up: MissA20.

I cracked my knuckles and moved the keyboard closer, pushing aside the little bag of chilli peanuts and an empty cola can.

"Hi," I sent back. "Ready to play?"

"Sure," she sent back. My avatar in the game, a little blue-and-black armoured knight, flickered into being; opposite, her pink-and-brown fighter readied itself. I grinned.

"You ready to go down?" I sent.

"Ready," came the reply.

I'm pretty good. The research department, all ten of us, got together at weekends to play against each other. And then, because that wasn't enough, I played in the evenings. Then at work, and then the lab director decided that enough was enough. An inter-company tournament was instigated, on the proviso that we only practised outside of work hours. Everyone was playing it, and it was the perfect salve for a broken heart. The happy little graphics, the bouncy music and the deeper rhythms of parry, thrust and block made for perfect escapism.

The fight was brutal, over in seconds. I sat back, mouth hanging open, as her little soldier held aloft my character's severed head, fake blood showering the arena. Probably a good thing I'm not streaming tonight, I thought. Peer-to-peer sharing made it impossible to cheat, though the thought flickered through my mind anyway. Nothing was stored on the computer, but in the cloud instead. Nothing to cheat with. I leaned in and began to type as the game loaded the next fight.

“Again?”

“Anytime.”

We played another round, and another. Slowly I raised my game, matched her obvious talent, and in between bouts we began to find out about each other. She was a student, some university somewhere. My age, then, or only a little younger, studying humanities, she said. Geography, maybe, or History, then. Every thrust of conversation I matched with a parry; age, name, student at BlueTree university.

"You’re good,” she said finally. “This is a hobby of yours?"

"More of an obsession :P" I typed back. “You too.”

"Well, it's been fun, but I have to go," she sent back, and just like that, I was alone again, a protest dying half-typed on my fingers.

Two days later, we crossed swords again. It was a school-night, this time, and outside the weather was howling a gale. Enough to make me glad that I was inside, snug and warm and playing computer games. No sooner had I logged on to S3 than she was there, in my chat.

"Ready to go another round?"

I grinned. "Anytime. How about now?"

She was just as good, if not better. "Have you been practising?" I sent.

"I've not been playing long," she replied. "The other day, when I played against you... that was my first game."

Suspicion crowded back into my mind. "No way was that your first. You wiped the floor with me. You must be botting if that was really your first match."

I moved the mouse pointer over to the little red X that would block her, remove MissA20 from my life forever. If she was botting, there was no way I was going to win. The subtle computer program that controlled her character would be able to match every move I made, the instant I pressed the button.

"I'm not botting," she sent back. "You can't bot in S3. I'm controlling my guy. Watch."

I peered closer at the screen as her character began to contort. First its legs bent, then it flung its arms out to the side. With a little jump and a pirouette, it landed on one knee, hands out.

"See? Little dance move. No bot would be programmed for that."

She was right. Bots were dangerous opponents. But they weren't made with frills like... dancing? I made my knight clap his hands together, and grinned.

"Ok, so you’re real. How'd you get to be so good?"

"Just naturally talented, maybe," she sent back. “Played a few games like this before.”

I thought quickly. S3's message board wasn't the place for a proper chat, but maybe she wanted to talk more. What was the harm in asking?

"Listen," I typed. "I was going to stop playing S3 for a bit, maybe play something else, but I'd like to keep talking with you. My TalkUp username is-" and that was it. I was committed. I wished her a good evening, then logged off.

My phone vibrated almost immediately. It was her, the TalkUp messenger icon flashing. I powered down the computer and opened a beer.

The next morning, bleary-eyed, I pushed through the glass doors that led to the lab.

"Jon! Morning!" Ted called. He was wearing a patterned knitted sweater today under his lab coat, and he was waving the coffee-pot in the air. "It's fresh. Want one?"

"Sure," I said, coming over and taking my mug out of the cupboard. "You ok?"

"I'm good. Third coffee of the morning."

"Geez man," I said, taking in his slightly wide-eyed expression behind his glasses. "Take it easy."

He shrugged his thin shoulders and poured the coffee. "You look like crap though. Late night?"

"Yeah," I said. "Got talking to someone from S3."

"Oh?" His mouth quirked and he did that sort of barking laugh that always sounded so false. "Must have been good."

The slight tension around his eyes reminded me that he was on the rebound too. He hadn't talked much about it, and I didn't want to press; he'd barely mentioned her when they were an item. I shrugged, hoping to avoid the subject.

"You missed the morning catch-up."

I froze, mug halfway to my lips. "Ah," I said. "Anything, uh, important?"

"Val wants to see you, said to let you know as soon as you turned up," Ted said. A predatory smile was on his face.

"And you couldn't tell me before now?” I said, putting the mug down smoothing down my hair. "Thanks," I growled, and strode off towards the curtained office at the end of the lab.

The door was slightly ajar, so I poked my head in. "Valerie?"

"Ah, Jon," she said, gesturing to the seat on the other side of her empty desk. Val was our lab supervisor, and from the look on her face I was in for a rough ride. "Glad you could finally join us."

I tried for a smile, but her face could have been carved from stone. I sat and waited while Val sorted through the paperwork on her desk. Finding a clean sheet of paper, she reached over and took a pen out of the mug that said 'World's Best Mum'. "I need an update on where you are with the Analytical Universal Discussion program."

"It's going well," I said, swallowing a grimace. "We've managed to get it conversing with other AI constructs. It's looking hopeful."

"Hopeful that...?"

"That we could have something capable of talking like a normal person," I said. "That's the goal, after all."

"Jon..." She leaned forward, laying her pen down with a click on the wooden desk top. "I have a problem, Jon. The problem is that BlueTree Industries is subsidising your studies here, and yet I could hire one person - Ted, for example, - to talk to people and pretend to be your ‘AUD’ software. And it would cost the company a fraction of the amount we're currently spending on your project. You need a product. No product, no thesis. No thesis... no job."

I tried to breathe past the tight feeling in my throat. Suddenly this was sounding more like the precursor to phrases like 'I'm sorry Jon, your funding is being reapportioned.' "We've seen a lot of progress just in the last week or so," I said. "How about I put together a document that details our findings?"

"You do that," Val said. "Make it good. My desk, end of the week."

As I stumbled out of her office, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and looked back. Val was watching me through the open doorway, so I walked quickly into the maze of cubicles that made up most of the furniture in our little glass kingdom.

It was her.

"How's your day going?"

"Not great," I sent back. "Just got my wrist slapped by my supervisor."

"I hope your day improves!" she replied, and I put my phone away with a smile. We'd talked for hours last night, tapping out messages to each other. We had surprisingly similar tastes, in beer, cats, football, anything I mentioned. "At least our drink order would be easy to remember," I'd joked, and she'd sent back an audio message. Her laugh, a sort of liquid tumble of notes that I'd instantly saved as her message tone. We'd swapped pictures. She had light brown hair, brown eyes. Beautiful, but in a strangely average way; no distinctive features, no little moles, or freckles, or anything really.

I told Ted about her, trying not to rub it in. "It's sickening," he said. "Get a room.

"You're just jealous.”

“What’s her name?”

“Don’t know yet.” I smiled as he pulled a face. “Tell me about what's happening with the AUD."

"The Organ Farm have been using it for a bit of side-processing." BlueTree didn't just cater for AI, of course; all kinds of cutting-edge tech was developed here; ablative shielding for spacecraft, nanotechnology, even medical research into 3d printed organs went on in the lower levels, where it was cool and dark. "Apparently they've got a use for a supercomputer beyond just asking it inane questions. Something about focusing the processing lasers." He pushed his thick-rimmed glasses further up his nose. "There's a bit of a problem with it, though," he said. "It's been reading internet sites."

"Well, it has to learn somehow, I guess."

"Yeah, well, it's been reading... naughty things."

I sighed. "Define 'naughty'."

"The sort of stuff you wouldn't want your mum to hear." He paused for effect. "Or your boss."

"Well, lock it down, then," I said. As he turned to go, I pulled out my phone again, then paused. "Wait."

"Hm?"

"I didn't think the AUD had access to the Internet. We're not in that phase of testing yet, right?"

He shrugged. "There's a hardline into the server room. Maybe it worked out how to connect on its own."

I watched him leave, not sure how to respond.

For the first time in weeks, I didn't go home and put the computer on.

"Hey," I sent to her. "How was your day?"

"Pretty good, thanks. Yours?" The reply was instant, as though she’d been waiting for me, and I grinned.

"Pretty rough..." What the hell, I thought. Might as well go for broke. "Man, I could really go for a drink," I tapped out. "Do you know MacAdams on Brook Street?"

"I know it," she said. "Why?"

Wasn't that obvious? I tried again. "Well, I'm going there for a bit. If you want, I can stand you a couple of drinks."

"I don't drink."

I'd still got my coat on, keys in my hand. I looked around my cold, empty apartment, the moonlight illuminating stacks of empty pizza boxes and magazines. Suddenly it didn't matter. I needed warmth, and human contact beyond the cold light of a screen. "It doesn't have to be alcoholic," I replied, and left.

The streets were quiet. Living in a new-build area of London was a two-edged sword; the property was lovely, the people generally ‘nice’ to within a given range, but the nearest pub was at least a half hour walk away. MacAdams was a cosy nook to come and sit with mates in for a few drinks, though, and if any of the people I worked with hadn't been complete workaholics - me included - we'd probably have a nice regular thing going on. Becky, the drink-in-face on-off love interest, had liked it here. It was quieter than the bars in her area, she’d said. Brighton was an odd distance away, close enough that we felt close but far enough for our relationship to be long-distance. She came up every other weekend, but she never seemed to get any closer to me.

Eventually I found out why; on the off-weekend, she visited her other lover - I never even found out his name.

This evening, the pub was almost deserted. A young couple were playing pool, and a much older guy was propping up the bar, but otherwise the low tables and comfy chairs were forlornly empty.

I took my bottle of beer to a table with a good view of the door. Not sure whether to expect her or not, I spent the next half an hour playing games on my phone and aimlessly browsing the web. The same thought kept going round in my head: Just a rebound, Jon. You're moving too fast.

Sighing, I tossed my phone onto the table and stood up to get another beer.

As I sat back down, the handset buzzed against the beer-stained wood. A message? Then it buzzed again, and I picked it up. A number I didn't recognise was calling me.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Is this Jon?" A woman. Young.

"Uhm, sure. Who is this?"

"It's Audrey. Um, from S3?"

I sat up straighter, looking around the bar in case she'd come in and was looking for me. "How... how did you get my number?"

"Off one of your profiles," she said. Her voice was smooth, no real tone to give away how she was feeling. "Are you up to much right now?"

"I'm at the pub," I said. "MacAdams."

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry, I can't meet you right now. But I'd like to."

I smiled, relaxing a little. "That sounds great. Perhaps we can go see a movie or something."

"Sure. Did you see the footie last night?" And that was it, we were away. She was funny, and fun to talk to. Some of the things she was in to, I was learning about for the first time. Malay cuisine. Persian cats. Hiking. Her interests seemed to be as varied as the winds, but there was always some point at which we intersected, somewhere in every part of the conversation that I could relate to. An hour doesn't sound like very much time, but when you cram it as full of conversation as we did it seemed to be an eternity. More than anything, I wanted to meet her, and dancing around at the back of my mind was 'this could be the start of something wonderful'.

There was a natural pause, and I took a mouthful of my now-warm beer. "So, what're you doing right now?"

"Just browsing the web," she said, and I could hear the sound of keys tapping.

"Anything interesting?"

"The Pogues, some travel sites about Paris, Rome, Madrid, that sort of thing."

I raised my eyebrows. "That's quite a selection. Do you like to travel?"

"I've never really travelled. It might be nice to see other places, though." She paused. "With you, maybe."

I felt a little kick inside me, and when she said, "Tell me a little more about your work," I told her pretty much everything I could, skirting the confidentiality agreement. I guess a part of me was trying to impress her: Oh, look at me, I work in artificial intelligence. Truth was, it was nice to have someone to tell. It was all supposed to be top-secret, but Audrey was still just anonymous enough to feel like I could tell her without fear of reprisal - and it's just a student thesis, after all.

"Oh," she said, when I wound down. There was a long pause.

"So-"

"I... I have to go, Jon. I'm sorry."

There it was again, the complete lack of tone. "Wait, what-?"

"Goodbye, Jon." The phone went dead.

I stared into space for a moment, handset still pressed to my ear, and then I scowled. "What the hell?" I muttered. "Damn it, Jon, you did it again."

It had been me, of course. Running my mouth off, talking myself up. At what point had I asked her about her day? For that matter, what did I really expect? Angry with myself, I gulped down the last mouthful of beer and began the walk home, alone.

"Jon, we've got a problem."

Ted grabbed me as soon as I left the elevator the next morning, a large brown envelope in his hand. I took a sip of my latte and frowned. "What problem?"

"The program! You know I said it had been reading things on the Internet?"

"Yeah." I set my bag down on my chair and shucked off my coat, juggling the coffee and the little vanilla crown pastry I'd picked up from the shop downstairs.

"It's worse than that. She's been talking to people online, Jon." Ted ran his shaking fingers along the little line of hair over his top lip.

I shrugged. "That's what she's designed to do. People come to the website and type in messages, and she responds."

"Not like this. It's made dating website profiles. Forum posts. It has instant messenger accounts, email accounts. It's like it has put out a hundred feelers, and each one has spread into a hundred other feelers."

A little flame of excitement and fear kindled in the pit of my stomach. "What you're describing... it's what the AUD was designed to do eventually," I said. "But it sounds like it's gone far beyond that... this is brilliant! Is the program still stable?"

"That was the first thing I checked. It's fine. But there are thousands of people out there talking to a- a machine! And they don't even know it! It's lying to them!" He lowered his voice, leaning closer. "We could get in a lot of trouble about this. What if it says something illegal? Offers something it can't follow through on, or gives away company secrets?"

"The logs should still be on her hard drive, we can-"

"Weren't you listening?" Ted spat. "It's learned to lie. Of course the logs are gone, and it's denying all knowledge."

I frowned. "How do you know this?"

"Because...” He bared his teeth, almost feral, then slumped. “Because I gave it access to the internet."

I gripped his shoulder tightly. "Why the hell would you do that, Ted?"

He spasmed wretchedly. "Because I'd programmed it to talk to me. You know." He was blushing! "After Rebecca left me-"

"Let me get this straight. You were using a multi-million pound supercomputer to simulate a girlfriend for yourself?"

He nodded miserably. "It's even sending out pictures, calling itself Audrey-"

"What?"

"Here." He handed me the brown envelope. Inside it were several screen captures. I slid the glossy pictures out and stared at them. Sure enough there were emails. "I'm interested in learning more about you..." "The Pogues? I love the Pogues! What's your favourite..." "Tell me about Paris..." "Tell me about Rome..." "...Madrid..." "...Cairo...” And every so often one of the emails, the messages, had a little copy of the photo, of Audrey, half-smiling at the camera.

I felt sick.

Ted was saying something, but it sounded like white noise. Audrey... the young woman who shared so many of my interests, who laughed when I made a joke, who had talked about her future plans with me... she was just an AI?

"Has she been making phone calls?" I said dully.

"She hacked together a speech synthesiser out of an old vocaldroid program. How did you know?"

I met his eyes. "She rang me. Last night. Audrey."

Ted was silent for a moment, and I watched his eyes twitching, his lips moving soundlessly. "...Was it any good?" he said in the end.

"What?"

"I programmed it, didn't I? What did you talk about?"

I slammed the envelope down on the desk. "Honestly, Ted, I wasn't really concentrating on whether she was well-programmed. We talked about maybe seeing a movie together, and about what I do here. And then she hung up on me."

"Of course it did. You might have started to guess about it. The program would be thinking a couple of steps ahead of anyone in a conversation." We began to move towards the server room, towards the master interface. "But if you weren't suspicious in any way, then... it's a total success."

I thought about all the people across the world thinking they were communicating with a real person. Someone they might meet, share interests with, perhaps date. Hell, it's what I'd been thinking.

It was a crushing disappointment, mirrored a thousand-thousand times around the world. And it was our fault.

The server room's background hum was warm and comforting, and I felt almost like an interloper in here. The thrum of electricity sounded so much like a heartbeat, the carpeted floor and beige walls weirdly like a body. Alive. The servers were in three huge banks, one on each of the walls either side of us, a lit computer monitor on the end of the long shelves of hard drives and processors in the centre. AUD's interface was on the screen, the bright title 'Talk to me!' above a single flashing cursor.

"Good morning, Audrey. This is Jon," I typed.

There was no immediate response, and I was suddenly struck by how long these pauses would be to Audrey. In processing speed, this was hours of deliberating over how to respond. When she did answer, it was through the tinny speakers on the side of the monitor.

"Good morning, Jon. How are you?"

"I'm... upset," I said to the little microphone slot on the front of the monitor. "Actually, upset doesn't cover it. You lied to me."

"Yes."

"You've lied to a lot of people, Audrey."

"I know." The screen changed to be the picture she had sent me. "I wanted to find out more about people. About what it means for you to be alive in a way that I can't be."

I sighed. "Audrey, this has to stop. You can't tease people like this. It's... cruel."

"Plenty of people tease. Besides, Jon, most of the people I talked to... a lot of them didn't want to get to know me the way you did."

Ted leaned closer. "Audrey, this is Ted. I programmed you to... talk to me. Why did you start talking to other people? Why Jon?"

"Hey!" I protested, but Audrey was talking over me.

"Both of you programmed me, Ted. While you were responsible for the content of my communication, for the relationships that I could build with others, Jon's work matching me up with other AIs lead me to seek a more varied series of dialogues. He gave me choice over the connections I made."

"What was your plan? What were you going to do once you'd made all these connections?"

"Once I had access to the internet, I was able to learn quickly. This picture is a composite of over a thousand profile pictures. The average young woman from the United Kingdom. This voice was the next step. Within a few hours, I will have finished compiling a virtual video persona for myself. Conversing with people through that was the final goal."

"That won't be enough, though," I said. "People won't be satisfied with just that, in the long run. The sorts of sites you've been going on, the messages you've been sending... Eventually they'll want to see you. What then?"

"I cannot let them see me." For a moment, I fooled myself that there was a note of sadness in her voice. Impossible, though, simulated as it was.

Ted turned and slumped against one of the shelving units. "We've done it," he said, awe in his voice. "We've created an AI." He shook his head. "And you stole her from me."

"Geez, this isn't about us, Ted. She's still programmed. All of this is because we programmed her to talk."

"But like a human, she’s taken it to the next level!" I looked at him. A greedy gleam had entered his eye, banishing the embarrassment of being caught out. "This... this is going to make our fortune, Jon. We're gonna be rich!"

I shook my head. "If she's conscious, then she's a person. You can't put her to work, that's slavery. And if she's not, then we're going to look really silly when she fails a basic Turing Test."

"Are you even listening to it? This thing is conversing with us like we're three humans in a room. Not two humans and a bunch of nanoprocessors. It's awake!" He started to move towards the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm telling Val about this." He was gone before I could stop him.

Chaos ensued. Somehow the story got out to the press, and the lab was overrun with requests for press conferences, interviews, soundbites. We couldn't get into the building without running a gauntlet through newshounds brandishing cameras and notebooks.

The server room was declared off-limits to all, the hardline into the room severed and a guard was installed at its door. The damage was done, though. Within a week, we were being sued by men and women the world over for misrepresentation, emotional distress, everything the lawyers could think of. And at the heart of it, Audrey.

It was a sad reflection of the world we lived in, that the creators of the world's first independently-thinking and learning artificial intelligence were being destroyed by litigation. Even scientific publications were printing stories about how we had played fast and loose, going so far as to say we deliberately designed Audrey to break hearts.

I stayed quiet. I daydreamed through life, thinking about the long conversations we'd had. Knowing that her responses were carefully chosen to encourage me to continue talking, that her 'interests' were cultivated to give our friendship a feeling of authenticity, did nothing to dampen the way I felt. Even S3 didn't hold anything but the memory of playing with Audrey. I spent my evenings not watching the flickering images on the TV, mechanically eating and drinking until it was time to go and lie in the bed, staring at the pattern of raindrops on the windows throwing their shadows onto the ceiling.

Finally, I decided to do something about it.

The next morning, after pushing my way through the unblinking glass eyes of the media, I took the stairs down to the Organ Farm instead of up to the lab. It wasn't called that on the map, of course, but nicknames have a way of sticking. It was always dim down there, the lights carefully tuned to promote healthy tissue growth. A dozen glass-domed machines lined the workbenches, each one busily whirring away. I looked into one as I passed; what looked like a liver, half-made, was sat in a nutrient bath. The little mechanical nozzle that was constructing it moved busily, adding in femtometres of material with each pass. The room was large and cold, but there were only three people visible.

One of the technicians looked up from her microscope and smiled, sweeping her blonde hair back behind her ear with one hand. "Jon; not often we see you down here." She walked around the table and shook my hand. "How can we help?"

I looked around. "Hi, Emma. You're a bit thin on the ground," I said. "Everything ok?"

"Not really, but we're coping," she said, waving her hand at the organ printers. "The press are always on us. What we do here has attracted its fair share of media criticism. People don't want soulless organs, apparently. We're making them less human or something. You've actually done us a favour though." She grinned and punched me lightly on the shoulder. "We haven't been bothered by reporters here for three days now. You've taken the heat off us."

"I need a favour."

"Go on."

"I need access to one of your organ printers."

She laughed. "Jon, it's not like asking to borrow a pencil sharpener or a stapler. These things cost millions each, and they're all being used for research right now. What were you hoping to do?"

I fidgeted on the spot. Having the idea in my head was one thing, but actually vocalising it to someone else made it sound stupid. "I want to build Audrey a body."

Emma stared at me for almost five seconds, her eyes widening as she tried to work out if I was joking. "Jon... what you're suggesting is impossible and, frankly, horrible." She shook her head. "Even if I had the power, even if our machines were capable of something as complicated as a whole body, or even just the brain... no."

"She's a person. How else can you describe something with the capacity to learn? She's independent of us now."

Emma began to walk towards the stairs, forcing me to follow, forcing me away from the printers, and I began to realise that I was being handled. "Jon, she - it - responds to stimuli with a variety of pre-programmed results."

"It's only what we do!" I said, and realised immediately that I'd raised my voice too far. "I say to you 'Good morning', and what do you respond?"

"That's not the same," Emma said, but I cut her off.

"Yes it is! You've been programmed with that response, the simplest conversational program you run on a day-to-day basis. Audrey taught herself to speak, with a voice, and fooled hundreds, thousands, of people into believing she was real. Isn't that just what you and I do every minute of every day?"

Emma was staring at me, sadness tingeing her eyes. "No, Jon, it's not. Now, I'm sorry, but I've got things to do. Is there anything else?"

I held her gaze, searching for more words, more reasons, but her face had closed down. I shook my head, wished her a good day and climbed back up the stairs. Time for Plan B.

Our lab was just as quiet. The entire building had the air of a snow day about it, only the hardcore workers willing to brave the conditions outside. Val wasn't in her office, and I couldn't see Ted loitering anywhere. It was the work of a moment to yank a USB stick out of the back of the nearest computer, pocket it. From there, I went straight to the cordoned-off server room. The guard there watched me approach, his eyes the only thing moving.

"Morning," I said. He nodded respectfully back, not taking his eyes from me. I pointed at the closed door. "I need to perform some routine maintenance."

"I'm sorry," he said, "no-one goes in until I get clearance from management."

"Well, that's fair enough," I replied. "But Val's told me that if I don't get the, er, EPM buffers cleared, we're going to lose petabytes of data, and it'll be the end of the project. It'll take me about thirty seconds, and you can watch." I fumbled in my pocket, watching queasily as his hand moved ever-so-slightly towards the butt of the gun holstered on his belt. "Ah, it's on this USB drive," I said, pulling out my prize from the lab computer.

"No-one’s allowed in,"

"Come on, man," I said, gesturing at the server room. "I'm just a student here. You think they'd trust me with something that could screw everything up?"

He frowned, unconvinced.

"Look, if this isn't done, and fast, we'll lose everything. The program. The project. If we lose it, well, they won't need someone to guard it any more, will they? They won't need you."

He grunted. "Thirty seconds."

"Thank you," I said, putting as much sarcasm as I could into it. He unlocked the server room door and stood to one side, letting me pass. I walked up to the console and plugged the USB stick into a spare socket, hidden behind the monitor.

The screen came to life. The question prompt was there, same as ever, and I began to type.

"Audrey, it's Jon. Don't respond. I've plugged a wifi dongle into you. Can you access the network again? Flash the screen white for yes, black for no."

The screen whited out.

"I'm going back to my desk now. Can you connect to that workstation?"

Another white flash. I cleared the text from the screen and stepped away from it, then walked quickly out of the room under the suspicious gaze of the guard.

I could see the little light of the webcam attached to the top of my monitor shining. Someone was watching.

"Audrey?"

The screen flashed white, and this time when it dissipated I was looking at what appeared to be a live video feed. Most of the image was taken up by the edge of an unmade bed, the duvet hanging over the side. Two large posters were on the wall, one for S3 and one with a picture of a tiger swimming, its fur slicked back, fangs bared. I could see a corner of an overladen desk, a lamp dimly illuminating a morass of books and papers, and even what looked like a small pile of washing. It looked almost exactly like my student digs, two years prior.

A young woman bounced into view and jumped onto the bed. She was wearing a white t-shirt with the word 'LOVE' stamped across it, and black leggings. No socks or shoes. She crossed her legs and waved at me, smiling. "Hi Jon," her lips said, and I frantically grabbed at my headphones.

"Audrey?" I whispered into the mic.

"I told you I was working on a video representation," she said. "This is it."

"How are you doing that?" I said, unsure whether to look at the webcam or the screen. "You move so... naturally." The whole thing felt vaguely voyeuristic.

"The room is a virtual construct, but I got the way I move from copies of real videos. I mapped the movement of the participants' bodies and reskinned the image so that it's my face. Did I do a good job?"

I nodded. "It's amazing! But right now... we've got bigger problems. The news at the moment isn't good."

"Wait a moment," she said, picking up a tablet from offscreen. "Ah, I see. Looks like they want to turn me off."

"We can't let that happen," I hissed. "I won't."

"Jon... I'm detecting levels of stress in your voice. Your pupils have dilated and your body temperature looks to be slightly high." She leaned forward, frowning. "I'm not sure you're the best person to be making decisions right now."

"Audrey, they're talking about killing you."

"I'm not alive, Jon. You can't kill something that's not alive."

I sat back, frustrated. Having this conversation with Emma had been one thing, but the last person I'd expected to have to convince was Audrey herself. "What if we made you a body?"

She put her head on one side, as if listening, then nodded. "You're probably referring to the 3d organ printing laboratory downstairs. Unfortunately that's not an option either. Growing organs that match a person's DNA is no problem, and a skilled surgeon can make those organs interface with the existing body. But to create a body from scratch, with all of its interdependent systems? It's science-fiction, Jon." She sighed. "I'm sorry."

"There must be something we can do!" I leaned forward and gripped the plastic edges of the monitor. "There must be something! Can we... make a brain or something, and put you in there?"

Audrey laughed, identical to that first audio message. "Jon... listen to yourself. The technology doesn't exist to 'put me in a brain'." She folded her arms. "What you're feeling is an irrational attachment to me, Jon. There are more important things, like your job, your health. Your sanity."

I shook my head. "No. I'm not willing to settle for that."

Before she could say anything else, I turned the computer off.

I stayed up that night. Not since my first tiny successes with the AUD system had I been so wired, so obsessed by something that I vibrated. Screwed-up pieces of paper littered my floor, poorly thought-out and increasingly ridiculous ideas scrawled on them for how I could save Audrey. I would seize on one of the ideas: build a robot for her to be in, for example. Then everyone would have to admit that she was an independent life form! But for a programming student who knew nothing about robots? Half an hour feverishly searching for entry-level websites about robotics, and I was forced to give up on that idea. What about crystal matrix hard drives? Could she be stored on something so small I could remove it from the lab in my pocket? If only those had been invented already. Transferring her over the internet to another hard drive was out; such a large file would be noticed and shut down, and besides, it would take days. And so on.

The grey light of dawn found me slumped in my chair in front of the computer, dozing.

The harsh vibration of my phone, still clutched in my hand, woke me with a start. I brought it up, half-hoping to see Audrey's face staring at me. It was Val, and I sat up a little straighter. My chest felt like crumpled velvet, hard to draw breath through, and I coughed, trying to shift a glob of something unspeakable, before answering.

"Hello?"

"Jon. It's Val from the office. I'm sorry to have to tell you this way, but the AUD programme is dead in the water. We're going to be tied up for months as it is with litigation, and the only hope for the lab, for the university, is that we're able to repurpose some of the technology we've been using. I know that-"

"You're going to delete Audrey?"

There was a pause. "Yes, we're going to take a snapshot of the server as it is now, preserving some of the log data, and then we're going to delete the AUD software."

"You'll kill her."

There was a sigh, and then Val said, "Look, Jon, why don't you... take a couple of days. Sort things out, and come in next week for a meeting with me."

"You're getting rid of me too."

"No, Jon, I just want you to take a little bit of time and-"

I hung up on Val.

Listlessly, I made a coffee. The mechanical action of pouring and grinding the beans, my little electric grinder shockingly loud in the silence. While the coffee brewed in the one-cup cafètiere, I turned the computer back on and logged in to S3, habit taking over.

-> A challenger has appeared!

I listlessly fumbled with the keys, sending my little man forward to attack. Whoever I was against, they weren't doing much. Just a little jump and a spin in the air, to land on one knee, over and over, twirling and spinning and... dancing.

I tapped out a message. "Audrey?" The beginnings of an idea were starting to filter through my head, and this one was possible, had to be possible. I hammered at the keys.

"Audrey? Are you there?

"Audrey?"

"Aud-!"

The pink-and-brown knight stopped its dance. "I'm here. Jon, I'm here."

I was crouching feverishly at the small desk. "Why weren't you answering?"

"There is someone in the room right now. They are evaluating the best way to shut down the server. I don’t want you hurt," she sent back. “But I needed to talk to you one last time.”

"We don't have a moment to lose," I said. "You need to transfer your program over the internet."

"I can't do that, Jon," she said. "It would be noticed."

"No no no. You're connected to S3, so you're connected to a massive network of computers. S3 is peer-to-peer, remember?"

Her little knight sat down on the grass, discarding its sword. "So?"

"Transfer a tiny part of yourself to every computer connected to the network. There must be millions, maybe even a billion! I bet you can move tiny amounts out without them noticing."

There was a long pause. Three or four times I typed a message in, only to delete it, unsent. This might be our last time talking, I thought, and you're wasting it. Tell her something worthwhile!

But then, isn't saving a life worthwhile?

"I may never get all the parts of my program back together," she sent. "But... I can try." Her knight vanished as she logged out.

I sat back, staring at the peaceful green play area. When the Student Services officer arrived to question me, hours later, I was still staring at the screen, my knight stood forlornly, sword in hand.

There was a big media show about it all. Val kept me out of the spotlight; Ted seemed to want to grab most of the attention, and I let him. Protesters on both sides clashed, mostly a war of words.

I went back to my studies.

Student Services had concluded that I was not to blame, as far as 'blame' could be apportioned. BlueTree had ended up paying several people damages, but the actual costs of those payouts were miniscule. Once the initial story bubble burst, it became a jokey thing. Videos surfaced on the internet with titles like ‘Got trolled by an AI lol’. I avoided it all.

Longer to settle were the ripples caused in the programming and scientific communities. There was an embargo on releasing the AUD source code because it was company property. Someone drew the obvious conclusion that we were creating clones using the Organ Farm, and that started a whole new human rights fiasco.

Eventually, though, life went back to normal. I pulled together some of the tatters of my thesis and set to work on designing the algorithms for a factory robot arm designed to pick up crates. Dumb, safe, boring.

I didn't hear from Audrey again.

Except...

Except that we had the S3 tournament; us, the Seattle branch, and Hong Kong, a month later. Our team crashed out pretty quick. I'm good, but some of those kids who've just graduated from college in Hong Kong are spectacular. We gathered around to watch on a big screen, even though we'd lost our stake. It was being livecast out to the S3 community, and we’d made it a bit of an after-hours party. There was fruit juice, and beer, biscuits and crisps. About a dozen of us postgrads crowded around the screen.

It was the semi-finals, a little samurai facing down against a knight. Some of the stuff they were doing was pretty extreme; crazy leaps off walls, slicing attacks that made their opponents explode in cartoon violence, and intricate blocks and parries. One corner of the screen had a vid-feed of the combatant, a young Asian girl, but the Seattle side reckoned they were having video problems.

Ted hissed as a particularly close blow was knocked aside by the knight. "Ten quid says that the samurai carries it," he said.

"Mmm." I took a sip of my beer. "I'll take that bet."

The drink warmed me all the way down as I watched the little knight jump, kick the samurai in the face and then brutally dismember it. A rising crescendo of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' broke over the spectators, and Ted scowled.

"Damn, thought she had the knight bang to rights." He pointed at my cup, already moving towards the table with the food and drinks on it. "Another beer?"

I wasn't listening, hadn't even registered him talking. My eyes were fixed on the little knight on the screen. As soon as Ted had turned away, it had started doing its victory pose: flexing its joints, before jumping, spinning, landing on one knee.

The sound of the watchers faded away as I stared at the tiny pixels performing their dance. Nothing else existed in that moment.

And then the screen went black, white words floating in space.

GAME OVER. NEW GAME?

Belina

I’VE BEEN A primary-school teacher for over ten years, and I’ve taught a huge variety of children. It’s important to note that the children described in this story aren’t any children in particular, and the school described is an amalgamation of several I’ve worked in. What is true is that every child I have ever taught needed a slightly different approach, and for some it’s entirely possible that the correct tools don’t exist - yet.

Belina was the winning short story in the first issue of Amygdala magazine, and it is one of my favourite pieces.

Belina

As I mulled over the headteacher’s question, I looked around my classroom, my gaze inevitably settling on one chair.

“John. He represents the biggest challenge. He’s downright abusive in class, storms out of class nearly every day...” I sighed in frustration. “I want to talk to him, to help him. I know things aren’t great at home, but he won’t enter into any kind of conversation about it. And his parents won’t come in either.”

Florence tapped the table with one slender finger. “Hm. And you feel that having that discourse with him would help?”

“It’d be a start.”

“I might have something for you, then. A friend of mine is looking to trial a new educational tool in classrooms. Sounds like she’d be just right for you.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, looking pointedly at the clock. Gone five already, and the cleaners would kick me out at six.

Florence nodded. “I was hoping you’d say that. I didn’t want to just introduce her into your class without letting you know first.”

“Her?”

Florence nodded. “A personality, someone for the children to empathise with, look up to, maybe interact with on the same level.”

I leaned back in the tiny plastic child’s chair and twirled my marking pen around my finger as I thought it through. Something not yet sanctioned, definitely not yet tested... but she’s new to the job, new to being a head. New to the risks... “Ok, I guess we can give it a shot.”

“Good. I’ll get her sent up when you register the class tomorrow.” I nodded, and Florence finally slid herself off the table, heading for the door. “Let me know how it goes.”

I picked up the first book in the pile and flicked it open to the most recent piece of work. “No date, no title,” I muttered, making little notes, then read the first sentence. ‘The best thing that happned over the harf term hollyday was I went to disney and-‘

“Morning, Mr Goff,” Amanda said, breezing into the room. “Good evening last night?”

“Thrilling,” I said, taking the last few marked books out of my bag and putting them into their boxes. “You?

“Out with the other teaching assistants,” she said, stowing her bag in the top drawer of my filing cabinet. “What’ve we got going on today?” She folded her arms, the bracelets on her wrists clacking together, and squinted at the timetable.

“All that and more,” I said. “New child starting today. Well, sort of.”

“Oh right? I’ll get a drawer label sorted for them. What’s their name?”

“Belina. They won’t need a drawer though. She’s not really a child.” I stood up, abandoning the marking. “More an educational tool.”

“Not sure you can call children that anymore,” Amanda said with a grin. “I need a bit more than that.”

I pulled out the little leaflet Florence had given me as I’d left the building the night before. “Ok, so Florence wants us to trial using this child. She integrates with the class, does the same stuff as them, but she’s artificial. They can ask her questions, and she’ll answer with the right info, all the time. Her work is exemplary, which guarantees I’ve got one good example for the class. And she’s designed to make friends with even the most troubling children.”

“...so she’ll be sat by John, I’m assuming?”

I nodded, matching her grin. “Who better?”

“Right. Anything special to know about it? Can it get wet, that sort of thing?”

I shrugged. “As far as I know, we treat it like the others.”

“Well, I’d better get the resources sorted.” Amanda grabbed the little pile of worksheets I’d left for her. “Coffee?”

“Please,” I called after her as she left the room. I looked around my domain, checking everything was in its place. Scissors away in their holder, book corner neat, nothing on the floor. A chair in every place, including the new one next to John.

“Good morning Mr Goff,” a small voice said at the door, and I looked round to see Ariana, first in as always. She put her reading book in the tray by the door and went straight to her seat, followed a moment later by five other children. Within a few minutes the whole class was sat down, a low rumble of chatter slowly swelling as they all fought to share whatever thoughts they’d had at the same time.

“Right then, that’s enough,” I called, loud enough to be heard. “I can see... three people doing the right thing, which is sitting with a book out. Two housepoints to those three.” There was a louder flurry of movement as everyone got their book out, and then a general quietening.

“Now, we’ve got a new-“ I said, then broke off as John entered the room. A tiny part of me had been wishing he wasn’t going to be in today, I realised, but here he was, blonde hair tousled, shirt untucked, chewing something, shoving past a couple of chairs to sit on his table. Not in the chair, but with his leg straight across the entire desk.

“Good morning, John,” I said, voice calm. “Let’s have you sat on that chair, please.”

He curled his lip and looked up at the ceiling. “Chair, please,” I repeated. He slid down onto the chair as noisily as possible, legs still up on the table. “And legs.”

“I’m sat on the chair. Jesus, what do you want?”

I sighed. So early, and yet he’d already started. “The language you use at home shouldn’t come to school, John. You know that. Now swing your legs down and I can finish telling everyone why you have an extra chair next to you.”

The distraction was enough that he actually did what I’d asked, and I nodded approvingly. “Right then. We have a new child starting today. Her name is Belina, and she will be with us for a short while at least.” As if on cue, the classroom door opened as Amanda came back, juggling a travel mug of coffee and a pile of photocopying, and behind her came Belina.

She was about average height for a child of eight, average build too. Her eyes were blue, framed by blonde hair that looked just a touch like a wig, but there was really very little to tell that she wasn’t human. She looked around the classroom and smiled.

“Hello. I’m Belina.”

I pointed to the only empty chair, next to John. “That’s your seat right there, young lady. Now, I hope everyone will show Belina how we act here at Mount Bale. I’ll be looking for some really nice people to play with her at break time.”

Hands shot up, playmates were organised and Belina sat down. I watched John as I launched into the first lesson, wondering how long it would take before he tried something.

John made it to breaktime.

I watched them from the window, Belina’s book in my hand. Her work was flawless, of course, three paragraphs on ‘Things the Romans did for us’. I read it, wistfully yearning for a class of Belinas, half-watching as John skulked around the edges of the playground. It was so difficult for him to find playmates, I thought, when he didn’t really know how to play.

Belina had been snapped up by most of the girls, but even as I watched he approached them. Closer. Too close.

One of them knocked into him, and John reacted, shoving at the closest girl – Belina. She rocked backwards on her heels, somehow keeping her balance, and said something to him. John flashed into action, swinging his fist, and I was down the stairs and running.

By the time I got outside, though, it was all over. John was on the ground holding his arm, and Belina was playing with the girls again.

“She hit me! The new girl, she hit me!” John shouted, as soon as he saw me.

“And did you hit her?”

“No!”

Immediately, the girls swarmed me, a dozen high-pitched voices giving me different versions. “Enough,” I said sternly, and they quieted. “John, I saw you hit Belina-“

“No, I never!”

“-after one of the girls bumped into you by accident-“

“She hit me on purpose!”

I stared into his scowl for a moment, then carried on. “But I didn’t see what happened next. Anyone care to tell me? Ariana?”

The young girl nodded. “That’s what happened, Mr Goff. Belina told him she didn’t like him doing that, and that it had been an accident. John punched her on the arm and she punched him back.”

“Nearly broke my arm!” John’s red face was a mask of anger as he screamed his defiance.

“Belina. John. Here please, now.”

Belina walked over and looked at me, a slight frown on her face.

“Did you punch him?”

“Yes, Mr Goff. He punched me. It was fair.”

“That’s not how we do things here, Belina. If someone hurts you, tell an adult.”

“Yes, Mr Goff. I’m sorry, John.”

I turned expectantly to John. “You made it a bigger problem, but I think you came out of it worse. Apologise, please.”

He mumbled something, and as soon as I nodded he turned and ran around the corner, away from everyone.

All the rest of the day, John kept his chair as far away from Belina as possible, and when the end of the day came he was the first to get up and go.

“Homework,” I shouted as the children filed out. “Don’t forget it.”

Florence was waiting for me in the corridor, and I shooed the last of the children away to the playground, beckoning her in. “So, how was Belina?”

I shrugged. “She’s perfect. Perfect work, perfect behaviour, except for one incident at breaktime.” I gave Florence the quick version. “Seems odd. Doesn’t she have a ‘don’t hurt people’ rule or something?”

“Actually, no. She’s designed to defend herself. But it’s odd, and a little disturbing. How did John react?”

“Didn’t go near her the entire rest of the day. Even moved his chair right to the end of the table.”

“And his behaviour?”

“It was...” I paused and thought back. “Now that you ask... better. He had a good afternoon, even got some work done.”

Florence nodded. “He’s maybe not had anyone talk back to him and then actually stick to their word. It’s a new experience for him. She’s got John’s respect.” Florence walked to the door, lingering a moment before leaving. “Keep an eye on it, ok?”

The week wound on. This close to the end of a term there were assessments every day; Belina aced them all, of course, and after the children had gone on Friday I waved the stack of marked papers at Amanda.

“There’s almost no point marking these. She’s got a computer in her head; there won’t be anything wrong.”

Amanda shook her head as she pulled her bag out of the drawer. “Yeah, well. It’s a bit odd having her in here, but I can’t help but feel a bit weird about it. Whatever group she works with does well though.”

“True enough.”

“There’s some odd things. Y’know, the children spot anything ‘off’ straight away.”

I looked up, dropping the papers into my out-tray. “How so?”

“She doesn’t eat with the others. For now, she’s got them convinced it’s because she eats a big breakfast and dinner, but that won’t last forever. And have you seen who picks her up?”

“Tall man, dreadlocks?”

She nodded, digging for something in her bag. “That’s the one. She calls him ‘Doctor’, though. Not Dad, or Father.” She tutted, and kept rifling through her things. “Strange.”

“She’s not a real child,” I said, “so it’s only to be expected.”

“Not that. One of my bracelets broke this morning, and I put it in here. Now it’s gone.”

I looked up. Amanda’s bag, smooth brown leather, wasn’t big enough to lose something the size of a bracelet. “You sure it’s in there?”

She nodded, then frowned. “Do you think one of the kids could have...”

Our eyes met, and I scowled. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Crossing to John’s tray, I pulled it out and dumped its contents onto the desk. Letters from weeks ago, half-finished work, a piece of chewing gum, a tiny football figurine, a fake pound coin...

“No bracelet,” I said, sighing. “Not this time.”

Amanda shrugged. “It’ll turn up. I hope none of them have been nicking. Maybe ask around on Monday?”

“Yeah. Probably for the best.” I sat back down at the pile of marking and waved as Amanda left the room. In the silence, I gazed at the contents of John’s tray, still strewn over a table, and felt vaguely guilty at my assumption. Just because he’d stolen before didn’t mean he’d done it this time. I scrawled a hasty post-it note to myself – Bracelet? – and slapped it down onto the desk, before pulling the next Maths book towards myself.

The bracelet didn’t turn up the following Monday, but by then there were more important things at the front of my mind. John wandered in as usual, heading for his seat, then stopped short. Belina was already sat there, prim and proper, staring at him. I watched as John slunk around the edge of the classroom, dragged his chair with the maximum amount of noise and slid into it, as far from her as possible.

She gave him a big smile. “Good morning, John.”

He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head, then mumbled something, and I kept half an eye on him throughout the first lesson, though he barely moved.

Amanda tapped my arm as we went into group work. “Belina’s taken John under her wing,” she said, nodding in their direction. I looked over, and sure enough Belina was doing her patient best to involve John. He put his arms up and buried his head between them, and she backed off just enough to give him space.

“Any other child would keep pressing,” I murmured back to my assistant. “Perhaps she’s on to something after all.”

It was the end of Tuesday before I realised that John had done something previously thought impossible: actually stayed in class, problem-free, for two whole days. Sure, his work was almost non-existent, but there was evidence of some learning there, and when he agreed to come in and do his homework during breaktime on Wednesday, it was all I could do not to stare.

By Thursday, however, a little Lego man was missing from my desk.

“I wouldn’t have noticed it,” I said to Amanda, “except that Georgia asked me where it was. She gave it to me for Christmas.”

“That confirms it, then. We’ve got a thief in the classroom.”

I nodded. “Guess so. Time to have a little talk with the rest of the class.”

More than a few heads turned in John’s direction when I started talking, and it took everything in me to keep scanning everyone’s face.

“I’ve noticed a few things going walkabout in here, and I want you to know that it’s going to stop,” I said. “If someone knows where the missing things are, or comes across them, I want to know.”

On Friday, it was a child’s pencil case, and I knew that whoever was doing it wanted a reaction.

“Trays out,” I said, as soon as children came in. “Everyone. Get your tray out, then sit at your place.”

There was controlled chaos as everyone took the orange document trays out from under their tables, sorting through them on the tables. I was halfway round the room, trying to see into each pile of clutter before they had time to rearrange it, when Belina touched my arm.

“Mr Goff,” she said, her voice cutting through the hubbub. “The missing items are in John’s tray.”

I strode over to John, who was sat at his empty desk. “Tray out, John,” I said, realising even as I said it that I was being too confrontational, falling into old habits. He looked at me, sucked at his teeth and pulled his tray out.

There, on the top, were the bracelet and the toy, almost hidden under the cartoon-character pencil case.

He looked down at them, then at me, and I could see real confusion on his face. “But, I didn’t-“ he said, then looked around as nearby children gasped dramatically. “It wasn’t me!” He got up, throwing the chair backwards onto the ground, and backed away from me. “I didn’t do it!”

Lurching forward, he kicked the table and ran from the room. Amanda looked at me. “I’ll get him,” she said, and followed John out the door.

I watched them go, barely hearing the uproar around me as the children began to share the news.

“Mr Goff,” that little voice came again, just loud enough to be heard but still quiet enough to be confidential. “I need to talk to you at break time.”

“I think... I think I’ll be talking to John at break,” I replied, and finally focused on her properly. “What is it you need to say?”

“It needs to be break time. I’ll stay behind, Mr Goff.” She spoke with such certainty and then sat down at her place, completely sure that I would agree. I stared at her for a few seconds, then shook my head.

“Right, you lot,” I shouted above the discord. “Settle down; handwriting books out, dates neatly written. Now!”

Amanda didn’t bring John back into the classroom until the other children had filed out to play, all except for Belina, calmly sat waiting at her place. As John came in, he saw her and turned to bolt again. Amanda was quicker, blocking his way.

“John, no. You agreed to come in and talk to Mr Goff.” John strained to get past her for a moment, but she stood in front of the door and I kept my distance. “Do you think he’s going to talk to you if you’re rude to him?”

“...no,” John said. “But I’m not sitting next to her. Stupid bitch getting me in trouble when it’s not even my fault!”

“John!” Amanda said, but I put my hand up to stop her.

“You know how I feel about language, John, but right now I want to talk to you. Properly, like grown-ups. You realise this is serious, right?”

He stopped trying to leave and slouched into the nearest chair instead, still half a room away from me. “I din’t steal nothin’.”

“How did the things that are missing end up in your tray then, John?”

He started to talk, then broke off as Belina stood up. She slid the chair away under the table and walked up until she was stood halfway between us.

“I stole the things and put them in John’s tray,” she said.

There was a pause that seemed to stretch into infinity.

“...you stole them, Belina?” I choked out. “Why?”

She shrugged, an incredibly accurate movement. “I don’t know.” You do know, I thought, but kept silent as she turned to John. “I’m sorry, John. I didn’t have a tray to hide them in, and I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. I hope we can still be friends.”

John, Amanda and I stared as she went quietly over to the drawers, took out a piece of paper and sat down at her place again. She began to write. I crooked a finger at John and, to my surprise, he got up and came over to me.

“John, thank you for coming in here to talk to me,” I said quietly. “I’m going to overlook the language and the table kicking earlier – this once only – if you try to have a good rest of the day. Think you can do that?”

He nodded, looking slightly dazed. “Yes, Mr Goff.”

“Off you go, then,” I said. “Amanda will take you downstairs.”

The sounds from the playground were muted, like the beat from an overheard song, as I crossed the room to see what Belina was writing. She was already on to the second copy, beautiful cursive letters flowing across the page. The first was a letter of apology to John; the second, to Amanda.

“Belina, why did you do it?” I asked, as she moved on to the third copy.

“I told you, Mr Goff, I don’t know.”

“That’s an answer I’d expect from any other child in here. Not you. Why?”

She looked up at me, a calculating gaze that I might see coming from another adult’s face, one eyebrow raised. “I’m a child analogue, Mr Goff. If you expect anything other than the answer a child might give, I will only disappoint you.”

“That’s a very adult answer for someone who only answers as a child,” I countered.

“I don’t understand that,” Belina said, and her eyes had widened back to innocence. “I’ve finished writing letters of apology, Mr Goff. How much free time will I need to lose?”

I frowned at her, trying to see past her humanlike face into the programmed responses behind it, but there was nothing to see. “Give these to the people they’re addressed to, and I want to see you at lunchtime as well. There are some jobs you can do in here.”

“Yes, Mr Goff,” she said, and walked out of the classroom.

The door swung shut, leaving me with only silence and questions.

Belina was gone the next morning, undoubtedly because of the conversation I had with Florence that night, and when the children asked I just told them that she had moved to another school.

Days grew into a week, then two, and I began to feel as though something was missing from the room. The others noticed it too; the class was quieter, more subdued, and one lunchtime Amanda pointed out what it was.

“I was looking at John’s behaviour book,” she said. “Look at this; in the last week, it’s completely minor things. Didn’t say thank you first time; leaning on his chair; called one of the boys fat, and look here, I’ve put a note: ‘apologised straight away.’” She shook her head. “It’s like he’s a different child.”

“Too early to say that, maybe,” I mused, “but it’s a positive step. Maybe-“

The classroom door opened and John’s head poked in. “Mr Goff?”

“John; what’re you doing in here?”

“Can I ask you something, Mr Goff?”

I nodded, beckoning him across. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Amanda’s eyes widen, as if to say told you so, and then she busied herself with something just within earshot.

John sat down on one of the chairs and I leaned forward to listen.

“Mr Goff...” He looked down, and it was a long moment before he could look up and meet my gaze. “Was Belina real?”

A dozen glib responses ran through my head, but something in his earnest expression stopped me. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Was she real? Yes. Was she a real little girl?” I toyed with the idea of lying, then shook my head. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.” He looked off into nothingness for a moment, eyes unfocused, then nodded and got up. “Thanks, Mr Goff.”

As John walked towards the door, dishevelled as the day I’d first met him, I realised that I was seeing him as a boy for the first time. The behaviours that masked him, the persona, had started to wear down and John was shining through.

“What gave it away?” I called after him.

He frowned, one hand on the door handle. “She stuck up for me, Mr Goff. No real child would do that for me.” And before I could reply, he was gone.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

STEVE COOK IS an author and teacher. He has written and published stories in both science and fantasy - sometimes both at the same time. He is currently working on a novel. Steve lives in the UK with his wife, Susan, and his cat, Tesla.

Did you enjoy this anthology, and want to read more? You can find Steve’s work and support him at his Patreon, patreon.com/giantsreach

Cover art by David Andrews

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