Keepers of the Automata Read online

  Chapter 2 – In the Shop

  Lee’s gun was much larger than the ‘Earl’ model Bryce had fired into the automaton. Bryce trembled as Lee pushed his gun a bit closer to Bryce’s forehead. But Bryce didn’t close his eyes. He was too afraid of what he might imagine if he did. Rubber and metal composed Gorn’s face, and a small bullet left hardly a dent upon the automaton. Yet Bryce knew muscle and bone composed his features, and he was sure Lee’s weapon would leave a much larger mark if that man pulled the trigger.

  Lee spoke softly, as if checking his anger. “What’s Gorn ever done to you to deserve such abuse? Take care, mister. I’m well armed, and I’m prepared to defend my fellow citizen.”

  Bryce’s knees buckled. “But Gorn’s not a person. He’s a machine. He’s an automaton.”

  “No,” Stan shook his head. “Gorn’s a genius.”

  Bryce tried to stand straight. He tried to be brave. He didn’t know what would happen, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Lee did indeed pull the trigger and splatter bits of his brain across Gorn’s kiosk just as that machine delivered Bryce a custom science fiction adventure.

  But then a melody flooded the bookstation to introduce an announcement. A happy, feminine voice greeted everyone standing in a line, and Lee lowered his firearm and turned his attention to what the bookstation needed to say.

  “Attention, bookstation customers. Attention. Special collection bundles of all the automata’s bestselling, award-winning books will be given to the first readers to spot a grammatical error during our daily proofreading contest. This special bundle will be available to the first three contestants to spot any error in syntax or spelling. Help the automata write at their very best!”

  Lee and Stan hurriedly dug dog-eared copies of Gorn’s books from their jackests. The men paid Bryce no further attention as their eyes locked onto the small letters printed in the pages, their fingers scanning left to right along so many sentences in search of any error. Bryce scanned his surroundings and saw that the lines weren’t moving forward at all, for everyone’s focus remained locked in a search for the mistakes that might reward them with automata keepsakes.

  Bryce slowly stepped down the cordoned path that directed him towards the exit. He didn’t think anyone was watching him, so Bryce peeked at the cover of the book Gorn composed for him long enough to see that the robot had written him yet another Jupiter Jackson adventure before tossing the work in the nearest trash can. He was half way through the bookstation’s double doors when a hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him around.

  “Hold on just a moment, pal. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Bryce faced a tall woman dressed in denim shirts and denim pants, with a leather apron wrapped around her waist. Her skin was dark, and her eyes gave Bryce the impression that mischief danced deep in her soul. Curls of dark hair escaped the oil-stained cap sitting backwards on her head, and Bryce noticed the woman kept her fingernails unpainted and short when her hand flashed from her side and wrenched Bryce’s small gun from his hand before he could think about running for the door.

  Bryce sighed as the woman inspected his spent gun. “You know, I thought I might’ve had more of an impact on my audience.”

  The woman’s dark eyes peered intently at Bryce, and then she laughed.

  “You’re not the sharpest of pencils, are you? You’re going to have to do a lot more than fire a little ‘Earl’ if you want this crowd to look away from the automata for very long. But you did get someone’s attention didn’t you?”

  Bryce swallowed and nodded.

  “You’re lucky I was monitoring the floor through the camera feed, pal. That guy with the gun drawn on you might just have killed you over the dent you put in Gorn’s face. You owe me for starting the daily proofreading contest several hours too early to safe your butt. I’m going to have to answer to the franchise for that.”

  “You’re telling me that you saved my life with a spelling contest?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “But I just fired a gun in the store. I can’t believe everyone would forget about that so quickly.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Don’t underestimate that contest. All those folks standing in line know they don’t have the talent or focus to write a book for themselves. They know they don’t have the stamina to see a project like that through, even if they had all the time in the world to sit down and focus. So they go crazy at the chance to participate in that proofreading contest. Each spelling mistake and comma splice they find lets them feel just as smart and talented as all those robots.”

  “I don’t think the robots are talented or smart.”

  The woman rested her hands upon her hips. “Oh, let me guess. You must be another want-to-be writer. Don’t tell me. You like writing science fiction. It’s why you chose to shoot your little gun at Gorn.”

  The woman grabbed Bryce’s elbow and pulled him back into the store before he could respond. No one paused from their furious searches for writing errors to consider the man who took a shot at one of the automata. The woman pulled Bryce back to the scene of his crime before removing a strange device from a pocket in her apron and holding it towards Gorn’s dented head.

  “You really did a number on our alien friend.”

  Bryce smiled at the woman’s observation. “Really? I thought I only dented it.”

  “You did more than that,” the woman pulled a screwdriver from her apron and used it to lift a flap of latex skin from the alien’s underlying, metal skull. “You shook up the delicate circuitry that houses the artificial intelligence circuits. I don’t understand why the engineers at the franchise office insist on installing those circuit boards right behind the faceplates. That’s the most fragile place they could put them. It would make a lot more sense if they installed them in someplace other than those hallow heads.”

  The woman grunted as the screwdriver slipped out of her hands, and she drew yet another tool from her apron. “Mister, you picked the most inconvenient day to bounce a bullet off of this ugly robot’s head. The newest software updates just went into effect this morning, and I don’t have a spare head back in the shop that I can just drop onto Gorn’s shoulders. The franchise is not going to be pleased when they notice that this station’s automaton went down for several hours on a day following an update. Here. Help with that screwdriver. And remember, righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.”

  The gunk that oozed from Gorn’s face as that woman pulled the latex skin away from the metallic skull made Bryce swallow, and his hands shook as he worked at the screws that kept the alien’s head firmly in place. The woman growled each time Bryce dropped one of the bolts onto the floor, hissing that she didn’t have the time to waste searching for errant parts. She grumbled to Bryce to hold the alien’s head while she used another tool to disconnect the bundle of blue cables from an interior spine. Then, she unfolded a black, canvas sack from another of her pockets which she wrapped around Gorn’s head.

  “Hurry and follow me,” the woman tossed Gorn’s head into Bryce’s hands. “Now’s not the time for me to explain. The franchise is tracking every minute when the automaton remains broken.”

  Bryce carried Gorn’s head as he followed that woman down a long hall until coming to narrow door set within the wall. The woman pulled a key from a chain kept at her waist, and she cursed at the lock until the door finally opened to reveal a large shop housed in the back of the bookstation. The shop appeared to be at least twice the size of the chamber occupied by the automata and all their merchandise. Stacks of metal shelving holding strange tools covered the walls. Components covered every available space on countertops and tables. Hoisting chains dangled from the ceiling. Open cabinets revealed piles of circuit boards, and welding units and gas bottles stood in each of the shop’s corners.

  A shiver coursed down Bryce’s arm when he spotted the dismembered automata collected in the center of that cluttered shop. A half dozen robot scribes stood in varying stages of disrepair
. Three of the automata were stripped down to their metallic skeletons, emptied of every servo-motor and hydraulic vein. A couple other robots silently stared at the walls, and the cables streaming out of the back of their heads into blinking computer towers led Bryce to suspect they must’ve been receiving the latest round of bookstation updates.

  “You seem to have several Freddy Foxes back here in the shop.”

  The woman agreed. “I wish the franchise would give me more. Poor Freddy Fox takes more abuse than any of the others. The children just can’t help but pull at his ears, or spill sugar drinks onto his fur. And they’re always trying to shove some kind of cookie or candy bar into Freddy’s mouth the moment their parents peek away. Let me tell you, all that affection is just as dangerous to the automata as any crackpot with a gun. Come over here to this table and help me get this dent out of Gorn’s head.”

  “But I don’t know a thing about robots.”

  The woman smirked. “And I have a feeling you didn’t know much about guns this morning either. Am I right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Shows you can learn. Now lift your arms.”

  The woman slipped a leather coat over Bryce’s torso and pushed his hands into a pair of thick gloves before he had a moment to protest. Bryce wiggled his stiff fingers as the woman took the alien head from the canvas sack and set it onto the center of a worktable. Bryce watched the woman twist a pair of valves perched atop a pair of tall gas cylinders, and his eyes winced when she picked up a torch and sparked a brilliant, blue flame that roared from the nozzle.

  “Try not to look directly at the flame, dear. It’ll leave your eyes real tired, and they’ll sure feel sore when you try to sleep at night if you’ve looked too much at the torch.”

  Bryce tried to use his periphery vision as the woman set the flame to Gorn’s dented forehead, heating the skull’s metal to a deep orange before her hands followed the dent’s contours, leaving behind a circle in the robot’s forehead after the dented material dropped onto the table.

  “Not bad,” the woman winked at Bryce. “Now you’re going to help me with what’s next. Hang on a moment while I find my gear in all the mess. Don’t touch Gorn’s head. That metal’s plenty hot enough to give your finger a good burn.”

  Clanging noises echoed off of the shop’s walls for several minutes before the woman reappeared pulling a wheeled table topped with a sheet of metal. She didn’t give Bryce the time to imagine what kind of job she thought he might accomplish before she shoved the cutting torch into Bryce’s hands.

  “You can’t be serious,” stammered Bryce.

  “I’m am,” winked the woman. “You’re going to cut us a new bit of forehead from that metal. But don’t worry. It’s not nearly as hard as you think. I’ve already got the canisters open and the gauges properly set. All you’re going to have to do is move that flame. I’ll show you how to do all the rest of that setup later.”

  “Later?”

  “Try not to think so much. Thinking’s not going to do anything to calm your shaking hands. I’ve got the shape we need to replace that hole in Gorn’s face traced real nicely on the metal for you. Take your time and breath, and you’ll do fine.”

  The woman slipped a dark visor over Bryce’s face before pulling the torch clutched in Bryce’s hands to the sheet of metal. Bryce was incoherently muttering about fear when the woman squeezed a sparker and reignited the cutting torch’s blue flame. His hands shook. He couldn’t steady the flame. He was afraid he would set the shop on fire, that the flames of his disaster would spread into the front of the bookstation, where the customers standing in line would fail to feel the dangerous heat until it was to late for salvation, their attention never drifting from their search through cheap paperbacks for sentence fragments. He hated the automata, not the people.

  But then the woman leaned over Bryce’s shoulder and gripped his wrist to steady his hands. His eyes adjusted to the bright flame as seen through his dark visor, and though the torch roared, it no longer felt like a furious monster. The woman whispered into his ear that the tool was an extension of his hand, and her voice assured him that he possessed the ability wield it. Bryce felt the heat of the metal warm as the woman pressed against him to guide his hand. She smelled strangely of oil, metal and fire, and Bryce thought the scent pleasant, and alluring.

  “Hun, we’re going to hold that torch just outside that nice, white line drawn on that metal, and when the metal turns bright orange beneath that flame, we’re going to pull the torch’s trigger and let it slice through our circle. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The woman chuckled. “Your confidence is already improving.”

  Bryce’s hands were tracing along that shape before he could think too much about how his ineptitude would ruin the work. The woman was the one who truly guided the flame, but Bryce was thrilled to feel the sweep of that shape through his hands, to feel the metal’s heat through his gloves, to see how sparks of molten metal flew from the sheet as the cutting torch ripped through the stock. He completed the shape in short time, and the needed piece of metal fell upon the shop’s concrete floor. Bryce held his breath and felt his heart race with pride as the woman twisted a knob and extinguished the torch’s flame.

  “Hey, I still have all my fingers.” Bryce grinned.

  “More importantly, you’ve cut out just the shape we need.” The woman picked the metal circle from the floor with a set of pliers. “You didn’t do bad at all for the first time at the cutting torch. Using that torch is going to be second nature to you with a bit more practice.”

  “Practice?”

  The woman set her hand on Bryce’s shoulder. “It’ll make more sense after a little time. But right now, we’ve got to get Gorn patched back together again.”

  “Lady, I appreciate the kindness you’ve shown me after I bounced a bullet off of the face of one of your robots, but I’ve never had any intention of being a robot repairman.”

  “Writing’s working out that well for you, is it?”

  “It could. If it wasn’t for the automata.”

  “And you’re going to finally secure your future success by shooting robot aliens in the face until people start noticing your work?”

  “I might.”

  The woman smirked. “Do you think you’re the first disgruntled writer to try that kind of a stunt? Do you think you’re the first person to take his aggression out on one of the bookstation machines and expect the world to change for you? Do you think you’re the first writer to think his fiction is better than anything produced by all the algorithms and formulas racing through an automaton’s mind? I doubt you’re proficient with any kind of a skill or trade that might ever lift you above the lifestyle offered by state subsidies. You’re certainly not familiar with any of the tools in this shop.”

  “Well, I’m not useless,” Bryce growled. “And what do you know? You don’t know what it feels like for your writing to be ignored in preference for all the drivel these machines vomit throughout the day. I’m not as crazy, and I’m certainly not as hopeless, as you make me sound.”

  The mirth that glowed deep within that woman’s eyes vanished. “Oh, I know how it feels. I took a sledgehammer to Mary Hecate several years ago. I did a lot more damage with my sledgehammer than you did with your little gun.”

  “Why?”

  The woman frowned. “Fool, you just told me your reasons. But I’ll tell you mine. First of all, it’s not fair to create an automaton with Mary Hecate’s kind of figure. How is a girl supposed to compete with all that paint and wax? And second, I like to think of myself as a fairly competent writer. You probably wouldn’t have guessed it by looking at my shop clothes, but I think I know my way with words. So yeah, I understand your frustration.”

  “Really?”

  “You think I’m lying? I didn’t want to show you until we were finished repairing Gorn, but I suppose I’m going to have to weld that needed piece back into the face
plate on my own. I could use another hand when I try to glue the latex skin back on that skull. But I better show it to you now rather than later, so you don’t keep doubting what I’m telling you and really get my blood boiling.”

  Bryce didn’t think he would be startled any further that day. He had already fired a gun in a crowded bookstation, and he had already operated a cutting torch. Yet he was surprised once more when he followed the woman around a cabinet and found a metal desk pushed against the wall. On that desk sat, of all things, a vintage typewriter, a manual model not very much unlike the replica the automaton Joe Spade pounded after the customers handed that robot their tickets.

  The woman held up a finger. “Before you even ask, it works perfectly. All the typewriters on the desks of Val Carrington and Joe Spade robots are replicas that only click as the automata’s fingers press on the keys. But that typewriter is the real deal, with everything working just right to stamp real dark and sharp letters on the paper. It even holds a new ribbon.”

  “Where do you find the parts to keep it working?”

  “Look all around you. It took me a long time developing my shop skills until I could repair a typewriter. It’s not so difficult to find whatever parts I need, and whatever I can’t find I can fabricate on my own. Go ahead. Touch it. Try tapping a few words together. It’s even got a clean piece of blank paper just waiting for you.”

  Bryce giggled when he pressed a string of letters and watched the typewriter hammers stamp words onto the page as the carriage ticked to the left. He smiled at the chime of the bell that alerted him when he reached the end of his margin, and his left hand felt thrilled as it flashed forward to grip the carriage return lever to pull the paper to the start of a new line. Bryce thought the woman must’ve felt very hampered any time she needed to correct a mistake, for an old typewriter at first seemed an unforgiving machine. There was no way to magically erase a misplaced letter, no way to conveniently move entire sentences from one paragraph to another. Yet Bryce found himself envying the woman for her writing machine. There was something to the sound of those hammers striking paper that propelled him ahead, something in the sound that inspired his imagination to dig deeper and deeper. Something in the way the plastic keys felt beneath his tapping fingers focused his concentration, until Bryce felt himself slipping out of time and into the meditation that sometimes came when gracefully stitching words together.

  “You’ll come back,” the woman grinned as Bryce stepped away from the machine after filling an entire page with letters. “You’ll come back to have the chance to keep pounding away at that machine.”

  Bryce shrugged. “Sure, it’s plenty of fun, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to want to spend the rest of my days in a repair shop.”

  “You will,” promised the woman, “because I have one more thing to show you. I’ve got something you’ve been hoping to find in these bookstations all this time. Something I’ll even let you take home.”

  The woman pulled the top drawer of the metal desk open and removed a stack of pages held together with rubber-bands. “Go ahead. Read this manuscript. And then you’ll return to my repair shop and learn how to employ another kind of tool.”

  “But I don’t really care about using cutting torches or screwdrivers.”

  The woman laughed. “Maybe not, but you care about words. So you’ll come back because I can give you more pages for your pleasure. I can even introduce you to others who can give you still more stories written by man and woman instead of by automata. You’ll come back to this shop because you have a lonely heart beating in your chest. You’ll come back because, just like the rest of us, you need a purpose, and you need a place.”

  The way the woman’s eyes peered into Bryce made him uncomfortable. “You move really fast, lady. I don’t even know your name.”

  “That’s because I wanted to let my manuscript make that introduction.”

  The woman said nothing more and escorted Bryce out of a shop exit and into an empty alleyway. A thin layer of clouds cut a bit of the code-orange day’s sun, and Bryce’s skin was saved any further irritation and burn as he hurried back to his apartment within the housing stack of his home address. Once within his small, cramped abode, Bryce slumped into a battered couch and locked his eyes onto the tiny words stamped by that repair woman’s typewriter.

  The manuscript’s first page finally supplied him with the introduction for which he had been waiting. Printed in that typewriter’s serif font was the name “Rebecca Dubois.”

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