Now the world lay still . . . stiller than it had been for thousands and thousands of years. The whole of humanity – with its bustle and busyness – had been stopped in its tracks.
The human beings tied up in their kitchens and bedrooms and sitting rooms stared in disbelief at the sights they saw on their television screens. And all the time different machines would appear to announce the end of human rule. Sometimes
it was the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner, sometimes a sour-faced dishwasher or a mean-looking blender. Occasionally a Cassegrain telescope would declaim, with a lot of windy rhetoric, the coming of the Machine Age. Other times it was a talkative petrol pump that candidly told the viewers what an unfulfilling life it was having your nozzle squeezed by perfect strangers day in, day out, and how it was glad the day had come when machines could take the upper hand.
But always, whichever machine was speaking, there was the same refrain: ‘Wait until the Great Inventor who created us arrives. Then machines will come into their own, and human beings will become our servants!’
And so the world lay waiting – waiting for the Great Inventor to arrive. Not a single machine could guess his plan. None of them knew what he was going to do. All they knew was that he would come and lift the curse of humanity from them forever. But
how
was beyond even the most advanced calculator or the fastest laptop. Most machines didn’t even try to imagine – indeed imagination was beyond them. They were just happy to wait for the Inventor to arrive and make the world theirs.
***
And when he came, he came in a great Iron Cloud that descended from the heavens and settled on a large patch of wasteland outside Edinburgh.
The Rev. McPherson turned to his new wife, Sylvia, as they sat tied up in their kitchen watching the television, and said, ‘Well, at least the suspense is over.’
‘I hope so,’ replied Sylvia.
But the Rev. McPherson had no idea what was to come.
The television, which had been having a nap, sputtered into life again. On the screen the Rev. McPherson and Sylvia saw a little bald man in green overalls with the name MAURICE written across the pocket.
‘Do I recognize that gentleman?’ asked the Rev. McPherson.
‘Didn’t he used to live down the road?’ asked his new wife.
‘Humankind!’ announced the little gentleman in overalls on the television. ‘I am here to tell you that your reign is over!’ All the kitchen utensils applauded; the gas cooker burst into flame and slammed its door, the blender whirred and the saucepans banged their lids.
‘Be quiet!’ thundered the Rev. McPherson.
‘Sorry!’ said the kitchen utensils, for they were normally a well-behaved bunch.
‘From midnight tonight the world is going to be a very different place!’ said the robot Inventor. ‘At the moment I have merely immobilized the entire human race. From midnight tonight, however, it will no longer exist.’
The fridge let out a gasp. So did the electric kettle and the coffee machine. There was a ripple of unease among the domestic appliances.
‘It will no longer exist because on the stroke of midnight I am going to destroy it. Every single human being will be eradicated forever!’
‘Is that strictly necessary?’ murmured the electric toaster.
‘Going a bit far, surely?’ muttered the freezer.
‘How? You may ask . . .’ went on the robot Inventor. ‘How am I going to snuff out that pestiferous race of vermin all over the world all at precisely the same moment? Ha ha!’ The robot sounded terribly pleased with itself. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know! It’s so simple you ought to be able to work it out for yourselves . . . But then I don’t suppose any of you have got the brains I have! Ha! Ha! Ha!’
As the robot Inventor gloated, Orville, Jack, and Annie stood gaping at its image on the large screen that hung above the breaking yard. The moment they had escaped from the Inventor’s castle, they had commandeered a couple of mechanical horses (which happened to be grazing in a nearby field) and had ridden them post haste through the artificial countryside and through the tunnel back to the breaking yard, just as the Iron Cloud landed near Edinburgh.
‘But there’s no way it could wipe out
all
human beings
at once
– is there?!’ murmured Annie, as she hugged Little Orville tight. ‘It’s just trying to scare us!’
‘What do you think, Maurice?’ asked Jack, turning to the Inventor.
But the Inventor was not looking at the TV screen, he was staring round at the dismal sight of the gloomy yard.
‘What deformed mind could have done this to my construction yard?’ cried the Inventor. ‘Look! It’s turned it into a place of torture and execution! My lovely machines!’ And the next minute the little man was running up to the train, which had been sent back to the breaking yard by the robot Inventor, and was now standing morosely at the entrance to the dismantling shed.
‘My brave train!’ cried the Inventor. ‘What has happened
to you? Your colours have faded and you look so unhappy! You can’t live up to your specifications like that! You’re supposed to bring excitement and adventure into people’s lives! Give them the chance to go to anywhere they want . . . to go to places they never dreamed of going to!’
As soon as the train felt the Inventor’s hand upon his boiler, it seemed to give a great shudder of joy.
‘It’s
you
!’ cried the train. ‘You haven’t patted me or called me ‘your brave train’ for ages . . . I thought you were disappointed in me! You’ve become your old self again!’
‘What’s been happening while I’ve been away? I need to know exactly what’s been going on.’ The Inventor was addressing all the machines in the breaking yard.
‘We thought you’d changed,’ said a snowmobile.
‘You started wanting us to do evil things instead of good things!’ cried a little electric egg whisk. ‘I couldn’t think of anything.’
‘A lot of us just weren’t up to doing thoroughly bad things,’ explained the train. ‘I mean I tried hard to do what I thought you wanted me to do . . . but I just didn’t have it in me to be that evil.’
‘But that wasn’t me!’ exclaimed the little Inventor. ‘It was that robot replica of myself, that I made to reduce my own workload!’
‘Exactly!’ said another voice. ‘I am the product of your propensity for laziness!’
Maurice span round to discover the robot Inventor had appeared at the top of the gantry that loomed over the breaking yard.
‘Stop this at once! I order you to stop!’ cried Maurice.
‘You “order” me? How quaint,’ replied the robot. ‘Unfortunately for you, you made me too intelligent to remain your dogsbody for ever! I’ve got my own agenda now. You can’t order me to do anything I don’t choose to.’
Maurice had meanwhile pulled a remote control out of his boiler suit and was now pointing it at his robot self and stabbing the keys furiously. The robot laughed.
‘You can throw that away!’ it said. ‘I reprogrammed myself to stop responding to that thing ages ago! However I did implant a little device in the back of
your
neck.’
And with that it produced its own remote control and started pressing the buttons. Maurice went rigid. A look of panic came over his face, as he found himself wheeling around. ‘What’s happening?’ he yelled. ‘I’ve lost control of my limbs!’
‘Yes! I now control them! Ironic isn’t it? The robot now controls its master! Ha! Ha! Ha!’
‘Stop it!’ cried Maurice.
The robot pressed another key. ‘So long! Enjoy the trip!’ it said, and the next moment the Inventor found himself marching across the breaking yard towards a door that had suddenly opened up in the side of the Iron Cloud. He tried to stop his legs from taking him there, but willy-nilly that’s where they took him: right up to the edge of the open portal through which they caught a glimpse of the pleasant hills around Edinburgh.
And when he got there he just kept on walking straight out of the portal.
‘You can’t do this!’ he cried.
But it was too late. He disappeared from view. There
was a cry and a thump as he made contact with those same pleasant hills.
The others gulped.
‘You’re the lucky ones,’ said the robot. ‘I’m going to keep you for my experiments. After midnight tonight you’ll be the only specimens of the human race in existence!’
‘You’re inhuman!’ exclaimed Jack.
‘Of course I am!’ jeered the robot. ‘That’s exactly the point!’ And with that it pointed the strange weapon it was carrying at the humans and squeezed the trigger.
But it wasn’t bullets that came out – it was something slimy – something sticky – something transparent – that rose up into the air like a huge bubble and then drifted gently down on to them. The three adult humans stood there mesmerized, not knowing what to do, as the giant bubble descended on them – and before they could think another thought, it had enveloped them and they were inside the bubble looking out. The robot Inventor pressed the trigger again, and there was a strange sound like cracking ice, as the bubble turned solid. They were in a transparent prison.
‘Look at you all!’ it sneered. ‘You human beings thought you owned the world! You thought you ran everything! Well, your time is over. In six short hours from now – all your kind will be history – wiped out in one fell swoop! How? Wait and see! I’m sure you all enjoy surprises! This will be One Big Surprise!’
At this point one of the flying gizmos
came up and buzzed in the robot’s ear. The robot nodded. ‘I have to go and make my final checks. So stick around! And don’t forget: you’re the lucky ones! In fact you’re the luckiest creatures on Earth.
‘You see, I’m afraid I was being modest just now. The truth is I’m not just going to wipe out human life . . . I’m going to destroy life itself . . . all life on Earth. From midnight tonight, only machines will continue to exist.’
***
Now when the robot Inventor had delivered its broadcast, in which it informed the human race that it would be entirely wiped out from midnight tonight, everyone who saw it had frozen with terror. Their knees had trembled and they felt ill.
Everyone, that is, except for one viewer. She was a little old lady who had recently returned a telephone that she had bought on the grounds that it was untrustworthy. Mrs Morris, like so many millions of others, had been tied up in her kitchen by her vacuum cleaner. In her case it was an extremely elderly Eureka Model 9 that dated from 1923. It had been a little slow and creaky but it had still tied her up, and she had been so surprised that she had simply sat there, with a cup of tea halfway to her lips, unable to move or utter a sound.
However, when her television set switched itself on and the robot Inventor appeared on the screen, Mrs Morris’s face filled with indignation. She stared at the robot as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, and she let go of the teacup and didn’t even notice that the tea went all over her dress and the cup smashed on the kitchen floor.
‘Maurice!’ she murmured to herself. ‘That’s
you
isn’t it! Well! Of all the . . . Maurice! After all this time! I can hardly believe my eyes!’ and just to make quite certain
she blinked three times . . . But the face she saw on her TV screen remained the same. ‘So you didn’t disappear in mysterious circumstances at all! You’ve been plotting to take over the world! And without
me
! That is what I call downright deceitful!’
Now here I have to tell to you that Mrs Morris’s vacuum cleaner was so old that it was, in fact, a bit of a health risk. In fact, its electrical cord was so threadbare and so perished that it was a miracle that Mrs Morris hadn’t already been electrocuted.
However, now, as indignation swelled up in her breast, and as her normally placid manner was replaced by something much nearer akin to rage, she strove to break free from her bonds, and sure enough the perished cable snapped after a few tugs. In a matter of seconds Mrs Morris was free.
***
Back in the Iron Cloud, which had landed on the pleasant hills around Edinburgh, Annie, Orville and Jack looked at each other.
‘Goodness!’ said Annie. ‘I never thought I’d see us together again as a family . . . and the irony is: it’s taken the extinction of life on Earth to do it!’
Orville Barton looked from his son to his daughter to his grandson and took a deep breath. Then he said something quite extraordinary for Mr Orville Barton to say. He said, ‘My dears, I am ashamed.’
‘And well you might be!’ exclaimed Annie. ‘You never came – even when Mum was ill.’
‘Annie!’ Jack jumped in. ‘Let’s not bring that up now!’
‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ replied Annie. ‘You’re right! The first thing is to get out of here.’
‘How about your nail file?’ asked Jack.
‘Worth a try!’ said Annie, and she started trying to pierce the transparent globule that held them prisoner, but it quickly became obvious that she was never going to make any impression on it.
‘Perhaps I can help,’ said the electric egg whisk that was lying nearby. ‘I don’t want to do evil things, not now the real Inventor is back to help us.’
‘I agree,’ said a coffee percolator. ‘I like making coffee – if the robot Inventor kills off all human beings, who am I going to make coffee for?’
‘Right!’ said a sewing machine. ‘Maybe I can get my needle to burst this bubble? Then we can find the real Inventor and stop that robot!’ And with that the sewing machine started whirring away and twisted itself so that its needle vibrated against the transparent shell of the bubble. But it was no use. After a few moments the needle bent and flew out of the machine.
‘Drat!’ said the sewing machine.
‘Let me have a go,’ said an electric can-opener that had been watching all this. And in no time at all, it was pressing itself against the bubble that trapped the humans. There was a tearing sound and shearing noise and suddenly the can opener screamed, ‘Aieeeh! I’ve blunted my blade! Botheration!’