Machine Of Death (32 page)

Watching them, Robin suddenly felt terribly separate, as though he were observing through a pane of glass, or a screen. He wondered for a second whether he should leave. Just sneak out the back door, quietly; he knew how to work the latch so that it wouldn’t squeak. Probably, neither of them would notice. In a minute or two, one or the other of them would look up, and…he wouldn’t be there. 

Stupid thing to think. Running away never solved anything. And where would he go? To his parents? Hardly. He’d have to go far enough away… He’d have to leave everyone and everything. Except that nowhere he went would ever be far enough, would it? You couldn’t run away from death, even if you could from life. He felt his eyes begin to prickle, and covered his mouth with his hand. 

“All right, people,” said Phil. “Prepare yourselves, please. Lunch is imminent.”

A sharp breeze blew off the sea, whipping Daniel’s curly locks back and out of his face. That’s better, thought Robin in his mum’s voice. Can see your eyes now. Then his dad: That ought to blow the cobwebs away, right, son?  

I’m getting old, Robin thought. 

“Do you want to go on the pier?” he asked Daniel, who shrugged. 

“Don’t mind.” 

Robin pushed his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket. Anorak, he thought. There’s no other word for it. I’m the sort of dad who wears an anorak. He’d never quite realised before, how much he loved being that person. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Probably a bit boring for you really, coming over here every weekend. Nothing much to do.” 

Daniel looked at him scornfully. “Don’t be an idiot, Dad. It’s fine.”  

He did seem fine, Robin thought, underneath all that teenage scowling. He allowed himself to admit, with a touch of pride, that Daniel looked happier when he was here. He was a good kid, but he had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and it frightened Robin sometimes. The world on his shoulders, that was Daniel. When he was with them it was as if he could relax in a way he couldn’t around Angela. He seemed to frown a little less, smile a little more. 

We
should
be proud, he thought, defiantly. We’ve done everything right, Phil and I. What the hell have we ever done wrong? 

Daniel darted forward suddenly, picked up a stone and skimmed it into the waves. “Phil said he’s going to show me how to skin a rabbit next weekend,” he said. 

“And where does Phil plan to get a rabbit from, exactly?” 

“I dunno.” 

“Hmm. That’s what worries me.” 

They did wander up to the pier in the end. Daniel had a half-hearted go on the amusements, before pronouncing them “a bit rubbish, really.” He’s too cool for that now, Robin thought fondly, and bought him a Coke. 

“Don’t tell Phil,” he said. “He’ll have my guts for garters.” 

“You don’t have to do everything he says, you know.” 

“I don’t!” said Robin, stung. “I was joking. You get on with Phil, don’t you?” 

“Course,” said Daniel. “He’s cool. But, you know. You’re my dad and all that.” He shrugged and leant further forward over the railing, frowning down at the grey sea. 

Robin smiled around the lump in his throat. Behind them, a commotion started up as two seagulls had a scrap over an abandoned cardboard chip-tray.

Later, on the drive back to Angela’s, Daniel started telling him about the club. 

“We’re organising this gig night,” he said. “You know, for fundraising. It’s gonna be really cool, we’ve got the Labrats down already. And the January Architects, even though they’re crap, but the girls like them ’cos they all fancy that Oliver bloke. Jimmy reckons he can book King Prawn, but I dunno. They’re getting pretty big now.” 

“Right, good…you realise I have very little idea what you’re talking about.” 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “They’re
bands
, Dad.” 

“Yeah, I got that part.” 

“It’s gonna be cool,” Daniel said again. “They all want to support the cause.” 

Robin winced at the phrase.

“What?” 

“No, nothing.” 

“I dunno why you’re so against me actually having something to believe in,” said Daniel defensively. 

“I’m not! It’s just…you’re still young, aren’t you? You should be out enjoying yourself. Girlfriends, whatever…” 

“I know you agree with me, though. You do, don’t you? What we stand for, being against the machine and the test, all that. You believe in it, too.” 

“It’s not a question of that,” said Robin tiredly. “In principle, yes, of course. I’m glad you’re thinking about this stuff. It’s just—” 

“It’s
wrong!
” Daniel said passionately. “No one should ever know how they’re going to die.
You
said that! Look at Mum, what it’s done to her. It’s just—it’s fucked up and it’s wrong!” 

Robin could feel Daniel’s eyes on him even while he watched the road. He knew, without having to turn round, what Daniel looked like right now. A certain light in the eyes. That note in his voice. It was this part of Daniel that he could imagine fearing. He tried not to imagine it, but he could, and he knew this because it was something that was part of him, too. It was a deeply buried something, very deep, but it was there. 

“Things have got to change, Dad,” continued Daniel. “What if I went out and got that test? I’m nearly old enough. You wouldn’t want that, would you? You wouldn’t want me to know.” 

“No!” said Robin, and shuddered. “No, God forbid.” 

“We’re just trying to make a difference,” said Daniel. He sighed, and his voice changed, went small and muffled. “Thought you’d think that was good.” 

“I do. Honestly.” Robin gripped the steering wheel. His head throbbed with a dull ache, as it had done all day, and all yesterday, too. He wondered vaguely when the headache had started, and realised he couldn’t remember. 

“I  just…don’t want you to get hurt. Don’t want doing something you might regret. That’s all.”

It was dusk by the time they reached Angela’s house. He saw a curtain twitch in the living room as they drew up outside. Daniel, grabbing his bag and opening the passenger door almost as soon as Robin stopped the car, seemed as eager to get back to Angela as he had been earlier to get away. Robin never took it personally. It was just the way Daniel approached everything—the same intense concentration and restlessness. It’ll be the death of him, said Robin’s mum’s voice in his head. He wished she would just be quiet. 

“See you, Dad.” 

“Bye. Love you.” 

An eye-roll and a smile, and then he was gone. Robin sat in his car and watched the night slowly deepen to black around the haloes of street-lamps. In Daniel’s bedroom, a light went on. 

On the way home, Robin drove past the street he’d accidentally turned down earlier in the day. The chip shop glowed brightly at him from the corner, but he couldn’t see any of the kids. He wondered whether they’d moved on to new haunts for the night, or whether they were still there somewhere, lurking in the shadows. Instinctively, he checked to make sure his doors were locked. 

Lots of people are called Daniel. 

He’d been having bad dreams lately about dark alleyways, muggings, blood. Men with knives and baseball bats. Thugs and queer-bashers. There was this boy who kept turning up, night after night. Hooded, his face in shadow. And dog-tags on a chain around his neck. Every time, Robin twisted in the boy’s grip, struggling not to get away, but to see the name he knew was marked on those tags. Because he had to know. Before…before what? 

There were other dreams, too, and those dreams were worse.

He stood at the back door for a full ten minutes when he got home, his hand frozen on the latch. Through the kitchen window he could see Phil sitting at the table, tapping away at his laptop with a cup of coffee next to him, the steam rising from it in faint wisps. As Robin watched, he looked up and their eyes met. Phil hurried over and pulled open the door, concern on his face. 

“Love? What’s the matter? What’s happened?” 

He was reaching out for Robin, trying to pull him inside, out of the dark. The brightness and warmth of their kitchen spilled in a little pool from the open doorway, as though the house, too, were trying to embrace him. Robin tried to answer, but felt himself paralysed. Even the smallest of decisions—to move, or not to move—seemed far beyond him. When he looked down at his hands, though, he saw that they were moving, just a little. Shaking, as though with cold. They looked like someone else’s hands, he thought, not his. Someone who was very old, and very tired.  

He made an effort and cleared his throat. “I’ve got to tell you something,” he said, and stepped forward into the light.

Story by Julia Wainwright

Illustration by Marcus Thiele

THEY
PULLED
THE
WOMAN
FROM
THE
PADDED
SEAT
WITH
CARE
. She wasn’t the enemy. Ignorant, a buyer of the big lie, but not the root of the problem. She was somewhere north of forty. Her dark hair showed silver strands, and the beginnings of crow’s feet bracketed chestnut-colored eyes. Tommy noticed her fingertips, purple and tender. She was a Repeater. It touched a nerve.  

Confusion and fear mingled on her face. “Don’t hurt me!” She wrapped an arm around herself, a reflex of protection. “Take my purse. I don’t have much.”

“We don’t want your crap,” Mitch said from behind the rubber face of Elvis Presley. He pushed past her. The silver head of a hammer, produced from inside Mitch’s overcoat, reflected a hundred mall lights. He ripped the curtain off the booth and went to work.

The hammer found its mark again and again, denting and bending and breaking the shell and guts of the machine. Pieces clattered to the floor of the booth. Slivers of paper fluttered loose, the world’s smallest victory parade.

“Run,”  Tommy told the Repeater. She was transfixed by the spectacle.

“I needed to know,” she said, empty. “If it would change. If I could change it.” She rubbed a thumb over the tip of her index finger.

Tommy, hidden behind the John Lennon mask, positioned himself between her and the booth. “Go. NOW!”

The woman retreated into the mall. Tommy watched for uniforms from the same direction, waited, counted in his head. “Let’s go, Elvis!”

Mitch gave the device a final blow. It popped from its mounting and fell in a shower of sparks. A crowd of shoppers had become gawkers, but Tommy saw no heroes among them. Not for the machine.

“
KNOWLEDGE
IS SLAVERY!” he shouted as he and Mitch retreated. “
DEATH
TO
THE
MACHINE!”

He heard the first cry from mall security as he crossed the threshold. Outside, Barb idled the Impala in the drop-off zone, disguised as Frank Sinatra. Ol’ Blue Eyes bobbed behind the wheel, impatient. Mitch climbed in front. Tommy jumped head-first into the back through the open window. Tires squealed as he pulled his feet inside.

They drove down side roads and doubled back on their path twice. Mitch called the other teams on his cell. No one had been apprehended. Tommy scanned for signs of pursuit.

“We’re clear,” he told Barb.

“How did we do?” she asked Mitch.

“Including ours, we knocked out fifteen of them.”

It was better than they’d hoped. Tommy had expected twelve demolitions and at least one arrest. They’d all made it through unscathed, fifteen mechanical soothsayers laid low in their wake. It was a solid night’s work.

Barb dropped Mitch at the corner of Watson and Fifth. He left his mask in the glove compartment, ceded the front seat to Tommy, and was swallowed up by the night. Tommy grabbed the fake tags from over top the real ones. He stowed them under the front seat. He kissed Barb, relishing the response of her warm lips to his before she pulled back into traffic.

“Stay with me tonight?” she asked.

Tommy nodded. It had taken some getting used to, the casualness of their relationship. They had no commitment to each other outside their common cause against the machine. He was nineteen, a stew of hormones and adrenaline, and at times he wanted more than an itch-scratching lay. But while Barb would wreak havoc with him, and sleep with him, there was no romantic patter, no disposition for roses. She kept that part locked away, saying it was better that way. He didn’t debate her wisdom. Sex on a regular basis was a strong dissuader of upsetting the apple cart.

Barb rented an apartment over a detached garage. It was a cozy fit for the Impala, beside the owner’s moldering boxes and stray furniture, but the door locked and the landlord, who lived up the street, stayed out of her business. The wooden stairs up to the door creaked under their ascent. The apartment was small, well-kept. Barb liked order. It carried over to her planning of their hit-and-run attacks. 

Tommy had noticed her in his Anthropology class, but they met for the first time in conversation on a website. Called “Deathics: The Ethics of the Death Machine,” it hosted an endless and often bitter debate about what the machine’s combination of technology and magic had wrought on mankind. Tommy and Barb were fellow travelers. Each had their reason to hate the device and its uncanny ability.