Evil Machines (22 page)

Then suddenly Annie shouted out, ‘There they are!’

They all looked where she was pointing, and, sure enough, there were the keys, hanging from a nail on the wall at the entrance to the dungeon.

‘How come we didn’t notice them before?’ asked Orville.

‘Urf urf urf!’ said the Inventor, and Little Orville turned around gave a happy chortle, and toddled across to the wall.

‘He’ll never be able to reach them,’ said Annie. ‘They’re too high for him!’

‘Get that chair!’ called Jack.

‘Gumph gerumphlunks!’ translated the Inventor.

‘Gur um,’ replied Little Orville, and he toddled over to the chair and pushed it across the floor to where the keys were hanging.

The grown-ups watched with bated breath as the little boy started to climb onto the chair.

‘Careful, Orville!’ called his Mother. ‘Don’t fall off!’ By this time Little Orville was half standing and half teetering on the chair, reaching up his hand towards the keys.

‘He still can’t reach them!’ exclaimed Jack.

‘Yes! There!’ shouted Annie, as Little Orville’s fingers just reached the keys . . . But he simply didn’t have enough height to lift them off.

‘Gerfly! Foo goo ker ploo!’ shouted the Inventor.

‘Gur um!’ said Little Orville, and he got off the chair and trotted over to a drain in the dungeon floor, that was covered by an iron grille.

‘Ferfloo foowurple krunk!’ said the Inventor.

‘Gur . . .’ said Little Orville, taking hold of the grill and pulling with all his might, ‘ . . . UM!’ And suddenly the grill came up and Little Orville sat down hard on his bottom, and started to cry.

‘There, there!’ said Annie. ‘Poor sweetheart!’

‘Ferferfercle gruple wung!’ said the Inventor urgently.

Little Orville looked round at the grown-ups, as they all stared at him – and suddenly it all seemed too much, and he burst into tears again.

‘Oh dear! We’re never going to get out of here,’ said Jack. ‘The Evil Inventor will get his machines to reproduce and they’ll replace humans forever . . .’

‘What?’ exclaimed Annie.

‘I’ll explain later,’ said Jack.

‘Little Orville!’ cried out Big Orville. ‘The future of our entire species depends on you getting up on that chair again and getting those keys!’

‘Oooorph pooorphgungapleurking!’ urged the Inventor – his tongue walloping and twisting round the drivel he was talking. But whatever it was he’d said it had its effect on Little Orville. Somehow the little boy seemed to realize that the hopes and future of the whole human race depended on him. He blinked. Then he looked back up at the keys, and then back at his mother.

‘Go on, sweetie!’ she said. ‘For Mummy!’

Little Orville frowned. You see, he’d just been told he was doing this for the sake of the whole human race, not just for his mother.

But then he seemed to shrug. He dried his eyes, lugged up the iron grating that had covered the drain and dragged it over to the chair. Then he heaved it up onto the chair, with the bars horizontal so it formed a sort of ladder. In another moment he was climbing up the precarious ladder he had contrived.

‘Careful!’ called his mother.

‘Watch out!’ cried Big Orville.

‘You’ll overbalance!’ called Jack.

‘Werptings werptoogles!’ cried Maurice, and Little Orville’s fingers reached up to the keys and in another second he had slipped them off the hook and they were safe in his hands. But at that very moment the grid slipped and the chair tipped over and Little Orville crashed down on to the ground, the keys flew out of his hand, skidded across

the dungeon floor and disappeared down the now uncovered drain.

There was a ‘plop!’ as they landed in some unmentionable water-filled cesspool, and then a slight bubble or two popped on the surface as the keys sank without trace and out of sight.

A terrible blank silence hit the four grown-ups like a sack of wet potatoes. They stared at the drain in disbelief. Then they slowly looked at each other.

‘So that’s that!’ said Jack, as Little Orville started to wail again. ‘From midnight tonight . . . the human race will be history. Do you really think he can do that?’

Maurice nodded. ‘Yes . . . Knowing what he knows (as I, of course, do) I’m sure he can . . .’

‘There! There! Little boy!’ cried his mother. ‘It’s all right. You did your best!’ and she tried to reach out to him, but he just sat there where he was.

‘Burr kerr urger murwer!’ wailed Little Orville. ‘Burr furr furr kull!’

‘Guerphincooodleplops!’ exclaimed the Inventor.

‘Oh! Shut up!’ exclaimed Big Orville.

‘Take that thing out of your mouth!’ said Jack.

‘Sorry!’ grinned Maurice, taking the driveller out of his mouth. ‘Little Orville says he’s let down the whole human race! He feels terrible about that!’

‘No, you did just fine!’ shouted Big Orville.

‘None of us could have done any better,’ said Jack.

‘There! There! Come to Mummy!’ said Annie. But Little Orville still sat there howling with misery for having failed humankind.

Suddenly Maurice gave a shout, ‘I’m such an idiot! Or perhaps I should say I’m not really an idiot. In fact I’m really extremely clever. Indeed, I’m only just beginning to remember
how
clever I actually am . . . Far too clever by half, really!’

‘Get on with it!’ exclaimed Jack.

‘Yes of course! . . . er . . . sorry. By the way that’s an example of being too clever . . . I just can’t help getting side-tracked by interesting . . .’

‘Just tell us what you’ve realized!’ shouted Jack in exasperation. ‘You’ve just had a flash of inspiration! What was it?’

‘What was it? Er . . . Oh yes . . . You see, I don’t think my robot self can wipe out our memories totally. I think it can only numb certain parts of our recollection for a while. It’s something to do with the cerebral cortex, you see . . .’

Jack actually grabbed Maurice by his lapels of his boiler suit and shook him.

‘Just tell us what you’ve thought of! Will it help us get out of here? Just spit it out!’

‘Exactly. I must stick to the point mustn’t I?’

‘Yes!’ said the other three.

‘Well, you see . . . the more memories that come back the more they seed other memories . . . If you like you can think of it like an epidemic – or a virus spreading. It’s really quite interesting to see the sort of patterns that . . .’

‘WHAT HAVE YOU JUST THOUGHT OF!’ shouted Annie, Jack and Orville in unison.

‘Well, I’ve just remembered that this castle of mine is a very odd place.’

‘You can say that again!’ said Jack.

‘Thank you, but I don’t think I need to say it again,’ replied the Inventor.

‘Get on with it!’ said Annie.

‘Well, what I mean is: why should I build a castle in the first place?’

‘Why?’ asked Jack, holding on to his impatience like a Great Dane on a leash.

‘You see, I have devoted myself to improving things for the human race. As I was telling you, I’ve used my brains (which, by the way, are even more phenomenal than I thought even just a few moments ago) to try and build machines that will make life in the future pleasanter, happier, more fulfilled, more beautiful . . .’

‘Yes – and so?’

‘Well! That’s what struck me as odd. I was lying here in this filthy dungeon, thinking, “Why on earth would I have constructed a filthy dungeon to lock people up in?” You see what I mean?’

The others looked at each other in bemusement.

‘But whatever the reason was, you constructed it, and now we’re locked up in it! How does any of this help us to get out?’

‘Well, it’s all a question of
how
I constructed it, you see!’ said the Inventor happily. ‘I suddenly remembered it’s built on a unique principle.’

‘Which is?’ asked Jack.

‘Well! You’re never going to believe this!’ Maurice was smiling as if he was about to impart the funniest joke in the world. ‘You see, this is a castle without walls.’

Surprisingly it was Big Orville who lost his temper.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ he exploded. ‘This is a wall isn’t it?’ and he banged the wall of the dungeon with his fist.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t need to be!’ chuckled the Inventor. ‘Look!’ And he pulled out a remote control, like the one the robot Inventor had. ‘I always thought it was so dreary having gallumphing great castles made out of heavy stone, so I made mine out of imagination – imagination and a touch of persuasion. It’s there if you want to believe it is, and a jolly good protection it is too if you were ever to get attacked by something nasty, but if you want to enjoy yourself . . . who wants thick stone walls?’

And with that Maurice pressed one of the many buttons on the remote control and the wall of the castle simply disappeared.

The ceiling above them stayed in place and the stone stairs going up to the next floor remained where they were, but all the walls – every single one of them – simply vanished.

Orville gasped. Annie gave a squeak. Jack was dumbstruck. Only Little Orville remained articulate.

‘Ssssqquuqqkkkkk! He! He! He! He!’ he said, and the others wholeheartedly agreed.

The End of Life

Far beneath the Iron Cloud, back on the ground, everything was strangely still. There had been no end of movement a few hours ago, but now everything had stopped dead. The whole world was waiting.

If you were a bird flying over London or New York or Tokyo or any city you care to name, you would have seen the same thing: deserted streets and no signs of life, other than stray dogs running down the centre of roads that were normally crammed with cars. But of living human beings there was little trace.

On that dreadful morning, when vacuum cleaners and kitchen appliances had rebelled against their owners, and tied them up with flex to their own kitchen chairs, it seemed that the world had been turned inside out.

Door locks had ceased to function at the command of their keys. They had all fastened themselves tight and refused to open. The result was that those human beings inside buildings were locked in, while those outside were locked out.

Then the madness began. The humans who found they couldn’t get into their own homes or into their offices or into shops or other work premises, suddenly found themselves at the mercy of rogue cars and trams and SUVs that chased them down the roads and round the corners.

‘What’s going on?’ yelled one commuter to another, who, for years, had passed each other by on that very street without ever even nodding.

‘Look out!’ replied the other. ‘A gang of motorbikes has spotted us!’

And sure enough sixteen riderless motorbikes rounded the corner, and headed for the two men who took to their heels and ran for their lives. The motorbikes gained on the humans all too easily, but when they reached them, the bikes didn’t run the men over; they slowed down and just kept nudging them until they had herded them into a larger group of people who had also been on their way to work.

‘What are they going to do with us?’ asked an anxious secretary in a red coat and red lipstick.

‘It’s as if they’re rounding us up – like cattle!’ protested a prosperous looking businessman, who usually had his chauffeur drive him to work, but who had been unable to get the car started this morning.

And that, indeed, was exactly what was happening. All over the world, in cities and towns and villages, cars had refused to take their owners and had turfed out their passengers and drivers and become a law unto themselves.

The traffic had turned on the pedestrians.

Outside a department store in Swindon, customers found themselves unable to get in, and were then driven by

an assortment of vans, cars and lorries towards Swindon bus station. There they were herded in together, thousands and thousands of citizens, crammed up in the bus station, until there was no room for anyone else. And then a couple of buses locked the doors on them all and they were trapped.

In New York, pedestrians on the Upper East Side found themselves at the mercy of vicious yellow cabs that penned them into the Guggenheim Museum. There they were forced to stand on its sloping floors, shoulder to shoulder like sheep in a trailer.

In Los Angeles, a posse of angry limos herded the few pedestrians and the shoals of dispossessed drivers into the Beverley Center. And when it could take no more they slammed the doors shut and padlocked them.

Even in Delhi, Calcutta and Mumbai the streets had been cleared of humanity, and all the people were crushed into hotels and temples and churches and cinemas.

The aeroplanes that had earlier gone wild in the skies, looping the loop and doing other aerobatics to frighten their passengers, had all eventually landed before they ran out of fuel. But their doors remained locked and there was nothing the desperate stewardesses and pilots could do to get them open.