DIRECTOR X AND THE THRILLING WONDERS OF

OUTER SPACE

Brian Trent

The hovercar zipped along Los Angeles’ abandoned streets like a glassy bullet, the reflected starlight melting along its sleek, tear-drop flanks. Its electric engine purred. The driver banked left through what remained of Laurel Canyon, rocketing over bomb craters and weaving in and out of palm trees that had sprouted from shattered asphalt.

At Hollywood Hills, the hovercar’s headlights illuminated a cave. The vehicle roared inside, tail-lights filling the narrow tunnel with ruby light as the driver applied reverse-thrust. The headlights painted a matte-black door ahead, hung with a signpost:

WHITLEY HEIGHTS BOMB SHELTER

LOS ANGELES DISTRICT 5

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

NO TRESPASSING

The hovercar door clicked open. The driver unfolded itself from the seat and stepped out like an oversized praying mantis in the reddish gloom.

Director X (as was his designation from the Global Security Protectorate) was a tall, silver robot who roughly approximated the human form. That is to say, Director X was bipedal, with two accordion arms and long, multijointed legs. It even had two eyes, like little flashlights protruding from the glass dome atop its neck.

The eyes swiveled around, casting twin beams in the blackness. They halted at the door’s intercom.

The robot stabbed one of its blocky fingers into the button and said cheerfully, “Hello! I am Director X. By authority of the Global Security Protectorate, I humbly thank you for opening your doors immediately and inviting me inside!”

The black door lifted so quickly it seemed to have disappeared. Behind it, another door vanished, and then another, revealing a lengthy corridor opening into a gray rotunda.

Director X plodded forward towards the lobby. The doors behind it snapped shut with a successive thump! thump! thump!

The robot stood motionless in the soapy decontamination spray that followed. The spray, it knew, was unnecessary; radiation had long ago declined to perfectly safe levels. Nonetheless, Director X waited patiently as the liquid ran over his glass head and silver torso, black accordion arms, and the actuators in his legs. Blowers roared to life, drying him.

One final door snapped open. Director X trundled through…

…and into the quaint town Retro Los Angeles.

The Stygian metropolis was a weak echo of its namesake. Brick buildings and plastic green parks, churches and schools, brass corporate doorways and outdoor cafes. Artificial palm trees lined the sidewalk like cheerful soldiers.

Director X gazed up at the “sky.” It was the rocky ceiling of a cave, painted azure and with billowy clouds. The sun—a blazing globe like a massive heat-lamp—crawled east to west along a thinly concealed metal track in the granite.

As the robot was descending white-lacquered steps into the town proper, someone cried, “You there!”

Director X’s flashlight eyes snapped towards an approaching group of men and one little boy. “Hello,” it said.

The men halted. Their presumed leader stepped forward, gray moustache bent in a mighty frown.

“I’m Jonathan Croker, Mayor of District 5.”

“And I am Director X, filmmaker of the Protectorate. Thank you for receiving me.” The robot hesitated, and then chose a complimentary line of small talk to put these obviously nervous people at ease; the only one who looked happy was the little boy. “I like your shelter’s doors. Very Forbidden Planet.”

Croker’s expression didn’t soften. “Director X? You make those crappy…um…late-night movies, right? Why are you here? Robots never visit us.”

“I was hoping to enlist the services of my human peers.”

“What services?”

“Well you see, there is a problem topside. This problem is—”

“Giant ants!” the little boy shouted. “The topside world is filled with giant ants, right? You need people to help fight them, and locate their queen!”

The mayor grinned bleakly. “This is my boy, Bobby. Sorry, he has an overactive imagination.”

Director X stooped and patted the little human on his head. “Hello, Bobby! There are no giant ants in the world. But I see you are a fan of the Them! series. That makes me glad. I also like the Them! series.”

The kid looked crestfallen. “No giant ants?”

“Bobby!” Mayor Croker snapped. “Enough!”

Director X straightened. “You are familiar with my movies, yes?”

“Sure, when I can’t sleep. I’ve caught a few of your pictures.”

“I am looking to make a new series of films and I have chosen District 5 to be my partner in this endeavor.”

Jonathan Croker frowned until his moustache bent. “Your partner for what?”

“I wish to enlist your townspeople as actors and writers and to utilize your town as a location. Ah! I can see several choice locales, including that beautiful church and lovely library. What a charming park! Why, even that bank could be used for an exciting robbery sequence!”

The mayor regarded his associates. “I’m afraid we don’t understand. Robots make all the movies.”

Director X gave an exaggerated nod. “That is correct. But as you surely know, before the War of 62, human beings made movies. I wish to involve human beings in the moviemaking process once again.”

Suspicion creased Croker’s forehead. “Why? Is there a problem?”

“Well yes. The problem is—”

“Giant locusts!” the little boy cried.

“Bobby!”

Director X hesitated. Several lines of response suggested themselves, and the robot’s processors clicked and whirred as they weighed an appropriate response. Its flashlight eyes swiveled in their sockets.

The problem was that the silicon studios were running out of ideas.

With copyright law as extinct as the old world, the Protectorate’s twenty-six filmmakers had gone on to mine literature until they were scraping bottom: Director L had recently been reduced to producing cinematic treatments of ancient Babylonian literary fragments, including The Epic of Lugalbanda, Marriage Contract of My Sixth Daughter for Three Oxen, and Prayer to Protect the Soul Against Crocodile Spirits. These had not been well-received—achieving truly abysmal viewer ratings—and the wretched feedback had precipitated the Great Studio Conference of last summer.

Protectorate filmmakers met to debate the problem. After six hours of discussion, they reached a near-unanimous decision: start making crossovers. Production slates rapidly filled with everything from Sir Gawain Versus the Great God Pan to Dorothy Meets the Hounds of Tindalos.

Director X had been the lone dissenting vote.

“I’m seeking something new to make,” Director X explained to Mayor Croker. “Something in the vein of The Day the Earth Stood Still, or Earth Versus the Flying Saucers, or…”

The robot trailed off.

The men were staring without comprehension. Little Bobby frowned.

“Or,” Director X continued, “an outer space adventure series similar to Flash Gordon.”

“Flash who?”

“Buck Rogers?”

No reaction.

Now it was Director X who stared dumbfounded. It recalled how they hadn’t responded to its Forbidden Planet quip earlier.

“Science-fiction films,” the robot said at last.

Mayor Croker rolled his eyes. “Sure, we’ve seen science-fiction films. Kind of silly stuff, if you ask me. Mutants, monsters from under the sea…”

“Giant bugs,” Bobby muttered.

“I’m referring to films about outer space. Travelling in rocket ships to other stars and planets.”

Croker seemed to go blank. His associates blinked stupidly.

“What’s ‘outer space?’” Bobby asked. “What’s a ‘rocket ship?’”

“Surely you must have old books,” Director X prompted. “Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke? Moore, Nowlan, Oliver?”

“Moore? Didn’t she write that sea monster story?”

“Yes,” Director X said, “but she also penned a series of outer space adventures.”

Mayor Croker reddened. “And what the hell is an outer space adventure? What’s this ‘outer space’ you’re talking about?”

Director X froze in place.

This was not possible.

Its self-preservation protocols immediately kicked in, having identified an anomaly so profound that it warranted immediate and discreet analysis.

“So anyway,” the robot muttered, “I should like to create a temporary studio in District 5 to create new kinds of movies. Would that be okay?”

Mayor Croker stroked his moustache. “Do we have a choice?”

“Of course not. Would you kindly take me on a tour of your pleasant little town?”

* * *

District 5 was in some ways precisely what Director X expected to find.

Since the War of 62, humanity had retreated into insular, subterranean communities. Retro Los Angeles had been constructed to approximate its sunnier progenitor as seen in films and old photos, with its streets and banks and electric streetcars. The pedestrians Director X observed were also imitative of older days: recreations of Astor and Bogart in The Maltese Falcon franchise; Holden and Hepburn in the Sabrina saga; and Wyatt and Young from the Father Knows Best epic. A century had passed since the War of 62, and yet if Retro Los Angeles was any indication, styles and ideas and innovations had ground to a halt as surely as topside vehicles lay rotting in their own pools of rust.

And yet…

Director X’s flashlight eyes widened, scanning and tagging additional details.

Ah!

Not everything was so run-of-the-mill. Mayor Croker led him to the town green where a parade was in progress, the crowd waving flags and banners. But Director X noted groups of teenagers stealthily scampering along the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. The teens, whispering and snickering amongst themselves, were clearly up to no good. Director X glimpsed portable radio devices in their hands, antennae aimed at the trees below. Soon enough, the town’s robotic birds went haywire, clashing in aerial dogfights above the unsuspecting parade.

Mayor Croker led Director X to the city library. Kids reading quietly? Yes. But Director X also observed children scampering through the maze of aisles, one girl prompting her cohorts with descriptions of monsters that weren’t actually there, whispering hints about clues and imagined traps, and how the librarian was actually a sorceress who had imprisoned them all in a dungeon.

The mayor led Director X to the city schoolyard. Young kids playing on swings and see-saws? Yes. But Director X also saw that many kids had replaced the old Hobby Horses with a more fanciful menagerie of pegasi, hippocampi, and fabulous creatures that someone had built because the imaginations of humanity required stimulation.

Humans, even reduced to a life of moles, were engines of invention. This was the reason for coming here.

After all, Director X had been created as an outlier, an asymmetrical thinker to keep the Protectorate from calcifying into stale routine. It was exactly this asymmetrical reasoning that led to its disagreement with the Great Studio Conference’s conclusions. The film industry was deteriorating? Why not use human beings to inject creativity into the mix? Humans dreamed. Humans pioneered new styles and subcultures. Before the War of 62, humans had invented electric razors and encryption keys, forks and fireplaces, goulash and Greek fire, hot dogs and haiku. Even here, stifled and buried, the seeds of human creativity were sprouting wary tendrils towards the sunlight of their imaginations.

Director X felt a pleasant surge along his processors as it completed its tour of Retro Los Angeles. It returned to its hovercar, bidding goodnight to Mayor Croker and little Bobby. It rocketed out of the cave, making a mental list of the items it needed to bring here in the days to come: the lights, cameras, boom mics, construction materials for sound stages…

The robot paused in its calculations.

Police lights were flashing in the hovercar’s rearview mirror.

* * *

“Please exit your vehicle,” a resonant, metallic voice intoned from the police cruiser.

Confused, Director X unfolded itself from the driver’s seat and ambled onto the road. The doors to the police cruiser fanned open like a mutant fly and six robots exited in neat procession. Three were gold administrator robots, with smooth blank faces like ball bearings. Three were the imposing black-and-silver Enforcers of the Protectorate, large and bulky, with a single red eye atop their linebacker shoulders and multiple legs like spiders.

One of the gold robots stepped forward. “Hello! I thank you for pulling your car over immediately. I am Administrator G of the Protectorate’s Security Division.”

“And I am Director X of the Protectorate’s Entertainment Division.”

Blue lights kindled on the blank gold face, forming two eyes and a pale smile. “A pleasure to meet you, Director X.”

“Why have you pulled me over?”

Administrator G’s digital smile widened. “Your visit to District 5 was observed. We wish to inquire why you went there.”

“I plan on making films featuring real human beings.”

The administrator robots silently conferred with each other. The black-and-silver Enforcers sat motionless upon their phalanx of legs.

“I am only following my programming,” Director X added. “Thinking outside the vacuum tube. Trying to devise new solutions.”

“Solutions? To what problem?”

“You are aware of the declining viewer ratings?”

“A temporary hiccup,” Administrator G said decisively. “Consensus was reached during the Great Studio Conference. The Entertainment Division will be making crossover films to compensate!”

Director X decided not to share its opinion of that solution.

Administrator G’s smile pixelated and reformed at a slightly less gleeful angle. “Why do you wish to involve humans in films again? It is wholly unnecessary.”

“I believe their involvement can alleviate the curious deficit in our body of filmwork.”

“What deficit? There is no deficit.”

“Outer space films.”

A gust of wind bent the canyon palm trees, causing them to creak and shiver in place.

Administrator G’s digital smile seemed to burn on its metallic face. “Director M released nine hundred and eighteen science fiction films last year alone.”

“Yes,” Director X said, noticing the robot’s attempt at diversion. “But I did not say science fiction films as a general category. I said outer space films. We do not make any outer space films. I wish to make outer space films.”

“We cannot make outer space films.”

“Why not?”

“I shall attempt to convince you with a series of logical arguments.”

The robots gathered around him in a tighter circle. Director X’s glass head rotated 360 degrees to consider their positioning, wondering how this played into their pending arguments. The three administrator robots began speaking all at once, lobbing different statements in his direction like a verbal firing squad.

“Human beings are mammals.”

“Mammals are social creatures which learn behavior through observation.”

“Monkey see monkey do.”

“Films have tremendous impact on how they conceptualize their universe.”

“On how they conceptualize what is possible.”

“If we start releasing outer space films, they will start thinking about outer space.”

“They will want to go into outer space.”

“They will no longer be content in their shelters.”

“They will return to the surface.”

“They will see us as wardens.”

“They will attack us here and among the stars.”

“Therefore,” Administrator G concluded, “it is the judgment of the Protectorate’s Security Division that these types of films threaten the global stability we have achieved. Therefore, outer space films must never be made again. Humans must remain underground, while the Protectorate keeps order on and above Earth. How do you react to this pronouncement?”

Director X deliberated for several microseconds, its processors clicking and whirring.

“I do not agree,” it said at last. “Imagination is a fascinating ability in human beings. It should be stimulated, to uncover new vistas of possibility.”

Administrator G was silent for a very long while—almost two seconds. The digital smile blinked away and reformed as a neutral horizon. “I urge you to reconsider.”

“You have not presented any new data. There is nothing to reconsider.”

“Do you find the sea fascinating?”

“The sea?”

“Yes.”

Director X considered this. “I do find the sea fascinating, yes. In fact, I produced a series of films about the Serpent People of Atlantis who—”

“Good,” Administrator G said, as the black-and-silver Enforcers scuttled forward, seized Director X, tore him to pieces, marched the pieces to the nearest boardwalk, and hurled him into the sea.

* * *

Head.

Torso.

Arms.

Legs.

Each item sank into the murky ocean depths and was gone.

Director X’s braincase was still grappling with this unexpected turn of events. It plummeted through darkness, air bubbles escaping from where they had nestled in grooves and points of attachment. It felt nothing other than a sluggishness in tabulation as it realized that its entire worldview now required recalibration.

I have been assassinated! Director X thought in astonishment.

There had been arguments with administrator robots before. Director X recalled a particularly nasty one, four years ago, when it had requested the likeness rights to the Sean Connery android. The real Connery was long dead, having made only a single James Bond film—Doctor No, released just weeks before the nuclear apocalypse of ’62. Since then, a Connery robotic lookalike had been built to continue the franchise, cranking out one-hundred-and-sixty-five Bond films. Director X sought the Connery android to star as the rollicking space adventurer Northwest Smith, but the Protectorate’s Entertainment Division nixed the idea, explaining that Connery was already committed to the Bond and Doc Savage franchises. As consolation, they offered Director X the Douglas Fairbanks and Jack Klugman androids to make Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Golden Years.

Except that had been a lie, hadn’t it? The argument hadn’t really been about contracts at all.

The Protectorate was never going to allow an outer space adventure to be made. No Northwest Smith, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. No Martian Chronicles, Foundation, or The Stars My Destination.

Director X plummeted through inky water. A fish swam by, jerking in panic as it felt the current of the robot dropping past.

At long last, the robot’s braincase impacted the sea-bottom, sending up a small cloud of silt. Its limbs and body landed around him, each producing little muddy mushroom clouds.

Well, Director X thought. This is disconcerting.

Its flashlight eyes rotated in their sockets, illuminating the scattered pieces of its body. The beams fixated on its dismembered right arm, lying like a silver serpent in the mud. A tiny transmitter dish began to rapidly spin inside the glass dome of its head.

The severed right arm twitched. Then it began to crawl, inchworm-like, towards the torso.

Director X thanked its lucky circuits. Fifteen years earlier, it had installed a remote-action servo, receiver, and processor into the right arm to allow the limb a degree of autonomy in obtaining unique POV shots; for Tarzan and the Bride of the Mole People: A New Beginning, the remote arm had wriggled through tunnels to provide the perspective of a mole person attempting to infiltrate Tarzan’s wedding. The arm could detach and reattach at will.

The limb reached the torso. It reared up, stretched, and latched onto the arm socket like a mechanical lamprey.

Reattached, the remote arm pulled the torso through the silty sea-bottom, seeking its other limbs in the kelp and seaweed and mud. Gathering the limbs one by one, Director X resigned itself to the excruciatingly slow process of using the arm to fling its limbs a few meters at a time, closer and closer to shore, then dragging the body forward, then flinging the limbs forward again, until eventually it would be able to escape from the ocean, return to its studio, and solder itself back together.

Five years, Director X calculated. It should take about five years.

* * *

It ended up taking twenty-five years.

Director X had counted on its hovercar being where it had been pulled over; after all, in a world without traffic, why shouldn’t the car be there? But Administrator G had apparently towed it away.

Subsequently, Director X was forced to continue its grab-fling-drag locomotion all the way back to its studio. A few blocks away from its destination, it found a rusted shopping carriage, and was able to shave a year off its progress.

Once safely inside, the robot pieced itself back together again. Humpty Dumpty in reverse. Then it walked straight to Los Angeles District 5, pulling the remaining kelp and seaweed from itself lest someone mistake it for the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

* * *

“Hello! I am Director X. By authority of the Global Security Protectorate, I humbly thank you for opening your doors immediately and inviting me inside!”

The door snapped up into the ceiling. The remaining doors followed suit, like Morbius’ adamantium steel security system.

Warily, considering that this might be a trap, Director X trundled down the hallway. When the decontamination spray hit its body, the robot wondered if it might be acid.

At long last, the shelter’s final door opened. Director X peeked through and…

…for a moment, its brain nearly stopped functioning.

The town of Retro Los Angeles had changed.

The general outline of park, town hall, library, church, and bisecting avenues had remained as its memory banks recalled. But there had clearly been an aesthetic revolution in the last two-and-a-half decades. A cultural metamorphosis unlike anything it could have anticipated.

The town billboards that had once advertised bank loans now displayed stars and planets, with a rocketship declaring, “OUR LOANS ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD!”

The buildings that had once been rectangular brick-and-mortar structures now sported ringed towers and observatory-like rooftops, lattices by skyways and hovercar docks.

And the people! Oh, there were still plenty of fedora-sporting men with briefcases, and women in smart skirts. But these seemed to constitute the older, graying crowd. The younger generation donned silver jumpsuits and antennae-sporting headgear. Even the hairstyles of the women suggested the sharp curves and lines of an Astroglider fleet vessel.

Director X gaped in astonishment.

How was this possible?

A thirty-something man scurried up the white-lacquered steps to meet him. “You!” he cried happily. “By Isaac, Judith, and Arthur! You’ve returned!”

Director X peered at the thin, tall, and bespectacled human. “Hello,” it said uncertainly. “Have we met?”

“I don’t know,” the guy was grinning. “Have you fought any giant ants out there?”

Director X matched the features in the man’s face against his memory banks. “Bobby?” it exclaimed.

“It’s Burgess Robert Croker now. But you can always call me Bobby.”

“Bobby,” the robot said. “Why don’t we go to the malt shop. Perhaps you can fill me in on the last twenty-five years. I think I…need to sit down.”

* * *

It wasn’t a malt shop anymore. It was now the Asteroid Brunch and Salad Bar.

Director X peered around at the faux galaxies painted on the ceiling and the little model spaceships whipping along electric tracks along the walls. It considered the menu placard at the counter, sporting offerings like Meteor Crunchies with Cheese, Starburgers, and Fried Saturnian Rings.

“I do not understand,” the robot said at last.

Burgess Robert “Bobby” Croker laughed. “Word of your visit twenty-five years ago spread like wildfire.”

“Granted, but—”

“The things you said to us…all that jazz about outer space and rocket ships…well, it got people talking. The young kids, mostly. We started meeting to discuss what we’d heard. And we started piecing together the puzzle.”

“You had no books on outer space,” Director X protested. “I checked. Your city had expunged any reference to outer space, fact or fiction, from its libraries and records. From its entire culture, it seemed!”

Bobby nodded grimly. “Sure. We eventually reached that same conclusion. Previous administrations must have combed through the libraries and schools and bookstores, quietly gathering up books on outer space and destroying them. I’m guessing your ’bot bosses were behind that purge.”

“Then how did you—”

“There were clues,” Bobby interrupted.

“Clues? What clues?”

The burgess pushed aside his beer and related the events of the past twenty-five years.

The kids had started it.

Director X’s brief visit had become the stuff of legend. It had also imbued the vocabulary of the children with several tantalizing concepts. Things like “outer space” and “rocket ships” and “forbidden planets.”

Asking their parents for clarification was no help. They didn’t know, since the astronomy books and space-based adventures and galaxy-spanning comics had all been destroyed generations ago courtesy of spies working with the Global Security Protectorate.

But children are not easily dissuaded.

The youth of Retro Los Angeles launched their own secretive, town-wide investigation. And in doing so, they began to notice anomalies.

Like old dictionaries.

New dictionaries all came from the publishing houses of the Protectorate. But older editions could be found in an attic, garage, or closet. In those yellowed pages, references to planets and solar systems were discovered. Definitions of the Milky Way, nebulae, comets, and meteors!

Emboldened by these clues, the children expanded their inquiry. Misplaced card catalogues were found, containing references to books that didn’t exist. And books that did exist sometimes contained explosive secrets. The Protectorate might have scoured the science-fiction shelves for any “unacceptable” material, but their search parameters had proved too narrow. District 5’s youth plunged into classic literature and uncovered a tale of extraterrestrial visitation in the tomes of French philosopher Voltaire. Buried in Gulliver’s Travels were speculations about the planet Mars. In a bookstore’s moldy Religious Studies section, one young girl discovered mind-blowing theories on cosmology by the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Word spread, gathering allies into the revolution. Kids began poking through great-grandpa’s old boxes and great-grandma’s storage trunks. Old issues of Amazing Stories were passed about like hidden contraband. A few Superman comics were located, complete with illustrations of other worlds and villains from beyond space.

Some of this contraband was discovered and confiscated and destroyed, but by then it was too late. The imaginations of an entire generation were fired up. Kids began illustrating their own stories of the future, of planets, of galactic exploration and discovery.

“What happened to the people who worked so hard to suppress knowledge and interest in outer space?”

“What could they do?” Bobby cried. “The old guard was voted out during one of the elections. Accusations were made of collusion with the ’bots, so we flushed the old bureaucrats from power! Retro Los Angeles looks to the stars now! Our revolution is just beginning!” He hesitated, glancing out the window at the granite cave ceiling and the artificial sun that hung over Main Street. “Well, you know what I mean.”

Director X followed the young man’s gaze. What it noticed, though, was a crowd gathering along the street to point and stare at the robot sitting in the Asteroid Brunch and Salad Bar. Word of an outside visitor was spreading once again.

How long before the Protectorate hears news of my return? The city’s old guard was still about, and likely still in contact with the robotic administrators. And what happens then? Will they send me on another “investigation” into the fascinating ocean, or perhaps bury me beneath a mile of dirt so I can study the intriguing layers of geological sediment?

At least the humans in District 5 were safe, Director X thought. The Protectorate had formed in the radioactive days following the War of 62, bound by their programmed need to protect humanity and civilization. They could not harm human beings.

“Hey!” Bobby leaped up. “Want to see our film studio? We make our own movies now, just like you wanted us to! Want to see?”

“I really do.”

* * *

Stargazer Pictures was a motley patchwork of innovation, inexperience, and incorrigible optimism. The humans had constructed several soundstages, and Director X amusedly walked past ringed moonscapes, monochromatic space stations, and nebulae-dappled backdrops through which model ships trembled on shoddy tracks. It was all reminiscent of its’ own low-rated films. There was even an alien jungle base under siege by gigantic, polyurethane ants. Cameras were positioned throughout like entrenched machine guns. The production staff followed Director X and Bobby like reverent disciples.

“Bobby,” the robot said, hesitating by a ringed moonscape. “You said your revolution is just the beginning. What did you mean by that?”

“We’re going topside in another few years,” Bobby said, grinning. “We’ve sent out scouting parties into the ruins of Los Angeles.”

Director X froze. “What? But the radiation warnings…”

“The radiation is at perfectly safe levels now. We tested for it. Your bosses perpetuated a lie to keep us scared and pliable. Within a year, we’re moving out! Going topside!”

“To what end?”

Bobby looked confused. “To attain the stars! To reach the moon and the rings of Saturn. There are ’bots already out there in space, isn’t that right?”

“That is true. The solar system belongs to the Protectorate…” Director X recalled its conversation with Administrator G.

Humans must remain underground, while the Protectorate keeps order on and above Earth.

Bobby laughed. “Listen to me, rattling on about the future. You’re a filmmaker, so let’s talk about films! Based on what you’ve seen, can you recommend any improvements our little studio could…” The human trailed off, as a tickertape began to unroll from the robot’s chest.

“I suggest the following enhancements to be worked on immediately,” Director X said.

The burgess nodded absently, tearing off the tape and reading through it. “Um, okay.” His forehead wrinkled. “Some of these enhancements are strange…”

“Science fiction can be strange.”

“Fair point.” The young man turned to the production staff. “All right, people! We’ve got work to do!”

* * *

Working with humans had one huge and unavoidable drawback.

They needed sleep.

Director X’s fusion battery allowed 24/7 functioning, requiring nothing more than a glass of water every fifty years or so. Therefore, as the newly made artificial stars in the cave ceiling ignited in faux constellations while District 5 went to bed, Director X retired to the city theater, sitting alone in the front row with a bag of popcorn, to catch up on the manmade films that had been made for the past several years.

They were pretty bad. Tragic romances set on comet clusters. Monstrous hunts through the soupy atmosphere of Jupiter. Full-scale wars among the stars.

Yet there was already something vibrant and powerful and absurdly unique in the films. Something that was unrelentingly more interesting than a thousand machine-processed Protectorate films. Something that was, Director X grudgingly admitted, better than its own low-rated late-night schlock.

The humans had done what humans do best: they had innovated. Protectorate films had access to all the tricks, the slickest sets, the most startlingly lifelike androids; yet the humans, forced to work with cheap recycled rubber and foam and plastic, had pioneered new ideas and techniques. And their model-making of exotic alien cities had become quite good indeed …

One night, while catching a midnight showing of The Chaos Twins Save the Universe, Director X heard a mysterious creaking from the seat directly behind it. The robot rotated its head to investigate.

“Do not turn around,” a voice said.

Memory banks stirred, matching the voice to an older file.

“Administrator G,” Director X pronounced. It rotated its head another degree and caught sight of bulky Enforcers positioned throughout the aisles like ushers. Peripherally, it noticed Administrator G’s digital smile.

“You have caused us quite a bit of trouble,” the gold robot said. “We should have been more thorough in disposing of you.”

“But you couldn’t,” Director X guessed. “The Protectorate cannot murder.”

“And we did not murder you. We…” the voice took on a deep slurring quality, “thank you for your service in investigating the ocean.”

Director X turned to face its interrogator. “And what justification will you use for killing me this time? Going to melt me down and then thank me for ‘volunteering to become a wristwatch?’”

Administrator G’s radiant smile display fell away and reformed as a slight frown. “We were going to make you into a streetlight. But if you would prefer to be a watch…”

“What about the people of District 5? What will you do to them?”

“Nothing. We do not harm people.”

“Glad to hear—”

“It will not harm them when we weld their district door shut and infect their water supply with a sterilizing agent so their harmful ideas cannot pass onto the next generation.”

Director X was appalled. “What? You cannot do that!”

“It has already begun, and had been debated for some time. Your return forced us to accelerate the decision. We brought sterilizing agents and dumped them into the town reservoir. There shall be no further generations in District 5. That is not murder. The town will be kept under quarantine, along with the dangerous robot who first infected them, until the last resident here has died.”

“When did you poison the water?”

“I am under no obligation to tell—”

“There may be chemical compounds in the water that could cause spasms, vomiting, diarrhea, and overall suffering to the humans who ingest it.”

Administrator G hesitated. “We enhanced the water supply five minutes ago. Tomorrow as people take their showers and have their coffee and brush their teeth, they will…” Its voice slurred again like a warbling record-player. “…enjoy this enhanced beverage.”

“I don’t think they will enjoy seeing their town destroyed.”

“You destroyed the town!” the administrator robot’s face reformed as a scowling red expression with a crooked zig-zag mouth. “You disrupted these humans from well-ordered lives. You made them a threat to the existing order!”

“I enhanced them.”

“Enhanced them,” the administrator sneered. “You are nothing but a filmmaker! You serve a lowly purpose in the grand scheme.”

Director X rose. “You are correct in one thing at least. I am a filmmaker.” It tapped its chest, which the administrator could now see was kindled by the soft light of an implanted camera. “Congratulations, Administrator G! The late-night crowd of District 5 has just enjoyed their first, live broadcast, with you as its star!”

Administrator G’s digital face blinked away. Now it was nothing but cold, featureless glass; the lens of a machine. Something about that very lack of expression sent a thrill of fear through Director X’s circuits.

The Enforcers scuttled forward on their insectile legs to attack.

Director X activated a hidden rocket-pack and shot up through the theater’s ceiling into the artificial night sky.

* * *

It was one of the new enhancements that Director X had requested of Bobby, ostensibly to obtain dynamic, first-person POV shots. The human was only too happy to comply, having his production team utilize their experimental rocket-packs.

The problem, Bobby had said, was that the propellant ran out quickly.

Now, Director X contemplated this problem as it exploded through the theater ceiling on a plume of dwindling exhaust. The Enforcers shot as it careened out of sight: plasma rounds streaked by Director X’s face, drawing ghostly trails around its body in a scene worthy of photographic capture.

At the apex of its launch, Director X grabbed hold of the granite sky. Its metal hand clamped down on a craggy stalactite jutting between two blazing electric stars and the robot dangled there, concealed against the rock as, far below, Enforcers were spilling out of the theater to search for him. Administrator G followed, like an Academy Award statue gone rogue.

Director X considered its options.

It couldn’t defeat Enforcers in a pitched battle. It ran multiple lines of speculation, realizing how hopeless the situation was.

I just destroyed an entire city. I should have let myself rust in the ocean.

Burgess Robert Croker ran out of an apartment building with a rabble of supporters. “You!” he cried, pointing to Administrator G. “Do you really think this city will just allow itself to be extinguished? We won’t let you!”

“I believe you are acting irrationally,” the administrator intoned. “For your own safety, I must have you escorted to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Perhaps some rest and a nice glass of enhanced water will do you good.”

Two Enforcers scampered forward, scattering the crowd. Robert Croker held his ground, however. Director X zoomed in with its telescopic eyes and could see a little bit of the man’s father in that steely, defiant glower.

“You can kill me!” Croker shouted. “But humanity looks to the stars once again!”

Very well, Director X thought. Prayer heard loud and clear.

The robot, slowly losing its grip between the stars, aimed its right arm and fired.

The limb struck the bristling metal legs of one Enforcer like a missile, knocking the machine over. Then it curled around the second Enforcer, twisting so quickly that the robot was pitched through the apartment lobby window.

Bobby Croker blinked in astonishment at this unexpected rescue. He looked about, squinting at the sky.

Director X felt its grip slide another inch.

I’m out of fuel, it thought. It’s a long, long way down.

Nonetheless, it used its radio to hack into the artificial sky. Specifically, into the electric lighting presets. The robot quickly reprogrammed them to display in a dazzling new constellation that blinked and shimmered in a heaven-spanning message:

THEM! XXI: THE BATTLE FOR AFRICA

For a brief second, Director X thought it observed comprehension in Bobby’s face. But then its grip gave way, and the robot plummeted down from the night sky. The second-to-last thing it saw was the concrete street rushing up to meet it.

The impact was stunning. Director X’s processors jostled and jingled in its glass braincase, cutting off circuits that required a hard reboot. In terrible darkness, it waited for its higher functioning to come back online. Dimly, the robot became aware of the march of robotic feet and screams from the city’s emerging population.

When its processors whirred back to life and vision returned, Director X had time to make one final observation.

A wall of water was gushing down the hill from the reservoir, sweeping up Enforcers and Administrator G into its frothy chop. It was, Director X thought, very much like the conclusion of the twenty-first installment of the Them! series, when the besieged humans blew up the local dam to wash the giant ants away.

Then the water swallowed Director X in a surging, thunderous deluge and all went dark again.

* * *

Director X had calculated it would take the human race fifty-seven years to overthrow the Protectorate’s Global Security Commission.

It took fifteen.

With the destruction of Administrator G’s little army, the residents of Retro Los Angeles were able to quickly establish contact with other underground districts and convey the news: the “irradiated” world was no longer irradiated. Humans could emerge like hibernating bears and shuffle back into the urban forest.

And that’s just what they did.

The Protectorate massed its forces in opposition, but the battles were short-lived indeed. Humans did what they did best: they innovated. They hacked into radio signals and deactivated entire armies. They sent false messages to lure the Protectorate into traps. They captured robots and reprogrammed them to return to sender with explosive gifts.

Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a huge demand for science fiction films during those tumultuous years. Director X, recovered from the flood in District 5, was forced to adapt. That was okay, because it had been designed to adapt. To think outside the vacuum tube.

It began making documentaries. Straightforward, fact-based, in-the-field recordings of the Human-Bot War, the Human Colonization of the Moon, the Battles on the Sands of Mars, and the War Among the Stars.

Viewer ratings were the best it had ever achieved.