“New Hull has a -zk- mayor now?” said Scrap as he, Paige and Gnat followed Gunner to the city’s entrance. A vast arch curved high above them, and atop it a neon sign flickered and sparked.
Below the sign a projected image moved joltingly between three fixed positions, creating the illusion of movement – a large, angular robot, waving repeatedly at everything and nothing. Though her case was less flamboyant than Gunner’s, it was no less striking, with a flowing cape bestowing upon her an air of authority and power.
“You’ve been on the Piles too long, rusty!” Gunner noted, pointing up at the projection with two of her tendrils. “Allow me to introduce our illustrious, industrious mayor, Harmony Highshine. If not for her, there would have been no Difference of Opinion and we robots would still be doffing our caps to humans. The mayor led us to freedom.”
“What?” scoffed Scrap. “No, it was the K11s who led the revolt. I’ve never even heard of this ’bot.”
Gunner turned to her dust-drones in faux horror.
“Did you hear that? Rusty, Lord of the Piles has never heard of Harmony Highshine?” she said sarcastically. “Sounds like good news doesn’t spread as far as the Piles…”
Scrap grunted huffily. Gunner was right – he had no idea how Somewhere 513 had changed over the last decade. But he had been there at the start of the war, in the thick of it all.
He knew it was the powerful K11s that had spearheaded the robot revolution against the humans, that it was they that conspired to rebel against the colonists. The K11s had been the face of the Difference of Opinion. Was Harmony Highshine a K11, he wondered, or could some other robot have galvanized the robots without him knowing? How was that possible?
“You are about to enter the first free robot city in all the known Somewheres,” a voice-recording crackled from behind the projection. “This is New Hull, and I am Harmony Highshine, the architect of robotic liberation.”
“…Cog’s sake,” Scrap grumbled. “This ’bot sounds too big for her -zk- boots.”
“Big mouth for a little junk case,” said a rough and stony voice. Scrap spun round to see a hefty robot with a bronze sheriff’s badge emblazoned on his chest emerge on tank-tread feet from the left side of the arch. Scrap peered at him. Another impressively upgraded ’bot.
Where were all the old, familiar cases?
“New friends, Gunner?” the robot added. “New Hull’s already full of shallow-pocket junk cases – if we’re not careful, they’ll overrun the city.”
“Always a pressure to see you, Niner,” said Gunner genially. “Don’t you have anything better to do than lurk by the gates?”
“It’s Sheriff Niner,” the sheriff corrected her. “And my job is to keep this city safe. Which means keeping undesirables out.”
“All robots are welcome in New Hull, you know that,” replied Gunner. “Rust is only skin-deep … unless it spreads to your brain-frame. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, Niner?”
“I’ll still need their core-codes,” the sheriff insisted.
“Our what?” blurted Paige.
“Core-codes,” repeated the sheriff. “If you’re entering the city, I’ll need to register you.”
“…We don’t need to go into the city,” Paige said quickly, her dread at being found out suddenly redoubled. She took her sister by the hand. “Come on, ‘Gnat-Bot’, let’s go…”
“But I want upped grades,” Gnat protested.
Paige squeezed her sister’s hand, hard. “Just do as you’re—”
“Nobody’s going anywhere till I get those codes,” said Niner, blocking their path. He jerked his chin in Scrap’s direction. “You first, junk case.”
“I, uh…” Scrap muttered. He could hear his voice sounded thin and nervy. “It’s … uh…”
“Big city’s got rusty flustered!” chuckled Gunner. She rested a tendril on Scrap’s shoulder. “He just needs to know your old name, rusty. Mine is K11-LU. Niner here is N9-NR. What’s the core-code the humans gave you when you rolled off the assembly line?”
Scrap clenched his fists.
“…Mind your own motors,” he grunted.
“Aha!” The sheriff eyed him suspiciously. “Got something to hide, junk case?”
“Nope! We’re robots!” declared Gnat as loudly as she could.
“You can be core-sucking batrillas for all I care,” said Niner. “No core-code, no entry.”
“Tell you what, Sheriff,” Gunner said with a wide smile. “Why don’t you spend less time dwelling on the names of these poor junk cases, and more time thinking about what colour you’d like your new case to be?”
“My – what new case?” asked the sheriff.
“The one that will be ready for you by the end of the week – the sheriff of New Hull has to look the bee’s cheese, does he not?” replied Gunner. As Tinpot and Copperpot busily shined her shoulders, she added, “I’ll even throw in a dust-drone to keep that badge of yours nice and shiny. My treat…”
And that was that.
Scrap wasn’t sure why Gunner had bribed the sheriff to get them inside, but by now he was too excited about the possibility of upgrading to turn back. As Gnat dragged her sister through the gates with a squeal of excitement, Scrap glanced behind him. Had he not been so distracted by the sight of the giddy, speechless Sheriff Niner behind them, he might have seen the waving projection of Mayor Highshine slowly turn its head towards the city’s new visitors, or heard the faint whirring of the hovering video-drone in place of the mayor’s left eye.