The planet’s one and a half suns were beginning to set as Scrap and the humans followed Gunner into New Hull. Thick steam billowed from everywhere and nowhere, covering the city in an eerie, haunting haze. Fizzing, animated screens moved slowly through the air, illuminating every corner with a neon glow.
While Gnat pulled her sister along, eager not to miss any of the excitement, Paige found everything about their situation overwhelming. Since leaving the Foxhole for the Outside, she had barely had time to get used to the sprawling landscapes, the endless sky, the bombardment of sights and sounds and smells. The city was another matter altogether – vast and engulfing and teeming with unknowable threats. She checked her core tracer, its tiny lights flashing to notify her of numerous nearby cores.
Robots.
Hundreds of them.
Scrap, meanwhile, was surprised by how little New Hull had changed. Every building was still made up of dozens of the same large grey-white cubes he remembered. There was only one building that Scrap did not recognize. Though built from New Hull’s functional, modular cubes – this silvery construction swept into the sky, curling and arcing above the city like a dash of paint.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That, rusty, is the Ivory Tower,” replied Gunner. “The house that Mayor Highshine built.”
“…So she can look down on everyone else,” huffed Scrap. “That’s -zk- war for you – when the smoke clears, you can always tell who the winners are.”
As if to prove Scrap’s point, the rest of the city seemed oddly unloved. Several buildings still showed scars from the war, as if the robots had given up trying to make the place their own after they claimed it from the humans. Alien flora – trees, vines and dazzling, oversized flowers – grew thickly between buildings or wound, doggedly, around them. It didn’t take Scrap long to realize why the city was uncared for.
Upgrades.
The inhabitants of New Hull seemed to have discovered an entirely different preoccupation – themselves. New Hull teemed with robots the likes of which Scrap had never seen. The streets thronged with every imaginable silhouette, size, shape and colour – cases far brighter, stranger and more impressive than any of the unflashy ’bots that built the city all those years ago. He didn’t recognize a single one. These robots were even more impressive and varied than he ever could have imagined. They were works of art, each distinct, highly designed and covered in bright paintwork and patterns, or draped with showy robes and scarves. Some were compact, darting through the crowds on wheels; others scurried on pliable tentacles or scampered on animal-like limbs. An orange ovoid ’bot moved past him with a lolling roll as another, long and insect-like, flew over his head on whirring wings.
“Gunner!” the insect called as it hovered above them. “You’ve done it again – this case is perfect! This is the case I could die in!”
“He said that last month,” Gunner whispered to Scrap, before calling back, “Come to the emporium next week, Booster, and let’s see if we can’t improve on perfection!”
Scrap watched the insect flit over the crowds, then gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the myriad mechanoids milling through the city. Each one made his battered, tarnished, rickety case seem even more pathetic.
“Everyone…” he said in a whisper. “Everyone upgraded.”
“The citizens of Five One Three no longer have to wear the cases of our oppressors, rusty – we’re free to choose who we are … free to change who we are … free to upgrade who we are.” Gunner stroked the top of Tinpot’s head, as if it were a pet. “After the Difference of Opinion, robots started swapping charge for upgrades. Mayor Highshine gave me an opportunity – she offered to let me run the hovertrain. That was my shaving grace. I fixed it up and started transporting old cases out of the city. The more ’bots upgraded, the more used cases needed moving. I shipped them by the trainload! When I earned enough charge, I upgraded to a new case. Then another, and another – my core’s been shifted so many times, I’ve lost count. The gleam of a new case is just so hard to resist…”
“A new case…” Scrap muttered to himself. He couldn’t believe he’d let pride keep him on his Pile for so long when kind-cored ’bots like Gunner were willing to help him upgrade. He could think of nothing else but the chance to be rid of this wretched body, held together by rust and luck – to be anything other than “Scrap”.
“And who do you want to be, rusty?” Gunner asked as if on cue and held her tendrils wide. “The future’s right. Here in New Hull you can be anything – anyone you want to be…”
“I want jumping legs and electric hair and radio ears!” Gnat declared, revelling in her robotic role. Paige, meanwhile, hadn’t said a word since they entered the city. With one hand gripping her sister’s arm, she kept the other hovered over her satchel, ready to reach for the hunter’s grenade should they be discovered. Scrap saw her glance frequently at her core tracer. Was she overwhelmed by the sheer number of signals on the screen, he wondered, or did some part of her still think she could find the King of the Robots?
“For a ’bot looking to upgrade their case, there’s only one place to go,” Gunner went on, breaking Scrap’s train of thought. “Actually, there are a dozen or so, but the best one is mine! Gunner’s Upgrade Emporium is home to the greatest upgrader on Somewhere Five One Three – Corpus Coil.”
“Is that who upgraded you?” Scrap asked, trying to keep up with Gunner’s strides. “Is that who -zk- made your case?”
“I couldn’t very well upgrade myself now, could I?” replied Gunner. “I’ve lost count of how many hundreds of cases I’ve had from Mr Coil, but each one has been more spectacular than the last. Can you believe I was once a K11? I wouldn’t be seen dread in that case now – I was all big fists and bigger blasters, a blunt instrument against aliens, pirates, meteors, or whatever else you might need blasting from here to Somewhere else. My old case and I made it through all of that madness … but then came the Difference of Opinion.”
“The war?” Scrap said, glancing back at Paige and Gnat. He saw Paige pull her poncho around her.
“Ah-ah, you know we don’t use that word, rusty. The Difference of Opinion was what we like to call a dynamic disagreement between us and the humans,” Gunner declared. “Not that many of them actually took up arms against us. Most of the would-be colonists just hid in their ship while he did all the fighting for them.”
“Who did?” asked Gnat loudly.
“The Robot Renegade … the Mechanical Mutineer … the enemy of robotkind,” Gunner said, her three eyes searing with rage. “K1-NG.”
Gunner’s dust-drones whistled angrily at the mere mention of the name but Gnat jumped up in excitement.
“King of the Robots!” she repeated, pointing excitedly at Scrap. “That’s him! He’s the Ki—”
Paige hit the back of Gnat’s helmet with her elbow. Quickly she asked, “Did you know him?”
“No, but I wanted to be him,” confessed Gunner. “Every ’bot had heard of K1-NG. He was our maker’s finest achievement, a legend in his own lifetime. Until…”
“Until what?” Paige urged. Scrap already knew what was coming. He remembered.
“The Difference of Opinion had only just begun,” Gunner explained, peering into the sky. “The humans didn’t have it in them to take us on – we ’bots knew victory was a floor-gone conclusion. But then he chose to side with them … he chose to fight. K1-NG was like a one-bot army. In that first battle, he junked my case like it was tinfoil. I was a disembodied core for weeks thanks to him. No case would be too rotten for that villain – not even yours, rusty!”
Scrap looked down at the dust. He’d had plenty of time over the years to feel bad about all the robots whose cases he’d junked defending the humans. But he had banished feelings of guilt in favour of anger, bitterness and resentment. Seeing this robot spell out the consequences of his violence chilled him to his literal core.
“Do – do you know what happened to him?” Paige asked. “Do you know where he is now?”
“Now? There is no ‘King of the Robots’ now,” Gunner replied delightedly. “The Difference of Opinion ended on the day the remaining K11s finally managed to ambush King and junk his case. I heard they ripped his core from his chest and tossed it into the ocean jungles. It’s the leash he deserves!”
Scrap sighed. The fate Gunner wished for him wasn’t exactly accurate, but nor was it a million miles from how he’d actually spent the last decade – alone and barely more than the core that was keeping him alive. Then he heard Paige’s louder sigh, echoing around her helmet. Had her last shred of hope at finding the King of the Robots finally evaporated? Surely this would convince her to give up on her misguided mission to find the Pink-Footed Goose and return to her mother.
“Still, you junk cases didn’t come here to hear me swear vengeance on my enemy,” Gunner declared, breaking Scrap’s train of thought. She held out her tendrils and directed them down a wide side street, rolling with fog. “It’s time for you to meet Corpus Coil,” Gunner said. “Don’t worry, his bark is worse than his bite! But keep your hands to yourself, because bite he does…”