The Last Robot – Opening Chapters

 

1

THE UNPERFECT COG IN THE PERFECT MACHINE

THE SCORCHING SUN beat down mercilessly on Newer York from the perpetually coloured iron-grey sky. Usually a thick blanket of smog covered the city, but today was a Perfect sunny day. Perfect with a capital “P”.

 Perfect: A state of being or doing that is exactly as nature intends for humans to be or do for the optimal chances of their survival (according to and endorsed by the Human Emphasis Police).

When things on the Earth were not Perfect, the Human Emphasis Police (usually referred to in its abbreviated form, HEP) would deem them unPerfect. This strange use of language meant that in the Perfect Age the imperfect could be Perfect and the perfect, unPerfect. Such was the effect of the Perfect indoctrination of the HEP.

This seemingly contradictory statement of affairs could not be better emphasised than by the way the HEP indoctrinated the citizens of the Earth to think of their perpetually coloured iron-grey sky. It was a layer of chemicals created by the robots during the Robot War that gave the sky its worldwide perpetual iron-grey hue. HEP scientists found it impossible to eradicate the chemicals from the atmosphere. Whenever they managed to suck up a sizeable amount of the chemicals, the chemicals reappeared hours later as if by magic. The mechanism fuelling and maintaining the chemicals was a mystery, but since the iron-grey layer acted as extra protection against the sun’s harmful radiation, the HEP deemed it a case of Perfect unPerfectness, though some believe that they had no option but to deem it so. Furthermore, the HEP labelled this layer the “Worldwide Veil of Protection”.

In Newer York, a particular huge drab grey building shaped like a giant shoebox stood up boldly against the scorching sun. Inside this building, the factory floor of Newer York’s Synthetic Foods Processing Factory was a visual symphony of business and order. There were no windows, but the lighting inside was as natural looking as a rare sunny smog-free day, such as the city was currently experiencing.

For such a vast amount of activity, the factory was a surprisingly quiet environment. Noise pollution was not an option in the year 1724 PP (Post Perfect) of the Perfect Age (3997 AD, Gregorian calendar). The factory’s Noise Control officers would deal with the cause of any errant noise severely. Like everywhere else in the world, the Synthetic Foods Processing Factory was a place living up to the ideal of the Perfect Age.

Neat rows of products hurtled along silica-carbon conveyor belts in a quiet swish. Noise-proof machines carried out most of the food processing operations with nothing more than a pleasant hum. Even the forklift trucks, powered by their pocket-sized nuclear reactors, made little more noise than a team of heavy breathers, and the skill of their drivers in handling heavily laden aluminium pallets was something of a master class in the art of the silent operations of heavy goods manipulation. Workers and machines cooperated with clockwork precision in a dance of faultless harmony. Such was the synchronicity that the workers seemed as if they were machines themselves. However, if there was one faulty cog in the machine that was the Perfect Age, it was one particular worker cooperating in that very dance—27-year-old James Riley.

Riley, a Quality Assurance operative, was working quietly and efficiently in a quiet corner of the factory, performing yet another “needless” Quality Assurance test on a sample of Proteinium 45. In all his four years at the factory, he had never known of a sample to fail a Quality Assurance test undertaken by either himself or any other Quality Assurance operatives either here or in any of the other food processing factories in the other 99 cities spread across the globe.

Proteinium 45 was a mainly protein packed fist-sized ball of food with a taste that in days long lost would be reminiscent of cherry and which is still described as cherry flavoured (though not many inhabitants would know what the extinct cherry was). Food engineers created all the food of the Perfect Age from a combination of chemicals, sea-creatures and seaweeds. Because the world population was so low, just over half a million, there was no shortage of food ingredients. And there was no competition for food because there were no longer any land animals known to live on the planet’s surface, except for a breed of grey insects, which varied from a microscopic size to the size of a small housefly. The HEP deemed these insects as Perfect animals as they acted as cleaning agents both inside and outside the home. All in all, it was a Perfect situation.

“Right …” mumbled Riley, preparing to tap his finger on his touch-sensitive workpad.

“Weight: Passed,” he said, prodding his workpad Perfectly with his grey-skinned index finger, a finger with no fingernail as evolution, or rather genetic engineering, seemed to believe that the post-robot Perfect Age world’s inhabitants had no need for them.

“Dimensions: Passed.” He prodded again.

“Ingredients: Passed.” Another prod.

And so he continued prodding his work pad, entering in “Passed” quality assurance attributes …

Eventually …

Riley stamped the word “PERFECT” in green letters on the Proteinium 45 batch’s ID card with his stamping tool, before slipping the card into a “PASSED” slot on a nearby wall. Where the card went and what happened to it next was not of interest to him. Perhaps the batch would go to Factory Storage, or maybe directly to Goods Out. He didn’t know, and he certainly didn’t care—he had more important thoughts to consider in his spare thinking time. He knew the card was a physical confirmation of the digital data his workpad communicated to central computer control. Finally, he placed the repacked sample box on a silica-carbon conveyer belt to begin its journey through the factory to the Recycling Department.

Having completed the last task of his shift, he happily prepared to leave the factory. He started to dust down his boiler suit. In fact, the entire population wore boiler suits. Their colour was the primary way of differentiating the roles of their wearers. They wore them at work as well as everywhere else. It made Perfect sense to do so.

Riley’s grey-coloured boiler suit matched his skin. His role was listed under the general umbrella of a semi-skilled worker (like the majority of non-HEP workers).

The only boiler suits that stood out from all the others were the navy-blue boiler suits. This was because they were the boiler suits worn by the members of the HEP, and they had the red lettering abbreviation HEP stitched on a circular white background proudly showing on their boiler suit’s right-hand breast pocket.

Marching to the clocking out area, Riley spied the rare factory floor appearance of an office worker—and she was heading for him. She seemed completely incongruous on the factory floor in her white-coloured boiler suit. She was assistant Admin Officer Mrs Leena Lou.

Mrs Lou was five foot six inches tall whereas Riley was five foot seven inches tall (as were all females and males, respectively). She physically resembled the other females on the planet (and to a lesser extent even the males) as HEP Birthing Scientists had created each person Perfectly with advanced genetic engineering techniques. What made it harder to distinguish between males and females was that both were bald and the females were flat-chested. The main outward appearance difference between males and females was the one-inch difference in height and the eye colour. All males had rusty copper-coloured eyes, like two well-worn copper coins. All females had violet-blue-coloured eyes.

As Riley watched the approaching Mrs Lou, he noticed she had her usual cheery disposition, but that it carried a touch of concern.

“Mr Riley,” said Mrs Lou, “you’re to report to Factory Inspector Clark in the HEP office.”

A wave of paranoia immediately swept over Riley, threatening to knock him off his feet. His heart thumped like a jackhammer. Nevertheless, he managed to just about keep himself steady on his feet and maintain a modicum of self-control. He did breach certain norms of Perfectness, explored the most heinous of taboo subjects, but he always kept within the borders of legality. Could the HEP have discovered the raging war of unPerfectness that permeated his every thoughts and desires? Could they have discovered the dark secret of his recurring dream? A dream he started to have from the earliest age he could remember. A dream where he was searching for something extraordinary. A dream that progressed and grew longer with its nightly recurrence until it reached the point where he knew he had found the hidden lair of what he was looking for. A dream that saw him willingly embrace the greatest taboo of them all.

“Why does Inspector Clark want to see me?” asked Riley tentatively.

“Apparently you have been selected for an on-the-spot citizen test. Nothing more insidious than that. Follow me, please, Mr Riley.”

The HEP randomly but rarely administered on-the-spot citizen tests on citizens. Though they were supposedly random, Riley knew of a woman who had one administered on her while she worked in his wife’s place of work, the Entertainments Centre, and she never returned to her post. He learned through the non-HEP news grapevine that the HEP sent her to a Remote Correction Asylum (RCA) for Human Emphasis reintegration therapy. No one knew what misdemeanour she had committed, although it was common knowledge she had written an audio-play that included a dishonest HEP officer that many thought was a representation of the city’s HEP mayor. Though, as they took her away to the Remote Correction Asylum, kicking and screaming, she vehemently denied any such interpretation. She re-surfaced in New Moscow working as a Home Interiors inspector.

All non-HEP inhabitants of the Perfect Age managed to covertly obtain and spread HEP related activities whenever and however they could. If caught, it would be the Remote Correction Asylum for them too. Thankfully, there was no Death Penalty, but the painless machines attached to patients’ brains and methods of mental interrogation were arguably worse.

Riley tried his best to match the Perfectly marching style of Mrs Lou as she led him through a series of mezzanine walkways up to the small HEP office on the upper floor, but he couldn’t disguise the nervousness he felt through the soles of his heavy black high-strength polymer boots.

On arrival at the office, its navy-blue-painted aluminium door was closed.

Mrs Lou knocked on the door just above the centrally placed ubiquitous circular HEP logo with its red lettering on a white background.

“Come in!” shouted the voice of the Chief of Human Resources Mr Pierre Cartier from behind the door.

Mrs Lou immediately and calmly pressed down a polished aluminium handle and pushed open the door.

Inspector Clark’s HEP office was spartan and functional and dominated by a bog-standard iron aluminium-topped office desk devoid of papers and stationery with only an imitation potted Prickly White cactus plant. And as was common with most commercial rooms, there were no windows.

Inspector Clark looked a Perfect picture of calmness and composure sitting behind his desk, which faced the door.

Mrs Lou led Riley into the room and gestured for him to stand opposite the seated Inspector Clark. Meanwhile, she joined Mr Cartier and stood obediently to the side of the desk, both in their spotlessly clean, white boiler suits. They knew their place.

With a grin as genuine as the imitation potted Prickly White cactus plant on his desk, Inspector Clark looked ever so smug in his HEP navy-blue boiler suit. Very smug indeed, with his HEP logo proudly showing on his right-hand breast pocket and his name and role proudly showing on his left-hand breast pocket.

Mrs Lou looked down at her feet and let out an apologetic cough in an obvious effort to take the edge of the tension out of the scene. She managed a brief look towards Riley and an even briefer one towards Inspector Clark before settling on maintaining a steady stare at her boss Mr Cartier.

“Take a chair, Riley,” commanded Inspector Clark, nodding towards a chunky-looking steel chair opposite himself across the other side of his desk. Inspector Clark looked incredibly relaxed, as if he was almost dripping off his comfortable metallic elasticised palladium framed chair, upholstered as it was with woven see-through aluminium padding.

Riley, in his terror, grasped the sides of the steel chair’s back, but he failed to lift the chair properly off the floor, and instead slid the chair backwards along the concrete grey lead-painted floor …

The blaring squeal sounded by the chair’s legs dragging along the floor was excruciatingly loud.

Riley’s eyelids began to shutter down in preparation for the verbal onslaught that was a certainty for such an unPerfect act.

Even before Riley’s eyelids had locked closed in his futile attempt to blot out his miserable existence, Inspector Clark reacted. He launched himself from his relaxed liquid sitting position into an upright rigid position in an instant, as if he had received a powerful electric shock.

“Riley!” he roared. “Were you born of a female by prePerfect Age conception?” Inspector Clark pounded his powerful fist onto the aluminium desktop, threatening to dent it.

Inspector Clarke’s insult was quite severe to a person of the Perfect Age. An age where people were of the understanding that they were specially genetically designed, conceived in a lead-glass Birthing Tube, and as a foetus matured in a Pregnancy Chamber. The very idea of sexual contact was deemed primitive to the point of being revolting; and to be born as a wriggling, screaming baby emerging from a body was repulsively unimaginable.

With an immense mental and psychological effort, Riley opened his eyes, carefully lifted the steel chair off the floor, and quietly positioned it.

“Sorry, Inspector Clark,” pleaded Riley. “The chair has longer legs than any I have used before and I must have misjudged the height I should lift it.”

It was true that the chair was designed to have a higher seat than a normal Perfectly built chair so as to put the sitter in a psychologically unsettling position as it was impossible to get comfortable on it, but Riley’s excuse was nevertheless feeble. “I’ve never been in your office before,” he added, hoping such an admission would bolster his excuse.

Inspector Clark regarded Riley for a disconcerting moment, shaking his head dismissively. Until, eventually, he relaxed again in his inquisitional chair.

“Well, sit on it, Riley, damn you, or we’ll be here until the end of the next shift cycle.”

Riley settled himself down onto the chair. His toes could just kiss the floor, but they soon slipped forwards. The chair achieved its purpose of putting its sitter in a Perfect perpetual state of discomfort.

“That will be all, Mr Cartier and Mrs Lou,” said Inspector Clark snappily to his two submissive bystanders.

They slipped out of the office discreetly, and very quietly.

“So, Riley, it’s just you and me now,” said Inspector Clark contemptuously. “Time for you to sit a Human Emphasis Police (HEP) on-the-spot citizen test. Ready? You better be!”

 

2

TESTING RILEY

NOW THAT RILEY was alone with Inspector Clark, it was all he could do to continue breathing. His thoughts were shredded, and he felt as if they might be leaking out of his head. Manfully, he tried to bind them together.

Please, don’t let this be about my dream, or it’s a Remote Correction Asylum for me, thought Riley.

Inspector Clark violently shoved aside the tin-potted plastic imitation Prickly White cactus plant with a wide sweep of his arm, sending it clattering to the grey-painted concrete floor. Riley almost fell off his chair in shock.

Inspector Clark slid out the aluminium drawer from under his desktop and plucked out a metallic cap made of a copper alloy. He placed it on the desktop in front of Riley.

“The dreaded on-the-spot citizen test Testing Cap, as if you couldn’t guess,” said Inspector Clark sarcastically.

The cap was a simple-looking hemisphere about a quarter of an inch thick. However, Riley knew that within that quarter of an inch was some of the best of the HEP’s famed sophisticated and highly advanced circuitry. It was true that in the 1,724 years since the end of the Robot War (fought between Tuesday, July 22nd, 2228 and Tuesday, July 22nd, 2245 AD, Gregorian calendar), machines had been radically reduced in quantity and complexity. All remaining machines were under the strict design and control of the HEP. In some ways, the current machines were more advanced, but their Perfect complexity was subtly hidden from non-HEP citizens.

“Well, put the Testing Cap on, Riley,” insisted inspector Clark. “You’ve nothing to worry about—if you’re Perfectly innocent of unPerfection.”

Riley placed the Testing Cap on his head, feeling very anxious. Of course, it was a perfect fit, as you would expect, given that all males had the same sized head. He felt no sensation whatsoever.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” said Inspector Clark, almost cheerfully.

Riley managed a slight grin, to his surprise. However, this was more than matched by Inspector Clark’s slight frown.

“Now,” said Inspector Clark, slipping out a small pad device from his left breast pocket, “I will ask you some questions at my leisure and your answers whether correct or incorrect, sensible or insensible, will be examined, analysed, assessed, indexed and numbered.”

Riley gulped nervously.

“You needn’t worry that the Testing Cap will read your thoughts. Despite what you may think, the Human Emphasis Police (HEP) has not developed technology capable of such a task, short of cutting your skull open and attaching probes directly to millions of portions of your brain. We of the HEP do allow citizens some sort of freedom in their thoughts. Of course, the Testing Cap can analyse your answers and give me the results on my pad device. However, I would be failing in my duties if I did not warn you that the Testing Cap can easily detect a lie from a truth.”

Riley gulped again.

“In any case, Riley, I haven’t activated the Testing Cap yet. I’ll tell you when I do. But first, just to warm you up and to remove the possibility of unrepresentative readings being created by a prematurely calibrated Testing Cap, I will ask you some quick, straightforward questions. These will be questions that any citizen of the half a million or so of us that populate the Earth would be able to answer in their sleep—though perhaps if such questions were asked of you in your sleep, I’d not be surprised if you couldn’t answer them.” Inspector Clark laughed derisively.

Riley shuffled uncomfortably, slightly taken aback. Was Inspector Clark implying that the HEP knew about his extremely lucid recurring dream? Riley knew that if he were to get through this on-the-spot citizen test he would have to assume Inspector Clark was simply being a typical bullying HEP inspector and that his mocking supplementary remark was coincidental with what might well have been a truthful remark.

“Right then, Riley, no point hanging about. Let the on-the-spot citizen test begin. Before I ask the first question, it is my duty under the Perfect Laws of Citizenship Rights, laws Perfectly designed for the Perfection of Humankind, to inform you that all the Perfect Laws are at your disposal for your protection and defence. Please use them wisely. Good, that’s that drivel out of the way. Now at last the questions can flow and the chase can truly begin.”

Riley wondered why Inspector Clark had described the process about to begin as a “chase”, and there was something maniacal about the emphasis Inspector Clark put on the word. And to Riley, his recurring dream always felt like a frenetic chase as he searched for its prize. Nevertheless, Riley put the thought out of his mind. After all, the inspector probably threw it in just to unsettle him. A typical underhand HEP tactic. Riley realised that his paranoia at having his recurring dream discovered was probably making him oversensitive to simple cases of coincidence. HEP inspectors knew how to make comments that would apply to all kinds of unPerfect behaviours, which is why they would make them. Riley just had to keep calm and not panic.

Riley waited anxiously for the first question of his interrogation. Even if the Testing Cap was not activated, he was in no doubt the entire proceedings from the moment he had entered the office to the moment he would leave it would be recorded. He had no doubt that as Inspector Clark had said and any HEP inspector would say, his answers would be “examined, analysed, assessed, indexed and numbered” in more ways than a simple non-HEP citizen such as himself could begin to imagine.

“How many cities are there on the Earth?” asked inspector Clark.

“One hundred.” Perhaps, thought Riley, this would not be so bad.

“Sure?”

“That is what we have all been taught at school.” Riley decided any easiness in this on-the-spot citizen test would be a cover-up for difficulty. The devil would certainly be in the detail.

“Yes, but have you any evidence to suggest there might be more?”

Ah, now Riley saw the trick. If his oh-so-real recurring dream were in fact representative of reality, then there would be 101 cities. Moreover, as the city, a place as unPerfect as a city could possibly be, was teeming with HEP personnel, then it followed that Inspector Clark would probably know about it. So could it really be that Inspector Clark did know about his dream? Or could it be that perhaps his dream was actually a HEP scenario implant that activated itself during his sleep? The latter possibility seemed impossible to believe, because it would fundamentally contravene the Perfect Laws of Citizenship Privacy, not to mention that he was a child when the dream had reached its conclusion and started perfectly reproducing itself. The only change being the growing age of its protagonist—himself. But the HEP were really the Law. They make the laws and they break them covertly when it suits their purposes. Well, in any case, the Testing Cap was not activated and as he could not confirm his dream as a representation of a reality, he decided to affirm his previous answer.

“No, I have no evidence of any additional cities. I’m sure there are exactly the Perfect number of 100 cities on the Earth.”

“Well, I will accept your answer. But if I had said, ‘Are there any additional cities in the Solar System?’ your answer might have to be altered.”

“But there aren’t any. We stopped colonising space over 200 years ago. And we stopped any space travel 100 years ago.”

“How do you know that?” Inspector Clark put on a curious face, which somehow looked bored, as if he knew what Riley’s answer would be.

“I’m an avid reader of Library News Reports.”

“Oh, you’re a Library News Report man. Well, your facts are right. But a colony is believed to still exist on one of Saturn’s moons, Titan. Yes, indeed. Apparently, in their leisure time, the Titanian colonists fly around in Titan’s thick atmosphere and light gravity, like a flock of demented angels. I bet you didn’t know that.”

Riley thought about it. There was a colony established on Titan in the prePerfect Age. In those days, Riley knew it was necessary, because the Earth’s population was humongously unPerfect in that it was ridiculously over-populated, and minerals and fuels needed to be refined and transported from Titan. However, he was surprised that Inspector Clark was claiming such a colony still existed today.

“But why don’t they come home to Earth?” Riley asked. “It flies in the face of Perfectness, for Earth is the Perfect place for the Perfect evolution of humans to exist in.”

“To them, they are home. Titan is their home. Titan is Perfect. They are not even humans in the way we are. I doubt their skin is a perfect grey. They probably reproduce in the prePerfect Age fashion.”

Riley felt nauseous thinking of such a thing. He gathered his senses and asked a question as if it would help him remove such strange and unwelcome thoughts.

“You say they fly around. Are you suggesting they have evolved wings in perhaps the opposite way to which we evolved the disappearance of fingernails?”

Inspector Clark laughed heartily. “Riley, you have a particular dry sense of humour which perhaps exists somewhere between the realms of unPerfectness and Perfectness. Their wings are simple strap-on devices made of aero-nanocarbon coated with a protective film that negates the corrosive effects of Titan’s atmosphere. They would need space suits when out of their protective cities. But because they have lived for so many generations under a very light gravity, I’d bet coming back to the Earth would kill them. Their hearts would never be able to take the move.”

Riley wondered why a HEP member would be giving him such information when there was no public record of it.

“Well, a nice try at divergence, Riley, but we must continue. Let me see now … What is the population of each city on the Earth?”

“Five thousand, give or take twenty citizens or so.”

“Good, Riley. You’re cooperative, at least.”

“How could a Perfect citizen be anything else?”

Inspector Clark gave Riley a disgusted look before continuing.

“Which city specialises in sea farming and exists entirely under the waves of our Perfect seas, a city blending with the seabed as if it had naturally meant to, a splendid example of Perfect Engineering Architecture?”

“New Atlantis, off the island of Old Thira in the southern Aegean Sea. Coordinates: 36 degrees 25 minutes North, 25 degrees 26 minutes East.”

Riley was initially happy he could recall this fact so comprehensively from his schooldays teachings. He was amazed that such facts sometimes stuck in one’s head.

“Riley, you surprise me.” Inspector Clark smirked. “I didn’t take you to be such a clever clogs. Such precise detail.”

Riley quickly wiped away any residue of beaming pride from his face. It didn’t do to show off to a HEP member. He had overstepped the mark.

“Luckily for you, Time’s arrow fires onwards, and I must adhere to this particular constrained individualised on-the-spot citizen test. So getting back to the script … Tell me, Riley, what city handles all Global Transportation, including food ingredients that come to this very processing factory from New Atlantis, off the island of Old Thira in the southern Aegean Sea. Coordinates: 36 degrees 25 minutes North, 25 degrees 26 minutes East?” The corner of Inspector Clark’s mouth lifted to form a smug lop-sided smile as he eyed Riley with a hint a disdain.

“The city of New Sidney, located in Australia. It’s where the headquarters—” Riley managed to stop himself overstepping the mark this time.

“Go on, Riley. I’d like a bit more information on this occasion—just don’t give me the global longitude and latitude coordinates.”

“Well, New Sydney is where the HEP headquarters are located. Here all the Perfect Laws are created—‍”

“—Discovered,” interrupted and corrected Inspector Clark.

“Ah yes, ‘discovered’. Sorry, sir. I stand corrected. And in this city, the HEP have all their global Administration offices as well as the more general global offices for such things as Education, City Planning, Business and Health. It’s all controlled from New Sydney. And our planet’s Boys School and Girls School are found in the nearby city of New Canberra, fully staffed by HEP teachers and complementary staff.”

“Do you believe the HEP Security and Intelligence Headquarters are located in New Sydney?”

“They must be, I would think.”

“Well, they’re not.”

Riley was shocked at the words of Inspector Clark. Surely, such information was not for his ears. Then he recalled his dream. The unPerfect city, teeming with HEP staff. And the strange exotic unPerfect building packed with hundreds of HEP staff busying themselves in front of Information Monitors. At an instance, he realised that this building might well be the Security and Intelligence Headquarters that Inspector Clark was alluding to. This realisation both fascinated and alarmed him in equal measure.

“Well, where are these headquarters then?” asked Riley. “And why don’t non-HEP citizens know about them?”

“That is for me to know and you to consider. Now enough of the pre-calibration warm-up questions. Time to activate the Testing Cap and cut to the chase, ‘chase’ being the operative word.”

There it was again. An unusual use and emphasis of the word “chase”.

Inspector Clark tapped his pad display at a number of places on its complicated display, a display that, if Riley could see, would be unfathomable to his non-HEP trained eyes.

“Activating the Testing Cap now …” said Inspector Clark, emphatically prodding his pad.

 

3

INSPECTOR CLARK

RILEY FELT A slight vibration that made his Perfectly formed and complete upper set of twelve identical teeth vibrate with his complete identical, though upside down, lower set. The vibration slowly died away, but Riley somehow knew that the Testing Cap was active.

“Right,” said Inspector Clark, giving his pad a sharp, decisive tap. “Testing Cap properly activated.” He looked up at Riley, his lip-smacking copper-coloured eyes conveying a hungry look. Although all citizens look alike physically, it is the manner of their expressions that easily differentiates them.

“An easy examinable question to begin with,” said Inspector Clark, looking intently at his pad display. “Just to test and calibrate the Testing Cap. What does a citizen mean by the word Perfect?”

Riley knew what Perfect meant, everyone knew what Perfect meant. This was the Perfect Age, after all. But how on earth does he put his answer into words?

“Well, let me see now … Ah, well, something is Perfect if it’s the best way a thing can be. Something that makes life its most comfortable, enjoyable and, er, fulfilling.” Riley was happy with his answer.

“Tut-tut-tut. Deary, deary me,” sighed Inspector Clark. He shook his head derisively. He shouted crossly, “Don’t you even recall your HEP definitions of the Perfect Age from your schooldays?”

Riley tried hard to remember his Perfect Age lessons, but he was never a great one with words, and his memory for such things was at best mediocre. He remained silent, only managing a pitiful shrug of ignorance.

Inspector Clark gave the standard correct answer, pounding his fist on the desktop with every word …

“Perfect: A state of being or doing that is exactly as nature intends for humans to be or do for the optimal chances of their survival (according to and endorsed by the Human Emphasis Police).”

“Ah yes, that’s right,” agreed Riley meekly, recalling his Perfect Age Citizenship lessons. He hadn’t expected to be tested on such lessons as an adult.

“Yes, you bet that’s right,” said an angry Inspector Clark. “Let me see now.” He fiddled about with his pad. “Yes, the Testing Cap is now Perfectly calibrated and more obtuse questions can be asked and your even more obtuse answers can be examined, analysed, assessed, indexed and numbered.”

Riley knew that the questions coming his way would be designed to trick him into giving up information that would expose his guilt of unacceptable unPerfect behaviour.

“So what is meant by unPerfect?” asked Inspector Clark.

“UnPerfect: A state of being or doing that is not as exactly as nature intends for humans to be or do for the optimal chances of their survival but which is not necessarily illegal or ultimately harmful to survival (according to and endorsed by the Human Emphasis Police).” Riley knew he had nailed that answer and he heaved a breath of relief and felt a swell of pride.

“And what constitutes a visit to a Remote Correction Asylum?”

“An unacceptable degree or regularity of unPerfect actions.” Riley wasn’t so sure of this answer, but he was confident it was more or less correct.

“Hmm …” mused Inspector Clark, stroking his chin glaring intently at his pad display. “Interesting.”

Riley wondered if he had made a mistake …

“What constitutes an illegal act?” asked Inspector Clark.

This was a harder question to answer, but at least the test was continuing.

Riley thought for a moment before answering …

“I would say an illegal act is simply any action by a citizen that breaks the Perfect Laws of Citizenship, laws which are designed for the Perfection of Humankind.” Riley knew he had given something of an answer, but surely it was a poor effort.

“Well, at least you tried with that one,” remarked Inspector Clark, giving his pad a derisive tap. “So now that we have reminded ourselves of the difference between Righteousness and the dangers of Immorality, let us move on to the heart of this particular on-the-spot citizen test, a test designed for you to defend your actions, and your actions alone.”

Riley knew that now was the time he had to be at his elusive best, as unPerfect as such a conduct would be.

“What animal coexists with humans in our wonderful Perfect Age?”

The only animal that Riley knows for certain exists in the Perfect Age is the species of insects called Cleaners. They are everywhere in the world. In their life cycle, they begin life as a microscopic worm that can crawl its way through most materials and any sizeable anomaly, even through a hard metal. Eventually, after spending their early life growing into a miniscule maggot-like worm, they pupate into a cocoon from which a tiny two-winged insect emerges from the pupa to fly around eating food scraps, and any scraps of errant materials. They do not seem to excrete any solids or liquids and their gaseous waste products are broken down into, amazingly, the existing constituent gases that already exist in the atmosphere, though the HEP scientists are at a loss to explain how this can be so. It is believed they even consume their dead. Usefully, they seem to recognise when unPerfect materials have found their way into others, and only feed on such unwanted invading materials. Hence their name, Cleaners. And hence the reason they are allowed to co-exist with humans in the Perfect Age as they aid Perfection. They are grey and as tough as metal.

“The Cleaner insect,” answered Riley.

Inspector Clark gave his pad a quick tap, as if the question hardly merited being on the test.

“Can you describe a bird, reptile or mammal that existed in the days before the Perfect Age?” asked Inspector Clark.

Riley knew that there were many types of animals that used to populate the Earth and that some were even human pets or displayed in zoos. But nothing in the City Library showed any images of such creatures, and his schooling never provided any media of such creatures. He had only ever been taught the words. However, he had in a sense quite possibly have seen some examples of such creatures in his unPerfect recurring dream. Though what was precisely a bird, reptile or mammal, he could not be certain. The extraordinary insects in the Robot Park were the only animals he could correctly describe. So in truth, he could give a negative answer. However, he knew now that the HEP suspected him of knowing such a thing, which in itself was hugely disconcerting.

“No, I can’t in all honesty describe a prePerfect Age bird, reptile or mammal that existed in the days before the Perfect Age,” answered Riley eventually.

Inspector Clark’s pad gave off a distinct blip for the first time. Riley assumed the worst.

“Why do you say ‘No’? Is it because you are bereft of the educational ability to describe such things or because you have truly never seen any visual media either stationary or moving of such animals? Let me put a more generalised question to you. Have you ever seen an image, static or in motion, of an animal that is not a human or a Cleaner?”

Riley was under severe pressure now. He felt as if the office walls were closing in on him and the polished stainless steel panels of the ceiling were slowly lowering. He didn’t take kindly to the hard steady stare lasering into him from Inspector Clark. He couldn’t knowingly lie. That would be significantly unPerfect and lead to interrogation in a Remote Correction Asylum from which he would not be protected by the usual Perfect Laws of Citizenship Privacy. But then a solution came to him …

“Truly I say, in my whole life, I have never set these eyes”—Riley pointed at his pleading copper-coloured eyes—“on any such images.” He had undoubtedly seen such images, but only in his recurring dream. And he had convinced himself before answering that the eyes of the dreamer within the dream are not the eyes of the dreamer out of the dream. A fair enough conclusion, perhaps. And as there were no blips or bleeps from Inspector Clark’s pad, he felt his conviction was justified, whether it was true or not didn’t matter.

Inspector Clark scowled, as if acknowledging that Riley had escaped from a difficult trap. But his face quickly transformed into a sickly Draculian smile, as if he was ready to go for Riley’s jugular. And he was.

“Riley, have you ever engaged in a taboo activity?”

Riley’s heartbeat accelerated. He decided he had to answer quickly. He couldn’t lie, so he opted for evasion.

“I have never committed an illegal act.”

A long bleep sounded from the pad.

“That’s not an answer to the question,” said Inspector Clark fiercely. “I repeat: Have you ever engaged in a taboo activity?”

Oh, to hell with this, thought Riley.

“Yes,” he said, knowing it was unPerfect, way unPerfect, but not illegal to engage in a taboo activity provided it did not excessively interfere with Perfect Citizenship. Nevertheless, to admit to such unPerfectness was an embarrassment of no equal. His grey-skinned cheeks darkened rapidly, turning black, like burned iron. He could feel the Testing Cap tingle uncomfortably on his skull.

Inspector Clark pushed home his advantage, the sound of blips and bleeps almost a language unto themselves, blurting abundantly from his pad.

“Any taboo in particular?” he said, a wide grin spreading across his face.

“Y-Yes,” spluttered Riley, hanging onto his freedom by the tips of his hard, smooth fingers.

“‘Yes’, what sort of answer is that?” roared Inspector Clark, leaping up from his elasticised aluminium woven palladium framed upholstered chair. “Aren’t you prepared to say which taboo?”

“No.” Riley knew he was tiptoeing along the thinnest of tightropes strung over the roaring mercury fires of a Perfectly unPerfect Hell.

Inspector Clark calmly sat back down, keeping his eyes keenly on his pad’s display, shaking his head slowly.

There was a brief silence …

Riley found himself holding his breath.

“That is your right,” said Inspector Clark eventually. “You certainly know your Citizen Perfect Rights relating to the Perfect Laws of Citizen Privacy.” Inspector Clark then pointed at Riley, saying, “Riley, let me warn you that what you do is not illegal, but it challenges that very notion. It is at the very least a Perfect case of unPerfectness, if ever I have known one.”

Riley breathed freely again. He knew he had survived the on-the-spot citizen test. However, Inspector Clark had not quite finished with his interrogation.

“Listen, Riley. We know that your taboo subject is your obsession with the metal menaces that almost destroyed our kind.”

Riley mentally flinched. It was obvious they suspected he had an unhealthy obsession with robots, but how could they know he did? And surely they could not know of his recurring dream … surely? The Perfect Laws of Citizen Privacy meant that all the Library News Reports, other documents, and any books he had read in the City Library could not be detected. And even if the things he read somehow could be detected, through other citizens or library staff peeking over his shoulder, his private reading could definitely not be recorded in any way, even the HEP would not break such Citizen Privacy enshrined laws—or would they? Still, they couldn’t do anything that implicated they had done or acted on any such observations. Riley decided he just had to keep his wits about him.

“What we don’t know is why you have such an obsession and how you can live with it without it affecting your work. And there’s been no reports of any serious marriage problems, though almost every marriage I’ve examined, analysed, assessed, indexed and numbered of factory staff has been one of convenience. Aren’t they all, Riley? Aren’t they all?”

“Yes, I suppose they are, Inspector Clark.”

“Just one last warning, Riley. If you think us HEP are severe as interrogators (not that this inconsequential on-the-spot citizen test is anything to go by), then, by the Perfect Laws, you had better hope you never get into a conversation with one of the creatures you are so obsessed with.”

“Isn’t that impossible, as no such metal monsters exist?” Riley was fishing for information; even now, his obsession was controlling him. He was a lost soul.

“Well, let us not beat about the cacti shrubbery. We are all aware of the Unmentionable Myth. I would not be surprised if you have fantasised in some unacceptably unPerfect way about being the first human to expose such a myth as fact. As school children, don’t we all go through a phase of participating in clandestine gossip among our pals discussing the Myth of the Last Robot?”

Riley could not believe the Inspector was gleefully mentioning the unmentionable. He struggled to contain his excitement.

“Yes, Riley. Very exciting it was too. Especially the thought of all the gold! The robots collected all the Earth’s gold. They were obsessed with the stuff. They suffered a gold fever far in excess of any that a human could experience. Perhaps it is the gold that entices you.”

Riley wondered now if they knew about his dream. The only person he had ever mentioned descriptive parts of it to was to his wife Maureen. But no matter what the state of their marriage was, she would never have mentioned it to another citizen. Not that he had actually mentioned anything but the buildings, monuments and parklands in his recurring dream world.

“Yes,” continued Inspector Clark. “But gold or no gold, if you were ever to meet with such a metal monstrosity, would you be ready for such a meeting, for an incredible interrogation that would make a HEP interrogation no more than a cosy little love-in by comparison? Just remember what would be at stake! For that despicable metal catastrophe would be planning somehow to produce the most devastating blow the human race has ever suffered. Perhaps a truly knockout blow. Do you understand the immense responsibility you would inherit if you have to prevent such a blow? For you, when you consider it, would be personally responsible for that blow, because as you know, the metal madness cannot directly, by its own hand, deliver such a deadly blow?”

Riley thought about the consequences of such a scenario and realised he had never considered the catastrophic stakes before. His obsession was simply to come face to face with the Last Robot of the Unmentionable Myth. Unmentionable orally; but nevertheless, written and individually read as the “Myth of the Last Robot”. Of course, he had thought of the gold. But he didn’t believe that was his main fantasy, it was just a nice bonus he might come in possession of. Riley decided to remain silent.

“Is there anything you’d like to confess, Riley?” asked Inspector Clark.

“Nothing,” insisted Riley.

“Then we are done.”

Inspector Clark gave his pad display one last cursory glance, tapped a few areas of the display, and then with a sigh of resignation, tucked away the device back into his navy-blue boiler suit’s left breast pocket. He commanded Riley to hand back the Testing Cap, which Inspector Clark pushed quietly back into the desk drawer.

“On this occasion,” said Inspector Clark, “you have survived a visit to a Remote Correction Asylum by the skin of your twenty-four identical Perfectly formed teeth. You have your wits and the shelter of the Perfect Laws of Citizen Privacy to thank for that. If we had middle names in this Perfect Age of ours, yours would be ‘Luck’. Now lift yourself Perfectly and quietly out of your chair and go home.”

Riley got up from his chair so silently he may as well have been in a vacuum.

“Have a Perfect day, Mr Riley,” said Inspector Clark casually.

“Thank you, and may the same be true of you,” replied a relieved Riley, automatically.

Riley nodded his head submissively to Inspector Clark. He swivelled around on his heavy black high-strength polymer boots, then headed out of the HEP office marching in his best Perfect way, trying not to show the slightest sign of the relief he was feeling.

Minutes later, he approached the clocking out machine, an optical eye retina scanner. He bowed down and looked closely into the protruding camera with his right eye and pressed a small circular yellow button. There was a dull pulse of light and a nearby display flashed up the green lettered message: “James Riley, male, grey, Monday 21-07-1724, time clocked out: 11:22:15 AM.”

Riley slipped out through the sliding “EXIT” doors of the Synthetic Foods Processing Factory as if he was no more than one of its Perfect goods.

He didn’t know he had clocked out for the very last time.

 

4

THE RED DOT SCHOOLGIRL

RILEY EMERGED FROM the brightly lighted factory into the rare sunlit Newer York midday.

As he took his first few Perfect marching steps along the silica-diamond grey shiny streetway, he was pleased to see a few lonely white clouds scudding across the clear sky like prePerfect Age cotton scudding past a huge sheet of polished steel. He was even more pleased the thick grey smog that at its worst could reduce visibility to less than ten feet was for the first time in many days nowhere to be seen. And finally, better still, the stinging acidic rain had not fallen for over a week.

Riley was soon marching merrily along the streetway Perfectly with clockwork precision. He looked at the buildings on either side lining the streetway. They were all identical Factory Cubes constructed of dark-grey Perfect concrete. They had no windows, of course. Only one building in the city had windows, the City Café. The City Library didn’t have windows, but at least it did have long rectangular windowpanes in its huge front door. All other city buildings, including the homes of the citizens, showed no signs of glass. The HEP stated that the reason for such a lack of windows was to aid the application of the Perfect Laws of Citizenship Privacy that were there to protect and defend the rights of citizens.

Furthermore, in an effort to improve Perfectness, 97 of the 100 well-known Perfect cities of the Earth had exactly the same buildings and street layout. The three well-known cities that were different were New Atlantis, the HEP city of New Sydney, and the School City in New Canberra. But the city in Riley’s dream was altogether a different affair. It portrayed a city that was incredibly different from any Perfect Age city. A completely alien-looking city. Its buildings were each and every one unique and each and every one festooned with glass windows. A city like the sky above that if made public would have to be deemed a case of Perfect unPerfectness. If such a city were real, as Inspector Clark had claimed, that would mean there were actually 101 cities on the Earth. Such an unPerfect number.

The sun glinted on top of Riley’s bald head. However, the strands of his metallic aluminium-based woven grey boiler suit did not reflect the bright sunlight, thus allowing him to merge into the bright greyness that was today’s Newer York.

The streetway was Perfectly level and if it was not for the side drains, it would flood in minutes during a typical acid rain storm.

There was not a lot of flora to be seen, but what little there was, consisted of the short spiky white grass, the odd straggly tree here and there with their withered grey leaves, and the cacti plants in their drab brown, white, black and grey colours. There certainly was no such thing as any flora having the colour green attached to it, just like every other place on the Earth—except, of course, if Riley’s dream represented a reality. The city in his dream, surrounded by its Robot Park, was a healthy, vibrant mass of green. The City of London. The global capital city of the robots in the prePerfect Age.

Riley turned around a right-angled corner of the streetway and found himself marching past a rectangular forecourt consisting of huge rectangular dusty-looking light-grey flagstones that fronted the Meeting Building. The Meeting Building was significantly larger than any other building in the city, a huge cylindrical building with polished stainless steel walls rising up to the iron sky, dazzling beneath the blazing sun.

The Meeting Building could accommodate the entire population of the city, as could identical Meeting Buildings in the other 99 of Earth’s Perfect cities. And although it was open to daily public citizen visits, once a year a loud blaring siren would whoop continually in a two and a half minute stream of short steady tones called the Perfect Grey Warning, and the city’s citizens would ceremoniously fill it. It was a ritual that celebrated the Victory of the Robot War. This calling siren would be sounded at a random time, day or night, on any day of the year. This was the one time when a loud noise was accepted as Perfectly unPerfectly acceptable. From the moment the siren sounded, the city’s citizens, HEP and non-HEP, had no more than fifteen minutes to get themselves into the Meeting Building and find their assigned standing positions. The HEP will reward failure of any citizen to meet the deadline with a visit to a Remote Correction Asylum.

But the Meeting Building also acted as a humongous cylindrical plinth upon which the giant figures of a HEP male and female sculptured from industrial navy-blue diamond, stood triumphantly on a mound of twisted stainless steel broken chunky mechanical robots (with exposed ball and socket joints). The two symbolic figures of humanity had their right fists raised victoriously high to the sky. The Victory of the Metal Monstrosity Monument atop the building was a perpetual reminder of humanity’s victory over the robots in the Robot War. Riley knew that the mechanical robots depicted in the sculpture were rare soldier class robots. The vast majority of intelligent robots were so human-like that apparently it was only from their behaviour that you could guess whether they were robots or not.

Riley was fascinated by seeing the actual physical representation of robots, even if it was as a twisted and broken pile. This was the only place such a physical representation could be seen. In every other case, it was unlawful to show any representation of the robots. Riley looked up at the monument … but eventually the sharp blinding reflections of the blazing sun from the polished stainless steel and diamond surfaces forced him to lower his streaming copper eyes and look down at his well-polished continuously marching black high-strength polymer boots.

Just then, a HEP aircar whizzed overhead with its distinct hum. He did his best to ignore it. However, when it turned about and swept back towards him, hovering only 250 feet above his head, he began to worry that he was being watched.

Perhaps it’s time to admit to myself that I am not paranoid and that the HEP really is out to get me. Better keep the pretence of my Perfect marching going … I suppose there’s always the sliver of a chance of hope—even for the deluded.

Riley’s copper-coloured eyes looked about furtively for signs of loitering HEP officers …

He couldn’t see any.

But then he saw an unusual sight that caused him to grind his Perfect march to a halt. He realised why the aircar might be hovering in his vicinity. And thankfully, it probably had nothing to do with him. His sliver of a chance of hope had miraculously materialised. Because marching out of the Meeting Building in Perfect time was a female HEP teacher leading a two-by-two stream of ten-year-old schoolgirls.

Riley’s eyes widened in shock. He had never in his whole life seen a girl before, unless you counted the strange unPerfect girl depicted in the unusual painting he saw at the conclusion of his recurring dream. That girl in the painting didn’t look anything like a human should look and was probably a surreal interpretation of a girl. He doubted that the girl was an example of a prePerfect Age human girl. However, as he thought the strange creatures in the same painting and other paintings he saw were representations of prePerfect Age animals, he did not dismiss the possibility that the unPerfect girl might somehow be a representation of a prePerfect Age girl.

Riley stared with flabbergasted curiosity at the group of twenty-four marching girls. They were grey-skinned and looked neat and tidy in their bright-pink boiler suits. They were like half-sized versions of his wife, twenty-four bald-headed miniature humans marching beneath the midday sun. For some obscure reason, he found their appearance quite amusing and had to stifle a high-pitched laugh.

Quickly, he bundled his way to a nearby bench on the light-grey sandstone flagstones of the forecourt that faced the Meeting Building, as he didn’t want the teacher and girls marching past him as they might be going to go in the same direction as him. Their Perfect marching was a great deal faster than his. And that was because they were marching in the footsteps of their marching HEP teacher, and members of the HEP always marched faster than non-HEP citizens.

“Ignore that man,” ordered the teacher in her navy-blue-coloured boiler suit with its HEP logo on the left-hand breast pocket. She gave Riley a suspicious glance as she marched past his bench. The pupils obediently followed in her wake, ignoring Riley with their eyes directed straight ahead of them. As they began filing past him, he noticed they were, as one would expect, all exactly the same height, and it was impossible for him to tell them apart, as they had the same determined expression on their faces.

But then a very unusually unPerfect act occurred.

One of the girls from the last of the twelve pairings broke rank from the march and dumped herself on the bench next to him!

This sort of behaviour was totally unexpected, and Riley would not have thought it possible. Certainly no boy would even imagine doing such an unPerfect act. To Riley, it seemed positively illegal. He could feel her staring at him with a cheeky look, but he refused to return the stare. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something on her forehead that changed his mind, and it shocked him to the core. The girl was a Red Dot!

He found himself staring at her forehead.

He marvelled at the unPerfect perfectly shaped red dot smack bang in the middle of her forehead, where the red dots always manifested themselves. He forgot that children who had red dots could behave in the most outrageous, violent and uncooperative of ways. In his school, there were rumours that boys with red dots had caused acts of rudeness and even bullied other boys by calling them names. They were always removed from the regular school when they exhibited such poor behaviour. However, strangely enough, they always graduated from school and were assigned to work for the HEP.

It was taboo to mention the Red Dot in any social way, as it was deemed another case in the Perfectly unPerfect category. It also proved to humanity that they had the humility to accept the Perfectly unPerfect.

“Mister man?” said the Red Dot girl, prodding Riley firmly in his rib cage. Riley could not believe the girl had spoken directly to him, but for her to actually touch him …! What a liberty!

Riley completely ignored her, but he was curious as to what she wanted.

“Hey,” she said angrily, “I’m talking to you!” She jabbed him again with her finger on his shoulder this time.

Riley didn’t say anything and kept quiet.

“Look, I know you’re listening. Look at me, you imbecile!”

Riley shook visibly at such rude language but found himself turning his head to look at the girl. If he didn’t, he feared there was no way of telling what she might say next to get his attention, and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to come to terms with it. This girl was worse than Inspector Clark. What she lacked in subtlety, she made up for in cheekiness and straightforwardness.

When he saw the expressive look on her face, he was taken aback because it reminded him of the cheeky expression on the face of the strange-looking unPerfect girl’s image he had seen many times in the painting, the gold-framed painting that haunted his recurring dream. Was this Red Dot girl some sort of genetic throwback? How could she have been allowed to mature as a foetus? He had never seen a female adult Red Dot, nor heard of any female of the Perfect Age ever having been a Red Dot. It was rare in men. But he knew one. Moreover, the one he knew was probably his best friend. A guy called Alex Harper who worked as a librarian in the City Library. He was ex-HEP but hated the HEP with more vehemence than any non-HEP citizen he knew or had ever known.

“I know what you’re thinking, mister man,” said the girl.

Riley said nothing.

“You’re thinking that all the buildings in the Perfect Age cities are boring. Boring boring boring.”

Riley raised his silver thin-haired eyebrows.

“Yeah, I knew it. I could see it in your tormented copper-coloured eyes. You’re just like me, mister man.”

Riley couldn’t believe the girl’s preposterous claim.

But then the girl proved him wrong.

“You’ve seen a city with buildings so splendiferous that they make our boring old Perfectly shaped identical buildings look like a punishment of architecture. Good words I used there, weren’t they, ‘splendiferous’ and ‘architecture’? I’m top of my class in English, mister man. ‘Punishment of architecture’ wasn’t too bad a phrase either.”

Riley was absolutely dumbfounded at what the girl had accused him of and didn’t even register her boasts of her clever implementation of the English language. She had already outdone Inspector Clark. Riley had to say something.

“What city?”

“The one in our dream, mister man,” said the girl simply and devastatingly. “There’s no point denying it. You’re just like me. The victim of a recurring dream. A dream that shows the dreamer how to find the whereabouts of the Last Robot in her City of London hiding place! Got your attention now, haven’t I? You know I’m telling you the truth, because you can sense that I’m a dreamer too.”