Evil Machines (21 page)

‘Excuse me,’ said Orville, who had been followed this exchange closely. ‘But why on earth do you want to borrow a powder compact?’

‘Well,’ Maurice explained, ‘you see, I’ve been thinking. Perhaps the fact that I can’t remember anything – not even what I look like – is all to do with that dreadful man having – what did he say? – “made a start on
adapting
me” – whatever that means? Perhaps he erased my memory.’

‘But why would he do that?’ wondered Jack.

‘Who knows? But I was thinking: if I could get my memory back, a lot of things might become clearer,’ said Maurice.

‘How can you get your memory back if it’s been erased?’ asked Orville.

‘Hmm, let’s see . . .’ said Maurice, scratching his head. ‘First thing is: that dreadful man can’t have erased everything in my mind, because I can still talk. I must have some memory left.’

‘You’re right!’ said Jack.

‘Maybe he hasn’t actually erased anything at all . . .

because after all that must be quite difficult to do . . . maybe all the memories are still there – but he’s just stopped me being able to access them,’ said the little Inventor as though he were arguing it through to himself.

‘A bit like a computer?’ said Jack.

‘Sort of,’ replied Maurice.

‘But that still doesn’t explain
why you want a powder compact
?’

‘Simple. Powder compacts have mirrors and I thought that if I could see myself in a mirror, it might jog my memory.’ And with that, Maurice dropped on to his side and then rolled over the filthy floor of the cell to the compact. Then he knelt so he could look down at his reflection in the mirror.

‘Yes . . . I see . . .’ he said, as though reading some lost volume of secret lore. The others watched him as if his looking in the mirror were their only hope – which (for all they knew) may well have been the case.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Maurice. ‘I do look very like that dreadful man. In fact, you’re right, I’m the spitting image of him . . .
him
. . . Ah! Wait a minute! I’m beginning to remember something else – something important – something that changes the whole situation.’

‘What?’ said Annie, who was not keen on suspense.

‘Yes, what?’ asked Jack, who was getting slightly irritated.

But the Inventor didn’t reply, he just smiled to himself. It was as if he were in his own world and oblivious to everyone around him.

‘What is it you’ve realized?’ asked Orville, who was still feeling responsible for getting his son and daughter into this mess.

‘I’m sorry?’ said the Inventor. ‘What were you asking about?’

‘Whatever it was you’ve just realized!’ exclaimed Jack.

‘What? About the square root of one?’

‘What?’ said Annie, Jack and Orville, almost in unison.

‘Or do you mean just before that thought . . . I suddenly had a great insight about the Meaning of the Universe!’

‘But is it going to get us out of this place?’ Jack would have shaken the Inventor if he’d had his hands free.

‘Oh no! Not at all!’ smiled Maurice. ‘That was about forty thoughts ago . . .’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Annie.

‘It’s just I’m suddenly getting thoughts so fast and furious that I can hardly keep up with them! Oh! I’ve just had another about the reproduction cycle of certain fungi . . . Oh! And another about the refractive indices of non-reflective particles! That was a very interesting thought!’

‘Stop it!’ shouted Jack.

‘I can’t help it!’ said the little Inventor. ‘It must be part of getting my memory back! Ideas just keep popping into my head – like that one! It’s about the evolution of dense star clusters . . .’

‘Stop it!’ yelled Jack at the top of his voice. ‘Just try and concentrate!’

‘I am trying . . . I
am
trying to concentrate on each thought but they’re coming too frequently!’

‘No! No!’ exclaimed Jack. ‘Just try and concentrate on the thoughts that are important to us now . . .’

‘You mean like genetic adaptation to global warming in female mosquitoes?’

‘No! No! You idiot!’

‘
That
I’m afraid I am not. I’m too intelligent by far!’

‘Which is why you’re an idiot!’ screamed Jack.

‘I’ll need to think about that,’ said the Inventor.

‘NO!’ yelled Jack. ‘What
you
need to think about is how we can get out of this cell!’

‘Oh! I did that hundreds of thoughts ago!’

‘Well, why didn’t you say?’

‘Spit it out!’

The others were so focused on the little Inventor that it made him blush.

‘Well . . . It’s about the other me,’ said Maurice.

‘Yes?’

‘Well, he isn’t a “him”!’

‘He’s a “
she”
?’ exclaimed Orville in disbelief.

‘No indeed!’ said the Inventor. ‘What was I saying? “I need to totally rebuild myself”? Ha! ha! That’s exactly what I already did! I’m even cleverer than I thought – and I thought I was pretty clever!’

‘Just get on with how we get out of here!’ exclaimed Jack.

‘Why isn’t he a “he”?’ asked Orville.

‘Or a “she”?’ asked Annie.

‘Because he’s an “it”,’ replied the Inventor. ‘And I ought to know because I made it. It’s a robot version of myself! It’s all coming back to me . . . I built a robot me to help me with my work. I thought I could double the amount I did in a day. But the robot me has a different agenda from my own . . . even though we are so similar . . . Indeed, perhaps precisely
because
we are so similar. You see, I’m dedicated to

improving the lot of my species . . . And so is the robot I created, but whereas my species is humankind, the robot is dedicated to improving the lot of robots and other machines! I did too good a job in making the robot an exact copy! I was too clever by half!

‘Of course, once I realized the robot was working against my own good intentions, I had it decommissioned. But I had made it really, really clever. That was where I was too arrogant: just because I could, I made it cleverer than it needed to be! And being so clever, it had already figured that once I found out what it was up to I might try to decommission it. So what did it do?’

Everyone shook their heads.

‘It secretly programmed some other machines to reinstate it, should I decommission it. And so that’s exactly what they did – while I was asleep!

‘The next thing I knew, I woke up a prisoner in my own castle and a large part of my memory had been erased so that I didn’t even know I was me! D’you see what I mean? But hang on! I’m beginning to remember more!’

‘Maurice!’ said Annie. ‘Right now the only thing that concerns us is getting out of here and stopping that evil man . . . er . . . robot . . . doing whatever he’s going to do at midnight!’

‘One thing at a time, good lady!’ said the Inventor. ‘The more I can remember the more likely I am to be able to help.’

Meanwhile Annie had been trying to file through the metallic threads on Jack’s wrists, but suddenly she stopped.

‘My Little Orville!’ she cried.

‘There! There! Don’t worry about him!’ said her father. ‘He’ll be all right!’

‘No!’ exclaimed Annie. ‘I mean, there he is!’

And there he was! Little Orville was happily sliding down the stone steps to the dungeon on his tummy.

‘Orville!’ cried Annie again. ‘Come to Mummy!’

‘Gloohergurglehumps’ said Little Orville.

‘I’m sure he’s bright enough to help us,’ said Jack. ‘If only we could explain the situation to him.’

‘Which reminds me,’ said Maurice, ‘of my driveller!’

‘Your what?’ asked Orville.

‘It’s in my jacket pocket,’ said the Inventor. ‘I always carry it around because it also acts as a perfectly good comb.’

Jack had to bite his tongue to stop himself asking what Maurice, who was bald, would use a comb for. Instead he simply said, ‘But what does it do?’

‘I’ll show you, if you can get it out of my breast pocket,’ said Maurice. So Jack went round to the Inventor who bent down so that, by standing with his back to him, Jack could fish around in his breast pocket.

‘Is it like a small ball?’ asked Jack.

‘No. That’s my rumbler,’ replied the Inventor. Jack refrained from asking him what a rumbler did, he was concentrating on trying to find the driveller.

‘Is it like a pen?’

‘No,’ replied Maurice. ‘That’s my pen.’

‘Of course,’ said Jack.

‘I use that to get stones out of horses’ hooves,’ explained the Inventor.

‘Is it sort of round and soft?’

‘No! That’s my hamster,’ said the Inventor.

‘Ow!’ yelled Jack.

‘He bites,’ explained the Inventor.

‘I’ll say!’ said Jack. ‘Is it like a thin disc?’

‘That’s it!’ exclaimed the Inventor. ‘That’s the driveller! Can you get it out?’

‘I think so . . .’ said Jack and he caught the driveller between his two fingers and eased it out of the Inventor’s pocket, only to have it slip from his grasp as he got it free. It fell to the floor, and everyone stared down at the small, flat disc made of some translucent material a bit like tortoiseshell.

‘How can you comb your hair with that?’ asked Jack.

‘It doesn’t matter now!’ exclaimed Maurice. ‘If you can just manage to pick it up and place it under my tongue I’ll show you what it does.’

Little Orville, meanwhile, was crawling across the dungeon floor towards the heavy metal grille, behind which his mother was now kneeling. Her hands were firmly bound to her sides, so in order to reach her son, she thrust her lips between the bars, and Little Orville reached out his hand and put a finger to them. So Annie kissed Little Orville’s finger.

That was when Jack finally managed to slip the driveller under the Inventor’s tongue.

‘I’m afraid it’s rather mucky,’ said Jack. ‘The dungeon floor isn’t exactly clean!’

‘Gurglecoocrups!’ said the Inventor.

‘What?’ said Jack.

‘Gurglecoocrups!’ repeated the Inventor.

The others looked from one to the other, nonplussed, but at that same moment Little Orville suddenly sat bolt upright as if an electric current had passed through his body. He glanced over at the Inventor, and said, ‘Urghy ooomphler ugguk?’

‘Humphly werkbuts,’ replied the Inventor.

‘Gur um,’ said Little Orville, looking terribly pleased with himself.

Whereupon, the Inventor turned to Annie and said very seriously, ‘Urckley urckle snoodpugs.’

‘What?’ asked Annie.

The Inventor frowned, and then spat out the driveller.

‘Sorry!’ he said. ‘Annie, my dear, turn around. Little Orville’s going to see if he can untie your wrists for you.’

‘That’s amazing!’ exclaimed Jack looking at the driveller where it lay on the filthy dungeon floor. ‘Does that thing help you speak baby talk?’

‘Absolutely. In fact if anyone is talking drivel
of any kind
, the driveller can help you communicate with them in their own language. It even works for academics and technical people!’

‘Amazing!’ murmured Orville. ‘I could market those things and make us all a small fortune!’

But the Inventor wasn’t listening. He was too busy watching Little Orville’s efforts to free his mother. At first the little chap found it hard to understand what a knot was, but when the Inventor explained that it was a ‘burgle wunk gonks’ he nodded and, being an intelligent toddler, soon had his nimble fingers picking loose the threads that bound his mother.

In a few more minutes she was able to wriggle her hands free, and then it wasn’t long before she was able to free the others. But before she did that, she reached through the bars of the grille and hugged her little boy to her, kissing him all over.

‘Who’s a clever boy?’ she smiled and Little Orville hit her on the nose, and she laughed and then she set the others free.

‘Wait! Little Orville!’ shouted Jack at Little Orville, who was running back towards the stairs. ‘Can I try this?’ he asked the Inventor, taking the driveller from him.

‘By all means,’ said the Inventor. ‘It’s perfectly simple. You just put it under your tongue and little electrical impulses make your tongue form the right sounds. It tickles a bit, but you get used to it.’

Jack wiped the driveller down, and then placed it under his tongue, just as Little Orville started to climb the stairs.

‘Umphy urkle YIPES!’ he exclaimed and spat it out. ‘It’s like putting a load of live ants under your tongue!’

‘Let me do it, I’m used to it,’ said the Inventor. ‘Were you going to ask Little Orville to look for the dungeon keys?’

‘Exactly!’ said Jack, feeling the underside of his tongue, as if he’d burnt it.

‘Don’t run away, Orville!’ called Annie. ‘Come back to Mummy!’

But Little Orville was gurgling happily and clambering back up the stairs.

‘Wait! Little Orville!’ cried Jack. ‘Come back!’

Meanwhile the Inventor had wiped off the driveller and placed it under his own tongue again. ‘Gurgy Inker Kully

Mumps!’ he shouted as Little Orville disappeared up the stairs.

‘Erfly floodle plonks!’ came the reply.

‘Oh!’ said the Inventor, taking the driveller out of his mouth. ‘It’s all right – he’s just having another slide.’

And with that Little Orville came sliding down the stairs on his stomach again.

‘Werfloo floozieparks pungrubby,’ said the Inventor.

‘Gur um!’ said Little Orville enthusiastically, and started playing a game of ‘Hunt the Keys’ for all he was worth. All over the dungeon floor he went, peering up on tables, and peeking into boxes and bins, while the grown-ups watched on anxiously.

‘Tell him to look in that dark corner over there!’ said Orville.

‘Uerschy erphker!’ said the Inventor.

‘Gur um,’ replied Little Orville, and he toddled over to the dark corner, but he couldn’t see the keys there.