The forge itself was small but hot, and Turing City afforded an excellent purity and variety of metal to work in it. Karel and Susan were built of tungsten and steel, of iron and brass and silver. Thriving on such fine-quality materials, Axel showed prodigious talent, already learning how to bend titanium into shape as he built his little body. Standing in the yellow glow of the forge that squatted in the middle of the stone floor, the room around it lit up in golden-orange, Karel felt at peace. Susan was out buying paint and tasting the world, storing up thoughts to weave into their next child. Axel was building himself into a great boy. All was well. Even the bizarre ravings of Banjo Macrodocious, the Spontaneous robot, could not disturb Karel.
‘Daddy?’ Axel paused in the act of fastening an electromuscle that was simply too big to work properly. Karel smiled at the serious look on his son’s face, felt a pang of sympathy at the disappointment he knew he was about to experience.
‘Yes, Axel.’
‘Daddy, why did you make me this way?’
Karel smiled.
‘Is this about us making you build yourself again? Listen, Axel, Mummy and I want what’s best for you. Not everyone can afford titanium and tungsten. Not everyone owns a forge as hot as this. These are advantages you have had from birth, you didn‘t earn them. But there is something that everyone can have, no matter how rich or poor their parents, and that is self-reliance. That’s what we are giving you Axel. That’s why you’re building yourself.’
‘No, Dad, that’s not what I mean.’ Axel gave up forcing the spongy knitted wire of the electromuscle for a moment and fixed his gaze on his father. ‘What I mean is – why am I the way I am? Why did you make me unselfish? Why do I always have to share with other people and take my turn and be part of the team? Why did you and Mum twist my mind that way?’
Karel didn’t speak for a moment. He came close to his son and crouched down so that their heads were nearly level. There was an asymmetry to Axel’s skull that his son hadn’t noticed, or was beyond his current ability to remove. Or maybe he just didn’t see the point yet. It took the onset of puberty for a robot to realize the importance of a well-built body as an advertisement to the opposite sex. Karel touched his son gently on the hand.
‘Axel, what brought this on? Have the other children been talking?’
‘Sometimes. But when we’re playing some of the other robots cheat. Or, when we’re picking at the metal scraps in the gangue, some of the others push in and take more than their fair share. Why did you build me so that I couldn’t do that?’
‘Because this is Turing City. We look after each other here. Together we are stronger.’
‘But other children aren’t made that way.’
‘Some other children aren’t made that way,’ Karel allowed.
‘But that’s not fair! They get to do what they want and I’m left just standing watching.’
‘It may not seem fair at the moment, Axel, but as you get older you’ll find out that those children aren’t lucky at all. They won’t be trusted; they won’t get chosen to join the best teams; nobody will want to spend time with them. Their parents think they are doing them a favour, but really they are not being fair to them at all.’
Karel was struck by how small his son really was: still just a four-year-old, with a perfectly formed little body. No, not perfectly formed, because children never were, that was just the way that their mothers and fathers saw them, but there was something about him, the way that everything was there, and working in miniature. Something formed out of Karel and Susan. Axel was fiddling with the electromuscle once more, serious again.
There was something else, though. Karel knew Axel wasn’t telling him the full truth: no mother would ever have twisted their child to be completely predictable. There would always be that last couple of inches, that last little part of the personality that could lie or cheat, if necessary.
‘What’s up, Axel?’ asked Karel. ‘This isn’t like you. Is there something else bothering you?’
Axel pulled at the muscle halfheartedly.
‘Dad,’ he said. He was coming to the point, but in his own time. ‘I know you’re right about the selfish ones. I’ve seen the way that they get treated. The way that people talk about them, behind their backs. That’s not what I mean, though.’ He paused as if unsure what to say next.
‘What do you mean, Axel?’
‘I mean, well, this is all very well in Turing City State, but what if… I mean, what about…?’
‘Are you talking about Artemis, Axel?’
Axel dropped his eyes to look at the floor.
‘Well, yes. They say that they have invaded Wien. And that we’re next.’
Karel laughed. ‘Artemis could never take Turing City State, Axel. They are strong, it’s true, but they don’t really value what they have. They don’t recognize their robots as being anything more than metal. In Turing City we value life. Our power lies in our recognition of what makes us all special. If we stand together, they will break off us like waves off a rock.’
‘But suppose they do invade!’
‘They can’t!’ insisted Karel. ‘They never will be able to beat us. Because we will always stand together as robots, and they will only be fighting as machines.’
‘But suppose they do beat us! Couldn’t you have built me so that I could pretend? So that I could share and be honest most of the time, but take it back when it really counts?’
‘But when would it really count?’ asked Karel.
Axel rolled his eyes. ‘I hate it when you say things like that. You don’t know what it’s like…’
‘Trust me, I do,’ said Karel quietly.
‘No you don’t! I know about you. The other children say the rules don’t apply to you. They say that your mother bent your mind in strange ways. That you don’t tell the truth. That you only pretend to be part of Turing State.’
Karel was shocked by this sudden outburst. So was Axel, who looked embarrassed and not a little ashamed of the ferocity with which his feelings had bubbled out. Silence fell, warmed only by the orange glow of the forge.
‘People say a lot of things,’ said Karel at last.
‘But is it true, Daddy?’ asked Axel plaintively.
‘Of course not. Why would I pretend to believe in Turing State?’
‘The other children say that Granma was raped by an Artemisian soldier. That he made Granma twist your mind to be like his.’
‘Those are just stories, Axel. People make things up.’
‘I know that, Dad. So I asked Mum. I asked her about what happened to Granma.’
‘And what did Mum say?’ asked Karel softly.
‘She wouldn’t tell me…’ Axel sighed. ‘Which way was it, Dad? Some say that Granma would never make you a Turing City robot when Artemis was so powerful. But surely she couldn’t make you an Artemisian when one had just killed Granddad? Dad, I don’t know what to think.‘
Slowly, Karel crouched down by his son again.
‘Axel, who do you think I am?’ he asked.
Axel reached out and took his father’s hand. ‘I think you are a good man, Daddy.’
Karel looked down at his son’s tiny hand held in his own. So tender, so delicate, so strong. His face split into a smile.
‘Thank you, Axel,’ he said. They gazed at each other for a moment, and then his son removed his hand and went back to working on the electromuscle in his legs.
‘Tell me a joke, Dad.’
‘A joke?’ said Karel, bending to scoop up some of the bright silver curls of swarf Axel had dropped on the floor. ‘Let me see.. .’ Absently he rubbed the swarf together in his hands, making a thin metal worm. ‘Well, once there was a robot who didn’t like the way he was made. He noticed that all the other robots could run faster than him. So he bought steel and copper and he rebuilt his legs so that he could run fast too. But he still wasn’t happy, because there were other robots stronger than him. So he went and bought iron and tungsten and he rebuilt his arms. But he still wasn’t happy, because he saw that there were other robots that were better-looking than him. So he bought lead and oil and he repainted his body. But he still wasn’t happy. In fact, he was more miserable than ever. And he wondered to himself, I have better arms, I have better legs, I have a better body than all the other robots. And yet they are all so much happier than I am. It’s just not fair!