And then, suddenly, there came a break from the routine.
They were led from the making room, not back to the lecture theatre, but the other way down the metal corridor, passing beneath the single lightbulbs that divided the darkness into sections. The women were worried; they looked at each other nervously, wondering what awaited them. Had they failed in some way? Were they being led away to be disassembled?
They came to some stairs and began to ascend, up and up until they emerged into the night.
Out into the open air for the first time in so long. Around them, the suggestions of tall buildings, rising into the darkness amid the sooty snowflakes that tumbled into the dim light, illuminating the slushy courtyard in which they stood. The red light shining from the building ahead, Susan saw it and felt such an odd feeling, here in the middle of Artemis City. One of homecoming, of happiness almost. The other women felt it too. A forge? They were being led to a forge.
They headed across the square, the slush squeezing into their feet through the dents in the metal that had gone too long without adjustment. Walking through an open door into the light, the warmth, the utter joy of the forge. Susan had such a feeling of peace and happiness at the sight. They all did. The women looked around in wonder at the tools, the anvils, the plates of cheap metal that lay stacked around them. There were cans stacked on shelves and laid on the floor, filled to the brim with oil and grease and even a little red paint. It was poor fare compared to what she had enjoyed the use of in Turing City, but at this moment, for Susan, it seemed even better than a visit to Harman’s body shop.
Nettie was waiting for them in the middle of the room, her chest panelling already removed.
‘Ladies,’ she called out to them. ‘You have worked well this past month. Artemis recognizes the service you have provided. Artemis also recognizes that the work you do will be aided by healthy bodies! And so here is metal and fire and oil! Adjust your electromuscle! Hammer out those dents! Lubricate those joints! Make yourself the clean, sweet, silent machines you know yourselves to be, the better to serve Nyro’s purpose!’
The women didn’t need to be told again. They began to strip away dented panelling, to help each other adjust electromuscle, to strip down mechanisms and drop them into shallow cleansing baths of thin oil. For the first time in a night month they smiled.
All but Susan, left alone at the edge of the group, struggling one-handed to undo the electromuscle in her left arm. She looked at the other women for help, but they pointedly turned away from her.
A soft electronic moan emitted from her voicebox. No one seemed to hear it.
No, someone did.
‘Do you need a hand, Susan?’
Nettie was there beside her. Without being asked, the other woman unhooked the electromuscle from Susan’s arm.
‘It’s all kinked up. You’d be best knitting it anew.’
Susan looked at Nettie, unable to speak. She’s lonely too, she realized. No one wants to speak to Nettie the traitor.
‘Can’t do it one-handed though,’ said Nettie. ‘Tell you what, why don’t I do this for you now, and you can return the favour for me some time?’
Susan nodded wordlessly, so grateful for this small act of kindness in this forgotten place. She looked at the other robot, with her badly made body, and wondered for a moment at what sort of arm she would knit for her, then she pushed that thought aside. Who was she to feel proud of her Turing City body, with its fine paintwork? Give her a few months and she would be just like Nettie. Just another interchangeable Artemisian body.
The other women were now staring at her. Susan didn’t care any more.
‘Th… Thank you,’ she said.
‘That’s okay,’ said Nettie. ‘Although I must admit, I don’t think I could do as good a job as you. There’s good weaving here, Susan. I’ve watched you weave minds too. You’re very deft.’
‘Thank you,’ said Susan, then she remembered herself. ‘Though I think you’re being too modest. That’s a nice body you have.’
‘You’re only being polite,’ said Nettie. ‘If I were that good at twisting metal, that’s what I would be doing. Instead they have me lecturing you all on how to make minds.’ And at that she gave such a wistful look, it made Susan wonder. Would she really rather be in Susan’s position? And a thought arose: had Nettie ever made children for herself? Would this lecturing be Nettie’s only contribution to the twisting of a mind? What a sad, sad thought.
Nettie pulled wire from a nearby reel and began to knit with her fingers. Susan sat back and just relaxed, for the first time in ever so long. The glow of the fire, the chattering of the other women, the sudden feeling of companionship. Her right hand stirred on the soot and grease of the floor. She found herself drawing a shape: a circle, then a smaller circle on the top. Maybe it was the sudden sense of relaxation, maybe it was the realization that she had so little left to lose, but Susan asked the question that had been puzzling her for so long.
‘Nettie,’ she asked, ‘what does this mean?’
It took Nettie a moment, as she clumsily knitted away, to realize what Susan was pointing to. When she saw the shape her fingers froze for a moment. Then she continued to knit as if nothing had happened.
‘Rub that out,’ she said, conversationally. ‘Do you want to get us both killed?’
Susan did as she was told, the worn plastic on her hand scuffing the grease and swarf into dirty flurries.
‘But why? You drew that shape yourself. I saw you!’
Nettie was obviously distressed, was doing her best to hide it.
‘Susan, this is Artemis City! We follow Nyro’s philosophy here! The Book of Robots is heresy! There is no philosophy but Nyro’s!’
Susan gazed at the robot. ‘But you drew the shape. So did Maoco O and…’
‘Don’t mention their names! I don’t want to know!’ She continued to knit, agitatedly, and for a moment Susan wondered what her left arm would feel like when Nettie had finished. How long before she could politely knit herself a new muscle?
That didn’t matter now. She wanted to know about the Book of Robots. ‘But why do people keep telling me about this!’
‘You mean you don’t know?’ said Nettie. ‘But you bear the mark!’
‘What mark?’
‘It’s woven into you. You built it into your body! Can’t you see it?’
‘See what?’
Nettie looked at her, puzzled. ‘Have I made a mistake?’ she murmured. ‘No, it’s there! Don’t you see, the way you have shaped yourself? How you resemble me? It’s subtle, but unmistakeable!’
Susan looked from Nettie to herself. She couldn’t see anything, just two robots.
‘The mark is all around us!’ said Nettie. ‘I can see it written in the world, in the moon! It’s so obvious. You and I bear the mark!’
‘I can’t see it.’
‘But why not? Your mother wove the pattern into your mind, so that you would make yourself as you do-’
‘I can’t see it! I told you! I can’t see anything!’
The other women were all looking in their direction now. Susan pretended to take an interest in the electromuscle that Nettie was knitting. She asked questions on her technique, as if anyone else would want to imitate Nettie’s poor knitting. The other women returned to their work.
‘Listen,’ said Nettie. ‘I don’t understand why you can’t see it, but the mark is on you. The knowledge must be in you somewhere, you just haven’t seen it yet. You need to search through your memories. It will be there somewhere, you need to recognize it.’
‘How will I recognize it?’