Like Clockwork Read online

  Well. Fu –

  Boston crashed into the little clearing first, and pulled up short when he saw It. Evie held her breath, watching. She heard a clicking as the eyes of the thing shifted from the trees under which she had she run, back to face Boston. Creeper, and Bon Mots Misfits burst into the clearing quickly after, Creeper breathing heavily.

  “Hey, man,” Misfit said to the thing. The moon had gone behind the clouds again, and it was too dark for them to see it clearly. “You okay, man?”

  “Gentlemen,” it said in that low, dignified mechanical voice. “Please.”

  “Jesus,” Boston said.

  “This thing is lost.”

  “It’s a …” Boston wove a little on his feet. “It’s a …”

  “S’a fuckin Robot,” Misfit said.

  “It is looking for Stephen,” it said, and took a step towards them.

  “Thought they only had them in Japan,” Creeper said. “Y’know, robot …waitresses and shit.”

  “Robot strippers,” Misfit said, and snickered. “Dude, you were gonna say robot strippers, weren’t you?”

  “Fuck you,” Creeper said.

  “Robostrippers,” Misfit cackled. Boston grinned, but never took his eyes off the thing.

  “Wonder what it does?” he said, moving closer.

  “Strip,” Misfit said, and Creeper shoved him, and he tripped, weaving drunkenly towards the robot, almost falling before the thing reached out an arm, and steadied him on his feet.

  “Gentlemen,” it said again, looking at Boston.

  “Cool,” Misfit said, still supported by the thing’s bronze arm. “Thanks.” He backed up all the same as Boston came closer.

  “Do you happen to know Stephen?”

  “Don’t know any Stephens buddy,” Boston said. “Sorry.”

  “So, like, what are you man? Like a T-1000 and shit?” Misfit asked. There was a whir. A click.

  “More like T-1. Thing looks like a piece of shit,” Boston said. And a fanfare blasted out from it. The three “boys” staggered back from the noise, and Evie covered her ears where she was hiding in the brambles.

  “Behold!” a voice said, a different voice, coming from its mouth. It was a higher, nasally voice, with a thick Eastern European accent. “For the service of Sweet Stephen Shepherd! My latest and grrrreatest crrreation!” The fanfare continued underneath the voice, a sound of calliope music that had the smack of carousels and circuses to it. The fanfare swelled as the thing took a rusty, lurching step, and then leapt into the better light of the center of the clearing.

  “It dances!” the voice cried, and the robot did in fact dance, a jerky little trot around the clearing, circling the three men as its arms jerked out back and forth.

  “It rrrrromances!” the voice cried, and the fanfare turned to a sickly swelling of scratched strings as the thing, rusted and half covered in vines, got down to one knee and reached out, looking up at Boston, who jerked his hand back as the thing reached for it. Under the light of the moon, Evie could see someone had spraypainted “I eat cocks for $$$” along the side of its head. It leaned forward all the same, and kissed its own fingertips, before getting to its feet once more.

  “This wondrous. And Marvelous. Auto-mat-on.” it said, in that scratched recorded voice, “has been lovingly crafted to serve! To amaze! To entertain!” It stretched out its arms at the three. “Come one, come all, and be delighted! And bewildered! Here at Sweet Stephen Shepherd’s Cross-Country Cavalcade of Curi-osities!” The robot bowed its head, and as the carousel calliope music started to fade, Evie could swear (and would forever swear) that it was looking right at her, through the bushes.

  “Well,” Misfit said.

  “That,” Boston pronounced, “was fucking gay.”

  “I’m glad it doesn’t strip,” Creeper said, and Misfit snickered. Boston walked around it. The head swiveled then, following him.

  “Does the gentleman know where this thing can find Shepherd?” it asked.

  “Think it’s broken,” Boston said.

  “S’a fucking beer can in there!” Misfit chuckled, leaning up to peer into the top of its head.

  “Wonder how it works?” Boston said. He reached out and tapped the thing’s stomach. The music, almost faded, gave another lurch and went still.

  “Guys,” Boston said. “Guys. This is like … solid copper.”

  “So?” Creeper said

  “Lots of money in copper,” Misfit said, looking it over, up and down. Boston tapped its eye, probing.

  “If we can take it apart,” he said, standing back, regarding it. The thing did nothing. Even its gears were silent.

  “Dunno,” Misfit said. “Looks pretty solid.”

  “Maybe not,” said Boston, looking sharply around the clearing, as if to see if he would be caught. Evie huddled closer to the ground, praying that she wouldn’t be.

  “Hold it down,” he said, after a moment.

  “Sirs,” the thing said, as Misfit grabbed one arm. “Good sirs, please.” Creeper grabbed the other, and with a grunt they hauled it down.

  “Fucking heavy,” Misfit said. The feet kicked.

  “Got it?” Boston asked.

  “Lemme get a good – fuck – grip – Fuck! Fucking thing keeps moving.”

  The thing tried to turn over, to kick out of their grip, its rusty hands squeaking and clutching and unclutching the mud in front of it. Boston leaned down and grabbed the head.

  Huddled in the woods, shivering and trying not to sneeze, she could see Boston kneeling over it, his hand reaching down, trying to pull the eye from the socket.

  “Gentlemen,” it said, in that flat, low voice, still trying to kick.

  “Fuck!” Boston said. “It’s really in there.”

  “Think it must be clamped from the inside,” Misfit said. Boston went over to the opposite side of the thicket and came back with a long stick.

  “Good luck,” Misfit snickered. He hammered a hand down on the thing’s chest. “Fuck! Stop squirming! Jesus!”

  Boston stuck the stick into the eye socket and pried.

  “Please ... ” the thing said. Boston put all his weight into it. “Gentlemen. Please.”

  The stick snapped and Boston toppled into the mud. “Ahhhhh shit!” he yelled. Misfit and Creeper snickered, and adjusted their grip as the thing tried to kick out from underneath them again.

  Boston got to his feet, grabbing the broken stick and whacking the thing over and over again. “Fucking son of a whore!” He kicked it and the thing gonged. “My fucking jeans! Son of a fucking whore!” He kicked it again.

  “Jesus,” Misfit said, getting up. “Calm down, man.”

  The thing finally made its escape, kicking out from beneath Creeper and turning onto its belly, making for the woods. But it was rusty, and slow, grabbing with its hands into the mud and pulling itself along.

  “My fucking jeans,” said Boston.

  Evie bit her lip, and held her nose to stifle a sneeze. From here, under the bushes, Boston looked as far from a “Gentleman” as one could be.

  “Yeah, run you piece of shit.” Boston chased after the thing, still on its hands and knees. He kicked it in the back, sending it sprawling into the mud once more. Misfits grabbed Boston’s right arm, Creeper his left, and they held him back as he aimed another kick in the air above it.

  “Ease up, man,” Misfit said. Boston struggled for a moment, watching the thing grope through the mud. The calliope music had warbled up again, but it sounded slow, running down. “Ease up,” Misfit said again. The rain had started to fall once more. “You good?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yeah,” Boston nodded. He sniffed, and fixed his hair. “Fuck it,” he said at last.

  Creeper let go. “There’s like a thousand bucks in that thing, easy.”

  “Ahh, fuck it,” Misfit said, letting go as well. “You can’t get it out now.” Boston looked towards the dark side of the clearing where the robot had crawled.

  “Got tools in m
y truck,” Creeper said.

  Boston rounded on him. “Yeah, where’s your truck, asshole?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Boston gave one last look into the dark, and sighed. “C’mon then.” He turned and headed back towards the bus stop.

  “Fuckin’ thousand bucks,” Evie heard Creeper say as they thrashed through the bushes. “Maybe more.”

  “Get it in the morning,” said Misfit say as they walked off. “Might still be here. Like, no one’s gotten it yet, y’know?”

  “Yeah,” she heard Boston say, defeated, as they got further and further away. Still she waited, very sober now, but no less afraid as the rain fell. She waited until she heard the hiss of the bus, their brutish laughter cut off by the bus doors as they closed and took them mercifully away.

  She got to her feet and walked across the clearing towards the sound of that carousel playing, run down and painfully pealing out note by note.

  “Hey,” she said, softly, gently. “Hey.”

  It was under a tree, leaning, huddled against it, staring out into the clearing. She took a tentative step towards it and the carousel stopped.

  “Has this thing done wrong?” it said.

  “You didn’t,” was all Evie could think of saying. She moved closer, her voice as soothing as she could make it. “You didn’t.”

  It looked back at the clearing once more. “Once there was applause,” it said.

  Then, in that blaring nasally European voice, it blared, “Ladies! Gentlemen! Children of all ages!” Silent then, it continued to look out towards the clearing. “They used to admire it. This thing.”

  “I know,” Evie said.

  She couldn’t leave it here overnight. Boston would sober up, she knew, but a thousand bucks (maybe more) was a thousand bucks, clear. She had a feeling that, because of his jeans, because of the way Creeper and Misfit had laughed at him, and of course, because of the money, he would be back tomorrow. “I know,” she said again, and reached down to touch the metal bands that ran along the top of the thing’s head. That was when it flinched. Actually flinched from her touch, and that was all it took to make her bite her lip to keep from crying. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “Hey. It’s okay.”

  “It once performed,” the thing said. “In the circus.”

  “I saw.”

  It swiveled its head to look at her, little copper eyes clicking. “This thing is quite old now,” it said. And she smiled a little, even as a stupid tear fell down her cheek. Fuck it, she thought. The fucking thing flinched.

  “You still did very well.” She put her hands around the things arm, pulling. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here, okay?”

  It got to its feet. “Thank you, yes. It has gotten quite wet. It will rust.”

  “You’re pretty rusty already.”

  “Ah, yes,” it said, looking down at itself. “Pity.”

  “C’mon” Evie said, and was it limping a little? Or was that only the old waterlogged legs? “Let’s get you home.”

  *****

  A press against her chest the next morning, Evie moaned, pushing against Lancelot as he purred and made muffins on the blanket. The rain was still pattering against the window, but it was one of those rains that seems to fall from a clear sky – the sun was bright against her eyelids. She groaned and groped for her glasses, and as she turned she noticed that she was damp. The sheets were damp, and the pillow.

  Well. This dress is officially ruined, she thought, her head beginning to pound. Damn. She got up with a sigh, and stumbled through the piles of clothes on the floor to the “clean” pile, and pulled out one of her old ratty nightshirts, one of her Saturday shirts – a faded neon pink Jem and the Holograms shirt which she hadn’t worried about growing out of since Junior High. One of the benefits of arrested development.

  She smirked as she slid it over her head. The benefits of drinking too much coffee. Sorry, Mom. At least she could call herself “petite.” She dried her hair with a shirt from the “slightly dirty” pile and stumbled through the small hallway towards the kitchen, with a rueful kick of her ballet slippers outside the bedroom door, drying and covered in caked mud. Lancelot followed, running to keep up as best he could while trying to rub against her ankle at the same time to say, “Good morning. I missed you.”

  “Oh, Lancelot, honey,” she said to him as he mrrowed and tripped over her foot. “Mommy needs to warm up a bit before you get some lovin’. Go pester your brother. Go find – ”

  She saw it out of the corner of her eye and her breath caught for a moment, that quick flash of knowing a stranger was in the room with her, before the memory came back of walking home with it, of how she had stopped a number of times, beginning to shiver, until it had picked her up and carried her the rest of the way.

  The sunlight was yawning through the bay window. Parcifal was lounging in it, not knowing or not caring that she was up. The light caught the bands of copper, making them glow softly, and the sounds that came from it blended perfectly with the hum of the fridge, the huffing of the A/C. It emitted a low but ever-present whirring as gyroscopes and cogs and gears and any number of things she couldn’t see turned over and clicked inside it. It was staring straight across the room from where it stood in the corner, and nothing about it seemed to move but what was inside it, whirring.

  “Good Morning,” it said, just as she was wondering if it was turned off, or sleeping.

  “How long have you been there?” she asked, walking past it to the little open kitchen, drying her hair into an auburn frizz, before throwing the shirt back into the living room.

  “Miss told it to stay here,” it said, its eyes following her into the kitchen before returning to look at the opposite corner.

  “All night?” she asked, fumbling for the filters.

  “Miss did not say.”

  “Oh. Right.” She finally found the coffee, and yawned as she put the pot on. “Did you … did you want to move?”

  There was a moment of whirring and clicking in the silence. “Yes,” it said, in that flat tone, finally. “It is rather rusty.” Another whirring silence. “But it is no longer wet.” And yet it didn’t move. It seemed to wait.

  “Well, that’s one of us.” She sighed, watching the coffee as it splurted into the pot. She looked up at it, and the eyes roved to meet hers, then went back to looking at the corner. It straightened up, and shifted on the spot where it stood; the gears creaking in it sounded suspiciously like a sigh.

  “Don’t suppose you want some coffee, huh?”

  It clicked. Its eyes turned to look at her. It even seemed like it blinked. She could swear it had, despite the lack of eyelids; she knew a blink when she saw one.

  Also, it must have been a play of light, but she could swear it had smirked at her – a strangely sad smirk with that immovable open gap of a mouth. It was a passing thought, but still she felt it.

  “Sorry,” she said, and even blushed a little. “Stupid question.” Still it stared at her, and she really could feel that smirk, even as it straightened its back again with a slight creak that cut through her hangover like a saw. “Sit down then,” she snapped. “Jesus.”

  “Here?” it said.

  Smart-ass, she thought, even though she knew that was impossible. Or well, thought it was.

  “No. On the couch. Sit on the couch, if you want. Jesus.” She poured herself a cup and cursed as it splashed up and scalded her hand. She had been awake for only a few minutes, and the thing was already on her nerves somehow. However, it waited. She glared at it. It clicked back at her, and yeah, it was smirking somewhere in there alright. She sighed. “Would you care to have a seat?” she said thinly.

  “Please, yes.”

  Yes, this was definitely sass. Having sassed and been sassed many times before she knew that tone, and whether it was all gears and flat-voiced or not, the thing was sassing her now. It creaked its rusty legs and walked to the couch, sitting with another stretch of metal that grated and sounded like a sigh.
>
  “This thing thanks you,” it said. The gears creaked as it looked around the room, though she was sure he had spent enough time looking at it already. All night standing. Jesus, she thought. “Miss has a very lovely home,” it said. “It was very kind of you to invite it in. Very kind.”

  She knew she hadn’t. Not really. She’d been half asleep in its arms, and barely remembered telling it to stay in the living room while she staggered to bed. She was about to say something, something cutting, to put it back in its place, when it leaned against the sofa and jerked, quickly upright again, as if wincing.

  “Are you … are you alright?” The image of Boston kicking it in the back as scrabbled away rose in her mind. “From … from last night, I mean.” The thing swiveled its head almost all the way around to look at her, and was silent for a moment, except for those whirs and clicks.

  “It is not supposed to feel pain,” it said at last. “It is quite sound.”

  “But still,” she said, looking at it closely. The way it had sprawled into the mud, the way it flinched as she leaned down to touch it. “Still.”

  “Miss need not worry,” it said. “It is not supposed to feel pain. Nothing has been harmed.” The head swiveled back to face the wall again, and he was all secret whirls and clicks once more.

  Evie sipped her coffee.

  “Is Miss alright?” he said, still staring at the wall.

  “Evie. I … my name is Evie.”

  “Ah,” he said. The head turned to look at her once more. “Is Miss Evie alright?”

  “Evie has a headache.” She sipped her coffee and looked at those copper balls staring back at her. “Evie might have caught a cold. But Evie is fine. I’m fine.”

  “Good,” it said, and swiveled again. “That is good.” She stared at the back of its head, the crushed beer can stuck inside it, thinking about how the barbarians had crashed into the clearing and found It, and not her. There was graffiti on its back as well. Some wit had scrawled Bite me in black.