Year's Best Scifi 7 Part 10

"Charlie's Angels," said Prang. "I get it. Survival of the fittest. Berserker robots with a mission: Evolveor else!"

The BMW's cell phone rang.

"If it's Ward don't let him keep you on the phone," I reminded Prang. "And if it's our friend..."

"Prang here. h.e.l.lo?"

"You got it," said a deep, smoky, dreamlike voice. "Now kill me, please."

"Got what?" Prang asked, as she scattered kids and crossing guards.

"Kill you?" I asked, eyes squeezed shut.

"So I can rest," said the Enorme over the speakerphone. "There were twelve of us. I am the last."

"Twelve what? Angels... I mean, robots?"

"One in each corner of your tear drop globe. We stalked and killed your kind, or what was then your kind. We slaughtered the weaklings and pushed the rest into the caves and cold hills. Out of the pretty plains. Away from the meat runs."

"The dragon myth," said Boudin. "Racial memory."

"There's no such thing as racial memory," said Prang.

"Nonsense," I told her. "What is culture but racial memory?"

"Then I slept for a thousand years. Dreaming. But I could not speak. Xomilcho could not hear. He would not kill me."

"Xomilcho?" Prang lit a fresh Camel. "Sounds like a chain store."

"Sounds Olmec to me," said Boudin. "Was Xomilcho the one who put you in the tomb?"

"Saved me from the moon. Let me dream and dream. But he would not kill me."

"We want to let you dream too," I said. "Where are you?"

"City of the Dead..."

"Which one?" Prang asked.

"C-c-city..." the Enorme began stuttering like a bad CD. "Can't t-t-tell w-which..."

Click.

"What happened?" asked Prang.

"We overloaded him," said Boudin. "If this berserker hunch is right, the Enorme is programmed to evade. He can't tell us where he is any more than we could decide not to breathe."

"Then we have to check them all!" said Prang, stepping on the gas. I didn't want to watch, so I ducked my head and watched the blinking light on the display. Our speed was alarming, even there.

Then I saw another blinking light, in the upper left hand corner of the screen. It was stationary.

"Head north," I said. "Crescent St., near the corner of Citadelle."

"There are no cemeteries there," Prang protested. "Is this another hunch?"

"Yes!"

That was enough for her. I put my hands over my ears to block out the screaming of tires as she made a U-turn.

"d.a.m.n!" said Prang, as she power slid off Citadelle onto Crescent.

I opened my eyes just enough to see a run-down business district, with a Dunkin' Donuts, a Starbucks, a Woolworth's and an abandoned movie theater.

No cemeteries.

"A wild goose chase!" said Prang.

"Wait!" said Boudin. "Look what's playing."

I opened my eyes a little wider.

The marquee of the Bijou was missing a few letters, but the t.i.tle of the last feature was still readable: CIY OF HE DEAD.

We parked in front of Starbucks where the BMW wouldn't be so conspicuous. The Bijou's wide front doors were chained shut, but I figured there would be an exit in the back, and I was right. I figured it would be smashed open-and I was right. It was dark inside. The smells of old popcorn, tears, laughter, c.o.kes and kisses all mingled in a musty bouquet. The seats had all been torn out, sold (I supposed) to coffee shops or antique malls where they would seem quaint. The Enorme lay on the bare sloping concrete floor, his "eyes" staring straight up at the baroque ceiling with its cupids and curliques, angels and occasional gargoyle.

I approached and touched one great three-toed foot, like the first time. And like the first time, he was as cold as any stone. And I was glad he was cold, here, in the gloom, where he was safe from the rays of the rising moon.

"Cool!" whispered Prang. "Villon and his hunches! Give me your phone and I'll call the museum."

"Wait," I said. "Enorme might have something to say. He uses the phone to talk."

"I can dream here," said the familiar voice, booming through the theater. "I am safe here."

"Now he's coming through the speakers!" said Boudin. "Apparently he can access any electronic grid.

Even turn it on. Even supply it with power."

"I am the last one," Enorme said. "They want you to kill me."

"Who?" I asked. "Who made you?"

"The Makers. Made us to make you. Sailed the stars and found the little tear-drop worlds where life could be nudged awake. Yours was not called Earth then. It was not called anything. Your kind was all over the planet, silent but strong."

"Strong?" Prang said. "We were weak."

"That's a myth," said Boudin. "Actually, h.o.m.o was the most impressive killer on the planet, even without language and culture. With fire and hands, sticks and stones, hunting in packs, he could live anywhere and face down even the saber tooth."

"Yes," Enorme's voice boomed. "You were the king of the beasts. We made you something more."

"Made us?" Prang asked.

"To survive, you had to kill us. To kill us you had to develop tools, cooperation, language.

Understanding. Kill us one by one. We were hunted, with sticks, with stones. Smashed with boulders, thrown into fiery pits, buried alive. There was no dreaming in that dance. I am the last."

"How come we never found the others?" Prang asked, lighting the Camel in her mouth off the one in her hand.

"Maybe we did," I said. I was thinking of statues in Greece, India, the Middle East. But Enorme corrected me: "All that is solid melts into air. Killed we are set free. Back to nothingness. It is the end of our pain.

And of our usefulness."

"You don't mind dying, then?" asked Prang.

"No. Killing is what we do. What I do. Dying is what we are. What I am."

"We don't want to kill you," I said. "We want to let you dream."

"Xomilcho let me sleep. He kept me away from the pearl world that awakens me. He let me sleep the centuries. Then, a hundred years ago I began to dream."

"He must mean radio!" said Boudin. "As soon as there was an electronic grid on the planet, it awakened something in him."

"I can only dream when I am not awake. I have been dreaming for a hundred years. You awakened me so that I could barely dream."

"That was our mistake," said Prang. "We will let you sleep. We'll build a special room for you in the museum, and you can dream forever."

"They want you to kill me," said Enorme. "They want to come."

"Cool," said Prang. "They can come too."

I felt a chill. "Don't be so sure. We don't know what they are. Or what they want."

"When we are killed, it is done," Enorme said. "The Makers will come."

"He's a transmitter!" Boudin said. "When he dies, they will know we have survived. He's a trigger, a signal."

"Or an alarm," I said. "If we kill him they know we have evolved. But they will also know we didn't evolve past killing." "What are you saying?" Boudin asked.

"Maybe we're not supposed to kill the last one. Maybe it's a test."

"Is that another hunch?" asked Prang.

"Maybe it's not our decision to make, since it involves the whole world."

"They want you to kill me," Enorme repeated, his voice echoing through the theater. "The Makers will come down from the sky. It will be over."

"Forget about dying!" said Prang. She pointed at her watch, then at Boudin and me. "It's after eleven, guys. We have to get Enorme back to the museum and out of harm's way before the police find him.

Otherwise..."

"Too late," said Boudin, looking up. I could hear the whump-whump-whump of a chopper hovering overhead.

"d.a.m.n!" said Prang. "Just when..."

The helicopter drowned out her voice. Boudin and I looked at each other helplessly. We heard footsteps on the roof, on the fire escape; we heard sirens outside.

CRAs.h.!.+ Suddenly the stage door burst open. "Stand back! Hostages, stand back."

"Ward!" I cried. "We're not hostages! Don't shoot. We just discovered what this thing is. It's..."

"I know what it is, it's a monster!" said Ward, stepping in front of his troops with a bullhorn. "I've got the place surrounded!"

And he did. The front door burst open and armed cops appeared. They all wore flak jackets. Two carried anti-tank guns.

"Don't shoot!" Prang said, stepping coolly into the line of fire. "Ward, I can explain everything!"

"This had better not be a trick!" Ward shouted.

"No trick!" said Prang. "It's a federal matter. h.e.l.l, it's international. And we need your help, Chief Ward!"

It was the "Chief that did it. "Hold your fire, men!" Ward shouted. The SWAT cops lowered their weapons.

"Close call!" I whispered to Boudin, as Prang took Ward's arm and pulled him aside. She spoke fast, in low tones, pointing first at the Enorme, then at the ceiling, then back at the Enorme.

Ward looked puzzled, then skeptical, then amazed. Boudin smiled at me, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Too soon.

Behind Ward and Prang, through the smashed-open rear exit, I could see a vacant lot and bare trees, outlined against the rising moon. The silver light washed across the concrete floor like spilled paint.

"Ward! Prang! Close the door!" I shouted.

Too late. I heard a groan behind me.

"No!" I heard my own voice shouting, as Enorme stood up. The saucer eyes were s.h.i.+ning; a voice boomed over the theater speakers: "Kill me..."

TAT TAT TAT!.

BLAM BLAM!.

Bullets whined as they ricocheted off the pseudo stone. Enorme spun around and around in a grotesque dance, his wide eyes pleading, his stubby arms reaching out, for the door, for the moon...