The Man of Bronze (25 page)

As I stared, the man’s eyes opened. He smiled. “Ah, mademoiselle. You’re awake.”

Startled—reflexively trying to silence him before he called for help—I lifted my bare foot and stomped his face. It was like slamming my heel onto concrete. Whatever metal the man was made of, he was as solid as a stone statue.

Or perhaps a bronze one.

The light dawned in my mind. I didn’t attack again. If this silver android could withstand choking, smothering, and a full-strength stomp, why waste my energy searching for other ways to subdue him? Maybe if I found my pistols, I’d try again. Until then, there was no point.

Besides, I was beginning to realize this was a setup. My door had been left unlocked so I’d do exactly what I did—come down the stairs and sneak into the first open door at the bottom. The metal man had been waiting, secure in the knowledge I couldn’t hurt him.

“All right,” I said. “You’ve got me here. What do you want?”

The man smiled and rose to his feet with easy grace. “I wish merely to talk, mademoiselle. What else should a gentleman do with a beautiful woman?”

He cocked one eyebrow as if inviting me to suggest something. “Oh, please,” I said in disgust. “Spare me the innuendo. Who are you, what are you, what’s your master plan?”

“Ah.” He leaned comfortably back against a heavy wood table that held his collection of paints, brushes, and other art supplies. “Who am I? I have gone by many names, but with you, mademoiselle, I shall not use false pretense. You may call me Silver.”

With a theatrical gesture, he swept the sleeve of his smock across his face. I think his intention was to take me by surprise: to wipe off his makeup and reveal the silver beneath. He didn’t seem to realize I’d already blotted away his artificial coloring with my pillow. I gazed at him and thought,
You’re not as smart as you think.
That made me smile.

If Silver was disappointed with my response to his dramatic revelation, he hid it well. “What am I?” he went on. “Surely you can guess. You know my bronze counterpart, do you not? You’re employed by his devoted Order. So you must have surmised your bronze leader and I share a similar nature.” He gave me a coy look. “But I am more handsome and charming.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but I’ve never pictured myself being charmed by an android.”

“An android?” He made a face. “Is that what you think I am? An assemblage of wires and transistors? A mere automaton?”

“What would you prefer to be called? A golem? An elemental? A nanotech swarm impersonating the Tin Woodman?”

“Mademoiselle,” Silver said, waggling his finger at me as if speaking to a naughty child. “All these labels you suggest simply show your ignorance. Your language has no word for what I am.”

Actually, I suspected English had a number of perfectly good words for what he was . . . though they were words I was too well-bred to use. “Let’s try this then,” I said. “Are you magical or simply high-tech?”

He sighed. “Again, mademoiselle, your question betrays the abysmal state of your knowledge. I am magical, I am high-tech; I am both, I am neither. I am my glorious self: a mystery you could never fathom.”

“So I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you’re from either. Outer space? Mount Olympus? The future?”

“Suffice it to say,” Silver answered, “Bronze and I hail from the same place. You might call us cousins . . . though with different personalities. Diametrically opposed.”

“You’re evil and he’s good?”

Silver laughed. “I’m a witty, delightful companion. Bronze is a self-righteous stick-in-the-mud.”

“Bronze seems programmed for law enforcement. What are you programmed for?”

Silver laughed again. “Vivacity!”

I looked around the room at the nudes Silver had painted. “Vivacity with women?”

“I have a gift in that direction. I love women; women love me. And unlike Bronze, I am fully equipped to give a woman exquisite pleasure.”

Ah,
I thought. Bronze was a cop, and Silver was a gigolo: a mechanical or mystic pleasure thing designed to keep women happy. Well, why not? As soon as humanity learns to build lifelike robots, someone will get rich selling beautiful female automatons to lonely men. Why not an attentive male robot/golem/joy toy for lonely women?

“Now what other questions did you ask me?” Silver said. “Ah, yes. What’s my master plan? Mademoiselle, I
have
no master plan. I merely enjoy life. I take pleasure in all things.” He laughed. “Were you afraid I had sinister ambitions? Perhaps to rule the world? I could have done that ten thousand years ago . . . but it would have been too much bother. Rulers need armies. And tax collectors. And humorless viziers who keep badgering you to make decisions. How tedious! How
aggravating
! Do I seem like someone who seeks responsibility?”

He threw his arms wide in a look-at-me gesture. I barely noticed; I was too busy thinking,
Ten thousand years ago?
That was when Bronze was broken into pieces—Osiris chopped up by Set, his evil rival. “You were Set,” I said. “The one who split Bronze apart.”

Silver let his arms drop, perhaps annoyed that I wasn’t letting him lead the conversation. “Alas, mademoiselle,” he said, “dealing with Bronze was unpleasantly necessary. He made himself a nuisance: always getting in the way. No sooner would I establish myself as the benevolent deity of some tribe—an easy thing for one who is indestructible . . . all I had to do was kill anybody who wouldn’t submit—but whenever I settled down, Bronze would appear and I’d have to flee. Sometimes I barely escaped. It was terrible! Maddening! So in self-defense, I was forced to treat Bronze, as they say, with extreme prejudice.”

“Because he was chasing you.” I had a
eureka!
moment. “Because you aren’t supposed to be here. You’re a fugitive from . . . wherever. And Bronze is a bobby sent to bring you back.”

“True,” Silver said. “But I am not a criminal, mademoiselle. I’m a tragic victim of boredom. Where I came from, ahh . . . everyone was
serious.
It hadn’t always been so. Once upon a time, my people knew how to enjoy the good life.
Très amusant,
every day. But then . . . I don’t want to think about it. Let us simply say the party ended. So I left.”

I wondered if he was talking about genuine disaster. The collapse of an alien civilization. The Greek gods turning their backs on humanity. A future society mutating itself from human beings into antlike conformity. Or maybe Silver had been laid low by something more trivial: the unstoppable march of progress. Perhaps playthings of Silver’s type became obsolete as new models came on the market. He’d ended up unwanted in some attic or bargain basement.

The actual cause didn’t matter. Silver had fled from his home to Earth. Bronze was sent to retrieve the renegade, but somehow Silver had turned the tables on his pursuer. Bronze had fallen into a trap; Silver had chopped the policeman into component parts and scattered the pieces all over the planet. Then . . .

“After you sliced Bronze up,” I said, “why did you scatter the pieces? Why didn’t you hold on to them and keep them from being reassembled?”

“Oh, please, mademoiselle . . . why on earth would I shackle myself to those lumps of metal? What a dreary existence I’d have, constantly worrying about Bronze and dragging him around with me! Let me assure you, I dumped the chunks of his carcass as fast as I could, then settled down to
enjoy
myself. I sought out beautiful women. I established charming venues where I could pursue the greatest pleasures. Palaces . . . private retreats . . .”

“Orgiastic cults?”

“A few.” He gave me a knowing look. “I’ve enjoyed so many diversions, mademoiselle—all you can imagine and more. I have lived many lives, under many names: Casanova . . . Don Juan . . . the Marquis de Sade . . . a thousand others you wouldn’t recognize. Name a lover from history; it was probably me. I’ve always been able to pass as human. My vast repertoire of skills includes a comprehensive knowledge of cosmetics: powders and ointments I can manufacture in order to disguise my true nature. I’m able to make many other things too—everyday items where I come from but astonishing marvels to your unenlightened civilization. Whenever I need cash to pay for my creature comforts, I toss together some trinket I can sell for millions.”

“Such as,” I said, “a cold silver force field that’s packaged in a small grenade?”

“Exactly so,” he replied. “I’ve provided Mr. Urdmann with a number of Silver Shields in thanks for his services. He’s been a useful business partner. Whenever I raise cash by selling my interesting little curios, Mr. Urdmann handles the transaction. He has a flair for squeezing high prices out of miserly bidders.”

“So Urdmann works for you?”

“Indeed. He and I met some years ago when we were both trying to sell armaments to the same genocidal dictator. You knew Mr. Urdmann practiced the weapons trade, yes? He realized my wares were superior to his, so he attempted to eliminate me before I hurt his business.” Silver shrugged. “Arms dealers take the phrase ‘cutthroat competition’ much too literally. But when Mr. Urdmann tried to cut mine, he discovered I was not as human as I seemed. One thing led to another, and in the end, my would-be killer agreed to become my sales agent.”

“Nice of you to be so forgiving,” I said.

Silver made a dismissive gesture. “Holding grudges is hard work. I can’t be bothered. Besides, Mr. Urdmann saves me a great deal of annoyance. I despise the world of commerce . . . all that haggling and attention to detail. Too dreary. And the people you meet, mademoiselle! Altogether unsavory.”

“Would it help if you didn’t sell weapons?” I asked. “If you sold, oh, medicines or better ways to feed the hungry?”

Silver shook his head. “I have lived among your people for ten thousand years, mademoiselle. War is where the money is. Curing the sick? No. The sick are desperate, but they are seldom rich. Feeding the hungry? No. The hungry are hungry because they are poor. They cannot pay me enough to support my lifestyle. So I must cater to the wealthy . . . and wealthy people only want two things: to keep what they have and to acquire more. Ultimately, that means they must command brute force. People in possession of fortunes, mademoiselle, may spend millions on fine wines or lovely houses . . . but those are extras, not essentials. What matters most is firepower. The rich will pay almost anything for personal security. So why would an entrepreneur sell anything but guns?”

I gazed at him, pondering what he’d just said. How often must Silver have given the same speech . . . in a Parisian salon, a Victorian financiers’ club, a Babylonian market? His argument wasn’t entirely wrong—arms dealing is a lucrative business, and there’s never any shortage of people wanting weapons—but it didn’t take a genius to recognize these were self-serving rationalizations from a creature who valued his own indulgences over human lives. Silver was a thoughtless, soulless machine who’d bought himself beautiful expensive things—like this beautiful expensive house and the beautiful expensive women shown in his paintings—but who’d done so by delivering misery to those beyond his beautiful expensive walls.

The android didn’t care who he hurt. No remorse. One more thing occurred to me. “You’re the one who set the bomb,” I said. “You’re the one who booby-trapped the false Osiris statue.”

“Certainly,” he replied. “A nice ploy, if I say so myself. I only recently learned that my bronze counterpart was close to being reassembled. Over the past few years, the Order of Bronze has discreetly asked art collectors if they owned rare bronze antiquities. One such collector was a lady friend of mine. When she mentioned mysterious monks asking about ancient bronze body parts, I began inquiring into the matter. It took time, but I ferreted out the truth—just a few weeks ago. Imagine how I felt when I learned I’d have to prevent my old adversary from becoming whole, or I’d end up on the run again.”

“So you planted the fake statue on Reuben. The one with the bomb that killed him.”

“Yes, Mr. Baptiste took the bait completely.” He spoke as if Reuben’s life meant nothing. “It was one of my most perfect schemes.”

“It wasn’t perfect, it was ridiculous,” I said. “Risky, overelaborate . . . how could you be certain Reuben would survive the car bomb? How could you be certain he’d escape from sixteen mercenaries?”

Silver waved his hand dismissively. “My man didn’t trigger the exploding car until he saw Mr. Baptiste had moved outside the direct area of the blast. As for the mercenaries in the clinic, Mr. Urdmann assured me you’d be on the scene and would have no trouble shooting them to ribbons with your clever little pistols.”

“I wasn’t wearing my pistols! The doorman confiscated them. I had to face sixteen men completely unarmed.”

“Really?” Silver gave me a look. “I wonder if Mr. Urdmann knew that would be the case. He dislikes you so much.” Silver laughed. “That’s just like Lancaster, isn’t it? Telling me you’d be perfectly fine, while secretly hoping you’d be killed. But you triumphed anyway, didn’t you? And my plan worked out splendidly.”

“It didn’t work out at all. You killed Reuben and didn’t kill Bronze.”

“True. But I came close. Let me tell you something, mademoiselle. Bronze is an extremely clever fellow, but he has a weakness. He’s stodgy in his thinking. Plodding and methodical. He cannot conceive that anyone would be such a fool as to use risky impractical tricks instead of good solid strategies. Flamboyant schemes flummox him—why would anyone do anything so wild and harebrained that there’s only a small chance of success? It makes no sense to him. It’s beyond his programming.”

“Programming?” I latched on to the word. “I thought you and Bronze weren’t robots.”

Silver laughed. “
I’m
not a robot. Bronze, on the other hand . . .” Silver laughed again. “Bronze isn’t a robot either, but, my oh my, he can be robotic. Which is why I did what I did. If I’d tried anything straightforward, he would have seen it coming. As it was, I nearly got him. Not a bad first attempt, if I say so myself. And, of course, I had nothing to lose. My man had already stolen the real statuette, so it didn’t matter if none of the rest worked out.”