I, Willhelm

Robbie knew of Peter from work. The wealthy trust-fund child of the man who owned a little bit of everything - but mainly the newspaper Robbie worked for. He’d often seen him at work functions, up until a few years ago when he had decided that they were too boring, and the best way to win daddy’s attention was by behaving like a human mosquito. It had an been interesting yet predictable metamorphosis over the years, watching the young man with bleached blond flat hair go from an eaton-educated mirror of his father, to a boy who’s entire personally could be explained in the phrase; smash the system. It didn’t matter what the system was, it needed to be smashed. Naturally this rebelliousness was not shown when money was involved. He had become rather adept at being charming in his fathers presence, and vitriolic once he was out of earshot.

Of course nobody informed Lord Vincent Byron, and he didn’t care to know, seeing it as a phase that would soon pass.

It was meant to be a casual meeting, since mostly everyone worked from home now except for one or two days at the office. Robbie had managed to avoid them for a while now, but a not so gentle nudge from his boss persuaded him to pull out his suit and get a fresh haircut. He felt uncomfortable. It had been a few months since he’d last had to attend one of these things and he noticed that his waistband felt uncomfortably tight. They hadn’t even started eating yet. Not that it could have made much of a difference, all the food was served in bite sizes with cocktail sticks through them. Robbie finished his drink with one quick glug and reached for another.

“Robbie?”

“Yup?” Robbie turned around and stared at Peter’s face.

“Wow…ok. I don’t know what to say. Should I ask?”

“It was a turkey. No, a big hen thing with the weird chin!” Peter waved his hands at his face which was covered in scratches and made a wiggling motion under his chin.

“A cockerel?”

“Yes, that”.

“Well, I’m glad we could clear that up. What did you want?”

“I want to talk to you”.

“Yes. We are doing that. Talking.”

“No. I want to talk to you in private”.

Robbie motioned to the small office room that he shared with four of the other staff and followed Peter in, bracing himself for whatever ridiculous story was bound to come out of Peter’s mouth. It wouldn’t be the first time. Once Peter had cornered him to try and ask his advice on how to start a blog. When Robbie had asked what stories he planned to cover Peter had replied exposing corruption in foreign countries was his passion, and since he would be borrowing - one of - his dad’s yachts over the weekend, he would like to start with Brasil. Even after years of developing a hardened poker face, Robbie’s eye had still twitched at the comment, and when he had asked Peter what the name of the blog was going to be he had replied J is for Justice.

“Right, so, this is going to sound insane”— Peter paced from side to side, his hand on his mobile — “But I found a robot that wants to take over the world.”

Robbie let out a sad sigh and held up his drink to see how much was left. “Robbie, listen, I was kind of hoping it would be a story about how you got into a cock fight, but you know what, I…I just don’t have the energy for this right now.” He moved towards the door but Peter blocked him and held his phone out in front of him.

“Look! Just look!”

Robbie put his glass down on the floor and flicked through the photos, rows of strange half sunken houses, trees and flowers everywhere.

“Well, this is beautiful. Where is it? Portugal?”

“No, Dartmoor. I found it last weekend.”

“What do you meant you found it?” Robbie asked, still scrolling through the pictures.

“I was doing Archangels way and I got lost. I found this farm and it’s full of people”.

“That’s really not unusual Peter. Farms tend to have people on them.”

“Yea, but they have a robot with them.”

“Also, not unusual.”

“No, you don’t understand! The robot runs the place! It didn’t have a boss, it is the boss!”

Robbie flicked to the next picture and saw a robot dressed in grey robes, a hood over it’s head, sitting in a circle. When he scrolled to the next picture he saw a series of blurred photos by a hand in front of the camera the camera.

“They wouldn’t let me take pictures of him” Peter explained.

“Is that where you got the scratches? They threw hens at you?”

“No, that happened in the morning. They let me pitch my tent in one of their gardens. The bloody thing got into my tent and attacked me.”

“I’d imagine that was terrifying.” Robbie replied dryly.

“Look, I talked to that robot. It’s alive. It’s not connected to Aphelion. I checked ok, I saw the serial number and checked with dad.”

“You told Lord Byron about this?”

“No, I just told him a friend had lost a robot. He asked Eli.”

“Your dad can just ask Eli Munt that?”

Now it was Peter’s turn to look at him like he was insane. “Yes. He was one of the first investors in Venus robotics.”

“Noted” Robbie muttered under his breath.

“My dad said Eli said the robot had been destroyed. But it hadn’t. I talked to it. It wants to take over the world!”

Robbie swiped back on Peter’s phone and looked at the one photo of the robot, it’s eyes looking directly at the camera.

“What did the robot say?”

“It was talking about trees, and how we’re all trees and, we should go everywhere”— Peter replied, each word scrambling over the next.

“Hey! Hey!” Robbie raised his hand to stop Peter. “Slow down. Start from the beginning”.

“Ok. Right. So it told me I could sit down, They were planning to cut down some trees for a house. It was a lot of trees! I said they shouldn’t be cutting down trees”— Peter’s face flushed red as he recounted the story, omitting that a some of the children had laughed and asked if he knew trees grew back — “I asked if they had a permit to cut the trees and they said the robot had permitted it. They started cutting down these massive trees, they must have been hundreds of years old. So senseless!” Peter raged, almost crying as he recounted it. “I tried to stop them and the robot pulled we away”. He rolled up his sleeve and showed the blue bruises on his arm in the distinct pattern of a hand. “That’s one of the rules? Isn’t it. A robot can’t hurt a human?”

Robbie held up his phone to take a photo, far more interested than he had been a few minutes ago.

“Where is this place?”

“I told you, Dartmoor.”

“What else happened?”

“They cut down the trees.”

“Bloody hell, Peter. Move on from the sodding trees! What else happened?”

“Well, I got angry at the robot and I asked why it was destroying nature. It gave me some stupid lecture about how ancient forests need hundreds of years for some to die and light to get in or something like that. It said that we were helping the trees by cutting them. I don’t get it! How could they cut down trees! I told him that I would report him to Aphelion for eco terrorism and he laughed. Then he told me everything about me.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I mean he told me everything about me. My name, where I went to school, who my friends are. When I last posted on J for Justice. He told me the name of the sherpa who got me to Icefall. He knew everything!” Peter paused. “This robot, whatever it is, it knows too much. Maybe it’s like a spy or something. Iike China or Russia or something. I think it spoke Russian”.

“Oh, you speak Russian?”

“No.”

“Ok, look, I’ll look into this. As it is, I’m going down to Cornwall soon. Don’t tell anyone about this, nothing.”

“That’s what the robot said.”

“The robot asked you not to say anything?”

“Yea.”

Robbie sat down and began to laugh. Insulted, Peter demanded to know what was so funny.

“Peter, an all powerful robot told you everything about your life, told you to not say anything about it, and here you are…telling me? Which is it, Peter? Is it all powerful or did you just not think it through?”

Peter’s lip quivered and he stormed out of the room, kicking over the glass Robbie had put down on the ground. With a sigh Robbie left the room and walked to the nearest waiter for another flute of champagne. As he picked up a new glass his phone buzzed and he reached into his pocket to read it.

All-powerful is a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think, Robbie?