Junkers

Commander Callum Rinder’s dust-dry mouth had an acidic taste to it, he had not eaten since the dawn’s light and his body was complaining to him with internal noises. He didn’t feel real most days and how could he? All day, he had been fixed in posture, like a statue upon the towering thick fortress wall that was pieced together in a rugged patchwork from aircraft parts, razor wire, corrugated steel, rock and dried mud. He was always conserving energy, moving only for shade and water. He had watched and learned from the small animals that survived the heat, the lizards, the scorpions, the desert rats – all the creatures that understood the harsh reality of their desolate home.

“Get the children to the bunker,” he growled through chipped, stained teeth. His binoculars were steady, his hand not moving despite the strong sand-laced desert wind. His long, matted grey beard escaped over his neck scarf in the fierce warm gusts, flailing free like tentacles. He felt as if he was a rock, a physical part of nature, and he deserved to be in it, unlike the unearthly things he was staring at.

The robots were emerging on the horizon, at first just a pair, their tall humanoid silhouettes facing toward the castle-like structure in the dunes, confronting it with cold lens eyes that fed data to vastly complex and mysterious algorithms. Within moments of the first sighting, as expected, more of the synthetic people strode into view. A frontline formed that stretched the breadth of the dune rise. The punishing sun was setting behind them, the shimmering red disc highlighting the black metal bodies. It was a gathering army.

“When they attack, I’ll activate the trap,” confirmed his only son, Mark, who was on the wall with him on the security vigil. For a young man, Mark looked battle-hardened, with scars on both cheeks under his thickset sunglasses, home-etched tattoos on both exposed biceps and an ammo belt wrapped about his torso. He was a good fighter, his father had taught him well.

There were about two hundred children in the community aged between three to fifteen. As usual, they were the target. The ‘junkers’ as the robots were known, were powered by AI that learned quickly – so quick, the commune had to be more inventive with every sortie from the machines. It was a long time since the days ChatGPT worried a few white-collar workers they had competition. The AI developed at pace ten years prior and the pockets of people that survived were driven hard into the peripherals of the world’s bleakest landscapes. Robots did not like deserts, it messed with their circuits, it meant carrying battery spares, it meant supply lines or vehicle support.

The robots would seldom come out so far into the wastelands, maybe twice a year which was in the commune’s favour, probably the only reason they had not been overrun. Each time they rushed the complex, people did die, that was a given, but so far, they had been victorious in every battle, simply by being unpredictable. The one thing all survivors of the takeover knew well enough, was that AI learned, the rule was never to repeat your defensive tactics. What they don’t understand, they can’t fight, that was the logic.

“Looks like there are no drones in the air, that’s good…” muttered Callum, taking his eyes away from the binoculars to absorb the wider panorama.

The warning alarm was sounding off, clanging loudly across the complex, and Callum could sense his people running, fixing barriers and grabbing weapons below in the courtyard, under the veil of the outer fortress walls.

A solitary robot amplified its speaker and delivered a message that carried over the wind.

“We require your children only; we do not seek conflict. Deliver your children to us and we will leave you, without engaging in violence. Violence results in a waste of resources.”

A deal only an artificial mind would consider reasonable.

Callum would not bother replying. He pulled out the handheld tablet device from his mottled trench coat and switched it on, handing it to Mark in an exaggerated gesture of gifting that almost had reverence.

They had used a large electromagnetic pulse to defeat them in the last attack. It had been beautiful watching their determined metal frames collapse into the sands, creating more scrap for resources in the process, what a great day that had been for all of them. Before that, the commune had used strong magnets, with the almost comical effect of robots flying through the air to stick flat against the city walls until they were deactivated. Guns were the first thing the junkers had encountered as a weapon, so they had long since rebuilt their skins to be bulletproof. Guns were still effective at pushing them over but not defeating them, so everyone who could shoot carried but guns were not the answer. He knew they were resistant to magnets already and Callum could see they had a new layer of material manufactured as skin, he guessed it was resistant to EMP. It was like a sped-up evolutionary battle of strike and counterstrike. One slip-up in strategy and Callum knew they would be overrun and slaughtered.

Mark tapped the code into the tablet as Callum patted him on the shoulder for the first time in a long while. Mark noticed it but did not comment. His father was worried. He could sense, like his dad, that time was not their friend in this war. He had always felt privileged to have his father so close by his side, a protector, a guardian, the role of all good parents.

“Mark,” Callum said, “I’m proud of you, whatever happens now. Wait till they are on the walls, then electrify as many as you can.”

Roughly every two months, the compound would receive an airdrop from a huge cargo plane. In it, amongst supplies like food, water and whatever was scavenged, were instructions and materials for new fortifications, sent from an HQ no one knew the whereabouts of. Some secrets were too sensitive to share.

The robots needed children for labour. Humans were cheap, sustainable and required no factory. They could be moulded, taught and controlled and they lasted for many years. They also used them for research, to understand their anatomy and behaviour. Adults were already too resistant, too independent and unreliable. This they had learned well. For unquestioning workers, for perfect tools, it had to be children. They were always afraid and that mattered.

The junkers waited a few minutes until it was obvious there would be no trade. The one running the show, a ‘topper’, as the leaders were called, watched closely as it instructed a marauding team to charge across the expanse of desert that led to the walls. For a batch of them to break off independently was unusual. It appeared that they had learned recognisance and suicide attacks already; it was a new tactic. Ten of the machines sprinted in perfect alignment toward the fort. They ran faster than any human. Their long metal legs had backward knee joints – like a horse, it gave them a powerful spring when needed, even in the soft, energy-sapping sand.

“Okay,” said Callum into his commlink to the gate soldiers, nodding as if accepting a challenge reluctantly. “Let them come, let them into the first compound section. We have to defeat this wave hand-to-hand, or they’ll know what’s coming. Do not activate the trap. Shoot to disorientate, funnel them and use the hammer.”

The hammer was an armoured vehicle, with the guts of a forklift truck, armed with fast, hydraulically pushed iron blocks that crushed anything in its path in pincer blows. The robots were tough, but the hammer could pulverise them into a metallic pancake if they were disorientated and could not manoeuvre.

The junkers leapt at the walls and scaled them in a fast minute, pouring over, into the outer ring of the complex. They were greeted with a hail of bullets from men flanking them hard. Rounds pinged off their frames, sparking and ricocheting in different directions. All Callum’s soldiers had bulletproof armour so when bullets strayed into their chests or arms, they were only winded or bruised. The tall black bipeds staggered with each well aimed shot.

The robots were scanning as they attacked, relaying the internal layout and human tally back to the topper. Callum had not been in the direct line of the attack, so kept his focus on the main army in case they charged. He listened with a sinking heart to the screams of one of his men being dispatched, cleaved in half by a blade arm of a metal monster.

As the defenders emptied their cartridges to unsteady the robots, a second group of soldiers funnelled them into a narrow line by pushing curled shielding roughly into them from three sides. Metal arms and large blades scraped at the shielding with little effect, as it was overhanging and hard to grasp or dent. At the open end of that roughly forged tunnel, the hammer piled in, slamming their heads with heavy blocks so their electronics imploded with each strike. It was efficient, two men were lost but the machines were destroyed in sequence, one at a time, like sheep led up a ramp to a bolt gun. The hammer had the word SPARTA painted on the driver’s cabin in red, a nod toward the tactics it championed.

A distraught woman was crying loudly behind one of the makeshift barriers, her partner no doubt had been a victim. There were intestines in the dirt, a mound of them where a man was disembowelled in a precision cut.

“They’re not so smart,” said Mark, his eyes saddened by the wet blood covering the defeated robots.

“I wouldn’t say that…” replied his father in dismay.

A second small team of junkers had followed up on the initial attack. They were running at the walls.

“Change to Strategy C”, instructed Rinder. They still had a few tricks up their sleeves for close encounters without revealing their hand completely. The soldiers grabbed canisters that were propped against the nearby rifle rack. The canisters were full of sticky tar-like oil and had hoses with trigger handles for aiming and releasing.

“Target them on the wall, as they look up,” shouted Callum, his heartbeat now raised in tune with the stress in his voice. He could feel the pressure of the junkers’ new idea of a phased attack confronting his resolve.

The second wave of foe were scaling the outer barricades with mechanical confidence, and as they ascended, squirted tar met their lenses with pinpoint accuracy, blinding them instantly. With oozing, hot glue on the walls, they stuck to it momentarily as sitting targets. Hurled concrete blocks smashed them free of their grip with help from gravity. It was a solution borrowed from medieval times, both simple and effective.

With telescopic vision, the topper surveyed the steaming, broken wreckage piling up at the base of the fortress wall and assessed the situation with a cold analysis. It was quietly processing, working things out.

There were howls and battle cries of victory from those on the wall, but Callum was silent. He instinctively knew there was more to come.

The topper began an address, turning up its volume.

“We can see you value your children but surely you do not wish to die today?”

Callum stared down the optics of his binoculars. He hated these little narratives churned out by the machines. The AI was simply finding human language from files without any feelings attached to them whatsoever, and he had learned not to engage. He was aware he may betray something that they would then use for a new strategy. He would wait and play it out in the moment. Spontaneity was his advantage.

The topper seemed to peer to its left and right as if assessing its army’s strength and chances. Its black cylindrical head had twin lenses fixed like eyes, in a crude imitation of a person’s face.

A moment later the entire line of machines on the crest of the dune charged, all at once, apart from the topper, left in the solitude of its command position. They were like black soldier ants swarming forward. It was a terrifying sight.

Mark pulled off his cap and wiped his forehead with it, so it was clear of sweat. “Pa?”

“…Yeah, this time, we use the big one.”

It seemed to take an eternity for them to arrive at the base of the walls. They surrounded the complex, encircled it, intent on overwhelming their objective with sheer numbers.

“Wait…” snapped Callum, his forefinger raised, as the machines clambered up the walls in vast numbers. He had to be sure the maximum number of robots were on the wall for it to be most effective. They were thick like a blanket of mechanical parts writing as one, and uncomfortably close to the top of the wall when the instruction finally came.

“Now!” the commander screamed.

Mark punched the red activation button on the tablet’s screen and the walls surged with a blistering hot electric current. Sparks exploded like fireworks in every direction and the robots froze in paralysis as the massive wave of electricity fried them, smelting them to the wall with their molten limbs. Every robot that tried to climb on another met the same fate, becoming permanent fixtures to the fortress defensives. Finally, in defeat, a handful of the metal stragglers turned in retreat to the dunes.

Plumes of smoke belched from the white-hot walls as it became a furnace. The men on the ramparts pulled up scarves and breathing apparatus in the face of the pumping, bellowing smoke and ash.

Callum moved so he could keep the topper in his sight through the plumes of smoke. It stood there watching them, recalculating, plotting.

“What the hell is it doing?” he whispered to himself.

To their horror, the men on the wall could see another line of robots emerge, a huge second-wave army. This was the most resource pitted against them, that Callum had ever witnessed.

The topper began again with its clear monotone demands.

“I repeat, all we want is your children. Send your children out to us so we may have them.”

Callum knew the fort had used up its defensive capabilities. The electric charge from their countermeasure was exhausted and the fire would die down soon enough. Another attack like that and they were beaten. It occurred to him, he had one last play, something only humans would do, he would lie.

He picked up a megaphone that he kept nearby, and yelled as hard as his voice would allow: “We have more defences than you have junkers. You won’t see the next one coming and you will be wiped out. I promise you that you metal shit.”

The topper revealed nothing but stood in the sand, analysing.

Mark fell to one knee in a mixture of tired defeat and fear. He peered up at his father and faked a smile but Callum hadn’t given up yet.

“I have a deal I can make with you… Robot…”

“No… Not the kids, not the children!?”, blurted Mark in horror.

Callum held up a palm to him, demanding he not interrupt, choosing to become his boss rather than his kin for the moment or two that was needed.

“We will not give you our children,” he shouted, resolute in that at least. “…But… We can give you something, we can give you DNA. You can use clone technology back in your city and grow your own children. That’s what you want, isn’t it? They’ll not even know their parents, so they’ll be yours from birth. It will take more time, but you can save your precious army here. If we do this deal, you need to leave us alone at this place, and forever… That’s the deal… And that’s the only deal!”

The men on the wall were silent now, the air still heavy with dark clouds of smoke. He could feel them staring at him, he could sense their uncertainty, their mix of emotions at the proposition laid out.

The topper replied.

“It is a deal. Send one person out to us, to be the donor. We will use them for all the harvests. If you do that willingly, without resistance, we will leave.”

“And not come back?”

A pause.

“Agreed,” said the topper without emotion.

Callum deflated visibly, and shouted immediately in reply: “Okay, I’m coming out…”

“No!” protested Mark. “Why you!?”

“Because I made the deal. You’re in charge now, son,” and through the megaphone, for all to hear, he continued, “You hear that, men? Mark runs the show now, he knows the code for the plane comms for airdrops, and he knows everything I know. Listen to him. You’ll all be all right now… I can promise that, at last.”

Callum hugged his son for as long as he dared, without further provoking the junkers. He felt the strong energy of love between them and he felt profoundly sorry. It was a shame it had been his only idea, he could not think of another way out of the predicament. It was his last play. At least it had worked.

“Keep this place going, keep them safe,” he said, steeling himself as his son began to sob and shake in disbelief. Mark had been prepared to die for his father, he had never seen this ending, a fight to the death against the machines, yes, but not this.

Callum descended the stairwell to the compound’s ground level and walked edgily through the gathering crowd that was emerging from the barriers and the bunker. The people seemed to grow like a blooming flower, mothers and children, injured men, all with despair in their eyes. Their ragged clothes, their dirty faces, they were so familiar, as the commune was a family, one tribe bonded together in hiding. They were in disbelief at his sacrifice. It was unfair, he had protected them for so long. At the same time, the thought that they would be saved from enslavement or murder, gave them a hope they had not expected.

The huge burning gates were opened just enough to let him walk reluctantly into the desert beyond, and he sauntered out with nothing but a canteen of water and his clothes. He could feel the intense heat from the flames up close on the wall but it hardly mattered to him. The topper was waiting at the crest edge of the dune, along with hundreds of other artificial people.

The human’s leader had given himself up and they were satisfied.

The wind was harsh and Callum guessed it would likely pick up into a full-blown sandstorm as the night progressed. Little did he know, that the junkers had learned to lie too. Humans were the best teachers of strategy.

The End