+++

Ten minutes later, Noble was in a large bunker with twenty cave-tone men and one pinkish Mexican in a Conan The Destroyer t-shirt.

The only white man wearing a suit sat down next to Noble and offered her some coffee.

‘How did you make this?’

‘Sorry?’

Noble looked at the walls of the bunker around them with a quizzical face.

‘Ah, you mean where’s the kitchen? Don’t worry, my friend, we’ve got one, and very decent coffee, too. Made with our bare hands. It may look messy down here, but we’re quite competent when it comes to the basics.’ The man looked at Noble’s chest, then her face. ‘You know, you’re very pretty.’

‘I’m a robot.’

‘Especially the hair. Most bots have the cropped template and never change it.’

‘Who are you guys?’

‘Hmm, names. Okay. I’m Frank Castello, and this is Rebel Headquarters.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The man in the suit, Frank Castello apparently, raised a hand and followed the eyes of the guy next to him, who was pointing at one of the computer screens.

‘What is it?’ asked Noble, but they didn’t answer so she watched for herself.

On the screen, the two psychotic robots who’d murdered poor Debit and allowed Farrokh and Katya to get blown up were walking past the cameras this group had clearly set up in the tunnel outside. Or they’d been put there by the city council. Either way, Detroit was using his index finger as a torch while saying something inaudible to Angela.

‘Don’t worry, my friend,’ said Frank, patting Noble on the shoulder, ‘they won’t find us.’

‘They have scanning tech.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Frank guided her to another computer screen and gestured for her to sit down. ‘They can do what they want, we don’t care. Our fight is focused on our values, not the reactionary drivel they spew out.’

‘What are your values?’

‘I’m glad you asked.’ Frank held up a sponge cut-out map of Japan. ‘Do you see?’

‘It’s Japan.’

He put it on the table and held up another.

‘Sweden,’ said Noble, a little unsure.

‘Very good, strong eyes.’

‘I thought it might be Finland for a moment, but-…’

‘Japan and Sweden, both fine countries, both celebrated worldwide for their well-run societies and the general functionality of their governments.’

‘Ah, you’re social democrats?’

Frank coughed and picked up the map of Japan, placing it next to Sweden. ‘Both these nations have one distinct thing in common. Cultural homogeny. Low to zero intake of immigrants.’

‘Really? I know Japan has a lot of ethnic Japanese, but-…’

‘Sweden too. Or it did, before the Muslims came. Them and their rape gangs.’

‘Err…’

‘Anyway, that’s what we represent. That’s what we want for our own country.’

‘Rape gangs?’

Another cough, this one with an additional death glare, not well-cloaked at all. ‘Cultural homogeny. One true lineage from this point to that.’

‘In the US?’

‘And worker liberation, of course. The working man has been decimated by immigration, by the liberal elites. By the so-called conservative elites too. See, we’re honest. And down-to-earth. Unlike the far left.’

Noble looked at the other men in the room and the mix of 80’s t-shirts they were wearing: Robocop, Red Dawn, Blade Runner, Robocop 2, Star Trek VI [that one had some extra text – Fuck the last 10 minutes! – which was almost as big as the film title itself].

‘Ultimately…what they want, Noble, what they’re attempting to do is eliminate our voice. To force us to support people we don’t have any relationship to. People who came here illegally. People with different values. Tell me, is that really something to be afraid of?’

‘I don’t know.’ Noble glanced at the sole Mexican, albeit an oddly pink one. ‘Maybe for him.’

‘I don’t deny you that reaction, but isn’t the fact that we have a Mexican in our ranks a sign of our tolerance? We have no beef with other races. That’s just their propaganda.’

‘But you said cultural homogeny…’

‘We love other cultures. Me personally, I love Indian food, I read manga, but they have their places of sanctuary and we need ours. Does Japan not welcome foreigners? Is it not considered one of the friendliest countries in the world?’

‘I suppose…’

‘Is it really so bad to want the same for our own country? Would you really deny us the-…’

Frank stopped suddenly, staring at the screen with the tunnel CCTV.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘How did they find it?’ he asked the Mexican, who was controlling the mouse.

‘I don’t know.’

Noble looked at the screen and gulped. Detroit was knocking on the wall with his fist, making some of the bricks crumble.

‘Is that where I came in?’

‘Put up the electric field.’

‘Copy. Powering up.’

‘I thought it was a door,’ mumbled Noble.

‘Might be a bit patchy,’ said the Mexican, clicking like a dervish.

‘Don’t care, get it up.’

‘You made the door look like the wall?’ asked Noble, trying again to get their attention.

‘Quiet…’

‘But…you can see the cracks at the side.’

‘Is the field up?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Get it up.’

‘I’m trying, it’s just…’

‘Faster, or they’re gonna get in. That what you want?’

‘No, course not. You know I believe in the-…’

‘Stop fucking answering me,’ screamed Frank, grabbing the sleeve of the Conan The Destroyer t-shirt, ‘type!’

‘Yes, yes…I’m typing.’

‘Faster, you fucking-’

The Mexican wiped his forehead, clicked a few more times on the mouse then turned to Frank and said, ‘done.’

‘About fucking time.’

‘Is the field strong enough to keep them out?’ asked Noble.

Frank turned to his guest and did more patting, more, ‘don’t worry, it’s fine now, platitude rhetoric, then walked off to the other side of the room.

Noble didn’t know if she was supposed to follow or not so she lurked for a while then moved past some of the other screens. The men operating the computers were engaged in various activities, promoting their own values by calling Matt Damon an apologist cuck and copy-pasting what about black on black crime under endless Twitter profiles.

One guy, the one in the Robocop 2 t-shirt, was editing a video. It was almost complete so Noble hovered behind him as he pressed play and ran it through.

There was some kind of online news channel, a middle eastern looking guy and a white woman talking about Armenian culture.

It seemed that the woman was Armenian and the other guy was Turkish, seemed cos the words ‘Turkish’ and Armenian’ popped up in front of each one, and they were laughing and generally having a good time when the video paused and the words ‘Armenian genocide denier’ appeared in Bright Yellow Font.

The screen faded cheaply to grey and then some bronze statue at a resort popped up, a posh British voice saying:

‘This group denies the Armenian genocide, an Armenian woman working for a Turk, for a Turkish news group named after the same group that tried to exterminate her people. Oh the pathetic irony.’

The guy in the Robocop 2 t-shirt realised he was being watched and turned, saying, ‘pretty vile shit, right?’

Noble shrugged.

‘Denying a fucking genocide…’

‘I’m not familiar with this episode of history.’

‘Trust me, dude, it happened. And these fuckers used the fucking name.’

‘Are you Armenian?’

‘I’m a human being, that’s what I am.’

Noble raised an eyebrow, the thing she’d learnt from Bette Davis.

‘It’s hypocrisy, dude. They fucking whine about empathy, ah poor blacks, poor Mexicans, poor gays, poor ISIS, and then they’re fucking endorsing genocide like…like it didn’t happen or something. It’s fucking vile, dude.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Dude, it’s crystal, google it, you’ll see.’

Noble nodded and reached for the mouse.

‘Hey, what the fuck?’

‘I’m googling it.’

‘Get your own computer, I’m on this one.’

‘Can I borrow it for a second?’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘Get the Mexican’s, this one’s mine.’

Noble tried to supress it, but the guy had activated her reactionary circuits. She looked around at the others, but they didn’t look back, they were too busy photoshopping pics of strong looking refugees onto pics of normal-looking ones, so she pushed the Robocop 2 guy out of the way and googled Armenian genocide.

Three minutes later, she’d read the whole wiki account.

‘Dude, you nearly brained me against that wall,’ said the Robocop 2 guy, returning with both his chair and a bemused Frank.

‘I’m not a dude.’

‘Huh? Not what?’

‘I’m female.’

The Robocop 2 guy tilted his head, opening his mouth to let out a strangled, ‘the fuck you are. You’re a fucking-…’

Frank moved quickly, gripping his comrade’s shoulder to stop anything else spilling out. ‘What seems to be the problem, Noble?’

‘Your video. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘What the fuck you talking about?’ spat the Robocop 2 guy, shrugging off the man in the suit.

‘Look.’ Noble scrolled back up the screen and pointed at a paragraph. ‘The Young Turks were made up of various groups, including liberal types, Jews, nationalists, and Armenians. However, after they won power, the nationalists took over, and the three Pashas came up with a plan to exterminate all minorities in the empire, including Armenians.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I said,’ said the Robocop 2 guy.

‘Not really.’

‘The fuck I didn’t…’

‘Okay, calm down…’ Frank patted the other guy on the shoulder then turned to Noble. ‘As far as I can see there is no flaw. The Pashas were part of the Young Turks, and it was they who committed the genocide.’

‘That’s like blaming Trotsky for Stalin’s work.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Why?’

‘Trotsky and Stalin were basically the same thing. Communist authoritarians. Friends too.’

‘Friends?’

‘It is not widely known, but Trotsky wrote a letter to Stalin, secretly agreeing with all his policies. The only reason you don’t know about it is because the Jews don’t want you to.’

‘The Jews?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Which Jews?’

‘The pointy chin ones,’ said the Robocop 2 guy.

Noble looked at the computer screen again and then at the jacket Frank had just put on. It was huge and possibly hiding weaponry.

‘Look, Noble. We like you, all of us, but this whole induction process seems to be overwhelming you a bit. True, it is a lot of information to take in, a lot of programming to unwrite, so…perhaps we should start you off on something a little more instinctively palatable.’

‘What does that mean?’

Frank [and his bulging jacket] led Noble to another screen. He pointed at the images of young black men shouting at news cameras, young black men in hoodies, Marlo from The Wire, cars engulfed in flames.

‘Look at these animals, destroying their own communities…’

‘Err…’

The man changed to split screen, adding the CCTV footage of Detroit and Angela shooting at the electric field in the tunnel to the riot scenes.

‘All of them, completely mindless. Like they’ve escaped from a zoo.’

‘There’s zero context to these images.’

‘Context? Use your eyes, man, it’s right in front of you.’

‘I’m not a man.’

‘Look, his face.’ Frank pointed at the screen. ‘Look at the rage. Look at the broken window behind him. Why would you even try to doubt something so…obvious…something right there in front of your eyes?’

Before Noble could answer the far wall of the room blew out, sending dust and brick fragments everywhere.

‘Shit, up now, everyone…’ shouted Frank, pulling a rifle from his jacket and firing into the freshly-made hole in the wall. ‘Shoot those commie cucks, shoot them all, shoot their fucking dicks off…’

Bullets pinged around the bunker, some smashing computers screens. Then someone chucked in a smoke grenade. It landed next to Noble’s face and began spurting out gas, apparently unaware that she was resistant to all forms of chemical warfare.

‘Your electric field didn’t work…’ said Noble, getting up into a crouching position, but it was to no one as Frank had already disappeared.

Everyone else had gone too, apart from the pinkish Mexican who was trying to lift up his computer monitor while also choking his guts up. Just as he got the thing above his head, a dozen bullets ripped through his chest and head, sending him back into the screen behind, the one with the ridiculous genocide video on it.

‘I surrender,’ shouted Noble, waiting for the firing to stop then running the same way the rest of the other Nazis had gone.

‘Too late for surrender, dickhead,’ yelled Detroit, swatting smoke away with his rifle.

‘… … … … … … …’ added Angela in Mandarin, blowing on it instead.

‘You sided with the fascists, you die with them.’

‘… … … …’

‘Where are you, you little fuck?’

‘… … … …’

‘Here?’

‘… … … … …’

Detroit kicked the Mexican’s body across the floor. ‘That’s not her, she’s metal.’

‘… … …’

‘Fuck, she’s gone, hasn’t she?’

‘… … … … …’

‘That surrender thing was a ruse…giving herself time to-…’

‘… … … … … … …’

‘Shut up.’

Detroit put down the rifle, lowered his gun arm and checked the time. Kicking that wall in and deactivating the half-assed electric field had taken the best part of twenty minutes, which meant they’d overrun and missed the first news call of the day.

‘… … … … …’ said Angela, heading for the exit.

‘No, we can use one of theirs.’

‘… … …’

Detroit sat down at one of the few undamaged screens and clicked through twenty-seven different pages. ‘Fuck, twenty-seven profiles for one guy…I told you they were full of shit.’

‘… … … … … … … … …’

‘Not true.’

‘… … … … … …’

‘The most we ever had was twenty-two.’

‘… … … …’

‘Shut the fuck up, Donny.’

‘… … … … … …’

‘You take the high road, ground gets dug out from under you.’

‘… … … …’

‘In the gutter is where it’s won.’

‘… … … …’

Detroit ignored the last line and logged on to his own profile. Or one of the twenty-two. He stared at his Elvira Dolimar avatar for a minute then smiled and logged off, going back to one of the right-wing profiles.

‘Time for an ideological epiphany…’