Winiewski, Adam - [SS] The Angel of Violence [v1.0].htm

Adam Winiewski-Snerg

Translated by Tomasz Mirkowicz

Adam Snerg (1937-95) lived in Warsaw,Poland. He published his first story in 1968 and his first novel, Robot in 1973. Robot takes place insidea bomb shelter below a large city torn out of the Earth by an alien spaceshipand carried through space to an unknown destination as a scientists samplecollected for later study. It is an ambitious investigation into the nature oftime, evolution, free will, and the theory of relativity. Polish SF fans votedin the best Polish SF book published since World War Two, quite an honor inStanislaw Lems native country.

He published threelater novels that were fantastic but not science fiction, and then in 1990published an original and highly controversial non-fiction work presenting hisown theory of the space-time continuum. At the time of his death by his ownhand in August, 1995, he had been working on another non-fiction book, a moreaccessible version of his theory.

The Angel ofViolence is one of his six uncollected short stories and the first of hisworks to be translated into English, in a translation commissioned for thisbook.

* * * *

THE ANGEL OFVIOLENCE

O

n the thirteenth floor of the CyberneticsInstitute Lucy interrupted the guides patter to tell her that several of thetourists were missing. They had lagged behind the group and probably lost theirway in the maze of corridors and rooms of the vast building, the chiefattraction of the tour around the recently excavated ancient city. The guidedid not seem in the least put out. Instead of worrying about her missingcharges or explaining the exhibits on display to the remaining tourists, shecontinued to praise the sound and light show her agency organized every nightin the ruins of a nearby nuclear power plant.

Lucy got lost onthe sixteenth floor. She had lingered a moment too long by the main computer,staring dumbly at the old cabinets housing the giant electronic brain. Theguide had said that it makers, medieval craftsmen once known as programmers,were assured a permanent place in the annals of history. And yet the movingbeauty of this priceless treasure - the guides exact words - did not moveLucy in the least. She decided to ask the woman for some pointers onappreciating ancient artifacts. But when she went out into the corridor, it wasempty.

She couldnt hearthe other tourists and had no idea which way they had gone. She started lookingfor them, wandering in and out of ancient labs filled with primitive, twenty-first-centuryequipment.

Time had not beenkind to the priceless exhibits. Their plastic parts were full of holes made bysecond-generation borers, and their metal parts, the paint removed long ago by coloniesof industrious, once unknown microorganisms, were corroded and covered withrust peeling away in large flakes.

The group wasnowhere in sight. After another fifteen minutes Lucy gave up her search and,feeling oppressed by the somber atmosphere of the ancient building, decided toforgo the rest of the tour. She resolved to take the elevator to the groundfloor and find her wav to the antique bus waiting in front of the Institute.

She had her firstmisadventure in the elevator: it stopped between floors. Lucy pressed the alarmbutton. After a brief silence a male voice spoke to her from a speaker setabove the buttons.

Do you want to bethe queen? it asked.

Do I want to be what?

The kings wife,the first lady of the realm.

The kings wife?

Yes.

You must bejoking!

No, Im not. Youcan become the queen.

How?

No problem. It sohappens we are looking for the right candidate. The former queen had to go. Thetourists are already downstairs, waiting for vou.

Where?

Press the sixthfloor button. Then go to room 628.

The unusual offerhad taken her by surprise, but Lucy quickly guessed what it was all about: somekind of show put on by the tourist agency in the ruins of the freshly excavatedcity. It sounded intriguing. She liked surprises. Why shouldnt she play a partin some medieval drama? She had heard of picturesque castles built on theforbidden peaks of nuclear power plants by tyrants armed with tridents whoforced their subjects to watch television. Maybe she wasnt confusing differenthistorical periods, but she was overjoyed at the prospect of participating inthe show, the more so since shed be viewing everything from the queensthrone.

Although shepressed the right button, the elevator passed the sixth floor and continued todescend; it passed the ground floor and finally stopped on the sixthunderground level. Lucy hadnt even known there were any underground levels inthe building.

She walked down awide, clean corridor until she reached room 628. She opened the door and walkedin.

The first thingsshe saw were the bare legs of a woman standing behind a metal screen suspendedfrom the ceiling.

Excuse me, Lucysaid, I was told some kind of show is being staged here.

The woman hidden bythe screen gave a jump and moved a little closer. But the screen, hanging infront of an open doorway leading to the next room, continued to cover her, soall Lucy saw were the womans legs.

Do you know wherethe tourists are waiting?

The legs were very shapely.But when they walked out from behind the screen and with one bare foot kickedthe door shut, Lucy stopped admiring their proportions. She could hardlybelieve her eves.

The legs werentattached to a body! Lucy screamed with horror and ran into the next room.Inside, she saw many more pairs of moving legs. Although no people werepresent, the whole room was filled with animated motion.

A sign on the wallsaid: PROSTHETIC WORKSLOWERLIMBS. A slowly moving conveyor belt passed along a row of machines. Eachmachine was operated by a pair of synthetic hands steered efficiently by invisibleplastic tendons. Imitating human hands to perfection, they were assemblingartificial legs. At the end of the assembly line the legs jumped off theconveyor belt. The last machine joined them into matching pairs and sent themoff to an obstacle course. After completing it, the legs marched obediently tothe next section, where a mechanical fitter equipped them with arms.

Each hasp joiningthe legs together, its ends inserted into their thighs, had the shape of aninverted U. The fitter attached the arms to the top of the hasp. A dozen ofsuch limbomats were already working on the assembly line or molding parts fromwhich the limbs were made; others were repairing defective machines or buildingnew ones.

Lucy noticed onelimbomat standing by a high-tension console and suddenly felt the muscles ofher legs and arms tense as if she were a weightlifter readying to set a worldrecord. When she caught sight of the video cameras and antennas attached to thewalls, she began to understand what had happened.

She knew that thetwenty-first century scientists who had abandoned the building during anearthquake had left all the machinery running, supplied with energy from alocal source. The room she was in was an old workshop that had originallyproduced prototypes of artificial limbs for the handicapped. Cut off forcenturies from the rest of the world, the Institutes main computer had carriedon production, resourcefully modifying and improving the artificial limbs. Itwas a case of perfect symbiosis: the computer created more and more advancedlimbomats, steering their artificial nervous systems by remote control, whilethey - replacing the human technicians - maintained and expanded his electronicbrain.

When Lucy hadwalked into the view of the computers video cameras, she had immediatelycaught its attention. After years of controlling artificial limbs the computerwanted to test its power over real ones. A live human being was just what itneeded.

Lucy wanted toflee, but as soon as the computer registered her presence, her muscles turnedrigid as if numbed by electric shock. For several minutes her whole body jerkedconvulsively, until finally, after a violent battle over its control betweentwo command centers - her own brain and the electronic brain of the computer - herbody began to carry out the machines orders.

Propelled byregular impulses, she passed the conveyor belt and came to a large door whichopened by itself, revealing an unusual sight.

All the touristswho had strayed from the group were standing in the middle of an enormouschamber. They smiled at the terrified girl. After her initial shock she smiledback at them. She wondered whether the computer had really forced her to walkin here; maybe she had just imagined it. Anyway, now she was back among peopleshe knew; she was so relieved, she could have hugged them.

She took a fewsteps in their direction, then once again looked at them, and froze.

The very moment shehad sighed with relief, happy her misadventures were over, one of the menraised the heavy ax he was holding and with one blow split in two the skull ofthe tourist standing next to him. As the man toppled to the floor, a stiffcable with a sharp hook at the end shot out from the side of the chamber. Itembedded itself in the body and began pulling it toward the wall, to a pile ofsimilarly massacred corpses, leaving an ugly red stain on the shiny marblefloor.

Lucy screamed withhorror, but her scream was cut short by a painful constriction of her throat.The strange power was again taking control of her body. Plastic limbs rippedoff her clothes. She stumbled toward the exit. She would have fallen, but herleg muscles held her up, artificially tensed by the computers will.

Naked, her backtoward the silent group, she waited for a deadly blow. The brutal murder shehad witnessed kept replaying itself in her mind. She was overcome by a sense ofunreality, just like a few minutes ago, when she walked into the workshop andsaw the moving legs.

Instead of an axblow, she felt the touch of another of the limbed monsters. It was pulling overher head a long dress richly decorated with golden lace. Although her heart waspounding with fear, outwardly she seemed as calm as if she were getting readyfor a party. She could move her head freely. All of a sudden she realized therewas something odd about the tourists and, in spite of her fear, looked at themmore closely.

They were allsmiling and standing as still as statues, not saving a word. And they were alldressed in costumes from early antiquity and armed with equally ancientweapons: axes, tridents, swords, spears, even clubs studded with iron nails.

A minute lateranother incident made her blood curdle. As she watched, a woman lifted her spearand threw it with incredible strength. It pierced the chest of a young man, itstip coming out his back. When he fell the woman walked over to him, surefooted,and pulled her weapon out of his bloodied chest. The dying man continued tosmile even when the hook embedded itself in his side and started dragging himoff toward the wall.

What happened overthe next twenty minutes in the huge silent chamber was as mysterious as thecomputers method of controlling the nervous systems of living organisms. Tensingthe tourists muscles, it forced them to participate in what seemed like across between an exotic ritual dance and the drill of ancient recruits.

During this macabreextravaganza the hook pulled away two more corpses. The limbomats left thechamber, closing the door behind them. Before leaving, they attached somethingheavy to Lucys back. Forced by a series of impulses, she began walking towardthe group of tourists. Suddenly she was made to stop and turn around. Lookingat the wall, she saw a large white computer set in a deep recess.

Then she saw asecond computer, a black one, set in a recess in the opposite wall.

Just as she beganto grasp what was happening, a thin wisp of smoke shot out from the blackcomputer. There was a crackle of short-circuiting cables and the overheadlights went out. The stench of burning insulation filled the air. Both computerscreens were still alight in the dark, and so was every other square of themarble floor: it became clear to the terror-stricken tourists that they werestanding on a huge chessboard and were the unwilling participants in a game ofchess played by two computers.

A limbomat with aburning torch in one hand rushed into the chamber. Two others opened a fuse boxand began repairing the damage. The tourists remained in their spots on thechessboard. One of the pieces, a man dressed in white, made a move. The whitecomputer clearly didnt need the overhead lights and, having summoned therepair crew, continued the game.

Each side of thehuge chessboard measured eight yards. In the light of the torch the whitesquares became somewhat dimmer but remained visible. The insulation must havecaught fire when the cable was overloaded by the sudden surge in electricityneeded by one of the players to solve an exceptionally difficult problem. NowLucy knew why the limbomats had dressed some tourists in white and some inblack costumes. She noted that she herself was wearing a white dress and wasstanding outside the chessboard, though near its edge, on the side of the blackcomputer. At first this seemed a good sign: she was beyond the battlefield andhadnt yet participated in the game that obviously had been going on for sometime.

Did this mean thatshe was in no danger?

There were twentypeople on the chessboard. The corpses of twelve more, eliminated from the game,were piled by the wall. The tourists wore hats and helmets in the shapes of thepieces they represented in the game. Miserable, they twisted their neckslooking around. So far they had been convinced that theyd either be killed bya sudden blow or have to deal one themselves at a random moment picked by themain computer; now they realized their fate depended on the situation on thechessboard. If the two computers involved in the game decided on a draw or ifone checkmated the other, this would save the lives of the remaining tourists;otherwise only the two kings were certain to survive.

The white computerhad foreseen many of the moves a long time ago. Thats why, when Lucy enteredthe elevator, it invited her to be the queen. As soon as she thought of this,the man in front of her walked off the chessboard, while she, obeying theimpulses in her legs, quickly took his place.

The man, a whitepawn, had reached the eighth line and so could be replaced by any figure of thewhite computers choice. The pawns promotion, when Lucy took his place, seemedas innocent as a change of guards.

As soon as shestepped on the chessboard, she lifted her hands to the mysterious weight on herback; with one hand she detached a crossbow and a quiver of bolts and with theother a golden crown, which she placed on her head. The crossbows string wasdrawn. Lucy notched a bolt and aimed it at the black king.

In response to thewhite computers check the black player shielded his king with a knight. Lucyturned to the middle of the chessboard. A sudden impulse made her release thebolt. She heard the twang of the bowstring but, having quickly closed her eyes,did not see the bolt hit its target. She opened them at the sound of adeadweight dropping to the floor. A black bishops helmet rolled toward herfeet. The bolt had pierced the heart of the felled figure. Lucy recognized thewoman who had earlier thrown her spear at the young man. After the shot, Lucysmuscles forced her to leave her square. She walked, surefooted, to the spotwhere her victim had stood.

The black computerwasted no time in responding to its opponents move: one of its pawnsdecapitated with his sword a white knight. The role of knight was played by anold boxing coach armed with a trident; the pawn was his pupil, a young,superbly built heavyweight. The blow was delivered with such force that the oldmans weapon flew out of his hand and with a loud clunk! hit the white computer.

Several crookedlines appeared on its screen; the image wavered and split. As this washappening, Lucy was forced to walk to a new spot. The next moment the screenreturned to normal and Lucy felt her legs tense again; she marched back to herformer position.

She knew she wasthe white queen. At an earlier stage of the game the white player had lost or,more likely, sacrificed this piece to improve his overall position. Now, afterthe foreseen promotion of the pawn and the exchange of several pieces, neitherplayer had a visible lead or more pieces than his opponent - a situation typicalof most games played by champions. Even if she had known chess well enough totell whether the white computer had a positional advantage, she would have beenunable to do so at this macabre moment when, in the glow of the burning torch,the hook pulled two more bodies toward the wall.

A red light beganblinking on top of the black computer, and it pointed its video cameras snoutat Lucy. The white computer rewound a few feet of its videotape and played thelast segment to show the accident it had suffered. It even made Lucy stomp herfoot, but the black computer - as if refusing to accept the white playersarguments - repeated its angry signals.

It was clear thatthe black chess player, citing the accepted rules, was protesting his opponentsdecision to take back the move he had made with his queen, while the white playerwas trying to explain he had been temporarily indisposed.

A limbomatcontrolled by the judge - the main computer - rushed up to the white computerand, brandishing a heavy hammer, forced the machine to obey the rules. Lucyreceived a command to return to the spot in question. She did so. Walking toit, she saw a man who, when they were sightseeing the city, had always laggedbehind, lost in thought, until finally one of the other tourists, as a joke,had discreetly pinned to his back a scrap of paper with the words: TOURS END. Lucyhad talked with this man, a composer, the day before and had enjoyed theirconversation.

Now he marched pasther, a black rook-shaped helmet on his head, and stopped three squares away,ready to defend the black queen, played by Lucys friend.

The black queen hadnot yet removed her weapon from her back. She was waiting for the whitecomputers move. Lucy could see her imploring gaze. She herself felt she wasgoing to faint, but she rested her crossbow against the floor and began turningits handle to draw the bowstring. Her heart was pounding; she realized thewhite computer had decided on an exchange of queens in order to force the blackrook - by making it kill Lucy - to move to a less advantageous spot.

She felt as if shewere shooting at her own mirror image when her bolt hit the other queen in thebelly.

She didnt look atthe composers face when the hook started to pull away her friends body. Shedidnt want to see the smile the machine forced him to wear. Wishing to shortenher own agony, she stretched her neck toward the black rooks descending ax. Itdropped past her head and chopped off her arm and then rose once more, glintingin the light of the torch - and fell again.

She heard wavesbeating softly against the shore and, instead of pain in her arm, felt a gentlebreeze caress her naked skin. Only the golden crown was still exerting pressureon her temples, so she lifted her hand to push it back. She could move herlimbs freely. When she opened her eyes, she was sure she was dreaming.

First she saw thesky. There were a few small clouds, but otherwise it was clear blue, stretchingto the horizon. When she raised herself a little, she saw the sea. She waslying under a red umbrella, dressed in a swimming suit. The sparse clouds werehanging low over the beach. The gentle breeze rippled the water. A number ofpeople were sunbathing on the sand.

For a moment shestared into the distance, and then she noticed cables running from her foreheadto the plastic box standing by her bag. Suddenly she regained her awareness of timeand place. She took the heavy ring off her head, wound the cable around it, andplaced it on the blanket. She knew now who she was and where she was. Althoughthis wasnt the first cassette she had seen, she still had trouble believingthat what had happened to her a moment ago was just a nightmarish illusion. Themagnetic dream produced by the local videofate company had seemed incrediblyreal.

She walked out fromunder the umbrella into the sun. She was still thinking of what shed beenthrough when she heard her husbands voice:

Why dont we goswimming before lunch?

Where were you?

Talking to theengineer of this beach. In exchange for the Martians ear I gave him, he toldme about the secret report he just received. The news is really alarming.

Whats happening?

The seventhsquadron of shuffling dishes is swimming our way. They are expected to invadethis shore tomorrow. He laughed. The locals are preparing nets, clubs,impregnating agents, and glow paints for painting their tentacles. Maybe here,in Borneo, where everybodys already got a flying saucer, an attack bytentacled sea monsters is exactly what is needed to alleviate the boredom. Andit should create a boom in the souvenir trade. How did you like The Angel of Violence?

What?

He bent over themachine, took out the cassette, and showed her the colorful label with thewords THE ANGEL OF VIOLENCE printed across the drawing of a white computer.

It was anightmare! she cried. How could you get me something so awful?

You wanted to seea horror videofate.

You should havewarned me what it was about!

That wouldnt havedone you any good. The moment you turn on the machine you lose allconsciousness of your real past. It becomes replaced by a fictitious one,created to fit the plot on tape.

Do all horrorvideofates end with the viewers simulated death?

Yes, with noexception. If the viewing is interrupted, he or she dies in a sudden accident.Time flies with incredible speed in a videofate; in one day you go through awhole life.

A child left aloneunder the next umbrella suddenly began crying and jumping around on one foot.From the radio tack stuck to the heel of its other foot emerged an announcersvoice:

We have justreceived news from Singapore concerning the anthropoid apes living in a naturepreserve on one of the islands off the coast of Borneo. The leader of thegorillas, who have reached a very high level of intelligence, called a pressconference and proudly announced that scientists from his pack will soonconstruct their first atom bomb. The gorillas, of course, do not intend to usethis medieval weapon against the chimpanzees inhabiting the neighboringpreserve, although the gorilla leader did say its detonation would be adefinite solution to their differences. He also said the gorillas feel their securityamong all of the islands inhabitants.

Lucy pulled thetalking tack out of the childs foot, still thinking of the videofate. Shecould not get used to the sudden change of environment, the more so since shewas now twenty years older than in the film.

Where is thatisland? she asked her husband.

There. He pointedtoward the horizon.

For several minutesthey stared in silence.

Time for lunch,Lucys husband finally said. I want to go for a last swim before we leave thebeach. You coming?

The water was clearand warm. On the way back to their spot on the sand they passed a group ofpeople playing volleyball. Suddenly Lucy screamed and covered her face with herhands. A move made by one of the players who jumped to hit the ball hadterrified her. The strangers stopped playing and stood there, waiting.

They smiled at her,but this was no help; she felt she was back on the chessboard and a deadly blowwould split her skull any moment.

Why did thesemachines force people to kill their friends? she asked her husband when theyreached their blanket.

You mean in The Angel of Violence?

Yes.

Simple. They wereprogrammed by two chess players and were checking the merits of theirrespective game plans.

On people?

He looked at herserious face. Is that whats bothering you? Look, it was just a story, someimprobable rubbish made up by the scriptwriters of horror videofates.

Wait Didnt multimillionmedieval armies murder each other freely? they werent made-up criminals, werethey?

He laughed loudly. Ofcourse not! You silly thing, you really dont know? Soldiers killed willinglyand died gladly. And they werent criminals because in those days all badpeople locked away in prisons. Just think! If things were otherwise, if goodpeople did not kill of their own free will, then in order to explain themechanism of war wed have to accept as fact a version of history very muchlike the plot of The Angelof Violence. And because the idea of two invisible players hunchedover the chessboard of the world is too fanciful to contemplate, we would beforced to assume that medieval kings had at their disposal fantastic machinesallowing them to control remotely the muscles of millions and that they usedthese machines to make peace loving people kill each other.

But it does soundfantastic, doesnt it? Bad people locked away in prisons, and good people - She didnt finish. As she spoke the beach became dissected by long blackshadows cast by standing tourists. It seemed as if a blindingly brilliant sunhad torn asunder the darkness of night. The glow of the most nightmarish dawnimaginable illuminated the sky behind Lucys back.

In the blink of aneye the whole shore was drenched with heat. A crimson flash, ten times brighterthan the sun, scorched the lush vegetation, engulfing it in flames and reducingto ash; human bodies were transformed into pillars of fire.

A fraction of asecond earlier Lucy had turned toward the source of light. The cloud of anatomic explosion, gigantic in size, mushroomed over the island of the apes. Itstop reached high into the atmosphere. She knew that in a few seconds the coastwould be hit by a thundering shock wave and everything, including her, would beswept off the surface of the earth.

But she wasntthere to see this.

She discovered thatshe was lying inside a glass cubicle. Her naked body was submerged in atransparent liquid. In the sudden silence a pleasant female voice spoke intoher ear:

We apologize forinterrupting your videofate. Is your number nine hundred forty billion fivemillion seventy-one?

On a small consoleat the end of the glass container she saw the silver number 940,005,000,071.

Yes, she said.

How old are you?

The age indicatorhad golden numerals. Nineteen.

Then everythingsin order, the pleasant voice said. After waiting your turn for a hundred andtwenty years you have obtained the right to twenty-four hours of authenticlife. Your place will be free in an hours time; thats why we had to wake you.Get ready! In fifteen minutes an express elevator will take your cabin two anda half miles up, to the roof of Europe. You will see the real sun, water, andtrees. Once again we apologize for turning off your videofate. Enjoy yourself!

All around, behindthe glass walls of their cubicles, narrow as coffins, rested the sleeping formsof human beings. Only Lucy lay with her eves open. For a dozen minutes or soshe stared at the millions of naked bodies arranged symmetrically in lightedglass rows, converging in infinity.

The indicators onthe console were behind a pane of glass. Lucy broke it with her elbow. Sheclosed her eyes and yanked out all the cables, but when she opened her eyes andsaw the world around her unchanged, she placed her wrist on the broken glass - toturn the picture off forever.

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