Intruder

Chapter 14. A Disconnected Detective

Bogie stood in the corner where Derec had placed him so long ago. Timestep was across the room in another corner. While it was impossible for Bogie to be bored or to consider the possibilities of nothingness while in fact doing nothing for several consecutive days, he was aware that he had been in the corner for some time. It seemed to him that his position must be very much like the detectives on stakeout in several of the films he had researched. In scenes where they had waxed philosophical in tough-guy language, with plenty of wise-cracks and sentimental observations about life, they had had to pass time with only their own words to keep them company, plus a few doughnuts. Bogie would, he decided, prefer to do a stakeout for Derec than merely to stand in a corner awaiting his next order.

The order came, but not from Derec. The Watchful Eye transmitted a comlink message to Bogie over the secret channel it had created for private communications with its robots. The message told Bogie to come at once but not to allow Derec to see him go. That posed quite a dilemma for Bogie. If he left immediately, it would be obvious. If he waited for the right time, he would be disobeying the Big Muddy’s command to come at once. For a while he stood in his corner, aware that he could get mental freeze-out, a condition where a robot’s positronic brain essentially stopped functioning because of an unresolvable dilemma. He was, he thought, a cybernetic goner if he could not slip away soon.

In the room Derec was speaking with Mandelbrot.

“I had another dream about my mother last night,” Derec was saying.

“That is your fifth dream about her,” Mandelbrot said. “The fifth that you have told me about.”

“Yep. That’s all of ‘em. There wasn’t much to this one. I was a child, and she came to give me medicine. But this time I saw her face clearly. She had blond hair and hazel eyes. She seemed very kind. We talked for a while, I don’t remember about what. Then she said she loved me and left. And I woke up.”

“It was a pleasant dream then?”

“I suppose. But I woke up wondering if the woman in the dream was really my mother. I mean, I’ve never seen her, so anyone I think up could come into my dream and say she’s my mother without even looking anything like her. Do you understand, Mandelbrot?”

“Frankly, no.”

“Well, I guess you don’t have a mother.”

“You know I do not.”

Derec seemed about to explain something to Mandelbrot, but there was a soft rapping on the door.

“That sounds like Wolruf,” Derec said. “I’d recognize that tap anywhere. Come in, Wolruf.”

The caninoid alien came into the room.

“Messsage frrom Arriel,” she said. “She ssent me. We are making progrresss with your fatherr, she told me to tell ‘u.”

Derec’s face brightened. “That’s wonderful news, Wolruf. How much progress, do you think?”

“Am not able to guesss. In my homeland iss no mental illnesss. Have not seen it before Dr. Averry.”

“But he seems better.”

“That may be ssaid, I think.”

“Good. But she still doesn’t want me to come there?”

“Afrraid you’ll-”

“I know, I know. I could set him back. That’s okay.” (It wasn’t, but he said so. He was very curious about what his father would be like as a sane man. He could not conceive of the possibility.) “How about your other project? The Silversides?”

“They help Arriel, but she feelss they are just ass unpredictable ass everr.”

“I suspect so. And the dancers?”

“She ssaid to tell ‘u they do not do well. They get old. One died.”

“Did that upset Ariel badly?”

“No, I don’t think so. Eve wass concerned. She inssissted on taking it somewhere and burrying it. Ariel ssaid that iss sstrange.”

“I agree. But Adam and Eve seem full of surprises, don’t they?”

“Alwayss.”

“Anything more, Wolruf?”

“That’ss all she told me to tell ‘u.”

“Well, thank you. You make a good messenger, Wolruf. I won’t have to shoot you.”

“Shoot me? You would-?”

Derec laughed. “No, I wouldn’t shoot you. According to some Earth legend I read about, if a king was dissatisfied with the news a messenger brought, he would order the messenger killed. But, if it were ever true, it was a custom that faded out with civilization.”

“I am thankful for that.”

“Stay with us, Wolruf. I’m hungry. We can eat something. I’ve taught Mandelbrot how to program the chemical food processor. He comes up with some awesome concoctions, and I’m sure if you state your preferences, he can devise something to your taste.”

Derec rose from his chair and led the others out of the room. The food machine was located in a kitchen on the other side of the corridor.

The human need for food solved Bogie’s problem. He slipped away from his corner and, checking the corridor carefully, went out into it. As he passed the kitchen, he heard Derec talking and the sounds of Mandelbrot operating the processor.

Growing again the thick legs it used to get around the computer chamber, the Watchful Eye moved out of its haven.

There were no robots or intruders anywhere near the computer complex at this time, and it wanted to be ready for Bogie when he arrived. It had a plan, and it needed Bogie to make the plan work.

It was night in Robot City, Bogie’s favorite time, and he noticed that the moonlight slashed off the sides of buildings like a mugger’s sudden attack. As he walked quickly through the streets, he liked to think of descriptive lines like that, lines derived from the voiceovers in many of the old movies he’d viewed. He glanced around for more opportunities to practice such lines. In the night sky, the stars flickered on and off, like the sequins on a party girl’s dress. The tunnel he would use to go down to the computer level-and the Watchful Eye-loomed mysteriously in front of him, like a black hole with a welcome mat in front of it.

He wondered why his thoughts had taken such an odd turn. Could it just be his fascination with all those movies he’d researched, or was there some reason to be wary of what the Watchful Eye had in store for him?

The Watchful Eye tracked Bogie on his trip through the intricate maze that was the route to the computer chamber, watching several view-screens so he could gain knowledge of the robot from all angles. The more it could study Bogie before the robot arrived, the easier it would be to duplicate him. Further, it could store images of Bogie’s movements in its own memory banks, so that it could duplicate him with Derec or the others.

Bogie came through the sliding wall, saying, “You called, boss?”

“That is correct, Bogie. You are the first robot ever allowed into this sanctum by me. I hope you are honored.”

“A singular honor, boss. I’ll dine out on this for years. It’ll impress all the dolls. A doll in Washington Heights once got a fox fur out of me.”

The Watchful Eye hadn’t the slightest idea what Bogie was talking about, but that didn’t matter. It had no more use for Bogie anyway.

It moved out of its haven, walking on the short, rudimentary legs so adequate for the computer room. Sometimes it had been necessary to get through interstices in the machinery, to stretch itself to an elongated shape and worm its way, grabbing with even shorter legs (and more of them), through an opening. At other times it had needed to puff itself out in order to roll through a chute or tunnel; at those times it retracted its legs. But now it was perched on its conventional limbs, standing in front of Bogie, who had to look down at it.

“Say, boss, you’re not what I expected.”

“You did not expect me to be so amorphous?”

“If you say so. What I mean, I didn’t expect a blob. From the movie of the same name.”

This robot had gone too far with its research, the Watchful Eye decided. Shutting him off was, in a way, a kindness.

Using Bogie as a model, supplemented with the images it had already stored, the Watchful Eye began transforming itself. Bogie watched silently as the blob began to grow in height and shrink in width. Soon its legs lengthened and it grew arms. A moment later it was in a clearly humanoid shape. Even quicker came the changes that made it clearly a robot. Last were the delicate shifts in the facial and bodily look that gave it features and characteristics. But it was not until the Watchful Eye had finished its transformation that Bogie recognized it.

“Hey,” he said, “You’re me now, boss. That’s a nifty trick. How’d you do it?”

“That is not necessary for you to know, Bogie. I must explain to you now, because I want you to realize, that I will have to disconnect you now.”

“Disconnect? You mean, rub me out?”

“That is exactly what I do mean. I need to observe our visitors up close, arid so I am going to pose as you. That means I cannot take the chance of anyone discovering you here and guessing my disguise. Further, you are the only robot to be allowed into my presence, and so you have already seen too much and cannot be allowed even to carry that information in your memory banks. Also, you are no longer of any use to me. So I must disconnect you.”

“It’s like shooting the messenger, I guess.”

“I do not understand the reference.”

Bogie explained what Derec had said about messengers while the Watchful Eye opened the control panel in his back.

“Boss?”

“Yes?”

“When I am activated again, I won’t remember anything? I won’t even have this identity? I’ll be reprogrammed?”

“Ifyouare activated again, all that would be true.”

“If?”

“Your existence is a threat to my safety. I must protect myself, so I must destroy you.”

“Oh. I understand. Well, boss, I guess it’s goodbye, huh?”

“There is no need for amenities between us.”

Just before the Watchful Eye disconnected the final wire, Bogie said, “Well, we’ll always have Paris.”

After Bogie was shut off, the Watchful Eye, with the precision of a surgeon, broke him up into his components. He carried the parts to a recycling chute, from which they would eventually be collected and taken to a Robot Recycling Facility, where they would be used in the construction of new robots.

The Watchful Eye continued on down the corridor. It wanted to reach Derec’s quarters before Bogie was missed.