Mickey Reichert - I, Robot - To Protect

Susan had considered that possibility several times, and it made a lot of sense. Her mind just kept cycling back to the coincidence of his being a study patient and to the Three Laws of Robotics. Still, Susan knew that simply because things happened in proximity did not make them related. Such assumptions had caused many a scientific error and even more mass falsehoods and hysteria. Schizophrenics acted in schizotypical fashion; Payton did not need a reason beyond psychosis to act psychotically.

Susan sagged in her chair. It felt good to give up control this once, to allow wiser heads to prevail. “They’re all in agreement? No doubts?”

“No doubts,” her father returned. “And while that doesn’t necessarily make them right, it’s a good feeling when so many intelligent and experienced people agree.”

Susan smiled. “Yeah. Thanks, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you, too, kitten.” John Calvin clicked off.

Susan rubbed her face, stopped in midmovement by a soft noise. “Meow,” Remington said.

Nate chuckled softly.

Susan’s cheeks felt warm, and she turned man and robot a humorless glare. “Very funny. He’s my dad; I’m his kitten. It’s not like he called me ‘snooky-ookums.’ ”

“Calm down, kitten.” Remington looked sidelong at Nate. “What do you say we finally go on that date we keep postponing?”

To her surprise, Susan did not find the idea appealing. She wanted to do anything other than wander through the same city, reliving the experience, comparing everything to how it had looked before the bombing. “Can I take a rain check?”

“Ooo, another?” Remington pursed his lips and sucked air through his teeth. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“I’m trying to tell you I’m not up for a repeat of two days ago, thank you very much. Also, Goldman and Peters said they had three more patients, and they dusted off their skills to handle Sharicka.” Susan doubted the little girl’s injection had gone smoothly. “If I were one of those three patients, I’d rather have me doing the procedure, wouldn’t you?”

“Are you asking if I’d rather have a beautiful woman touching me or two male scientists?”

Susan could not help smiling. “Why don’t you give me a hand? When I’m finished, I’ll take you back to my place, and we can have a home-cooked meal à la Kentucky Roasted Chicken.”

Remington bobbed his head. “Will your father be there?”

“Probably.”

“Hmm.” He pretended to consider. “I’ll take you up on it anyway. At least you’re not blowing me off this time.”

“Or blowing you up ,” Nate reminded, proving a robot’s sense of humor can be just as terrible as the next man’s.

It also reminded Susan to say, “By the way, in case I forgot to say it before, thank you for saving my life.”

A reddish tinge rose to Remington’s face. “I’m not sure I actually saved your life. Maybe kept you from getting a hunk of bus embedded in your shoulder.”

“Or my skull. Or my carotid artery.” Susan knew all the ways a piece of flying metal could kill a person. “And I probably couldn’t have handled the concussive forces as well as you did. I also appreciated that you went straight to work helping others, even though you were wounded and shaken yourself.”

The new color drained from Remington’s face, returning it to its natural hue. “I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a backhanded insult.”

The response startled Susan. She had not considered that he might perceive her words in a negative way. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just a bit miffed it even occurred to you I might not help in a crisis. You pitched right in, and I’m a doctor, too.”

“Well, yes, but . . .” Susan finally paused to consider Remington’s words. She had assisted the other victims of the bombing without any need for thought. She had the skills, and she used them. Why had she expected less from Remington? “You were hurt, and you took the full force of the explosion . . . and . . .”

“Just because I majored in biochemistry instead of construction doesn’t make me a daisy.”

“Of course it doesn’t. I . . .” Susan finally looked directly at Remington.

Remington chuckled. “I was just going to say you were right about how to handle a dangerous schizophrenic. I shouldn’t have pushed you to ‘do something.’ ”

The words startled Susan. “I was just going to say you were right. I was the only one who knew his name and diagnosis, the only one who had a chance to successfully disarm him.”

“The fact that we’re here, alive, speaks otherwise.”

Susan shook her head. “The fact that we’re here, alive, is either luck or an echo of the Three Laws of Robotics. I didn’t do anything because I think I never really believed he had a functioning bomb. I was obviously wrong.”

Remington stared.

Uncomfortable under the sudden, intense scrutiny, Susan smoothed back her hair and worried about what might be sticking to her face or teeth. “What?”

“You just said you were wrong.”

“So?”

“Dr. Susan Calvin was wrong about something?”

Susan did not wish to be reminded of her mistake with Sharicka. “Twice. In one week. And when I’m wrong, I do it in grand fashion. People die.”

Remington intoned, “‘People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.’ ”

Susan blinked and repeated, “What?”

“A great man once said that. It’s my favorite quotation. I use it whenever one of my peers gets too full of himself.”

Susan did not like the sound of that. “Did I seem too full of myself?”

Remington took her hands. “Not at all. But if you get to thinking the world will end every time you make a mistake, you’ll be afraid to do or say anything.” He pulled her close. “The world needs you, Susan Calvin. With all your competence and your confidence. I’d hate to ever see you frozen in indecision.”

“Never been accused of that,” Susan admitted. “Though I can’t say it’s never happened.” She wrapped her arms around him. He felt warm and strong, smelling of disinfectants and hospital bedding. “I’m sure you’ll keep me . . . properly arrogant.”

“I seem to manage it with my peers.” Remington leaned in and kissed her.

A thrill of excitement swept through Susan, and she returned his kiss.

Nate feigned great interest in his palm-pross.

Remington proved invaluable as an assistant for Susan’s first patient, Ronnie Bogart, a middle-aged man with bipolar illness who suffered from chronic depressive episodes. After his seventeenth suicide attempt, and his twentieth medication trial, it seemed unlikely any treatment would allow him to live outside of an institution. Alone in the world, he signed his own consent. The neurosurgery resident kept the patient still, as much with a steady patter of conversation as any type of physical restraint. When the vial of greenish liquid came out, Remington focused on it with grim fanaticism, running his fingers repeatedly over the rosy orange safety seal and, after its removal, studying the cap and the vial itself. Apparently satisfied, he tossed it in the biohazard can and proceeded to help Susan.

The second patient, Barack Balinsky, did not require anyone to hold him. Like Neal Fontaina, he was a catatonic schizophrenic, and he had not deliberately moved a muscle in nearly sixteen years. He had spent almost half his life in his mother’s living room, a feeding tube dripping liquid food into his throat while he lay nestled into a mechanical bed that constantly shifted his position so he would not develop bedsores and contractures. Clearly long-suffering, his mother signed the consent form in silence, then left the residents alone to do their work. Susan supposed she appreciated the reprieve. She wondered if the mother hired babysitters to watch him while she went about her business or if she simply left him to his still and silent world.