Mickey Reichert - I, Robot - To Protect

John Calvin followed Remington’s gaze. “Yup. They’re pretty basic units. You didn’t want to see the inside of the fridges, too?”

“Please?”

“Seriously?”

“If you don’t mind.”

With a shrug and a glance that suggested he thought the neurosurgery resident had gone insane, John unlocked one of the refrigeration units. He opened the door to reveal thick walls and insulation. A test-tube stand held five of the familiar green vials with reddish seals. They seemed out of place to Susan, like running into an old friend from home while on vacation.

Remington leaned in so closely he blocked Susan’s view. He studied the vials for several moments, while Susan and her father exchanged looks that expressed confusion, surprise, and, perhaps, a hint of suspicion. Susan had to ask. “What are you doing, Remy?”

Remington stiffened, as if awakening from a trance. “Sorry. It’s just all so amazing.”

At that moment, an alarm blared through the room, so sudden and loud that Susan let out an involuntary squeak. She turned to John Calvin for explanation, but he seemed as uncomfortable as she did. Remington stood up straight.

“Lock up, Susan,” John Calvin said, heading for the door.

Susan reached to shut the refrigeration unit, but Remington caught her hand. “Wait,” he whispered, pausing until John Calvin had fully exited. Only then, he whipped something from his pocket and held it up against the test tubes. Susan recognized it as one of the empty vials from when he had helped her inject her last few patients, along with the torn-off seal.

The alarm continued to shrill through the building, almost unbearable. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears and curl into a ball. Ventilator alarms made a similar noise, absolutely impossible to ignore, cuing medical staff to a life-threatening emergency requiring immediate attention.

“See?” Remington said.

“See what?” The words emerged more gruffly than Susan intended. Driven to find the source of the alarm, and fix it, she found concentration on anything else almost impossible.

“Look closely. At the seals.”

Susan forced herself to study the removed seal, comparing it to the ones on the fresh vials. Now that Remington had pointed it out, she could see the previous seal had more of an orange hue, while the ones in the fridge were definitively red. “Do you think it faded a bit?”

Remington grimaced, then shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. It came off yesterday, and it’s been in my pocket since. Besides, you’ve seen the seals on the vials we’re using.”

The alarm seemed to explode in Susan’s head, making original thought nearly impossible. “So . . . someone is tampering with them.” The significance of her own words escaped her momentarily.

The alarm stopped abruptly, and realization smacked Susan so hard she nearly fell.

Remington closed and locked the refrigerator unit. “Exactly. And it’s happening sometime after this step in the process.”

The silence became nearly as overbearing as the alarm itself. Susan felt a shiver traverse her entire spine. “Let’s go find my dad.” She headed for the door, and Remington followed.

They wound their way swiftly back to Lawrence Robertson’s office, where they found the door closed. Susan knocked politely before pushing it open. A screen blared the evening news. The same men they had met earlier, plus two more, leaned forward in their chairs, watching intently. At the back of the room, Susan’s father appeared to be the only one who noticed them, and he ushered them inside with a gesture. The pair stepped in and closed the door behind them.

“Hell of a coincidence,” someone muttered.

“But coincidence it must be,” Alfred Lanning said emphatically. “There’s no other explanation.”

“What happened?” Susan whispered to her father.

John Calvin squirmed, clearly loath to tell her. “Valerie Aldrich just blew herself up in the Federal Building.”

Susan felt as if a vice clamped onto her chest. “Valerie Aldrich? Princess Valerie? I injected her myself.”

“Yes.”

The situation seemed to require more. “Dad, that’s the second person with circulating nanorobots who set off a bomb in Manhattan.”

“Yes.”

Susan made a wordless noise of frustration.

Remington took over the questioning. “Was anyone hurt?”

Lawrence Robertson shut off the news.

“From what they’re saying, she ordered everyone to evacuate the room before detonation. Half the building went down, though, and some people got caught in the rubble. They’ve confirmed two deaths and a lot of injuries.”

“We have to remember,” Alfred Lanning continued, “we’re working with the most psychotic patients in the city. Insanity is normal for them.”

Susan blurted out, “But acting within the Three Laws of Robotics isn’t.”

Every eye, every head whipped toward Susan. Remington shook his head and unobtrusively took her hand in a quiet plea for silence.

But it was too late. Whatever damage he feared was already done.

Lawrence Robertson spoke first. “What do you mean, Susan?”

Susan had no idea why Remington wanted to silence her, but she had something to say and every intention of saying it. “Both of our bombers have had three things in common: They were injected with nanorobots, they somehow obtained functioning explosives, and they attempted to follow the Three Laws of Robotics.”

An outburst of conversation followed Susan’s pronouncement.

Lawrence Robertson raised a hand, restoring the quiet but not decreasing the intensity of the stares one iota. “How so? If they were operating under the Three Laws, they could not have injured anyone.”

As Susan continued, Remington’s grip on her hand grew stronger to the point of pain. “I think they tried to avoid it, but they had limited judgment and insight into the power of the explosives they carried. In both cases, they ordered people out of the blast area first.” She gave Remington a questioning look and received a subtle cutting gesture at his throat. He wanted her to shut up.

Alfred Lanning screwed his features into a perfect depiction of disgust. “That’s all very interesting, but entirely impossible. While it’s true the nanorobots do carry the Three Laws by virtue of having positronic properties, they don’t have the thinking capacity to contemplate and act on them. I think it’s far more likely the functioning consciences of these psychiatric patients caused them to act in an ethical manner that simulates the patented Three Laws of Robotics.”

“Except,” Susan said, “that it’s too far-fetched a coincidence to believe that, in a city of fifteen million, two of the seven patients injected with nanorobots, neither of whom had ever shown a violent propensity nor had any knowledge of explosives, independently decided to blow up prime Manhattan targets.”

A handsome, fine-boned man of mixed race piped up next. “Are you saying the nanorobots caused these people to act this way?”

“Impossible,” Alfred snapped. “I programmed those nanos myself. There’s absolutely nothing in them that could induce someone to act in any fashion.” He added emphatically, “Nothing!”

Remington released Susan. “Unless, Dr. Lanning, someone tampered with them.”

The room fell into an even deeper silence than before, if possible. Susan suddenly understood why Remington had wanted to keep her from talking. He suspected someone at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, perhaps someone in the room, was a saboteur.

Apparently, Lawrence Robertson made the same connection. He addressed Remington directly. “With the exception of you, young stranger, I trust every person in this room not only with my business, but with my life itself. Not one has worked with me fewer than fifteen years, and all of them have invested a life work into this company. As to you, Remy, I’m assuming you don’t have the knowledge to program nanorobots, and I know you haven’t had the opportunity.”