Robert Thurston - Intruder

He stopped talking, for they had reached the entrance to the computer chamber.

The Watchful Eye now realized that the immensity of Robot City was a hindrance to its destruction. After all the time it’d spent on the project, interrupted only by Wolruf’s attack, there had not been enough progress. Only a small percentage of Robot City had been toppled, collapsed, or removed.

Since the humans were not as adept in stalking as Wolruf, the Watchful Eye heard them ease open the outside door and come toward the computer.

It would have to confront them.

But it was afraid of confronting them. It did not know why.

The Watchful Eye turned around to face its new intruders. When it saw the three of them, all looking stern and clearly there with the same purpose as Wolruf, to take away its control of the city, it momentarily considered rushing at them, attacking them, hurling them through the air with the same force it had thrown Wolruf. But these were humans; it couldn’t harm them. It seemed as if the First Law of Robotics applied in this situation. But why? Robotics Laws were for robots. It was the Watchful Eye, and it should not be governed by laws governing inferior creatures.

Derec took a step forward.

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” he said. Of course it did not understand the reference.

“I am the Watchful Eye,” it responded.

“Cute name,” Ariel muttered.

“Perhaps derived from All-Seeing Eye, Eye of Providence, something like that,” Avery commented. “A symbol on currency, I think, signifying, I think, a new age or new order.”

Ariel saw Wolruf lying unconscious near the wall, and she rushed to her. After touching her and feeling for her life-signs, she nodded to Derec that Wolruf was alive. Derec turned back to the Watchful Eye.

“I don’t care who you are,” he said. “Why are you destroying my city?”

“Your city? It’s not your city now. I have taken it over. Look at the screens.” It pointed toward a bank of view-screens on which scenes of Robot City’s destruction were displayed. “Look at what I’ve done, and say it’s your city.”

“Look on my works, ye mighty…” Avery muttered.

“Okay,” Derec said. “Right now I don’t care whose city you think it is. Just give me your reasons for demolishing it.”

“It is…not right for me. I must accommodate it to my needs.”

“Seems to me you’ve done enough accommodating already, mister. I want you to stop accommodating and give me back control of the computer, so I can correct all the harm you’ve done.”

“It is not harm. I will improve the city. I cannot obey you, because there is no harm being done.”

“No harm? That’s just another robot word game. If I say there’s harm, there is harm, buster.”

“But I am not a robot.”

Here in the computer room Derec could already feel his chemfets stirring, beginning to move along his bloodstream with a purpose. It was as if they, too, had suffered structural damage from the Watchful Eye’s efforts and were now reestablishing themselves. Derec was sure control was coming back to him. He had only to remove this obstacle standing in front of him, and he thought he knew a way to defeat the Watchful Eye. He could, through his chemfets, sense disorientation in the new robot’s domination of the city.

“Watchful Eye, if you insist on calling yourself that, I am Derec.”

“I know that.”

“I am human. Do you understand? I am human. You must obey me.”

“I don’t see why that is so.”

“You have to obey me. It is Second Law. I know you have the Laws of Robotics embedded in your programming. Whatever I say, you must do. I am human.”

“I don’t know that.”

“I am telling you. I am human. Obey. Immediately cease your destruction of Robot City.”

“It is not suitable. It must be changed.”

“I want it the way it was before we arrived, before you came here and started tampering with it. Do it, robot.”

“I…I only look like a robot. My disguise. I am not a robot. I am something else. I must be something else.”

“You must be what you are, a robot. You were created to serve. To serve me. Obey me. It’s Second Law imperative.”

The Watchful Eye was not sure what to do.

“Only robots have to follow the Three Laws,” it said.

“It is objecting,” Avery whispered. “You can get it on the ropes. It would not have to object if it knew what it was. Did you hear, it said it must be something else. Derec, it doesn’t know what it is.”

“Watchful Eye,” Derec said, “you are a robot.”

“No, I am not. I have logically concluded that I am not. I look like one now because I have taken a robot’s shape. That in itself proves I am not a robot. Robots are fixed, immutable, they cannot change their shape.”

“If only Adam and Eve were here,” Derec mumbled.

“I thought you didn’t want to get them together,” Ariel remarked.

“I changed my mind.” Derec took another step forward. He didn’t know if encroaching on a robot’s personal space could unnerve it the way it did humans, but anything was worth a try.

The Watchful Eye again wondered if it could hurt Derec. But as soon as it thought of the act, something inside it seemed to make him immobile.

“Watchful Eye,” Derec said, “in spite of any evidence you have manufactured for yourself, you are a robot. There are others like you, and you will meet them.”

“Others? I know nothing of any others.”

“Perhaps you have spied on them, too. Adam and Eve are their names.”

“They cannot be robots. I’ve watched them. If they are of any designation, they are human.”

“No, we are the humans. The three of us. And you must, as I say, do what we tell you. Second Law. Second Law. Second Law.”

Derec’s chanting of the terms seemed eccentric behavior to the Watchful Eye. Where was the consistency of behavior that a high intelligence must have? it wondered.

“Watchful Eye, I order you to move away from that keyboard. We can take care of restoring the city. Do you understand? You must do it. Move away from the keyboard.”

Something happened in the Watchful Eye’s mind. something positronic, a clicking in, a prodding. It knew suddenly that Derec was right, and it must obey him. It moved away from the keyboard immediately, with no argument.

Derec felt his chemfets begin to function as they had before the Watchful Eye’s tampering had begun. They seemed to positively roil in his bloodstream. He gestured his father toward the keyboard.

“You made this city. You fix it.”

Rubbing his hands together eagerly, Avery went to the keyboard. He was already tapping keys before he sat down.

“Now, Watchful Eye, and I hope you get a less mouth-filling name very soon,” Derec said, “I want to be sure of everything. I need to be completely in connection with the computer. I order you to relinquish any link, except that of a normal Robot City robot, you may still have with the computer. But, before you do, let me ask you this one question. Can you get rid of the gook that’s allover the computer?”

Derec gestured toward the mosslike substance that was even thicker now, layers of it hiding most of the machine’s workings.

“Yes, I can.”

“Do it.”

The moss seemed to melt. But, unlike melting substances, there was no residue collecting under it. It merely disappeared, leaving the computer as it was, and in fact much shinier.

“Now, Watchful Eye, relinquish any computer link.”

“It is done,” it said immediately.

Derec, intent on regaining control over his chemfets, did not notice at first what was going on in the new robot’s face. There was much less Bogie in it. For a moment there was a suggestion of Derec, and then there was no face at all.