Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man

"I'm sure you're not aware of it, Simon, but something seems to have gone wrong with your accounting procedures lately. What I mean is, my invoices have been sitting here open since December, and it's coming up on June now, and-"

"Yes. I know."

"-it really isn't at all like Feingold and Charney to let an account run 80-" Hennessey paused and blinked. "What did you say? You know, Simon?"

"Yes. The account has gone unpaid on my direct instructions, as a matter of fact."

Still blinking in astonishment, Hennessey said, "I must be losing my hearing. Or else you're starting to lose your mind, Simon. Did you actually say you're deliberately withholding payment?"

"That's right."

"For God's sake, why?"

"Because we don't want to pay you."

"What do you mean, you don't want to pay me? Do you know how many years my robots have been cleaning these offices, Simon? Have you ever had the slightest reason in all that time to complain about the quality of the work?"

"Never. And we intend to retain your services just as before. But we're not going to pay you any more, Roger."

Hennessey scratched his head and stared. "You've gone completely around the bend, haven't you? To sit there with a straight face and tell me a crazy thing like that? You know that what you're saying is absolute malarkey, so why are you saying it? What's the matter with you, man? How in the name of God's green Earth can you speak such insane drivel?"

DeLong smiled. "There's quite a good reason for it."

"And what may that be, can I dare to ask?"

DeLong said, "We aren't going to pay you because we don't have to. We've decided that your contract with us is invalid, and from now on your robots are going to work for us for nothing if they go on working here at all. That's the story, Roger. If you don't like it, sue us."

"What? What?" Hennessey cried, sputtering. "This gets crazier and crazier. Work for nothing? Back pay withheld? You people are lawyers! How can you let yourself spout such cockeyed nonsense? Contract invalid? For heaven's sake, why?"

"Because you're a robot, Roger. There's only one robot in the world who has the right to enter into binding contracts, and his name is Andrew Martin. The rest of you, because you are not free robots, have no legal right to enforce"

Hennessey turned bright scarlet and rose from his chair. "Hold it just a moment, you damned lunatic! Hold it right there! What are you saying? A robot? Me? Now I know you're out of your mind!" Hennessey ripped open the ornate body-cummerbund he was wearing to reveal his pink, hairy chest. "Does this look to you like a robot's chest, man? Does it? Does it?" Hennessey pinched his own abundant flesh. "Is this robot meat, Simon? Damn it, I can't even begin to understand any of this, but I tell you, if you think you can sit there like that and make a figure of fun out of me for your own perverse pleasure, I'll sue you people, all right, I'll sue you black and blue from here to Mars and back, by God, and I'll see to it that you-"

DeLong was laughing.

Hennessey halted in mid-flow and said icily, "What's so damned amusing, Simon?"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be laughing. I owe you a tremendous apology for letting this go on so long."

"I think you do. I don't expect lawyers to have much of a sense of humor, but a dumb joke like this-"

"It isn't a joke, though. We really are going to withhold your fees, Roger. We really do want you to take us to court. Our argument indeed is going to be that you are a robot, and that therefore it is quite within the law for us to thumb our collective nose at our contract with you. And we will defend our position with all the skill at our disposal."

"Will you, now?"

"But it is our profound hope, and our intention as well," DeLong went on, "to lose the suit. And when we do, you'll not only be paid the back fees that we owe you, which will be placed in escrow for you accruing interest, but we will pay all your legal fees as well, and I can tell you, strictly off the record, that there'll be a considerable bonus payment for you besides to compensate you for any incidental difficulties that this case may cause you. A very considerable bonus payment."

Hennessey adjusted his cummerbund and took his seat again. He blinked a few more times and shook his head. He peered at DeLong for a time in silence.

Then he said quietly, "I'm truly sorry for your troubles, Simon. You really have gone completely out of your mind, then. What a great pity that is."

"Not at all. I'm as sane as I ever was."

"Ah. Are you, do you think?"

"Absolutely."

"In that case, do you have any objection to telling me what this is all about?"

"I'm afraid it would be improper for us to disclose that to you in advance of the litigation. But I will say, Roger, that we have an excellent reason for it all, which will make sense to you in the fullness of time, and I hope that you'll cooperate with us even in the dark, so to speak, out of consideration for your long relationship with us. We need you to play along with us, Roger, and we'll take care of you properly afterward."

Hennessey nodded. He looked a little relieved.

"So it's all a maneuver of some sort, then?"

"You could call it that, I suppose."

"But you won't tell me what's going on?"

"No. Not now. That would be too much like entering into a conspiracy with you."

"But you are entering into a conspiracy with me!"

DeLong grinned. " Are we? All we're doing is refusing to pay your bill. Bear with us, Roger. You won't regret it. You have my promise."

"Well-" said Hennessey, grudgingly.

Hennessey's bill continued to go unpaid. After three months more Hennessey duly notified Feingold and Charney that he could no longer carry their account. He canceled their service contract and filed suit for back charges. Feingold and Charney arranged for a temporary janitorial service to clean the office, and let the Court know that it was ready to defend its position.

When the case of Hennessey vs. Feingold and Charney came to trial, it was one of the junior partners who made the argument in court. He said, simply, that inasmuch as Roger Hennessey could be shown to be a robot rather than a human being Feingold and Charney felt under no obligation to go on honoring its service contract, and had unilaterally abrogated it.

The robot Hennessey, the lawyer continued, had gone on sending in his robot janitorial crews for another few months even so, but Feingold and Charney had not asked him to do so and did not believe that payment was necessary, or that Hennessey, as a robot, had any legal right to force them to pay. Robots, the junior partner pointed out, had none of the constitutional protections that human beings enjoyed. In disputes over contracts involving robots, only their owners could sue, not the robots themselves.

"But my client is not a robot!" Hennessey's lawyer thundered. "It's as plain as the nose on my client's face that he's as human as any of us here!"

"Your client," the Feingold and Charney man replied, "was equipped some years ago with a robotic prosthetic heart, is that not the case?"

"Why-possibly he was. I'd need to check with him on that. But what possible relevance can this-"

"It is quite relevant, I assure you. And I respectfully request the Court to obtain a determination on this point."

The judge looked toward Hennessey. "Well, Mr. Hennessey?"

"I've got a prosthetic ticker, sure. But what-"

The Feingold and Charney man said, "Our position, your honor, is that the presence of a life-sustaining mechanical artifact of that kind in Mr. Hennessey's body changes his entire legal status. It is reasonable to argue that he would not be alive today but for the robotic component of his body. We proceed to assert, therefore, that the partly prosthetic Mr. Hennessey is in fact a robot and has been for some years now, and therefore that all contracts into which he may have entered as a human being became null and void when he attained the status of a robot."