Mike McQuay - Suspicion

As the door to the apartment slid open, Derec tucked under the arm of the big robot, watched Katherine’s facial expression change from horror, to relief, to unbridled amusement-all in the space of three seconds.

“Let me guess,” she said, putting a finger to her lips, “you’re a ditty bag.”

“Cute,” Derec returned as the robot set him gently on the ground. He looked up at the huge, black machine. “Thanks for the ride, Avernus.”

“My pleasure, Friend Derec,” the robot replied, bending slightly so that the hallway could accommodate his height. “But I must ask you to stay away from the underground. It is no place for a human.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Derec said noncommittally. He walked into the apartment, then turned back to Avernus. “Will we see you at the meeting?”

“Most assuredly,” he returned. “All of us look forward to it with great expectation.”

“You can go now,” Katherine told Avernus coldly, the robot nodding slightly and moving off, the utility robot guard sliding quickly to fill the door space with his squat body.

Katherine punched the door stud, the panel sliding closed. “You missed breakfast and lunch,” she said, moving to sit listlessly on the couch.

“Avernus got me something before he brought me back,” Derec said. “He got my wounds cleaned up, and even let me sleep for a while.” Finally, he couldn’t ignore her mood any longer. “What’s wrong?”

“You,” she said, “this place… everything. I don’t know which way is up anymore. Did you find out anything?”

Derec spotted the CRT screen set up on the table and walked to stand before it. “It’s a place designed for humans,” he said, “and the building is going on at a furious pace, as if they’re in some kind of hurry to get finished. I think the buildings may be… I don’t know, alive, I guess is the best way to put it.” He pointed to the screen. “Where did this come from?”

“Rydberg brought it,” she answered, “But it only receives. What do you mean, the city’s alive?”

“Watch this,” Derec said, and ran full speed across the room, banging into the far wall. The wall gave with him, caving inward, then gently pushed itself back to a solid position.

“I laid awake all night worrying about you, while you were discovering the walls are made of rubber?” she asked loudly.

He turned to her, smiling. “Did you really worry about me?”

“No,” she replied. “What else?”

He walked over and sat on the couch with her, his tones hushed. “I saw the city building itself, literally extruding itself from the ground. I tried to go down there, but Avernus caught me. I think he’s in charge down there. The only thing I can figure is that there are immense mining operations underway below ground and that the buildings are positronic, some kind of cellular robots that make up a complete whole. It’s fascinating!”

Katherine was unimpressed. “Did you find a way out of here?”

He shook his head. “Not yet,” he answered, “but I don’t really think that’s going to be a problem.”

“That’s because you’re so eaten up with your robot friends you can’t think of anything else!” She suddenly jerked her head toward the wall. “If the walls are robots, I wonder if they can hear us now?”

Just then the screen on the table came to life, Rydberg’s face filling it. “So, you are back, Derec,” he said. “Good. Prepare yourselves. An honor guard is coming right now to bring you to your preliminary trial.”

“Trial?” Derec said.

“Uh oh,” Katherine said, putting a hand to her mouth. “That may be my fault. I all but dared them to put us on trial.”

“But we haven’t had a chance to investigate yet.”

She shrugged. “I was trying to find if we could have access to outside communications.” She snapped her fingers. “Maybe this means we’re going to get it.”

“Yeah… maybe,” Derec said, but he was skeptical. Robot City was too precious a gem to be hanging out in the ether for anyone to pluck. At this point, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to communicate with the outside.

He looked at the screen. It had already gone blank. “Whatever the reason,” he said, “I believe we’re going to get some answers at this point.”

“Let’s hope they’re answers we can live with,” she sighed. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here.”

Within minutes, the utility robot was knocking on the door. Derec hurried to open it. Euler greeted him, accompanied by a supervisor robot he’d not seen before. This one was the robot most closely molded to a human that Derec had seen, with chisled, though blank, mannequin-like features.

“Friend Derec,” Euler said, “Friend Katherine Burgess, may I present Arion, who will be in attendance at our meeting.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Derec said.

“Rydberg called it a trial,” Katherine said.

“This is a great moment for us here,” Arion said. “I trust that your stay so far has been satisfactory. I am doing my best with what little time I have to try and prepare some entertainment for you. We know that humans enjoy mind diversions.”

“We’d appreciate anything you could do,” Derec said.

“Sure,” Katherine said. “How about conjuring up a radio for us to call the outside for help?”

“Oh, that’s quite impossible,” Arion said.

“That’s what I thought,” Katherine answered.

“I have a present for each of you,” Euler said, extending his right arm. “Then we must be off to the meeting.”

Derec moved to the robot. His pincers held two large watches, dangling on gold chains. “You may know the time here now,” Euler said. “It is of importance to humans, and so, to us. We will do more to make you feel comfortable in this regard.”

Derec took the watches, giving one of them to Katherine. They had square faces encased in gold. On both of them, the LCD faces read 3:35. “They run on a twenty-four hour day,” said Euler. “We thought it would be more comfortable for you if we adjusted the length of our hour than if you had to adjust to a twenty-and-one-half hour day. Our hours, decads, and centads are approximately eighty-five percent of standard.” Derec walked out onto the veranda and looked into the sky. The sun had already passed its apex and was slowly crawling toward the eventual shadows of evening.

“Right on the money,” he said, returning to the apartment.

“You doubted it?” Arion asked, looking at Euler.

“Do you understand now?” Euler said to him.

“Interesting,” Arion said, cocking his head in an almost human fashion.

“We must go,” Euler said and hurried out of the apartment, the others following.

They rode the elevator to street level and boarded a multi-car tram that had no apparent driver. It started off immediately when they were seated. Euler turned to Derec, who sat, with Katherine, behind him and Arion. “You put yourself in extreme danger last night,” the robot said. “Why?”

“I’ve a better question,” Derec returned. “If this is such a perfect human world, why was it so dangerous?”

“Spacer worlds conquered weather problems eons ago,” Katherine interjected. “For you to have them in such an advanced culture makes no sense.”

Arion turned to her and bowed his head. “Thank you for calling our culture advanced.”

“The weather,” Euler said, “is quite honestly part of our overall problem right now. It is under our control, but also not under our control. Unfortunately, for security reasons, we cannot discuss it in detail.”

“Great,” Katherine said. “Everybody can do something about the weather, but nobody talks about it.”