Mike McQuay - Suspicion

Despite the differences, despite the bind the robots had put them in, they really were trying to make this world as perfect as they could for the travelers, travelers whom they suspected of murder. She had never before considered just how symbiotic the binding of humans to robots really was and, at least for the robots, how essential. She hoped that they would, eventually, have their civilization, complete with humans to order them around stupidly. She found herself smiling again. Her mother had a phrase that could apply to the robots’ longing for human companionship-a glutton for punishment.

She heard a noise behind her and turned, expecting to see a supervisor arriving. Instead she saw two utility robots moving toward her, carrying between them what looked for all the world like a park bench. Without a word, they moved right up to her and placed the bench just behind. She sat, and they hurried off.

She sat for barely a decad before Arion came clanking around a corner, along with a utility robot with a bulky laser torch strapped on his back. It took her back for a second, a seeming replay of the scene Eve had described to her when David had first become trapped in the sealed room.

“Good afternoon, Friend Katherine,” Arion said as he moved up to her. “I see you are taking advantage of one of our chairs to rest your body. Very good.”

“What’s that on your wrist,” Katherine asked, “a watch?”

The supervisor held up his arm, displaying the timepiece. “A show of solidarity,” he said.

“You’re in charge of human-creative functions on Robot City, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Human-creative is a redundant term,” Arion replied. “Creativity is the human stock-in-trade. I hope you’ve found satisfactory the entertainments I’ve provided for you.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” she answered.

“Of course.”

“I thank you for coming so promptly,” Katherine said.

“This is a priority matter,” the robot said, gazing up at the sealed room. “You believe this to be the location of the body?”

“I’m certain of it.”

“Very good. Let’s take a closer look.”

Katherine stood and walked to the base of the tower with Arion. The pedestal was approximately the size of a large tree trunk, just large enough that she could almost reach around it if she tired. Arion reached out and touched the smooth, blue skin, and magically a spiral staircase with railing jutted from the surface and wound around the exterior of the tower.

“After you,” the robot said politely.

Katherine started up, the design of the staircase keeping her from any sense of vertigo. As she climbed, she could feel that the air was cooling down, the presage to another night of destructive rain. Behind her, Arion, the utility robot, and the witness followed dutifully, and she realized that she was in the lead because it was the natural position for her in regard to this inquiry. This was her notion, her case-the robots at this point were merely her willing cohorts. Finally, she could give orders again and have them carried out!

She reached the top quickly. The flat disc of the pedestal top curled up and inward all around to make it impossible for her to fall off. That left the room itself. Uncolored, it was a natural gray-red and perfectly square. She walked completely around it looking for entry, but her first assessment had been correct: it was locked up tight.

“What do you propose at this point?” Arion asked her, as he followed her around the perimeter of the room.

“We’re going to have to get inside,” she said, “and see what there is to see. I suppose there’s no other way to get in except by using the torch?”

“Normally, this situation would never arise,” Arion told her. “There are no other buildings in the city that behave like this. There is no reason to seal up a room.”

“You mean you don’t know why or how the rooms have sealed themselves up?”

“The city program was given to us intact through the central core, and only the central core contains the program information. Other than through observation, we don’t know exactly how the city operates.”

Katherine was taken aback. “So, the city is actually a highly advanced autonomous robot in its own right, operating outside of your control.”

“Your statement is basically inaccurate, but containing the germ of truth,” Arion said. “To begin with, it is not highly advanced, at least not in the same sense that a… supervisor robot, for example, is highly advanced.”

“Do I detect a shade of rivalry here?” she asked.

“Certainly not,” Arion said. “We are not capable of such feelings as competitiveness. I was simply stating a known fact. Furthermore, the city’s autonomy is tied directly to the central core. Although it does, in fact, operate outside of supervisor control.”

“Can you affect the city program, then?”

“Not directly,” Arion said, running his pincers up and down the contours of the building as if checking for openings. “The central core controls the city program, and the supervisors do not make policy by direct programming.”

“I think I’m beginning to truly understand,” Katherine said, motioning for the robot with the torch to come closer. “The data contained in the central core is the well from which your entire city springs. All of your activities here are merely an extension of the programming contained therein, for good or ill.”

“We are robots, Friend Katherine,” Arion said. “It could not be otherwise. Robots are not forces of change, but merely extensions of extant thought. That is why we so desperately need the companionship of humans.”

“Cut here,” Katherine said pointing to the wall, and the utility robot waited until she had backed away to a safer distance before charging the power packs and moving close with the nozzle-like hose that was the business end of the laser torch. She turned to Arion. “Does cutting through the wall like this break contact with the main program?”

“No,” the robot answered as the torch came on with a whine, its beam invisible as a small section of the wall glowed bright red, smoking slightly. “The synapses simply reroute themselves and make connection elsewhere.”

There was a sound of suction as the torch broke through to the other side of the wall, a sound that any Spacer knew well, the rushing of air into a vacuum. The room had sealed totally and airlessly. The torch moved more quickly now, cutting a circular hole just large enough for a human being to get through without working at it.

The edges tore jaggedly, the walls that seemed so fluid under program fighting tenaciously to hold together otherwise. Despite Arion’s claims, Katherine was still the city-robot.

The welder was halfway done, pulling down the jagged slab of city as he cut. Katherine had to fight down the urge to run up and peer through the opening already made, but her fear of the torch ultimately won out over her impatience.

“Are you capable of doing autopsies here?” she asked Arion as an afterthought.

“The medical programming is in existence, and at this very moment several medically trained robots are being turned out of our production facilities, along with diagnostic tables and a number of machines. Synthesized drugs and instruments are coming at a slower rate. So much of the city is geared toward building right now, and these considerations never became a problem for us until David’s death.”

“Done,” the utility robot said, the cut section falling to clang on the base disc.

“Witness!” Arion called, as Katherine hurried to the place and climbed through the hole.

The naked body lay, face down, in the middle of the floor. Katherine walked boldly toward it, then stopped, a hand going to her chest. She had been so intent upon fulfilling her mission that she had failed to consider that it was death-real death-she’d be dealing with. It horrified her. She began shaking, her heart rate increasing.