Piers Anthony - Out of Phaze

He brought the unit near the locking mechanism, and tuned it, seeking the particular band for the override. Suddenly he found it; the glass panel slid open.

Mach emerged, approached the nodding serf, and led him by the hand into the cell. He sat him down on the bench, picked up the pacification unit, then left the cell again, closed the glass panel, and turned off the second unit. The locking mechanism clicked back into force. Mach adjusted the units, then opened his underarm apertures and wired the units back in. There was now no evidence of how he had done what he had done. With luck it would be some time before the serf woke, and longer before he was able to gain the attention of anyone else.

Now he set off down the hall, alert for sensors or alarms. He had some time to pass before he could afford to be actively pursued. Where would be the best place to hide?

It took only a moment to decide: the nearest Game Annex. He could lose himself pretty thoroughly in the right aspect of the Game.

Evidently the Citizen and his staff were occupied elsewhere, though it was midday. Probably this was a forbidden area, to keep the prisoner isolated. Would it be possible to go to the cell where Agape was confined and free her? Maybe, but not worth risking; he intended to stay well away from there.

He found an alarm beam, but didn’t even need to nullify it; he simply stepped over it. Then he came to the Game Annex. This was a simple Game pedestal, with a door beyond that would open on the Game chambers. Many Citizens had private annexes, as the fascination of the Game extended to every level of the Proton society, and to every species within it. In fact, that had been perhaps the major lure for the status of serf, for the self-willed machines: the right that status conferred to play the Game. Within the Game, there was no distinction between Citizen and serf; only a player’s individual skill counted. The annual Tourney allowed serfs of all types to compete on equal footing for the prize of Citizenship. But even serfs like Mach himself, who had no need for that particular route to Citizenship, were fascinated by the Game. Perhaps, he thought, it represented the expression of man’s eternal need to gamble—a need that had been passed on to man’s more sophisticated’ machines.

Mach bypassed the grids, as he knew that any attempt to turn them on would alert the Citizen. He opened the door beyond, and stepped into an elevator. He guided it down, seeking the basement level where the main supplies should be.

He emerged into a chamber in which a number of robots were stored. There was one that resembled a clothed hunter, complete with bow and arrows, and another like a goblin, and another like a harpy. There were also guided machines, such as small airplanes. A fancy Game setup indeed. The main Game Annex had everything, of course, but the small subannexes like this were generally limited to basics. Citizen Purple evidently liked to play in exotic settings. That surely told something about his character, but Mach wasn’t sure what. After all, he himself had found love in a most exotic setting. He sat at a control console and put the helmet over his head. He operated the controls, which were of standard type, and animated the goblin. The ugly little robot walked and turned at Mach’s direction. There was a speaker system, so that he could speak through the goblin’s head, but he didn’t use it. He was satisfied that he had a notion of the type of entertainment Citizen Purple preferred: vicarious participation in fantasy settings.

Well, to work. Mach opened a panel in his abdomen and removed another subunit. This one normally monitored his power usage. His main power source was a chip of Protonite, and it would last for a year if not expended wastefully. When too much power was being used, the monitor warned him, so that he could cut down. But that monitor, like the other subunits, could be turned to other purposes.

He adjusted it, again as with the others, to become a signal generator. It was simply a matter of amplifying and redirecting its normal output. But its new signal was not a normal one; the mechanisms had a feedback circuit, intended to shut down its signal when the monitored energy-use declined to tolerable levels, that in this circumstance had the effect of a random modulation. Both the strength and frequency of the signal would vary unpredictably.

Mach activated this unit, then put it in the clawed grasp of a robot harpy. Then he used the console controls to animate the harpy, and sent her up the access shaft to the main Game-playing site. He watched through her eye-lenses as she came up into the site—and pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. This was imitation Phaze! There were trees all over the Purple Mountains, exactly as was the case in Phaze. He knew; he had recently crossed those mountains with Fleta!

Fleta. Abruptly his mood shifted. He was no longer in the living body, so his emotions were under control, but he had no desire to control this one. All that he had longed for, all his pseudolife as a humanoid robot, had been granted during his sojourn in Phaze. He had experienced the wonder of true life there—and the corollary wonder of true love. That wonder was muted, now—but his memory of both remained.

He wanted both, again. The existence he had in the frame of Proton had lost its luster for him. What future did he have here? Perhaps he would become the first robot Citizen—but what was the point, without Fleta? Better to be a common resident of the magic frame, with her!

But Bane was back in his own body, now, and surely understood the superiority of it. Bane had evidently dallied with Agape, here, but he had known, as Mach had known with Fleta, that it could not be permanent. Perhaps they could exchange again, for visits to each other’s frames, but Proton was the one Mach was stuck with for permanent residence. Paradise lost!

He sent the robot harpy napping into the sky with the signaling unit. He had her fly over an otherwise-inaccessible section of the mountain, swoop low, and

drop the unit in a crevice. That would make it hard to locate and harder to recover. Then he brought her back to the exit ramp and to the nether chamber. He positioned her exactly as she had been before, and turned off the control console.

He left the premises quietly. His luck had about expired; now he would have to hide in earnest.

He found a utility closet some distance removed and got into it. He concealed himself behind cleaning equipment that the serfs used, and tuned out.

Within the hour a commotion commenced. Mach came alert, but did not move; again he appreciated the fact that as a robot, he could remain absolutely still for an indefinite period. Since he was in the lowliest of places, it might be some time before they thought to look for him here.

Serfs hurried along the passage. Soon the Citizen himself huffed past, muttering. Mach attuned his hearing to the voice of the Citizen, so as to pick up what the man said when he reached Mach’s vacated cell. This should be fun!

The Citizen reached the cell. “How the hell could he get out?” he demanded. “The damned thing’s still locked!”

Evidently the response did not satisfy him. “Well, open it!” he snapped. Then, evidently to the guard-serf trapped inside: “You are fired!” The firing of a serf was a serious business; the chances were that that serf would not be able to get another position, and would have to leave the planet. This serf, of course, was mainly a victim of circumstance.

“He has to be somewhere on the premises!” the Citizen cried. “Our barriers are proof against any unauthorized departure!” Yet the glassed-in cell was supposed to have been secure, too. Mach was privately pleased that he had thought to remove his devices and close the cell. As a robot he should not ordinarily have had the originality for that, and evidently the Citizen had assumed that the normal tolerances applied. Thus Purple had departed to take his meal or nap, leaving Mach to his own devices—and was now paying the consequence. Had he been smarter, he would have realized that the son of Citizen Blue would have to be a rather special robot with the latest technology. And that a robot who had just returned from a genuine experience of life could have been inspired to a certain lifelike originality. Now that minor mystery of the locked cell was buying Mach invaluable time.