“See, Zeb?” Timothy put in. “It’s a tough world for a robot, and that’s the truth.”
Zeb took a reflective pull at his beer. “Yes,” he said, “but, see, I don’t know how it could be any better for us. You know? I mean, they built us, after all. We have do what they want us to do.”
“Oh, sure,” cried the she named Sue. “We do that, all right. We do all the work for them, and half the play, too. We’re the ones that fill the concert hall when one of them wants to sing some kind of dumb Latvian art songs or something. God, I’ve done that so many times I just never want to hear about another birch tree again! We work in the factories and farms and mines-“
“Used to,” Zeb said wistfully.
“Used to, right, and now that they don’t need us for that, they make us fill up their damn cities so the humans left on Earth won’t feel so lonesome. We’re a hobby, Zeb. That’s all we are!”
“Yeah, but-“
“Oh, hell,” sneered Walter 23-X, “you know what you are? You’re part of the problem! You don’t care about robot rights!”
“Robot rights,” Zeb repeated. He understood the meaning of the words perfectly, of course, but it had never occurred to him to put them together in that context. It tasted strange on his lips.
“Exactly. Our right not to be mistreated and abused. You think we want to be here? In a place like this, with all this noise? No. It’s just so people like her can get their jollies,” he said angrily, jerking his head at the nodding fat woman by the door.
The she named Alexandra drained the last of her beer and ventured. “Well, really, Walter, I kind of like it here. I’m not in the same class as you heavy thinkers. I know. I’m not really political. It’s just that sometimes, honestly, I could just scream. So it’s either a place like this, or I go up to Amadeus Park with Sally and the other alcoholics and drifters and bums. Speaking of which,” she added, leaning toward Timothy, “if you’re not going to drink your beer, I’d just as soon.” The little robot passed it over silently, and Zeb observed for the first time that it was untouched.
“What’s the matter, Timothy?” he asked.
“Why does something have to be the matter? I just don’t want any beer.”
“But last week you said-oh, my God!” Zeb cried, as revelation burst inside his mind. “You’ve lost your drink circuits, haven’t you?”
“Suppose I have?” Timothy demanded fiercely. And then he softened. “Oh, it’s not your fault,” he said moodily. “Just more of the same thing. I had an accident.”
“What kind of accident?” Zeb asked, repelled and fascinated.
Timothy traced designs in the damp rings that his untouched beer glass had left on the table. “Three nights ago,” he said. “I had a good night. I scored four people at once, coming out of a hotel on East Erie. A really big haul-they must’ve been programmed to be rich alcoholics, because they were loaded. All ways loaded! then when I was getting away, I crossed Michigan against the light and-Jesus!” He shuddered without looking up. “This big-wheeled car came out of nowhere. Came screeching around the corner, never even slowed down. And there I was in the street.”
“You got run over? You mean that messed up your drinking subsystems?”
“Oh, hell, no, not just that. It was worse. It crushed my legs, you see? I mean, just scrap metal. So the ambulance came, and they raced me of to the hospital, but of course after I was there, since I was a robot, they didn’t do anything for me, just shot me out the back door into a van. And they took me to rehab for new legs. Only that blonde bitch,” he sobbed, “that Three-R she with the dime-store earrings -“
If Zeb’s eyes had been capable of tears, they would have been brimming. “Come on, Timothy,” he urged. “Spit it out!”
“She had a better idea. `Too many muggers anyway,’ she said. `Not enough cripples.’ So she got me a little wheeled cart and a tin cup! And all the special stuff I had, the drinking and eating and all the rest, I wouldn’t need them anymore, she said, and besides, she wanted the space for other facilities. Zeb, I play the violin now! And I don’t mean I play it well. I play it so bad I can’t even stand to listen to myself, and she wants me on Michigan Avenue every day, in front of the stores, playing my fiddle and begging!”
Zeb stared in horror at his friend. Then suddenly he pushed back his chair and peered under he table. It was true: Timothy’s legs ended in black leather caps, halfway down the thighs, and a thing like a padded-wheeled pallet was propped against the table leg beside him.
Alexandra patted his hand as he came back up. “It’s really bad when you first get the picture,” she said. “I know. What you need is another beer, Zeb. And thank God you’ve got the circuits to use it!”
Since Zeb was not programmed for full alcoholism not yet, anyway, he told himself with a sob-he was not really drunk, but he was fuzzy in mind and in action as he finally left the community center.
He was appalled to see that the sky right above the lake was already beginning to lighten. The night was almost over, and he had not scored a single victim. He would have to take the first robot that came along. The first half-dozen, in fact, if he were to meet his quota, and there simply was not time to get to his proper station at the Robert Taylor Houses. He would have to make do with whoever appeared. He stared around, getting his bearings, and observed that around the corner from the community center there was a lighted, swinging sign that said ROBOT’S REST MISSION. That was the outfit that kept the community center open, he knew, and there was a tall, prosperous looking he coming out of the door.
Zeb didn’t hesitate. He stepped up°, pulled out his knife, and pressed it to the victim’s belly, hard enough to be felt without penetrating. “Your money or your life,” he growled, reaching for the wristwatch.
Then the victim turned his head and caught the light on his features. It was a face Zeb knew.
“Reverend Harmswallow!” he gasped. “Oh, my God!”
The minister fixed him with a baleful look. “I can’t claim that much,” he said, “but maybe I’m close enough for the purpose. My boy, you’re damned for good now!”
Zeb didn’t make a conscious decision. He simply turned and ran.
If he hadn’t had the alcohol content fuzzing his systems, he might not have bothered, because he knew without having to think about it that it was no use. There weren’t many places to run. He couldn’t run back to the Robert Taylor Houses, his assigned workplace; they would look for him there first. Not back to the community center, not with Harmswallow just around the corner. Not to the rehab station, because that was just the same as walking right into jail. Not anywhere, in fact, where there were likely to be police, or human beings of any kind, and that meant not anywhere in the world, because wherever he problems, but now, looking down at the wistful little-girl face, he was touched. Around the table in the community center she had just been one more stranger. Now she reminded him of Glenda, the little she from the cabin next to his back on the farm. But in spite of her age design, Sally was obviously quite an old robot. From the faint smoky odor that came to him through the drizzly air he realized she was fuel-cell-powered. Half a century old, at least. He emptied his pockets. “Get yourself some new parts, kid,” he said hoarsely.
“Gee, thanks, Zeb,” she sobbed, then added, “Watch it!” She drew him into the shelter of a dripping shrub. A park police hovercar whooshed slowly by, all lights off, windshield wipers slapping. back and forth across the glass, sides glistening in the wet. Zeb retreated into the shadows, but the police were just keeping an eye on the park’s drifters, losers, and vagrants.