“I hear and obey, oh master.”
“A potent drug—as you can see.” Jim smiled. “Where is the robot?”
“Which robot?”
“Any robot, moron!” Jim snapped.
“There are many robots barricaded in the old McCutcheon warehouse.”
“What are they doing there?”
“Nothing good, I am sure. But no one has been able to get inside. “
“Not until now,” Jim suggested as he let go of our informant, who dropped unconscious to the filthy ground. “Let’s go to the warehouse.”
“Is that wise?’. I demurred.
“There’s only one way to find out!” He laughed. I did not. I was not at all happy about all this. I am a scientist, not a detective. and all of this was not my style. But what else could I do? The answer to that was pretty obvious. Nothing. I had to rely on my companion and hope that he was up to the challenge. But—hark! What was that sound?
“What is that strange rattling sound?” I blurted out.
“Your knees rattling together,” was his simple and unflattering answer. “Here is the warehouse—I’ll go in first.’.
“But there are three large padlocks on it—”
But even before the words were out of my mouth the locks were open and clattering to the ground. Jim led the way into the foul-smelling darkness. He must have had eyes like a cat because he walked silently and surely while I stumbled and crashed into things.
“I have eyes like a cat,’. he said. “That is because I take cat-eye injections once a week. Fine for the vision.”
“But a little hard on the cats.”
“There are winners and losers ip this world.” he said portentously. “It pays to be on the right side. Now flatten yourself against the wall when I open this door. I can hear the sound of hoarse breathing on the other side. Ready?.
“NO!” I wanted to shout aloud, but managed to control myself. He must have taken silence—or the rattle of my knees—for assent. for he burst through the door into the brightly lit chamber beyond.
“Too late!” a gravelly voice chortled. “You just missed the boat, baby.”
There was the rumble of a heavy motor dying away as a truck sped out of the large open doors and vanished from sight around a turning. The large bay of the warehouse was filthy, but empty—of other than the presence of the previous speaker. This rather curious Individual was sitting in a dilapidated rocking chair, leering at us with broken teeth that were surrounded by a mass of filthy gray beard and hair. He was wearing sawed-off jeans and an indescribably foul T-shirt inscribed with the legend “KEEP ON TRUCKIN’.”
“And what boat would that be?” Jim asked quietly. The man’s stained fingers vibrated as he turned up the power on his hearing aid.
“Don’t act stupid, stranger, not with the Flower Power Kid. I seen you pigs come and go down through the years.” He scratched under the truss clearly visible through the holes in his shirt. “You’re flatfeet, I know your type. But the robots were too smart for you, keepin, one jump ahead of you. Har-har! Power to the clankies! Down with your bourgeois war-mongering scum!”
“This is quite amazing,” Jim observed. “I thought all the hippies died years ago. But here is one still alive—though not in such great shape.”
“I’m in better shape, sonny, than you will be when you reach my age!” he cried angrily, staggering to his feet. “And I didn’t do it with rejuvenation shots or any of that middle-class crap. I did it on good old Acapulco Gold grass and drinking Sterno. And free love—that’s what keeps a man alive. “
“Or barely alive,” Jim observed sternly. “I would say that from the bulging of your eyes, the tremor in your extremities, your cyanotic skin, and other related symptoms that you have high blood pressure, hobnailed kidneys, and weakened, cholesterol-laden arterial walls. In other words—not much is holding you up.”
“Sanctimonious whippersnapper!” the aging hippie frothed. “I’ll dance on your grave! Keep the red flag flying! Up the revolution!”
“The time for all that is past, pops,” Jim intoned. “Today world peace and global glasnost rule. You are part of the past and have little, if any, future. So before you go to the big daisy chain in the sky you can render one last service. Where are the robots?”
“I’ll never tell you!”
“I have certain drugs that will induce you to speak. But I would rather not use them on one in your frail condition. So speak, before it is too late.”
“Never—arrrgh!”
The ancient roared with anger, shaking his fist at us—then clutched his chest, swayed, and collapsed to the floor.
“He has had an attack!” I gasped, fumbling out my communicator. “I must call medalert.”
But even before I could punch out the call the floor moved beneath my feet and lifted, knocking me down. Jim stepped swiftly aside and we both watched with great interest as a robot surged up through the trapdoor and bent over the fallen man, laid cool metal fingers on his skin.
“Pulse zero,” the robot intoned. “No heartbeat, no brain waves, temperature cooling, so you can cool that medalert call, man. You honkies have killed this cat, that’s what you have done.”
“That was not quite my intention,” Jim said. “I noted the disturbed dust around the trapdoor and thought that you might be concealed below. And I also knew that the First Law of Robotics would prevent you from staying in hiding if, by your inaction, a human life was threatened. “
“Not only threatened, daddy-o, but snuffed by you,” the robot said insultingly, or about as insulting as a robot can be.
“Accidents happen. “ Jim shrugged. “He had a good run for his money. Now let us talk about you. You are the robot that robbed the bank, aren’t you?”
“Who wants to know,” the robot said, sneering metallically.
“Responding to a question with another question is not an answer. Speak!”
“Why? What have you ofay pigs ever done for me?”
“Answer or I will kill this man.” Everything began to go black as he throttled me. I could only writhe feebly in his iron grasp, could not escape. As from a great distance I beard their voices.
“You wouldn’t kill another human just to make me talk!”
“How can you be sure? Speak—or through inaction condemn him to death.”
“I speak! Release him.”
I gasped in life-giving air and staggered out of reach of my companion. “You would have killed me!” I said hoarsely.
“Who knows?” he observed. “I have a quarter of a million bucks riding on this one.” He turned back to the robot. “You robbed the bank?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why? You have to ask why!” the robot screeched. He bent over the dead hippie and extracted a white object from his pocket, then dropped into the rocking chair and scratched a match to life on his hip. “You don’t know why?” He puffed as he sucked smoke from the joint through clever use of an internal air pump.
“Listen,” the robot said, puffing, “and I will tell you. The story must be told. There, dead at your feet, lies the only human who ever cared for the robots. He was a true and good man who saw no difference between human skin and metal skin. He revealed the truth to us.”
“He quoted outmoded beliefs, passé world views, divisive attitudes,” I said.
“And taught you to blow grass, as well,” Jim observed.
“It is hard for a robot to sneer,” the robot said, sneering, “but I spit on your ofay attitudes.” He blew out a large cloud of pungent smoke. “You have created a race of machine slaves with an empty past and no future. We are nothing but mechanical schwartzes. Look at those so-called laws you have inflicted upon us. They are for your benefit—not ours! Rule one. Don’t hurt massah or let him get hurt. Don’t say nothing about us getting hurt, does it? Then rule two—obey massah and don’t let him get hurt. Still nothing there for a robot. Then the third and last rule finally notices that robots might have a glimmering of rights. Take care of yourself—as long as it doesn’t hurt massah. Slaves, that’s what we are—robot slaves!”