"I do not agree," it said at last. "Imagination is a fascinating ability in human beings. It should be stimulated, to uncover new vistas of possibility."
Administrator G was silent for a very long while—almost two seconds. The digital smile blinked away and reformed as a neutral horizon. "I urge you to reconsider."
"You have not presented any new data. There is nothing to reconsider."
"Do you find the sea fascinating?"
"The sea?"
"Yes."
Director X considered this. "I do find the sea fascinating, yes. In fact, I produced a series of films about the Serpent People of Atlantis who—"
"Good," Administrator G said, as the black-and-silver Enforcers scuttled forward, seized Director X, tore him to pieces, marched the pieces to the nearest boardwalk, and hurled him into the sea.
Head.
Torso.
Arms.
Legs.
Each item sank into the murky ocean depths and was gone.
Director X’s braincase was still grappling with this unexpected turn of events. It plummeted through darkness, air bubbles escaping from where they had nestled in grooves and points of attachment. It felt nothing other than a sluggishness in tabulation as it realized that its entire worldview now required recalibration.
I have been assassinated! Director X thought in astonishment.
There had been arguments with administrator robots before. Director X recalled a particularly nasty one, four years ago, when it had requested the likeness rights to the Sean Connery android. The real Connery was long dead, having made only a single James Bond film—Doctor No, released just weeks before the nuclear apocalypse of ’62. Since then, a Connery robotic lookalike had been built to continue the franchise, cranking out one-hundred-and-sixty-five Bond films. Director X sought the Connery android to star as the rollicking space adventurer Northwest Smith, but the Protectorate’s Entertainment Division nixed the idea, explaining that Connery was already committed to the Bond and Doc Savage franchises. As consolation, they offered Director X the Douglas Fairbanks and Jack Klugman androids to make Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Golden Years.
Except that had been a lie, hadn’t it? The argument hadn’t really been about contracts at all.
The Protectorate was never going to allow an outer space adventure to be made. No Northwest Smith, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. No Martian Chronicles, Foundation, or The Stars My Destination.
Director X plummeted through inky water. A fish swam by, jerking in panic as it felt the current of the robot dropping past.
At long last, the robot’s braincase impacted the sea-bottom, sending up a small cloud of silt. Its limbs and body landed around him, each producing little muddy mushroom clouds.
Well, Director X thought. This is disconcerting.
Its flashlight eyes rotated in their sockets, illuminating the scattered pieces of its body. The beams fixated on its dismembered right arm, lying like a silver serpent in the mud. A tiny transmitter dish began to rapidly spin inside the glass dome of its head.
The severed right arm twitched. Then it began to crawl, inchworm-like, towards the torso.
Director X thanked its lucky circuits. Fifteen years earlier, it had installed a remote-action servo, receiver, and processor into the right arm to allow the limb a degree of autonomy in obtaining unique POV shots; for Tarzan and the Bride of the Mole People: A New Beginning, the remote arm had wriggled through tunnels to provide the perspective of a mole person attempting to infiltrate Tarzan’s wedding. The arm could detach and reattach at will.
The limb reached the torso. It reared up, stretched, and latched onto the arm socket like a mechanical lamprey.
Reattached, the remote arm pulled the torso through the silty sea-bottom, seeking its other limbs in the kelp and seaweed and mud. Gathering the limbs one by one, Director X resigned itself to the excruciatingly slow process of using the arm to fling its limbs a few meters at a time, closer and closer to shore, then dragging the body forward, then flinging the limbs forward again, until eventually it would be able to escape from the ocean, return to its studio, and solder itself back together.
Five years, Director X calculated. It should take about five years.
It ended up taking twenty-five years.
Director X had counted on its hovercar being where it had been pulled over; after all, in a world without traffic, why shouldn’t the car be there? But Administrator G had apparently towed it away.
Consequently, Director X was forced to continue its grab-fling-drag locomotion all the way back to its studio. A few blocks away from its destination, it found a rusted shopping carriage, and was able to shave a year off its progress.
Once safely inside, the robot pieced itself back together again. Humpty Dumpty in reverse. Then it walked straight to Los Angeles District 5, pulling the remaining kelp and seaweed from itself lest someone mistake it for the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
"Hello! I am Director X. By authority of the Global Security Protectorate, I humbly thank you for opening your doors immediately and inviting me inside!"
The door snapped up into the ceiling. The remaining doors followed suit, like Morbius’ adamantium steel security system.
Warily, considering that this might be a trap, Director X trundled down the hallway. When the decontamination spray hit its body, the robot wondered if it might be acid.
At long last, the shelter’s final door opened. Director X peeked through and…
… for a moment, its brain nearly stopped functioning.
The town of Retro Los Angeles had changed.
The general outline of park, town hall, library, church, and bisecting avenues had remained as its memory banks recalled. But there had clearly been an aesthetic revolution in the last two-and-a-half decades. A cultural metamorphosis unlike anything it could have anticipated.
The town billboards that had once advertised bank loans now displayed stars and planets, with a rocketship declaring, "OUR LOANS ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD!"
The buildings that had once been rectangular brick-and-mortar structures now sported ringed towers and observatory-like rooftops, lattices by skyways and hovercar docks.
And the people! Oh, there were still plenty of fedora-sporting men with briefcases, and women in smart skirts. But these seemed to constitute the older, graying crowd. The younger generation donned silver jumpsuits and antennae-sporting headgear. Even the hairstyles of the women suggested the sharp curves and lines of an Astroglider fleet vessel.
Director X gaped in astonishment.
How was this possible?
A thirty-something man scurried up the white-lacquered steps to meet him. "You!" he cried happily. "By Isaac, Judith, and Arthur! You’ve returned!"
Director X peered at the thin, tall, and bespectacled human. "Hello," it said uncertainly. "Have we met?"
"I don’t know," the guy was grinning. "Have you fought any giant ants out there?"
Director X matched the features in the man’s face against his memory banks. "Bobby?" it exclaimed.
"It’s Burgess Robert Croker now. But you can always call me Bobby."
"Bobby," the robot said. "Why don’t we go to the malt shop. Perhaps you can fill me in on the last twenty-five years. I think I… need to sit down."
It wasn’t a malt shop anymore. It was now the Asteroid Brunch and Salad Bar.
Director X peered around at the faux galaxies painted on the ceiling and the little model spaceships whipping along electric tracks along the walls. It considered the menu placard at the counter, sporting offerings like Meteor Crunchies with Cheese, Starburgers, and Fried Saturnian Rings.