The Automatic Detective (2 page)

April was psychic. She was only eight, so the exact nature of her talents was still a work in progress. She sometimes saw little snippets of the future, and she was telekinetic enough to push around a pencil. Like all psychics, her eyes changed color when she used her talents. A vibrant purple with clairvoyance and sky blue with telekinesis. Right now her eyes were brown. I zoomed in for a close-up and scanned the spider veins of red along her sclera. That's the white of the eye. Don't ask me why I was programmed with that data. Tears rolled down her cheek.

All this I scanned and absorbed in a sixteenth of a second. My hearing may not be great, and I don't have any olfactory sensors, but my optical tech is second to none. It didn't only spot, analyze, and filter these little details, it also told me what the problem was. Not that I needed an analyzer to spot the four-armed guy with the bruised knuckles.

I'd intervened in a domestic disturbance and found myself in the middle of something worse. An abusive spouse I could handle. Four Arms was obviously going to be more trouble.

"What the fuck are you?" Four Arms smacked Gavin on the back of the head. "Who the fuck is this bot?"

"He's nobody," replied Gavin through his sore, clenched jaw. "Just my neighbor."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I'm nobody, and you're leaving."

I took a step forward, but Julie grabbed me by the arm. "Please, Mack. Don't. You'll only make it worse."

She was right. Whatever mess Gavin had gotten himself and his family into, I couldn't fix it. Foolish to even try.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have interfered."

"Damn right you shouldn't have." Four Arms smacked Gavin again, just to remind me he could. My fingers tightened into metallic battering rams. I could punch a hole right through this guy, but it wasn't the right thing to do. Not in the long run.

April ran across the room and wrapped her limbs around one of my legs. She looked up at me with those big eyes of hers. Big, shining purple eyes. Pleading, clairvoyant eyes.

"Don't go, Mack." She shut her eyes tight, tears streaming. "If you do, something bad will happen."

That was enough for me. I pulled her gently off my leg and set her behind me. "It's okay, kid. I'll take care of it."

I turned on Four Arms, and he didn't wait for me to get closer before drawing a raygun and blasting me. The red beam burned a hole through my uniform, bounced off my metallic skin, and blew a small puncture in the refrigerator. Four Arms didn't learn his lesson and prepared to fire again.

I held up a hand. "Don't. It won't hurt me, but if a ricochet hits anyone in this room other than you, you'll have a bigger problem than you do right now." I slammed my fists together with a reverberating clang to let him get the idea.

I could've been on him in a second except I'm a big bot and I'd have smashed up the apartment in my haste. It gave Four Arms time to reach into his jacket and activate something. He disappeared in a flash, teleported away. He couldn't be invisible. I had yet to meet a cloaking system that was a match for my opticals. The Big Brains had been working on teleportation
for decades and hadn't gotten it worked out yet. Of course, maybe Four Arms had beamed back to his hideout and arrived as a pile of mutilated gelatin. If so, maybe the problem was solved, and I had nothing to worry about.

"You shouldn't have done that, Mack," said Julie.

I shouldn't have done a lot of things so far today, but I'd done them. Since temporal relocator technology was still a pipe dream, I had to deal with them.

"What's going on, Jules?" I asked.

"None of your damn business!" Gavin shouted, spitting blood on my uniform. "We didn't ask for your help! I would've handled it! Now you've gone and screwed it all up! Now there's going to be trouble!" He stomped off to a corner of the apartment to mutter and swear.

I ignored him. He was always a mealy little worm. If I'd thought Four Arms was there to blast Gavin, I'd have let it happen. But I'd made precious few friends since striking out on my own. I didn't want to lose the few I had. Robots don't have family. Julie and the kids were the closest thing I'd ever get.

"I can help, Jules," I said.

"It's our problem, Mack. You don't need to get involved. You've got your probation."

"Let me worry about that."

"No." She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward the door. I didn't resist and let her lead me back into the hall. "I appreciate your concern, I do, but we'll take care of this."

I was going to argue, but my self-preservation directive kicked in. I couldn't make Julie take my help. I'd tried. I could walk away now with a clear conscience.

"If you change you're mind, Jules—"

She slid the door shut in my face.

I shrugged and headed back toward the escalator. I'd catch
hell for being late, and I'd catch more hell for having a hole in my uniform. I'd have to buy a new one, and they weren't cheap in my size and wide-shouldered proportions.

The door slid open, and April, clutching a piece of construction paper in her hand, ran over to me. "Mack, Mack! I've got something for you."

I leaned down on one knee and put my hands on her shoulders. That little girl always reminded me how dangerous I was, how I could crush her without even 5 percent of my power on. She trusted me, and that made her the most precious thing in my universe. I'm as sentimental as the next bot.

She handed me a drawing. It was crude, but not bad for an eight-year-old, especially since she only drew using her telekinesis. I recognized the chunky, red mechanical anthropoid as me, and next to me was a little smiling girl with a round face and purple eyes, stick figure limbs, and a red triangle for a dress.

"Thanks, kid."

"You won't throw it away, will you?" she asked.

"Are you kidding? This goes right on my refrigerator." It'd be nice to finally have a use for the old rusted machine. Right now, all it did was occupy space in my unused kitchen cubicle.

The apartment door slid open. Gavin stepped into the hall. He still looked like hell, but he always did. Guy had gone straight past two-time loser to sixth or seventh by my estimation.

"April Anne, get your ass back inside!"

April wrapped her arms around me. "You better get to work, Mack." Her eyes flashed purple. "Your boss is going to yell at you, but don't worry. Just ignore him, and it'll be fine."

She ran back into the apartment without looking back. Gavin threw me a hard glare before following her inside.

I folded the drawing very delicately with overgrown metal fingers and tucked it in my pocket. It didn't even occur to me
to scan the back. If I had, maybe what happened wouldn't have happened. But I didn't, and it did.

That's the problem with having a hard memory matrix. Short of a system crash, you can't forget the mistakes you make.

Automobiles were considered outmoded pieces of junk in Tomorrow's Town. Too loud. Too inefficient. Too dirty. More importantly, too old-fashioned and too reliable. Empire's streets were clogged with the next generation of vehicular transportation. It wasn't only the big companies either. Any grease monkey willing to steal a design out of a Flash Gordon serial and submit it to the Big Brains could get a grant. The idea was that with all those different models running around, the cream was bound to float to the top.

There were amblers, boxes that lurched along on pneumatic legs. Treaders that, imaginatively enough, rumbled their way on tank treads with all the speed and maneuverability of turtles. Hoverskids: able to accelerate like a rocket, turn on a dime, and come to a stop after a thirty-foot drift, hence the addition of thick rubber bumpers to the design. Gyropeds zipped gracefully in and out of traffic, except when the gyros jammed and then they were out-of-control typhoons of wrecking fury. There were the buzzbugs, so named for their humming plastic wings and bumblebee-inspired chassis. And the rotorcars,
which usually stuck to the skyways. About the only thing all these vehicles had in common was their lack of wheels. Nothing in Empire rolled. Except for the unipods, balanced perfectly on one wheel. Smooth ride until you got a flat.

The Bluestar Cab Company used each and every one of these vehicles as part of its fleet. Treaders worked best for a bot of my size, but I usually got stuck with a hoverskid. My weight often taxed the engine, usually resulting in a scraping of metal roadway every seventy-five feet or so, sending sparks flying. The cost of repainting the undercarriage came out of my paycheck. If I'd been paranoid, I might've assumed the dispatcher didn't like me. Especially since every shirt he owned had a patch for the Biological Rights League stitched on the pocket.

Driving a cab was a decent job, and I was lucky to have it. When my boss yelled at me, I grinned (metaphorically) and accepted it. He wasn't happy about the hole in my suit, but since I was late for a pickup, he had me borrow a vest from Jung.

Jung was a gorilla, an exhibit in the Empire zoo who had gotten smart enough to be granted citizenship. He was also a stand-up guy, or ape, or whatever.

He handed me the vest. "Be careful with this one."

"Thanks."

I changed, tossing the ruined vest onto the bench by my locker. Jung, holding a book in one hand and half a grapefruit in another, picked up the vest with his feet. He poked his fingers through the hole.

"That's a nasty burn, Mack," he remarked. "What happened?"

"Cigarette," I replied.

He stuck his nose back in his book, a beaten copy of
Tarzan and the Ant Men
. "Taken up smoking, have we?" Jung snorted. "Y'know, it's stupid for a robot to smoke. Particularly when he doesn't have a mouth."

"Still makes me look cool." I checked the mirror and adjusted my tie. The movement popped a stitch in the new vest. Jung's shoulders were wide, but not quite wide enough.

"You break it, you buy it," he said.

The boss screamed that I had five minutes to make it across town and that if I didn't he'd call my probation officer and I'd get a demerit on my record and . . . blah blah blah. I didn't catch the rest because I keyed my audio filters to the sound of his voice.

"Seriously, Mack," said Jung. "Is there a problem here?"

I resisted the urge to shrug, doubtful the vest could withstand such a maneuver. "Nothing to be concerned about, but thanks for asking."

"Some of the guys are going bowling tonight. You should come."

"I have to get home early," I lied. "So how do I look?"

"Like Gort if he sold out and settled for driving a cab," he mumbled as he hopped off the bench and loped toward the garage.

"Perfect." I pushed my brim at a jaunty angle and followed him.

Traffic was rough as usual. I had skin of an indestructible alloy and even I feared for my safety once or twice. There was a buzzbug stall on Quantum Avenue. Happened all the time. Nothing got perfected in Empire before it was replaced by something better. The Big Brains loved science for science's sake. Not that I would complain about that. It was the big reason why a bot could earn citizenship. Three percent of Empire's population was robotic, and these automated residents were a great source of pride for the Learned Council.

I helped out on the stall by getting out and moving the damn thing myself. Those buzzbugs are light, one point twenty-four tons. Even at reduced power, my servos barely
registered less than seven. It was gratifying using my muscle to aid my fellow citizens. Not that anyone thanked me. In fact, on the way back to my cab quite a few drivers screamed at me for blocking traffic. I liked to think there was gratitude buried somewhere in their rage.

On Tuesdays I worked a short shift. It gave me time to take care of some personal business.

My rehabilitation was very important to the Council. It was sort of a social experiment. Every other automated citizen was a standard factory model that developed the Freewill Glitch. I was the first unique design, and the first one created with sinister purposes in mind. Not even the Big Brains knew why some bots developed Freewill and other didn't. Some of the more philosophical types, particularly the leaders of the Temple of Knowledge, postulated the Glitch wasn't a glitch at all, but a divine spark granted from Ether. Most figured it was a hardware problem no one had isolated yet. I hadn't given it much thought myself. Theological debate wasn't part of my initial programming, and I wasn't interested in adding it to my files.

The Council was taking a big chance on me. Even I couldn't be sure I had achieved true self-awareness. It could've all been a bug, and one day, my electronic brain might fix itself and I'd launch into that reign of destruction I was made for. All I knew was what the Council knew. I'd turned on my creator, demonstrated a desire to be a productive member of society, and passed the battery of psych simulation tests every automated citizen had to overcome. On any other bot, that would've been enough. Not for me. I still had to see a shrink.

Doctor Mujahid was the premiere cybernetics psychologist in the world. Machines that behaved like human beings were her specialty. She was the first expert to diagnose a robot with the Freewill Glitch, and it was her hard work and respected opinion that pushed the Council's vote in my favor. She didn't
have my best interests in mind. She was obsessed with studying yet another self-aware machine. To her credit, the doc never treated me like a case study. She was infinitely more comfortable around technology than people.