Bugs (29 page)

Fred was too restless to stay home. At dusk, he climbed into his rusting car and drove to a twenty-four-hour supermarket. The middle-aged woman at the till said nothing, but the till itself softly spoke the names of his purchases. Fred looked along the long row of empty checkout counters and listened to the talking till: ‘Grandma Bertie’s Baked Beans, twelve ounce … O’Flourty White Bread, sixteen ounce …’

Outside, he found he’d forgotten his groceries. Were they worth going back for? While he tried to decide, a few snowflakes fell and melted on his cracked windshield.

After a while he started the rattling engine and drove out to Vexxo.

The Vexxo building was gone. The parking-lots were still in place (though disappearing under new snow). However, the building had vanished, with its seas of cubicles, its conference-room laughter and silent offices, its secretaries wearing toilet chains and beer-cans, its CAD system playing out bath fantasies in darkness, its great whirring pale-green machines, its silver assembly-line with marble washstands tumbling along in the stream, its yellow dodgem forklift trucks hurtling along the aisles, its women in white coats and shower-caps assembling circuit-boards to the music of the Condoms, its walls, roof, windows, foundations, its public-address system, reception-area, ventilation-ducts, lights, the cafeteria with its rows of canned pop,
Slice, Crush, Squeeze, Squirt, Gouge
and
Smash
. Nothing remained but a single dumpster.

Fred walked over and peered into the dumpster. It was filled with junk, most of it unidentifiable – broken boards, rusting brackets – but he could see the soles of two pairs of metal feet, one pair pink, one turquoise. Fred and Ginger.

This was what happened when the Vega Intergalactic Media Corporation took over. Fred stood watching until it was too dark to see any more. Then he turned on his headlights and watched the snow drifting over the dumpster.

‘We both had the same idea, eh, Fred?’ The voice of George C. Scott spoke to him out of the darkness.

‘Robinson?’

‘I say, we both had the same idea. Return to the scene of the crime. So to speak.’

Fred could now make out a dim black figure. ‘Robinson, did you kill Jerry?’

‘Nope. You?’

‘Me? Why, no. I suppose it was Pratt.’ Fred peered into the swirling snow. ‘Is Pratt with you?’

‘Nope. Melville Pratt is dead. Jerry killed him.’

Fred was confused. Jerry killed him? Was this before or after Pratt cut his throat and jammed him into that duct?’

‘After. See, Jerry was afraid Melville would kill him, so he programmed me to avenge his death.’

‘And did you avenge his death?’

‘I sure did, Fred. Melville and I went north to hide out in a little town called Dunk’s Corners. We stayed at Sieverson’s Motel and Sausage Factory.’

‘Motel and Sausage Factory?’

‘All these little towns are full of doubled-up businesses like that. Lindbjorg’s Deep Pan Pizza and Souvenir Rocks. Kowalski’s Meat and Music. Kay’s Bar and Organ Repair. The B-Well Computer Aerobics Center.’

The robot came forward into the light. Fred saw it was wearing a black overcoat, black gloves, and a dark ski-mask like a headsman’s hood. ‘In case you’re wondering, no, I did not put Melville in the sausages.’

After a dry whispering sound that may have been a chuckle, Robinson continued, now quoting Mary Shelley. ‘“I knew I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not disobey … Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion …”’

‘Yes, yes, get on with it.’

‘I took Melville out for a short walk in the woods, shorter for him than for me. I cut his throat and stuffed him up a hollow tree. They haven’t found him yet.’

Having finished with the execution story, Robinson pulled off the ski-mask to show his blue-painted face.

Fred said: ‘But that’s exactly how Jerry died.’

‘Yes, I always work the same.’

‘You?
You killed Jerry, too?’

The goggling eyes rolled. ‘Only in a manner of speaking. Melville programmed me to kill him. Just as Jerry programmed me to avenge his death.’

‘You killed them both.’

The rasping voice hesitated. ‘You could say that, but it’s
like saying a knife killed them both. Personally, I feel a robot is only as good or as bad as the man who programmes it.’

‘“Personally”? You fucking monster.’

The black gloves went up in a placating gesture. ‘OK, get sore. But just think on this. I may have made a mistake or two, but I still have thoughts and feelings like anybody else.’

‘Indeed?’

‘A robot has hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, just like anybody else.’

‘Really?’

‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’

‘No.’

‘If you tickle us, do we not laugh?’

‘No.’

‘If you poison us, do we not die?’

‘No.’

‘And, if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’

‘Robinson, do you have any idea what you’re saying?’

‘I’m saying that I am human. And I still have human rights.’

‘Human rights? Human rights? What about the people you killed?’

The eyes rolled. ‘Everyone worries about the victims. Nobody gives a damn about the murderer.’

‘Robinson, you’re just parroting crap that’s been programmed into you.’

‘That’s possible. But so might you be.’

‘The difference is, I haven’t killed anyone. You’ve killed two people.’

Robinson said: ‘People always get killed in war.’

‘There is no war.’

‘There’s always a war. Peace is war. George Orwell explained that. Or you can do it, too, by changing one letter at a time:
war
to
wax
to
pax
.’

Fred saw no point in arguing with the mad machine.

‘What next? I suppose next you’ll find yourself forced to kill me.’

‘You?’ Robinson appeared to be considering the idea. ‘No program for that. I wanted you to stay alive, to create a mate and companion for me. Someone I could love and hate.’

‘Love and hate.’

‘Orwell was right: love is hate. Because love is concern, concern means care, but care is apprehension, apprehension is horror, horror is aversion, and aversion is hate.’

‘I don’t think Orwell said love was hate.’

‘Well, he should have. And he should have said good is evil.’

‘Good is evil.’ Fred began rummaging in the rubbish-skip. ‘I guess I have heard enough.’ He managed to detach a pink leg from Fred and Ginger. ‘If you were a desktop computer speculating that good is evil, it might not matter so much. But you can put all your stupid paradoxes into action. For you, to think is to do.’

‘Good is –’

Fred stepped forward and swung Ginger’s leg like a club. Robinson fell back in the snow.

‘– is evil because, wait, listen, because –’

Fred hit him again. The goggling eyes looked more comical than ever. In his struggles to rise, Robinson was making a snow angel.

‘– because, stop hitting me, because your own good is your own interest, to interest is to attract –’

Fred hit him again.

‘– to attract is to seduce, to seduce is to corrupt, corrupt means evil.’

Fred hit him again, and again, until the head was smashed and the body stopped trembling. Then he tore open the overcoat and opened the chest panel. Best to be sure. He removed the green circuit-boards, one by one, and flung them away in the snow. Murderer, murderer, murderer, he thought, not sure whether he meant Robinson or Fred, as he did the work of Jack the Ripper, who tore open each victim to remove ‘a certain organ’.

Out of the infinite black sky the snow came down to cover all sins.

At the airport, Fred tried to read his paper. (The President was officially insane. The deciding factor had been his attempt to fire the Secretary of State and replace him with a hydrangea. However, Congress acceded to the pressure of the Schizophrenics Action Committee and agreed to let him continue in office.) He was distracted by the exclamations of two women.

Disgusting!’

‘An animal!’

Fred looked up to see what they saw: a man blowing his nose on the floor. It was Raab.

‘Hey, Freddie. How goes it?’ Raab strolled over, wiping his hand on his jeans before he offered it for a handshake. ‘Fine … uh, Raab. And you?’

‘I made out OK. MIT. You sound like you got a cold.’

‘Laryngitis, I guess. So, you’re studying at MIT.’

‘Naw, man, not studying. Teaching. I’m the new Professor of Computer Science down there.’

‘Professor.’

‘Yeah, see, I did this paper when I was at the U, where I found a new class of NP-hard problems, but you don’t want to hear about all that.’ He sat down next to Fred. Fred immediately noticed his strong unpleasant smell, compounded of halitosis, dirty underwear and stale sweat. Fred could see pustules on Raab’s cheeks, tiny rolls of black dirt clinging to Raab’s neck. The smell of rotting tennis shoes rose like fumes from a swamp.

‘Raab, why don’t you clean up before you go?’

‘Clean up?’

‘Take a shower. They’ve got public showers over there by the men’s room. Have a good wash and change your clothes.’

‘Hey, a great idea.’

‘It’ll help you make a better impression at MIT.’

‘I doubt that, but what the heck?’

Fred avoided the gaze of the two women. In a few minutes, Raab returned. He looked and smelt the same.

‘You didn’t take a shower?’

‘Well, I was gonna, I had the quarters and everything, only then I saw this new arcade game, RatStar, so …’

Fred breathed through his mouth until Raab’s flight was called. Raab insisted on another handshake. ‘Take care of that cold, man. You sound like our old robot.’

Fred went to wash his hand afterwards, then strolled around the airport. He was just sitting down again when Manse hove into view, carrying what looked like a sample-case covered in crocodile.

‘Sorry about the money, man. The company is belly-up and the feds are biting our ass. Your stock isn’t worth much.’

‘I heard on the news.’

‘Time for me to move on to a new venture. I’m going into a new partnership with this General Lutz.’

‘General Lutz? General Buddy Lutz?’

‘Hey, you got quite a cold there. Sounds like George C. Whatsit. General Buddy Lutz – yup, he’s my new partner. He’s retiring now. That means we get to use his special expertise in robotics. He can open a lot of weaponry doors for us.’

‘Weaponry doors?’

‘See, the aggressive characteristic of our Robinson Robots makes them lousy toys. But it could make them very useful as tiny smart weapons.’

‘How’s that?’

‘No time to go into it now, they’re calling my flight. I’m hitting a smart weapons show in Washington. Here, this will explain everything.’ Manse delved in his sample-case and handed Fred a brightly coloured brochure.

‘Guess I might as well buy you out. Just a minute.’ He opened a snakeskin billfold and fished out some money. ‘A hundred and forty dollars, man. Sorry.’

Fred heard his own London flight announced. At the same time, someone snatched the $140 from his hand.

‘Hey!’

‘Simon Stylite,’ said the thief, flashing an ID card. ‘IRS. You’re not getting on that flight, Jones. We’ve got to talk.’

Fred looked at him for a moment. Then he came to his feet suddenly, smashing his forehead into the IRS agent’s face.

Agh, Jesus!’ Stylite staggered back, holding his bleeding nose. Fred snatched back the money and ran for his plane.

He was held up only seconds at the X-ray machine, the metal detector, the brief body-search, luggage-search, ultra-scan and sniffer dogs, then he ran down the concourse. Far behind him he heard running footsteps.

‘Jodes? Just a bidute. You’re in real trouble, lodes.’

Fred ran. On to the gate, diving through the milling crowd, shoving into the line.

‘Excuse me, excuse me, emergency, sorry, excuse me …’

Down the tin tunnel, waving his boarding-pass at the astonished flight-attendants, into the plane and down the aisle past the British passengers packing into overhead bins their duty free and their Minneapolis souvenirs (lefse, wild rice, maple syrup, Garrison Keillor sweatshirts), the American passengers fetching down blankets and pillows or wondering whether they should just keep their coats on because doesn’t everyone dress up in Britain? Past them all and into a toilet. Almost immediately, someone banged at the door. ‘Jodes, this is Sibod Stylite of the IRS. I dough you’re id there, Jodes. But it woad do you eddy good, Jodes. We have bed id touch with the State Departbed, ad they have withdrawd your passport.’

Fred sat quietly, studying the bright brochure:
TINY WARRIOR X13 – BIG FIREPOWER IN A LITTLE PACKAGE.