We, Robots

by Simon Ings

  “I’ve forgotten all about it,” I assured him.

  “I still want to set you straight,” he insisted. “It must have looked funny, me moving down to New York after commencement and Marilyn giving up her job in the lab and following two days later. But never mind how it looked. I never made a pass at her all that time in Boston, Ollie. That’s the truth. But she was a screwy, scatterbrained dame and she decided she was stuck on me because I dabbled in poetry and hung around with artists and such in the Village, and she thought it was all so glamorous. I didn’t have anything to do with her chasing down to New York, no kidding. You two were sort of engaged, weren’t you?”

  “It really doesn’t matter,” I said. “You don’t have to explain.” I finished my drink. “You say she knew Lundy?”

  “Sure, she knew Lundy. She also knew Kram, Rossard, Broyold, Boster, De Kroot and Hayre. She knew a whole lot of guys before she was through.”

  “She always was sociable.”

  “You don’t get my meaning,” Len said. “I am not talking about Marilyn’s gregarious impulses. Listen. First she threw herself at me, but I got tired of her. Then she threw herself at Steve and he got tired of her. Damn near the whole male population of the Village got tired of her in the next couple years.”

  “Those were troubled times. The war and all.”

  “They were troubled times,” Len agreed, “and she was the source of a fair amount of the trouble. You were well rid of her, Ollie, take my word for it. God save us from the intense Boston female who goes bohemian—the icicle parading as the torch.”

  “Just as a matter of academic curiosity,” I said as we were leaving, “what became of her?”

  “I don’t know for sure. During her Village phase she decided her creative urge was hampered by compasses and T-squares, and in between men she tried to do a bit of painting—very abstract, very imitative-original, very hammy. I heard later that she finally gave up the self-expression kick, moved up to the East Seventies somewhere. If I remember, she got a job doing circuit designing on some project for I.B.M.”

  “She’s probably doing well at it,” I said. “She certainly knew her drafting. You know, she helped lay out the circuits for the first robot bedbug I ever built.”

  *

  November 19, 1959

  Big step forward, if it isn’t unseemly to use a phrase like that in connection with Pro research. This afternoon we completed the first two experimental models of my self-propelled solenoid legs, made of transparent plastic so everything is visible—solenoids, batteries, motors, thyratron tubes and transistors.

  Kujack was waiting in the fitting room to give them their first tryout, but when I got there I found Len sitting with him. There were several empty beer cans on the floor and they were gabbing away a mile a minute.

  Len knows how I hate to see people drinking during working hours. When I put the pros down and began to rig them for fitting, he said conspiratorially, “Shall we tell him?”

  Kujack was pretty crocked, too. “Let’s tell him,” he whispered back. Strange thing about Kujack, he hardly ever says a word to me, but he never closes his mouth when Len’s around.

  “All right,” Len said. “You tell him. Tell him how we’re going to bring peace on Earth and good will toward bedbugs.”

  “We just figured it out,” Kujack said. “What’s wrong with war. It’s a steamroller.”

  “Steamrollers are very undemocratic,” Len added. “Never consult people on how they like to be flattened before flattening them. They just go rolling along.”

  “Just go rolling, they go on rolling along,” Kujack said. “Like Old Man River.”

  “What’s the upshot?” Len demanded. “People get upshot, shot up. In all countries, all of them without exception, they emerge from the war spiritually flattened, a little closer to the insects—like the hero in that Kafka story who wakes up one morning to find he’s a bedbug, I mean beetle. All because they’ve been steamrolled. Nobody consulted them.”

  “Take the case of an amputee,” Kujack said. “Before the land mine exploded, it didn’t stop and say, ‘Look, friend, I’ve got to go off; that’s my job. Choose which part you’d prefer to have blown off—arm, leg, ear, nose, or what-have-you. Or is there somebody else around who would relish being clipped more than you would? If so, just send him along. I’ve got to do some clipping, you see, but it doesn’t matter much which part of which guy I clip, so long as I make my quota.’ Did the land mine say that? No! The victim wasn’t consulted. Consequently he can feel victimized, full of self-pity. We just worked it out.”

  “The whole thing,” Len said. “If the population had been polled according to democratic procedure, the paraplegia and other maimings could have been distributed to each according to his psychological need. See the point? Marx corrected by Freud, as Steve Lundy would say. Distribute the injuries to each according to his need—not his economic need, but his masochistic need. Those with a special taste for self-damage obviously should be allowed a lion’s share of it. That way nobody could claim he’d been victimized by the steamroller or got anything he didn’t ask for. It’s all on a voluntary basis, you see. Democratic.”

  “Whole new concept of war,” Kujack agreed. “Voluntary amputeeism, voluntary paraplegia, voluntary everything else that usually happens to people in a war. Just to get some human dignity back into the thing.”

  “Here’s how it works,” Len went on. “Country A and Country B reach the breaking point. It’s all over but the shooting. All right. So they pool their best brains, mathematicians, actuaries, strategists, logistics geniuses, and all. What am I saying? They pool their best robot brains, their Emsiacs. In a matter of seconds they figure out, down to the last decimal point, just how many casualties each side can be expected to suffer in dead and wounded, and then they break down the figures. Of the wounded, they determine just how many will lose eyes, how many arms, how many legs, and so on down the line. Now—here’s where it gets really neat—each country, having established its quotas in dead and wounded of all categories, can send out a call for volunteers.”

  “Less messy that way,” Kujack said. “An efficiency expert’s war. War on an actuarial basis.”

  “You get exactly the same results as in a shooting war,” Len insisted. “Just as many dead, wounded and psychologically messed up. But you avoid the whole steamroller effect. A tidy war, war with dispatch, conceived in terms of ends rather than means. The end never did justify the means, you see; Steve Lundy says that was always the great dilemma of politics. So with one fool sweep—fell swoop—we get rid of means entirely.”

  “As things stand with me,” Kujack said, “if anything stands with me, I might get to feeling sore about what happened to me. But nothing happens to the volunteer amputee. He steps up to the operating table and says, ‘Just chop off one arm, Doc, the left one, please, up to the elbow if you don’t mind, and in return put me down for one-and-two-thirds free meals daily at Longchamps and a plump blonde every Saturday.’”

  “Or whatever the exchange value for one slightly used left arm would be,” Len amended. “That would have to be worked out by the robot actuaries.”

  By this time I had the pros fitted and the push-button controls installed in the side pocket of Kujack’s jacket.

  “Maybe you’d better go now, Len,” I said. I was very careful to show no reaction to his baiting. “Kujack and I have some work to do.”

  “I hope you’ll make him a moth instead of a bedbug,” Len said as he got up. “Kujack’s just beginning to see the light. Be a shame if you give him a negative tropism to it instead of a positive one.” He turned to Kujack, wobbling a little. “So long, kid. I’ll pick you up at seven and we’ll drive into New York to have a few with Steve. He’s going to be very happy to hear we’ve got the whole thing figured out.”

  I spent two hours with Kujack, getting him used to the extremely delicate push-button controls. I must say that, drunk or sober, he’s a very apt pupil. In less than two h
ours he actually walked! A little unsteadily, to be sure, but his balance will get better as he practices and I iron out a few more bugs, and I don’t mean bedbugs.

  For a final test, I put a little egg cup on the floor, balanced a football in it, and told Kujack to try a place kick. What a moment! He booted that ball so hard, it splintered the mirror on the wall.

  *

  November 27, 1959

  Long talk with the boss. I gave it to him straight about breaking up the lab into K-Pro and N-Pro, and about there being little chance that Goldweiser would come up with anything much on the neuro end for a long, long time. He was awfully let down, I could see, so I started to talk fast about the luck I’d been having on the kinesthetic end. When he began to perk up, I called Kujack in from the corridor and had him demonstrate his place kick.

  He’s gotten awfully good at it this past week.

  “If we release the story to the press,” I suggested, “this might make a fine action shot. You see, Kujack used to be one of the best kickers in the Big Ten, and a lot of newspapermen will still remember him.” Then I sprang the biggest news of all. “During the last three days of practice, sir, he’s been consistently kicking the ball twenty, thirty and even forty yards farther than he ever did with his own legs. Than anybody, as a matter of fact, ever has with real legs.”

  “That’s a wonderful angle,” the boss said excitedly. “A world’s record, made with a cybernetic leg!”

  “It should make a terrific picture,” Kujack said. “I’ve also been practicing a big, broad, photogenic grin.” Luckily the boss didn’t hear him—by this time he was bending over the legs, studying the solenoids.

  After Kujack left, the boss congratulated me. Very, very warmly. It was a most gratifying moment. We chatted for a while, making plans for the press conference, and then finally he said, “By the way, do you happen to know anything about your friend Ellsom? I’m worried about him. He went off on Thanksgiving and hasn’t been heard from at all ever since.”

  That was alarming, I said. When the boss asked why, I told him a little about how Len had been acting lately, talking and drinking more than was good for him. With all sorts of people. The boss said that confirmed his own impressions.

  I can safely say we understood each other. I sensed a very definite rapport.

  *

  November 30, 1959

  It was bound to happen, of course. As I got it from the boss, he decided after our talk that Len’s absence needed some looking into, and he tipped off Security about it. A half dozen agents went to work on the case and right off they headed for Steve Lundy’s apartment in the Village and, sure enough, there was Len.

  Len and his friend were both blind drunk and there were all sorts of incriminating things in the room—lots of peculiar books and pamphlets, Lundy’s identification papers from the Lincoln Brigade, an article Lundy was writing for an anarchist-pacifist magazine about what he calls Emsiac. Len and his friend were both arrested on the spot and a full investigation is going on now.

  The boss says that no matter whether Len is brought to trial or not, he’s all washed up. He’ll never get a job on any classified cybernetics project from now on, because it’s clear enough that he violated his loyalty oath by discussing MS all over the place.

  The Security men came around to question me this morning. Afraid my testimony didn’t help Len’s case any. What could I do? I had to own up that, to my knowledge, Len had violated Security on three counts: he’d discussed MS matters with Kujack in my presence, with Lundy (according to what he told me), and of course with me (I am technically an outsider, too). I also pointed out that I’d tried to make him shut up, but there was no stopping him once he got going. Damn that Len, anyhow. Why does he have to go and put me in this ethical spot? It shows a lack of consideration.

  These Security men can be too thorough. Right off they wanted to pick up Kujack as well.

  I got hold of the boss and explained that if they took Kujack away we’d have to call off our press conference, because it would take months to fit and train another subject.

  The boss immediately saw the injustice of the thing, stepped in and got Security to calm down, at least until we finish our demonstration.

  *

  December 23, 1959

  What a day! The press conference this afternoon was something. Dozens of reporters and photographers and newsreel men showed up, and we took them all out to the football field for the demonstrations. First the boss gave a little orientation talk about cybernetics being teamwork in science, and about the difference between K-Pro and N-Pro, pointing out that from the practical, humanitarian angle of helping the amputee, K is a lot more important than N.

  The reporters tried to get in some questions about MS, but he parried them very good-humoredly, and he said some nice things about me, some very nice things indeed.

  Then Kujack was brought in. He really went through his paces, walking, running, skipping, jumping and everything. It was damned impressive. And then, to top off the show, Kujack place-kicked a football ninety-three yards by actual measurement, a world’s record, and everybody went wild.

  Afterward Kujack and I posed for the newsreels, shaking hands while the boss stood with his arms around us. They’re going to play the whole thing up as IFACS’ Christmas present to one of our gallant war heroes (just what the boss wanted: he figures this sort of thing makes IFACS sound so much less grim to the public), and Kujack was asked to say something in line with that idea.

  “I never could kick this good with my real legs,” he said, holding my hand tight and looking straight at me. “Gosh, this is just about the nicest Christmas present a fellow could get. Thank you, Santa.”

  I thought he was overdoing it a bit toward the end there, but the newsreel men say they think it’s a great sentimental touch.

  Goldweiser was in the crowd, and he said, “I only hope that when I prove I’m God, this many photographers will show up.” That’s just about the kind of remark I’d expect from Goldweiser.

  Too bad the Security men are coming for Kujack tomorrow. The boss couldn’t argue. After all, they were patient enough to wait until after the tests and demonstration, which the boss and I agree was white of them. It’s not as if Kujack isn’t deeply involved in this Ellsom-Lundy case. As the boss says, you can tell a man by the company, etc.

  *

  December 25, 1959

  Spent the morning clipping pictures and articles from the papers; they gave us quite a spread. Late in the afternoon I went over to the boss’s house for eggnogs, and I finally got up the nerve to say what’s been on my mind for over a month now. Strike while the iron’s, etc.

  “I’ve been thinking, sir,” I said, “that this solenoid system I’ve worked out for Pros has other applications. For example, it could easily be adapted to some of the tricky mechanical aspects of an electronic calculator.” I went into some of the technical details briefly, and I could see he was interested. “I’d like very much to work on that, now that K-Pro is licked, more or less. And if there is an opening in MS——”

  “You’re a go-getter,” the boss said, nodding in a pleased way. He was looking at a newspaper lying on the coffee table; on the front page was a large picture of Kujack grinning at me and shaking my hand. “I like that. I can’t promise anything, but let me think about it.”

  I think I’m in!

  *

  December 27, 1959

  Sent the soup-and-fish out to be cleaned and pressed. Looks like I’m going to get some use out of it, after all. We’re having a big formal New Year’s Eve party in the commons room and there’s going to be square dancing, swing-your-partner, and all of that. When I called Marilyn, she sounded very friendly—she remembered to call me Oliver, and I was flattered that she did—and said she’d be delighted to come. Seems she’s gotten very fond of folk dancing lately.

  Gosh, it’ll be good to get out of these dungarees for a while. I’m happy to say I still look good in formals. Marilyn ought to b
e quite impressed. Len always wore his like pajamas.

  (1951)

  MANEKI NEKO

  Bruce Sterling

  Michael Bruce Sterling was born in 1954 in Brownsville, Texas. His grandfather was a rancher, his father an engineer. His work on the anthology Mirrorshades (1986) helped to define the cyberpunk genre, while stories set in his “Shaper/Mechanist” universe – a solar system split between rival posthuman factions, one wedded to computation, the other to genetic engineering – vied with Vernor Vinge’s “Singularity”-based fictions to set the agenda for hard sf in the new millennium. By the time 2000 dawned, however, Sterling had moved on to new territory. His analyses of near-future trends led in 2003 to his appointment as professor at the European Graduate School where he taught courses on media and design. He lived in Belgrade with Serbian author and film-maker Jasmina Tešanović for several years. The couple married and in 2007 moved to Turin.

  “I can’t go on,” his brother said.

  Tsuyoshi Shimizu looked thoughtfully into the screen of his pasokon. His older brother’s face was shiny with sweat from a late-night drinking bout.

  “It’s only a career,” said Tsuyoshi, sitting up on his futon and adjusting his pajamas. “You worry too much.”

  “All that overtime!” his brother whined. He was making the call from a bar somewhere in Shibuya. In the background, a middle-aged office lady was singing karaoke, badly. “And the examination hells. The manager training programs. The proficiency tests. I never have time to live!” Tsuyoshi grunted sympathetically. He didn’t like these late-night videophone calls, but he felt obliged to listen. His big brother had always been a decent sort, before he had gone through the elite courses at Waseda University, joined a big corporation, and gotten professionally ambitious.

  “My back hurts,” his brother groused. “I have an ulcer. My hair is going gray. And I know they’ll fire me. No matter how loyal you are to the big companies, they have no loyalty to their employees anymore. It’s no wonder that I drink.”