Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: To Preserve

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “As I told you earlier, there are seventy-five thousand two hundred thirty-five operations necessary for the manufacture of one positronic brain, each separate and dependent upon multiple factors. If any one of those processes goes wrong, it can’t be used. If it goes seriously wrong . . .”

  Susan believed she understood his point, at least the lesser one. “It must be destroyed.”

  Lawrence nodded. “Yes. And, as our”—he paused—“robotherapist and future robopsychologist, a large part of your job will involve analyzing robots who seem a bit . . . um . . . off and deciding whether that particular quirk is normal, harmless, or dangerous, and whether the robot can still perform its duties.”

  “Ah,” Susan said, then furrowed her brow. “But wouldn’t it be easier to just destroy any robot acting strangely? Just to be sure?”

  Lawrence stared directly into Susan’s stony gray eyes. “I plan to pay you what you’re worth; and, believe me, that’s more than you think. But if you rescue just one robot a year by determining its quirks are normal or harmless and it can still perform its duties, it’ll more than cover your salary.”

  Susan understood. Cody Peters had pronounced the nanorobots in solution to be worth millions. A full-sized robot had to be worth so much more. “What if I’m wrong? What if I make a mistake of either type?”

  Lawrence laughed, as if at a private joke. “Susan, you’re not going to make many mistakes. Even a positronic robot’s mind is finite. By the time you finish your training, I have no doubt you’ll be able to calculate it to the last decimal. You’re also a known perfectionist with a keen eye for detail, and not just visual. You need only err on the side of caution. If you destroy a positronic brain that could have been saved, nothing’s lost but time and money.” He added fairly, “Enough money to make all of us weep, but just money all the same.”

  Susan considered Lawrence’s words in light of her current experiences. A positronic brain was nearly as complicated as a human one, lacking only a few innately human features: curiosity and creativity, ironically, the exact ones that had enabled their creation. Robots were both simple and startlingly complex, manufactured to obey yet also capable of determining the extent of their own compliance. They could choose to follow orders sparingly or liberally. The range of their personalities was limited, but barely so. The Three Laws assured all robots were incapable of harming humans, of tyranny, of corruption, of stupidity, or prejudice. She could not rest until even the most inscrutable of their actions became comprehensible, even if only to her. Excitement welled up in her, and all the dark, horrible events of the last two years seemed to disappear, if only for the moment. It was the job she was meant for, the one in which she could lose herself so fully that the past would cease to haunt her.

  When it became clear Susan did not intend to speak anytime in the near future, Lawrence continued. “We were able to pull some strings and get you into Columbia’s graduate robotics program this semester. You’ve only missed a couple of classes, and they’ve sent me some notes you can look over during your trip.”

  “My trip?” Susan asked hopefully.

  “I’ve sent the electronic ticket to your Vox. Can you leave tomorrow?”

  Susan could think of little she would leave behind. She tapped the ticket up on her brand-new Vox. “I could leave right now.”

  Lawrence chuckled again. “Better to pack a few things, don’t you think? I have an apartment for you close to the college. It’s small but actually bigger than what you’re crammed into right now.”

  Susan could scarcely wait to dive back into academics. She had never felt more comfortable than when studying and learning. The rest of the world seemed unimportant compared with enlarging her intellect, her eyes and brain devouring information, no time to think about friendships and romance. “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve done too much.”

  “Will you have any . . . difficulties . . . leaving from the Port Authority terminal?”

  Susan’s brows inched upward. “You mean am I going to suffer flashbacks? Am I going to run, screaming, through the terminal?”

  “Yes?” Lawrence tried.

  “No,” Susan assured him. “I have high activity in the prefrontal cortex. That’s probably what allows me to make good, fast decisions and why I’m known for solving problems. The medial arc of the PFC also suppresses the amygdala, which plays the largest role—” Susan stopped speaking. Lawrence did not need to understand the etiology of post-traumatic stress disorder. She smiled awkwardly. “Sorry about the neurobiology lecture.”

  Lawrence smiled good-naturedly. “We’re very glad to have your prefrontal cortex aboard.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be on that bus. Looking forward to it.”

  The conversation seemed to have reached a natural conclusion, but Lawrence still had something to say. Susan suspected it had to do with what she had noticed in his eyes, what she felt certain he kept hiding.

  “Spit it out, Lawrence.”

  Lawrence sucked in a long deep breath, releasing it bit by bit before speaking. “Susan, the NC line of robots had a single purpose, which was met. As you know, we also saved two prototypes in the hope of introducing the populace to anthropomorphic robots and gauging their reactions.”

  Susan got straight to the details. “Nate and Nick.”

  Lawrence nodded. “The reaction was not . . . positive overall. Quite the opposite. Some people are ready for robots that appear similar to us, but most aren’t. Even many of the ones who are did not have the reaction we had hoped for.” He laced his fingers on the desktop and sighed again. “When a robot looks like a screen, very few people have difficulty using it as a tool, even if it is more intelligent than themselves. When it’s a lump of iron with tentacles on an assembly line, no problem. But when it takes mammalian shape, particularly human, problems arise.”

  Susan understood Lawrence’s point on several levels. There was the Frankenstein Complex her father often spoke about, of course. But they had also experienced something unforeseen, what she had earlier termed the Belgar Complex. The more like people robots looked, the more people interacted with them, the more protective the people became. Soon, Susan supposed, there would be some loud, emphatic organization that considered commanding robots tantamount to slavery. “The world is not ready for humanoid robots.”

  “Definitely not, and probably not for a long time. We need to accustom people to working with task-shaped robots on a grand scale first. It may be several decades, probably longer, before we dare try anthropomorphic robots again.” Lawrence continued to stare at Susan. Apparently, he needed her to realize something more.

  It came to Susan in a sudden rush. Without intending to, she leapt to her feet. “What have you done with Nick and Nate?”

  Lawrence looked at his fingers, still laced on the desktop. “Nick . . . was recycled.”

  Susan waited for the other shoe to fall. She liked Nick, but she did not have the history with him that she did with Nate.

  “Nate . . . is in your office, Susan, waiting for you.”

  Susan did not know how to take those words. “Waiting for me to . . . what? To say good-bye? To reassure him? To . . . to . . .”

  Lawrence did not have to say anything.

  Susan’s hand went to her pocket. She touched the electron gun through the fabric of her dress khakis. “You want me to destroy him?”

  Lawrence remained silent.

  Incensed, Susan stomped her foot. “No, Lawrence. No. You’re asking me to do something unconscionable.”

  Still, Lawrence said nothing.

  Susan got the point. She was acting from emotion, not logic. She was proving the Belgar Complex. Susan dropped back into her seat. She tried to clarify. “Lawrence, my family is dead, murdered. Every man I’ve dared to love was killed before my eyes. Nate . . . got me through all the worst moments of my life. He’s been my sounding board, my alt
er ego, my robotic psychologist.”

  Lawrence finally spoke. “Susan, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m giving Nate to you and trusting you to make the best decision, whatever that might be, for yourself, for Nate, and for USR.”

  Susan rose, this time deliberately, and headed for the door. “I promise I’ll do my best.”

  • • •

  When Susan and Nate left USR, they found Jake’s dented and scratched Subaru Sapphire waiting illegally in the bus lane. The passenger door opened, as if of its own accord. Susan gestured for Nate to get into the backseat, which he did, and she took the front. The instant she shut the door, the seat belts engaging automatically, the car roared into traffic. “I thought you might want a ride home,” Jake said.

  Susan studied Jake. Bangs covered his scars, and he showed no obvious signs of his more recent injuries. “Should you be driving? You’re on painkillers.”

  Jake laughed. “You, of all people, know I live dangerously.”

  Truer words were never spoken. “You do,” she admitted. “But I don’t. At least not anymore. And never again.”

  Jake scoffed, but he kept his hands in the two and ten o’clock positions on the steering wheel and never took his eyes from the road. “Admit you’re going to miss me.”

  Susan had no difficulty doing so. “I’m going to miss you, but not the excitement that brought us together, Detective.”

  “Former detective,” Jake corrected.

  “Damn,” Susan said. She had still held out hope that the NYPD would reinstate him. “Are you . . . okay?”

  “Strangely, yes.”

  Susan could only see his face from the side, but there was definitely a smile.

  “You see, I’ve had a rash of job offers.”

  “Really?” Susan played innocent. “From whom?”

  “From Lawrence Robertson, for one. He wanted me to work security for USR.”

  That startled Susan. Lawrence had said nothing about it. “Did you take it?”

  “No, something better came along. I’ll still be doing investigative policing, but for the feds.”

  Susan feigned surprise. “After you killed federal agents, they want you to come work for them as one?”

  For the first time, Jake took his eyes off the road momentarily, to give Susan a dark look. “Please, Susan. You already knew. This was your doing, wasn’t it?”

  Susan saw no reason to lie. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve been a detective for a long time, and I’m not stupid. No one gets a promotion before they’ve even started working.”

  “A promotion?”

  “I’m starting as a senior special agent in the Department of Defense.”

  Susan could not help asking, “Are you allowed to tell me that?”

  “Of course, Susan. You already knew. I just can’t tell you what I’m working on.”

  Bitterness descended upon Susan. “That’s fine, so long as it doesn’t involve destroying a woman’s life in search of a nonexistent code.”

  “It doesn’t,” Jake promised. “You know, you could have asked for an advisory position or an ambassadorship, and I believe they would have given it to you. Instead, you thought of me. I wanted you to know I appreciate that.”

  Susan had not known that, but it did not matter. She would not have accepted a position in the government; she knew exactly where she belonged. “It really wasn’t a big deal, Jake. I owed you my life several times over. Comparatively, making sure you still had a job was nothing.”

  “‘You’re welcome’ would suffice.”

  Susan grinned. “You’re welcome.”

  Jake turned his attention to the robot. “There’s one thing I still don’t understand, Nate. If you knew where Susan was leading Pal, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Susan twisted to look directly at Nate in the backseat. “I was wondering essentially the same thing. The bus terminal’s a big place. How did you know which freezer to hide in?”

  Nate shrugged resignedly. “I told you everything I knew, every word Susan had spelled out on my skin. It wasn’t until I was searching for a place to hide that I remembered she had been in that terminal once before. From observation, I know people are creatures of habit and comfort: college students pick the same unassigned seats day to day, diners tend to patronize particular restaurants repeatedly, individuals have certain styles of dress. People seek out the familiar, even if it’s only a little bit familiar, particularly in times of stress.”

  The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “I told you about the little newsstand. . . .”

  “And the mixed-berry fizzy juice and the whole-grain pretzel,” Nate finished for her. He added, with a tone of sincere apology, “I’m just sorry I didn’t think of it before we separated, Jake. It might have saved you some . . . trauma.”

  Jake shook his head vigorously, glancing at Nate in the rearview mirror. “Actually, as it turned out, Cadmium got there before I did. They would have watched me hide up there and killed me at their leisure. The PA Anti-Crime Unit would never have seen me and couldn’t have backed me up.”

  Susan did not want to talk about what had happened anymore. Violence was behind her. “Listen, Jake. It’s Saturday, and I was planning to spend the entire day with Nate doing everything fun I could think of before . . .” A lump formed in her throat. She did not want to discuss that dilemma, either. “I’m heading for Syracuse tomorrow to start my robotics classes. Would you like to join us for some fun?” Unspoken but inherent in the invitation was the realization that she and Jake were taking divergent pathways highly unlikely to cross in the future.

  Jake tipped his head, clearly mulling the invitation. “I’d like that, Susan. Where do you want to go?”

  Nate piped up, “I’ve always wanted to see Coney Island.”

  Susan said, “I was thinking ice skating.”

  Jake volunteered, “How about an hour of skating followed by Coney Island all afternoon. In the evening, we can go skydiving.”

  “No!” Susan and Nate said simultaneously.

  Jake laughed. “Kidding. But I would like to take you both out for dinner and a movie, agreed?”

  Susan decided she could handle even the most adventuresome food. “Nate doesn’t eat, but I’m fine with it, assuming we don’t fill up on junk food at the pier. As far as movies, nothing with shooting in it.”

  Jake grumbled under his breath, “Girls ruin everything.”

  “And we have to be home by midnight. My bus leaves tomorrow afternoon.” Susan knew she would need some extra time to make decisions about Nate. For now, she wanted only to enjoy the company of two friends she might never see again.

  • • •

  After a full day of mundane excitement, Jake dropped off Susan and Nate at United States Robots and Mechanical Men. She and the former detective promised to look each other up, then said their good-byes, knowing they would do nothing of the kind. Senior special agent Jake Carson was out of Susan’s life forever and, she realized, it was probably for the best. Now woman and robot sat in the office Lawrence had assigned to her, staring straight ahead in an all-too-intense silence. It was after eight p.m., and they had the entire building to themselves.

  To Susan’s surprise, it was Nate who broke the hush. “Susan, you don’t have to worry about me. I had a great life, longer and richer than most robots. I have no dreams, no aspirations, no notions about the future. I got to do exactly what I was created for: to protect, to obey, to preserve. My job is over, and my time has come and gone. Lawrence is right, and I told you the same thing when you rescued me from the ambulance. The world is not ready for anthropomorphic robots. It may never be.”

  Nate’s arguments made sense. Susan was, first and foremost, a scientist. Intellect always took precedence over sentiment. Desires, yearnings, and cravings were motes of dust, dispersed by the winds
of reason. Too many studies were flawed because experimenters or participants put their conscious or unconscious wishes ahead of impartial science. Pal had manipulated Susan because she had allowed him to do so. She had overlooked significant clues that he was other than what he claimed because she wanted love in her life so desperately; but it would never happen again. Susan could not allow it. Lawrence and Nate had embraced the path of logic, and she needed to do the same, no matter how much it hurt.

  Susan put her hand into her pocket. The electron gun had absorbed the warmth of her body and felt smooth and strangely snug in her hand. She felt certain she would use it many times in the future.

  But not today.

  Susan opened her closet, currently empty aside from a hook on the door and a series of high barren shelves. Lawrence had promised this office would be hers alone to use as she pleased before giving her its only two keys. It already had her name and her future degree engraved on a plaque on the door: SUSAN CALVIN, ROBOPSYCHOLOGIST. “Nate, sit here.” She pointed at the closet floor.

  At Susan’s command, Nate joined her. His gaze followed her finger, and he did exactly as she bade him. He had to fold up his legs to fit fully inside, and he studied her curiously. Leaving the electron gun in her pocket, Susan lifted Nate’s shirt and reached for his abdomen. With a fingernail, she carefully opened his battery compartment, removed the atomic disc, then replaced the cover. Nate went still and silent.

  Closing the closet door, Susan placed the battery in the top drawer of her desk. Lawrence would figure out what she had done when no robotic body appeared at the lab for recycling. Someday, he might even demand she finish the job, but for now it comforted her to know Nate would always be there. Anytime she needed him.

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