by D Miller
'I suggest we leave the police to do their job,' said Dr Tam, smirking at the furious police woman. She led them all out of the room.
Robbie walked, following some cables snaking out the door, and across into another room – it was the room where he had first been confronted by President Dobbs. Like the medi-unit room it was white, and clinical; Robbie supposed they must be in the mansion's private sick bay. The room's pristine, sparkling surfaces had been interrupted with communication equipment. Sitting in front of a control panel was Jane. Next to Jane the controls for the medi-unit were built into the work surface with screens on the wall above them, one showed the empty medi-unit, and one was blank. Rex lay at Jane's feet with his head resting on his paws. Adrienne and George sat nearby in comfortable looking office chairs; they had fallen asleep where they sat. Pushed into a corner, was a trolley, probably the one boyboy had been wheeled in on, laying on it was a jack, the cable leading back to the control panel that Robbie guessed Rex and Jane must have brought with them.
'Robbie!' said Jane, shooting up out of her chair and stepping towards him. She stopped. 'Fucking hell!' She looked at Omo, Darren and Amber. 'You guys might have warned us to turn our noses off.'
Rex whined, he pawed his nose, stood and shook himself. 'So you found the magic number then? It worked? Woo hoo! That really is the worst smell ever by the way.'
'I found the number, it was everywhere, thank you Rex, and thank you Jane.'
'I'm glad you're back,' said Rex. Robbie couldn't find his voice. He swallowed and looked away. He heard a new voice, behind him.
'This is all very touching,' it said. Dr Tam whirled around, Robbie turned more slowly.
The policewoman was holding up one hand, the other held a mask to her nose. 'Alright you said I can't talk to it, fine. But I just need to know one thing, OK? This little toad here,' she jerked her thumb towards her left, Robbie was shocked to realise that the smirking technician was handcuffed to one arm of a bare metal chair and sitting next to Rex and Jane, at the control station for the medi-unit, 'claims that he was acting under orders from ex-President Dobbs. I need to know if that is true.'
Behind the technician a policeman in uniform stood to attention. The technician had his hand to his nose, he looked like he was in pain.
'That's the guy who turned my language centre off when I was locked up in the Civic Centre,' broadcast Robbie.
'It is true, I told you, I was following orders,' said the formerly smirking, now whiny, technician. 'I stayed here, didn't I? Like he told me to. I was following my orders, I monitored the equipment, it's not my fault it malfunctioned, it's not my fault he died. How could I know it hadn't been serviced in three years?'
'Yeah, following orders, always a good excuse,' said the cop. 'You kidnapped a very sick man from the hospital in order to play some twisted techy game with him. And now that man is dead. Why shouldn't I charge you with murder?'
'It wasn't a game, I was doing my job. I've helped haven't I, I've helped you to get it open?'
'Seems to me the bots did most of the work,' said the cop.
'President Dobbs told me to do it, he wanted to use this unit because of the CGR interface. The hospital doesn't have anything like it. He wanted to be able to join boyboy in the interface. I programmed it for him. Then he brought boyboy here. Not me. I never went to the hospital. I'm just a programmer.'
The cop rolled her eyes. 'So he wanted to be with boyboy? Then where is he?'
'For fuck's sake,' said the technician, 'he doesn't have to be here. Once boyboy was connected to the interface he could join him from anywhere in the world.'
'Convenient,' said the cop.
For the first time the technician looked at Robbie. 'Tell her,' he said. 'Tell her President Dobbs made me do it.'
Suddenly Robbie was again the centre of attention. Everyone was staring at his slightly green nakedness. He looked at the technician. 'My name is Robbie.'
The technician shrugged. He put his hand back to cover his nose.
'If you want anything from me you are going to have to ask me politely.' Robbie kept his gaze fixed on the technician. From the corner of his eye he could see Omo looking serious. The policewoman rolled her eyes again. Dr Tam, Amber and Darren traded looks.
'Er, Bobbie, yeah–'
'Robbie.'
'Right, Robbie, like I said, look, no hard feelings, I was just doing what I was told. By President Dobbs, you saw him, tell her, please? Please?'
Robbie turned to the policewoman.
'I saw President Dobbs's avatar. He was here with a security detail and some medi-techs, and he was giving the orders.'
'President Dobbs was giving the orders?'
'President Dobbs's avatar was giving the orders,' said Robbie.
'We found avatars for Dobbs and boyboy in the Mayor's mansion when we were looking for Robbie,' said Amber. 'There were others as well. We locked them away.'
The policewoman's eyes narrowed. 'What were you doing in the Mayor's mansion?'
'Why shouldn't they be in the Mayor's mansion?' said Dr Tam. 'It's a public building. And it's not as if his honour was in residence, I seem to remember that after refusing to open the shelter during the storm he decided to accept the grateful thanks of the survivors from a safe distance.'
The policewoman opened her mouth, but Dr Tam held up her hand.
'That's enough. You've had your answer, while I haven't had a chance to examine my patient yet.'
The two woman eyeballed each other for a time.
'Thank you for your cooperation citizen,' said the cop, turning on her heel and striding out the door.
'Jesus,' said the technician, 'that really is a terrible smell.'
'Shut up,' said Jane and Dr Tam together.
'Dude, no one wants to hear from you,' said Omo.
'Pity we can't turn its language centre off,' said Darren.
'I know a way chief,' said Rex, 'it's a bit bitey, but just say the word.'
Amber crossed his arms and stared thoughtfully at the man.
'I helped you, I helped you, you don't have to be mean to me,' said the technician. He seemed close to tears.
'You watched while they beat me. You smirked at me as you put the jack into my ear socket. You jammed my communications. And you put a code on the door so that even if I managed to wake up I would still be trapped. And after that you helped. So yeah. Thank you for helping.'
Robbie was annoyed with himself for feeling sorry for the man. Once he would happily have punched him.
Another uniformed police officer appeared at the door. Without a word he uncuffed the technician, then he and his colleague led him away.
Rex looked at Robbie. 'So is he really dead?' he said.
'Oh dude,' said Omo, 'you can smell how dead he is.'
'I can take you in there,' said Dr Tam, 'if you need to see the body?'
'Right. Thanks,' said Rex, looking away.
Omo pulled up the technician's plain metal chair. 'Sit down baby,' he said.
Robbie sat and looked at Adrienne and George, who had managed to sleep through the conversation with the policewoman and the technician.
'The human units aren't built for long term alert status,' said Rex.
At that moment Adrienne awoke. She started up from her chair.
'Robbie!' she said. She was smiling hugely but then her face changed. 'Wait, what's that smell?' She covered her mouth with her hand and rushed from the room. Omo looked at Robbie.
'She's pregnant dude.'
Robbie's insides twisted. He looked down. He knew he should be glad for George and Adrienne, but why hadn't George told him they were already trying? Darren was speaking.
'I'll go and see if Adrienne's OK.'
'No Darren, I will go and see if Adrienne is OK,' said Dr Tam. 'You keep an eye on my patient. Find a bathroom so Robbie can shower and ask the house where the laundry room is.' She indicated the green stains on Darren's clothes, and the globs of green gel sticking to Robbie's body.
'You all smell, it's in the medi-gel.'
Dr Tam left in hot pursuit of Adrienne.
'It's not a smart house,' said Robbie. 'Oligarchs don't have smart houses, they have human servants and robot slaves. Smart houses are for little people. We should ask Sheena or Shauna or Sharon where the laundry room is.'
There was a moment of silence. 'Dude,' said Omo, 'Dex had them locked up. For betraying you.'
'But they didn't betray me,' said Robbie. 'It wasn't them.'
They were all looking at him, except George who let out a snore.
'Dude, what happened?'
'Do you think we could find something for George to cover his nose with and wake him up?' said Robbie.
There was a pause. Darren handed Jane a surgical mask, she turned towards George.
'Operation restart the human unit,' said Rex, licking his lips, jumping up and putting his front paws on George's lap. 'Woof woof dude!'
George shifted in his sleep. Rex barked, and licked George's face. George opened his eyes. He sat up. Rex licked him again.
'Ah, oh, get off me, Robbie! Oh Robbie, I'm so relieved, I thought I'd really lost you this time. I'm so sorry I fell asleep when you were trapped in that thing. Why are you naked? And green? What is that dreadful smell? Rex, let me get up.'
George pushed Rex off him and tried to stand. Jane put a hand on his shoulder and gave him the surgical mask.
'Don't get up,' said Robbie. 'The smell is in the green fluid, so don't touch me.'
'Robbie,' said George, 'I'm so sorry, was it awful?'
'No, just the last bit, getting out of the tank really wasn't very nice.'
Robbie lay on a bed in one of the mansion's bedrooms with Rex. It was close to the one with the old oligarch's avatar in it. He wondered what it looked like now, with no one to look after it. What would the police think if they found it? He hoped they weren't going to search the mansion, would that cause problems for his friends? Rex had led him and Omo to this room, he and Jane had taken turns to sleep in it while they had been trying to get Robbie out of the medi-unit. Darren and Amber had taken Omo's clothes away to wash with their own while Omo and Robbie had showered together twice in the bedroom's wet room. After the second shower he had simply run out of energy. Omo had helped him into the bed, then wrapped himself in a sheet and gone in search of clothes and something to remove the final traces of the horrible smell from Robbie's hair.
Robbie's inbox had started to fill with messages and he had realised that he had been in the medi-unit for ten days. He had learned from Omo and Rex that he had been missing for five days before they had found him, and it had taken another five days to release him. They had told Robbie that after he went missing they spent two days talking to anyone who might have seen him, and looking frantically for him, until they had decided to methodically search Toytown, grid by grid, splitting into separate search parties to speed the search. Of course their search was limited, they could not go everywhere, sometimes all they could do was stand outside a building and ping. Rex and Jane were monitoring communications; one of their algorithms had notified them that one of the keywords they had chosen, 'boyboy', had been used in a communication from the mansion to the Coroner's Office.
Omo, Amber and George plus Boris and Ibrahim, the two miners who had taken part in the retreat from the refinery, had left for the mansion immediately. They had found the technician asleep at the controls. He had angrily refused to tell them anything, but then they already knew the most important fact: on the medi-unit's monitor screens they could see Robbie inside the sealed unit. They had detained the technician and sent for Rex and Jane, who found that the medi-unit refused to answer any commands from them. Very soon after this the coroner had arrived and had quickly summoned the police who had wanted to arrest everyone, but after an intervention from Dex, from President Dex, they had arrested only the technician.
The coroner had tried to force open the medi-unit, the technician had panicked and said that the machine was arming itself, thinking it was being attacked. He had suggested that they move well back, since ultimately the unit would explode rather than let them take its patient – it would assume anyone trying to force an entrance was either a terrorist, an assassin or a kidnapper. After being arrested, Rex told Robbie, the 'snivelling hack coder' had been very keen to help them think of a way to get the machine open without it exploding.
Robbie was lying under a white silk sheet. The bed itself was surrounded by four wooden posts, there were heavy burgundy and gold damask curtains on either side and at the other end of the bed, hung from poles connecting the posts to one another. Omo had closed the curtains as he left. Light filtered through them so it seemed to Robbie that he floated in a small reddish golden world. Rex lay on top of the sheet with his head on Robbie's chest.
'What I don't understand,' said Rex, 'is how the police got here so fast after the coroner called them.'
'There's a subway train under the Mayor's mansion. It takes you to a lift in the mountain. Camilla told me. If the lift thinks you are an authorised user it lets you in and brings you up to the mansion. It's the VIP entrance as well as for emergencies. It must be how Dobbs brought boyboy up here too. He couldn't have brought him on the public cable cars.'
'Serious money dude.'
'I suppose it's an escape route too.'
'Yeah, heh heh, in case of peasants with flaming torches and pitchforks.'
'Did you know the old oligarch has been dead for a few years? Boyboy skinned him and made him into an avatar so no one would know.'
'Why would he do that?'
'You know he was their mentor?'
'Yeah, he was the boss, they hated him but they loved his power, and his money.'
'So when he died they didn't want to lose his money to his six kids. Neither did his wife. So they worked with her to hide the old man's death from the world.'
'How could he expect to get away with that? Lunatic. Still, one down, one to go.'
'Rex, you shouldn't wish Dobbs dead.'
'No, I shouldn't, you should. You know he's going to blame you for boyboy's death and come after you, right?'
'It was his own bad judgement – he should never have taken boyboy from the hospital.'
'You know that human's have faulty logic circuits, right? Dobbs is going to think about how you made him move boyboy to the mansion, and how it's all your fault.'
Robbie knew he shouldn't wish anyone dead, but he could stop himself from thinking of the relief he would feel, knowing they were both gone from the world. He shut his eyes.
'Except for George,' said Rex. 'George has good logic circuits. And he's good people. My basket is really comfortable.'
Robbie remembered how George had spent some time, after Rex and Jane moved into the hotel, making a 3D model of a basket, and getting it printed and lined with pseudo-fur for Rex. Robbie had suggested that this showed that perhaps George was more of an applied physicist than a pure one, or even, gasp, an engineer. George had not been amused.
Omo returned dressed, and with clothes for Robbie. While Amber and Darren had been washing clothes, Adrienne and George had searched the mansion for a printer to make new clothes for Robbie, and Jane had packed up the equipment she and Rex had brought to the mansion. Omo also brought with him lemon juice, Darren, and Dr Tam, who examined Robbie and told him his dizziness was related to a lack of nutrition. Darren gave Robbie a protein drink. After this Omo took Robbie into the wet room once more, washed his hair and rinsed it with the lemon juice. Finally the horrible smell was gone. Robbie dressed and he and Omo joined the others in the kitchen where they had gathered to avoid the police while they waited for Robbie to be ready to leave.
Dr Tam pronounced that what Robbie needed was to go home, and rest. Darren was to call her if there was any change to his condition. The police wanted a statement about what had happened to boyboy, they had no interest in what had been done to Robbie.
'I suppose,' Dr Tam said, 'now that robots are to have human r
ights the police will have to be reformed.' She smiled happily, 'They will enjoy that.'
'I do think that reform of the police force must be an urgent priority,' said George. 'We have to remember the dual nature of the service. First of all the inclusion of 'force' in the name is a nod to their role as an arm of state power. Secondly the police perform a service in investigating certain types of crime that we would all agree we want to stopped. I suppose a key question is, "what is a crime?"'
'I can't believe boyboy is dead,' said Rex.
'Rex,' said Omo, 'you really need to see the body, now, while you can dude.'
'I think that would be a very good idea,' said Adrienne. As she finished speaking she put her hand over her mouth, then she pressed her hand onto her chest, took a deep breath and swallowed.
'I can take you,' said Dr Tam.
'I'll come with you,' said Jane.
'Darren you're in charge of my patient, let's meet at the cable cars,' said Dr Tam, as she and Jane practically dragged Rex out of the room.
Robbie sat in the cable car with Omo, Amber, George, Adrienne, Rex and Jane. Dr Tam and Darren sat to one side, talking quietly together. Robbie had still not told the others what had happened, although he had said that he wanted to personally go and release Sheena, Shauna and Sharon. When they had been waiting to board the car Rex had told Robbie that the coroner had unzipped the body bag at Dr Tam's request. 'It took me a while to see it was really him. But it was. I never thought we'd escape him, not really.'
Robbie looked out of the window of the cable car, sunshine sparkled on the distant mountains, nearly one month into the four month long summer day. Rex snored gently, his head on Jane's lap.
Robbie spoke to Omo. 'President Dobbs thought that we had beaten boyboy and set him on fire. But we know it wasn't us. The only other people with boyboy were his friends. Adrienne was right. They must have tried to kill him. They must have thought he was dead when they set him on fire. They must have been trying to burn the evidence.'