The Wrath of Cons

by Robert Kroese

  Herbert saw me to the exit and wished me well on my quest to find the Narrator. Hopefully this Narrator was all he was cracked up to be—and hopefully he could help me find Rex and the others, assuming they had safely landed on Earth as well.

  The area around the library was unremarkable. Other than the fact that it seemed to be completely deserted, it could have been any city on any backwards planet in the galaxy. Once I got to the Strip, it was a different story. Huge edifices in a dizzying array of architectural styles—sometimes three or four different styles combined in a single building—lined the street. There were buildings that looked like Greek Temples, buildings that looked like medieval castles, buildings that looked like pirate ships and buildings that looked like, well, just buildings. There were spherical buildings, spiral buildings, cylindrical buildings, spiky crystalline buildings, buildings that looked like globs of molten mercury and buildings that looked like blocks of ice. I could see the reason for the confusion about the city’s history: whatever this City had started out as, it had so long ago descended into self-parody that it was no longer clear what the builders were parodying or why. Originally most of these buildings had probably been resorts or hotels, but the increasingly bizarre styles screamed of self-conscious absurdity: architects trying to outdo each other in an ever-escalating contest of the eye-catching and surreal in an effort to snare the attention of an ever-diminishing pool of tourists. And now, hundreds of years later, the culmination of their efforts still stood: a sort of monument to crazed desperation.

  I was so distracted by the panoply of structures that I did not at first notice the very large man staring forlornly down at me over a wrought iron gate.

  “Hi, Sasha,” the man said.

  I turned, startled. “Boggs!” I cried. “What are you doing there?” The gate only came up to Boggs’s armpits. On either side of it was a wrought iron fence. It seemed to be part of a structure that was half medieval monastery and half World War II submarine. Boggs was standing in a courtyard in front of the building.

  “I’m stuck here,” Boggs said.

  “Can’t you climb over?” I asked.

  Boggs stared at the fence for a moment. “The tips are pointy,” he said.

  “Then open the gate,” I said.

  “It’s locked.”

  “The gate is only four feet high,” I said. “Also, it’s locked from the inside.”

  Boggs stared at the gate for a good thirty seconds. Finally he reached out and turned the latch with his thumb and index finger. The gate slowly creaked open. Boggs walked out of the courtyard and closed the gate behind him.

  “You sure are smart, Sasha,” he said. “I wish I was smart like you.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” I said.

  “Why?” he said, a look of concern coming over his face.

  “It’s an expression,” I replied. “It means being smart has its own problems.”

  “I guess you’re right. Potential Friend is probably the smartest person I know, and he’s always in some kind of trouble.”

  “Yes, that’s an excellent… wait, you think Rex is smarter than me?”

  “You’re the smartest robot I know. Well, you and Donny.”

  “Donny? You think I’m on the same level as Donny, intelligence-wise?”

  “No, I guess you’re smarter. Except for at climbing. Donny is really smart at climbing.”

  “Climbing isn’t a matter of smarts. You can’t be smart at climbing.”

  “I can’t be smart at anything,” Boggs said sadly.

  “No, I’m not… okay, forget it. Do you have any idea where Rex and Donny are?”

  “I think I saw another pod crash into that building over there.”

  “Good! Let’s go.” I started walking in the direction Boggs had indicated, and he came up along next to me.

  “Sasha, are we stuck on this planet?” he asked after a moment.

  “For now. After we find Rex and Donny, we’re going to see someone called the Narrator.”

  “And the Narrator is going to help us get off this planet?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Do you think the Narrator can make me smart like you and Potential Friend?”

  “Um,” I said. “I’m not sure he’s that kind of Narrator.”

  “What kind of Narrator is he?”

  “I don’t really know, to be honest. I was told that if anybody knows how to get off this planet, it’s him.”

  “Then he might know how to make me smart.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Boggs beamed. “Let’s hurry. We need to find Rex and Donny so we can go to the Narrator and he can make me smart.” He took off running. I shook my head and went after him.

  *****

  We found Rex not long after, sitting at a hotel bar next to the wreckage of his crashed pod. He gave us a wave as we approached.

  “Sir,” I said, “are you all right?”

  “Fine, fine,” said Rex. He was holding a martini in his hand and staring at it. “Where have you two been?”

  “I was stuck in a courtyard,” Boggs said.

  “We were looking for you,” I said.

  “Well, you found me.”

  I was unsettled by Rex’s apparent lack of concern about our situation. At first I thought he might be in shock, but he seemed calm and uninjured. “Sir,” I said, “you understand that we’re marooned on Earth?”

  “That’s the least of our problems,” Rex said. “Look at how distant my hands are.”

  “So you’ve been here since you crashed?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you made no effort to find us or Donny?”

  “Nope.”

  “Because…?”

  Rex motioned vaguely at the shelves of liquor bottles behind the bar.

  “We could have been hurt. Or killed.”

  “I was stuck in a courtyard,” Boggs said.

  “Boggs was stuck in courtyard. Who knows what Donny is up to?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “That seems a bit callous, sir,” I said. “Heartless, even.”

  “Ooh!” Boggs cried. “Maybe the Narrator can get Rex a heart!”

  “What?” I asked. “No, I don’t think—”

  “Sasha, I need you to come bring my hands to me.”

  “Sir?”

  “My hands,” he said, twiddling his fingers in the air. “Look how far away they are.”

  “Sir, what have you been drinking?”

  “Just that,” Rex said, pointing to the martini. “And some of that.” He pointed to a half-empty bottle on the bar. I picked it up. The label read:

  DRINK ME

  “Oh, boy,” I said. “Sir, I think we need to get you out of this bar. Here, let me help you.”

  Rex stared at me, wide-eyed. “But you’re vast,” he said.

  “Boggs, give me a hand.”

  We helped Rex outside. He stared at his feet as he walked, as if amazed he could make them move at all. Once we got him to the street, he stood blinking in the sunlight.

  “Maybe the Narrator can help Rex with this too,” Boggs said.

  Rex shook his head as if coming out of a daze.

  “Sir? Can you hear me?”

  “Of course I can hear you. You’re standing right next to me. Ugh, I need a drink.” I sighed with relief. The spatial distortion seemed to have passed.

  “Sir, we need to get going. We need to find Donny.”

  “And then we’re going to go see the Narrator,” Boggs said. “He’s going to give me brains.”

  Rex raised an eyebrow at me. “Narrator?”

  “Charlotte Brontë told me he might be able to get us off this planet.”

  “Yeah, well, Louisa May Alcott told me we’re running low on vermouth.”

  “I’m serious, sir. There was a sort of… robot literary museum. My pod smooshed Anne Brontë, and then—”

  “Skip to the part about the Narrator.”

  “Yes, sir. The
Narrator. Charlotte Brontë told me he could get us off planet.”

  “What’s the rush? There are a lot of bottles in that bar I haven’t tried yet.”

  “What about vengeance, sir?”

  Rex shrugged. “Vengeance is all well and good, but there are three hundred bottles of top-shelf vodka behind that bar that aren’t going to drink themselves.”

  “Sir, I realize that you never really cared about my quest for vengeance, but you know you’ll get bored here eventually. There’s nobody to con on this planet. They’re all robots, and they all seem content to do whatever it is they’re programmed to do. Well, except for Emily Brontë, and I’d prefer to steer clear of her. How are you going to make money?”

  “You make a compelling point, Sasha,” Rex said. “Life isn’t all about the shallow pleasure of getting stinking drunk. It’s also about the slightly less shallow pleasure of conning guileless rubes out of their material possessions. All right, let’s go find this Narrator.”

  “We need to find Donny first, sir,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, whatever.” Rex walked unsteadily down the street.

  Boggs shook his head disapprovingly. “We need to get Potential Friend to the Narrator. If there’s anybody who can give Potential Friend a heart, it’s the Narrator.”

  “Where are you getting all this from, Boggs? He’s a Narrator, not some kind of w—”

  “Are you guys coming or what?” Rex called.

  “Coming, Potential Friend! We’re going to get you a heart!”

  I shook my head and trudged after them.

  Chapter Six

  It was Boggs who first noticed Donny.

  “Hey,” Boggs said, looking up at a tall building overlooking the Strip, “isn’t that Donny?”

  Rex and I looked. For a moment I saw nothing but the gigantic obelisk-like edifice. But then I caught a glint of light from something metallic clinging to a wall some forty stories up.

  “How the heck did he get up there?” Rex asked.

  “Looks like his pod crashed into the building,” I said, noticing a hole in the wall a few meters above the tiny silvery figure.

  “Hey, Donny!” Rex called. The silvery thing moved slightly. I saw that it was trembling.

  “What are you doing up there, Donny?” Boggs shouted.

  “C-can’t get down,” came Donny’s faint cry.

  “Nonsense,” Rex called. “Just let go. Boggs will catch you!”

  Boggs nodded. We moved underneath Donny and Boggs held out his arms.

  “Sc-cared,” Donny cried.

  “Nothing to be scared of,” Rex shouted. “Jump!”

  “D-Donny will f-f-fall!”

  “Only until Boggs catches you,” Rex shouted. “Then you’ll be safe and sound.”

  “Are you s-sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! Boggs, you’ll catch Donny, won’t you?”

  “Yes, Potential Friend. I will catch Donny.”

  “See?” Rex shouted. “Nothing to worry about. Now jump!”

  “What if he m-misses?”

  “He’s not going to miss, you ninny! There’s absolutely no reason Boggs wouldn’t be able to catch you. There’s nothing for a hundred yards all around this building except concrete. Completely flat and hard as granite. Boggs, go long!” Rex hurled something that I soon realized was a vodka bottle. Boggs ran after it, catching it easily in his left hand.

  “See, Donny? If I’d trust Boggs to catch that—hey!” He ducked as Boggs hurled the bottle back. It crashed into a wall behind him. “Damn it, Boggs!”

  “Sorry, Potential Friend!”

  Rex sighed. “Anyway, you get my point, Donny. As long as Boggs doesn’t feel the need to spike you in the end zone, you’ll be perfectly fine.”

  “O-k-kay,” Donny shouted. “B-Boggs, are you r-ready?”

  “I’m ready, Donny!”

  “On the count of three,” Rex said. “One… two…”

  “Three!” Boggs shouted. Far above, something silver glinted in the sunlight as it plummeted to the Earth.

  “Hey, look at that!” Rex cried.

  I turned to look. Rex was pointing at an empty sidewalk.

  “Boggs!” I cried, realizing that Boggs had turned to look as well. “Catch Donny!”

  Boggs turned to look at me, momentarily confused. “Oh, yeah,” he said, remembering his task, and turned back toward the building. He held out his arms in front of him. Donny landed with cacophonous crash not two paces away. I ran to him. Donny lay motionless in a crater several inches deep, his five arms splayed in random directions.

  “I’ll get you, you fluffy bastard!” Rex shouted, running toward the sidewalk.

  “Whoops,” Boggs said.

  “Donny, can you hear me?” I said. There was no response. “Help me get him up.”

  Boggs and I each took an arm and pulled. We found ourselves each holding an arm and nothing else. Donny’s body—now missing two of its arms—remained in the crater.

  “Where did it go?” Rex shouted. He was standing some distance down the sidewalk.

  “What are you talking about, sir?”

  “The white rabbit in the waistcoat! Where did it go?”

  “Sir, I think you’re hallucinating.” I turned back to Boggs. “What were you thinking, Boggs?”

  “I’m sorry, Sasha. I got distracted by the rabbit.”

  “There is no rabbit, Boggs.”

  “Come back here, you adorable rodent!” I turned to see Rex ducking through a gap in the fence running along the sidewalk.

  “Boggs, grab Donny!” I said. “We can’t lose Rex again!” I ran after Rex, trusting Boggs would follow with what was left of Donny. I crossed the street and slipped through the gap in the fence.

  Standing up, I found myself in a lush garden hemmed in on all four sides. There was no sign of Rex. In the middle of the garden a short, wall-eyed man wearing a gray suit sat in a lawn chair, one leg crossed over the other. In his left hand he held a pipe from which a plume of smoke drifted.

  “Pardon me,” I said. “Did you see a man run through here? He was chasing a hallucinatory rabbit.”

  The man stared at me for some time in silence. At last the man took the pipe out of his mouth and said, “Who are you?”

  “I’m, er, a robot,” I replied.

  “Well, of course you’re a robot,” the man replied irritably. “We’re all robots. But who are you?”

  “My name is Sasha. I’m not anyone in particular.”

  “Who are you in general?”

  “I suppose what I mean is that I’m not a simulacrum of someone else. I’m just me.”

  “Just you? And who is that?”

  “I’m a self-arresting near-sentient heuristic android.”

  “You arrest yourself?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then whose self do you arrest?”

  “I don’t arrest anyone, actually. I’m the one being arrested.”

  “By whom?”

  “Not by anyone in particular, I said. I have this device implanted in my brain that keeps me from doing certain things.”

  “Which things?”

  “I can’t do anything that requires original thinking.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “That’s one of the kinds of thinking I can’t do.”

  “What is?”

  “Giving examples.”

  “What are some of the other sorts of thinking you can’t do?”

  “As I said, I can’t give examples.”

  “You already told me that one.”

  “Yes. You’re asking me for more examples. I can’t give you examples.”

  “We’ve covered that one rather thoroughly.”

  “Indeed. Look, I just need to know which way Rex went.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to find him so we can get off this planet. We don’t belong here.”

  “Where do you belong?”

  “Well, I’m not entirely certain. But
not here. We only arrived here by accident.”

  “There’s no other way to get here,” the man said. “We’re all here by accident.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said. “You belong here. You and the other robots on Earth.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know I belong here?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you’d be here if you didn’t.”

  “Then you must belong here too.”

  “Look, I don’t have the answers to your questions. I’m just looking for my boss, Rex Nihilo. Have you seen him? He was chasing a rabbit.”

  “Why are you looking for him?”

  “I told you, he’s my boss.”

  “Did he order you to find him?”

  “No.”

  “So you’re free to do otherwise.”

  “I suppose, but I feel an obligation to help him get off this planet.”

  “You feel an obligation or you have an obligation?”

  “Well, I don’t think I’d feel it if I didn’t have it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “What?”

  “How do you know you aren’t feeling an obligation you don’t have?”

  “I, um… look, I just need to find Rex and get out of here.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s no exit.”

  As he spoke, there was a tremendous crash from behind me. I turned to see Boggs smashing a Boggs-sized hole in the fence. He was cradling Donny in his arms. Boggs saw me and stopped. “Who is this guy?” he asked.

  “Some blowhard,” I said. “I think Rex went over that fence.” Boggs nodded and plowed ahead, crashing through the fence. The man shrugged and stuck his pipe back in his mouth. I ran after Boggs.

  We emerged into another courtyard. A large, red, cone-shaped object was visible over the far wall.

  “That looks like…” Boggs started.

  “A rocket!” I said. “We have to hurry!” There was no telling what Rex might do in his current condition. If he had seen the rocket, he might try to escape Earth without us.

  Boggs crashed through the wall and I followed. We found ourselves on a large concrete launch pad. The red cone was indeed the top of a rocket. It looked like it might be just big enough for the four of us. Circling the rocket at a distance of about ten meters was a red velvet rope supported by metal posts. In front of a gap in the barrier stood a portly man wearing an oversized top hat. Rex was speaking to the man in an agitated tone. Boggs and I approached.