We, Robots

by Simon Ings

  The Adjustor gestured toward the slide-files. “I must have five hundred spools transcribed there,” he calculated. “All of it from books—nineteenth, twentieth, even early twenty-first century material. And it’s largely terminology, not technique. Psychotherapy was just like alchemy in those days. Everything was named and defined. Inability to cope with environment was minutely broken down into hundreds of categories, thousands of terms. There were ‘schools’ of therapy, with widely divergent theories and applications. And the crude attempts at technique they used—you wouldn’t believe it unless you studied what I have here! Everything from trying to ‘cure’ a disorder in one session by means of brain-surgery or electric shock to the other extreme of letting the ‘patient’ talk about his problems for thousands of hours over a period of years.”

  He smiled. “I’m afraid I’m letting my personal enthusiasm run away with me. After all, Henson, you aren’t interested in the historical aspects. But I did have a point I wanted to make. About the maturity of murder as a solution-concept.”

  Henson adjusted the posturchair as he listened.

  “As I said, even back in the twentieth century, they were beginning to get a hint of the answer. It was painfully apparent that some of the techniques I mention weren’t working at all. ‘Sublimation’ and ‘catharsis’ helped but did not cure in a majority of cases. Physical therapy altered and warped the personality. And all the while, the answer lay right before their eyes.

  “Let’s take your twentieth-century counterpart for an example. Man named Henson, who was jealous of his wife. He might go to an analyst for years without relief. Whereas if he did the sensible thing, he’d take an axe to her and kill her.

  “Of course, in the twentieth century such a procedure was antisocial and illegal. Henson would be sent to prison for the rest of his life.

  “But the chances are, he’d function perfectly thereafter. Having relieved his psychic tension by the commonsense method of direct action, he’d have no further difficulty in adjustment.

  “Gradually the psychiatrists observed this phenomenon. They learned to distinguish between the psychopath and the perfectly normal human being who sought to relieve an intolerable situation. It was hard, because once a normal man was put in prison, he was subject to new tensions and stresses which caused fresh aberrations. But these aberrations stemmed from his confinement—not from the impulse which led him to kill.” Again the Adjustor paused. “I hope I’m not making this too abstruse for you,” he said. “Terms like ‘psychopath’ and ‘normal’ can’t have much meaning to a layman.”

  “I understand what you’re driving at,” Henson told him. “Go ahead. I’ve always wondered how Adjustment evolved, anyway.”

  “I’ll make it brief from now on,” the Adjustor promised. “The next crude step was something called the ‘psycho-drama.’ It was a simple technique in which an aberrated individual was encouraged to get up on a platform, before an audience, and act out his fantasies—including those involving aggression and violently antisocial impulses. This afforded great relief. Well, I won’t trouble you with the historical details about the establishment of Master Control, right after North America went under in the Blast. We got it, and the world started afresh, and one of the groups set up was Adjustment. All of physical medicine, all of what was then called sociology and psychiatry, came under the scope of this group. And from that point on we started to make real progress.

  “Adjustors quickly learned that old-fashioned therapies must be discarded. Naming or classifying a mental disturbance didn’t necessarily overcome it. Talking about it, distracting attention from it, teaching the patient a theory about it, were not solutions. Nor was chopping out or shocking out part of his brain structure.

  “More and more we came to rely on direct action as a cure, just as we do in physical medicine.

  “Then, of course, robotics came along and gave us the final answer. And it is the answer, Henson—that’s the thought I’ve been trying to convey. Because we’re friends, I know you well enough to eliminate all the preliminaries. I don’t have to give you a battery of tests, check reactions, and go through the other formalities. But if I did, I’m sure I’d end up with the same answer—in your case, the mature solution is to murder your wife as quickly as possible. That will cure you.”

  “Thanks,” said Henson. “I knew I could count on you.”

  “No trouble at all.” The Adjustor stood up. He was a tall, handsome man with curly red hair, and he somewhat towered over Henson who was only six feet and a bit too thin.

  “You’ll have papers to sign, of course,” the Adjustor reminded him. “I’ll get everything ready by Friday morning. If you’ll step in then, you can do it in ten minutes.”

  “Fine.” Henson smiled. “Then I think I’ll plan the murder for Friday evening, at home. I’ll get Lita to visit her mother in Saigon overnight. Best if she doesn’t know about this until afterwards.”

  “Thoughtful of you,” the Adjustor agreed. “I’ll have her robot requisitioned for you from Inventory. Any special requirements?”

  “I don’t believe so. It was made less than two years ago, and it’s almost a perfect match. Paid almost seven thousand for the job.”

  “That’s a lot of capital to destroy.” The Adjustor sighed. “Still, it’s necessary. Will you want anything else—weapons, perhaps?”

  “No.” Henson stood in the doorway. “I think I’ll just strangle her.”

  “Very well, then. I’ll have the robot here and operating for you on Friday morning. And you’ll take your robot too.”

  “Mine? Why, might I ask?”

  “Standard procedure. You see, we’ve learned something more about the mind—about what used to be called a ‘guilt complex.’ Sometimes a man isn’t freed by direct action alone. There may be a peculiar desire for punishment involved. In the old days many men who committed actual murders had this need to be caught and punished. Those who avoided capture frequently punished themselves. They developed odd psychosomatic reactions—some even committed suicide.

  “In case you have any such impulses, your robot will be available to you. Punish it any way you like—destroy it, if necessary. That’s the sensible thing to do.”

  “Right. See you Friday morning, then. And many thanks.” Henson started through the doorway. He looked back and grinned. “You know, just thinking about it makes me feel better already!”

  Henson whizzed back to the Adjustor’s office on Friday morning. He was in rare good humor all the way. Anticipation was a wonderful thing. Everything was wonderful, for that matter.

  Take robots, for example. The simple, uncomplicated mechanisms did all the work, all the drudgery. Their original development for military purposes during the twenty-first century was forgotten now, along with the concept of war which had inspired their creation. Now the automatons functioned as workers.

  And for the well-to-do there were these personalized surrogates. What a convenience!

  Henson remembered how he’d argued to convince Lita they should invest in a pair when they married. He’d used all of the sensible modern arguments. “You know as well as I do what having them will save us in terms of time and efficiency. We can send them to all the boring banquets and social functions. They can represent us at weddings and funerals, that sort of thing. After all, it’s being done everywhere nowadays. Nobody attends such affairs in person any more if they can afford not to. Why, you see them on the street everywhere. Remember Kirk, at our reception? Stayed four hours, life of the party and everybody was fooled—you didn’t know it was his robot until he told you.”

  And so forth, on and on. “Aren’t you sentimental at all darling? If I died wouldn’t you like to have my surrogate around to comfort you? I certainly would want yours to share the rest of my life.”

  Yes, he’d used all the practical arguments except the psychotherapeutic one—at that time it had never occurred to him. But perhaps it should have, when he heard her objections.

 
“I just don’t like the idea,” Lita had persisted. “Oh it isn’t that I’m old-fashioned. But lying there in the forms having every detail of my body duplicated synthetically—ugh! And then they do that awful hypnotherapy or whatever it’s called for days to make them think. Oh I know they have no brains, it’s only a lot of chemicals and electricity, but they do duplicate your thought patterns and they react the same and they sound so real. I don’t want anyone or anything to know all my secrets—”

  Yes that objection should have started him thinking. Lita had secrets even then.

  But he’d been too busy to notice; he’d spent his efforts in battering down her objections. And finally she’d consented.

  He remembered the days at the Institute—the tests they’d taken, the time spent in working with the anatomists, the cosmetic department, the sonic and visio adaptors, and then days of hypnotic transference.

  Lita was right in a way; it hadn’t been pleasant. Even a modern man was bound to feel a certain atavistic fear when confronted for the first time with his completed surrogate. But the finished product was worth it. And after Henson had mastered instructions, learned how to manipulate the robot by virtue of the control-command, he had been almost paternally proud of the creation.

  He’d wanted to take his surrogate home with him, but Lita positively drew the line at that.

  “We’ll leave them both here in Inventory,” she said. “If we need them we can always send for them. But I hope we never do.”

  Henson was finally forced to agree. He and Lita had both given their immobilization commands to the surrogates, and they were placed in their metal cabinets ready to be filed away—“Just like corpses!” Lita had shuddered. “We’re looking at ourselves after we’re dead.”

  And that had ended the episode. For a while, Henson made suggestions about using the surrogates—there were occasions he’d have liked to take advantage of a substitute for token public appearances—but Lita continued to object. And so, for two years now, the robots had been on file. Henson paid his taxes and fees on them annually and that was all.

  That was all, until lately. Until Lita’s unexplained silences and still more inexplicable absences had started Henson thinking. Thinking and worrying. Worrying and watching. Watching and waiting. Waiting to catch her, waiting to kill her—

  So he’d remembered psychotherapy, and had gone to his Adjustor. Lucky the man was a friend of his; a friend of both of them, rather. Actually, Lita had known him longer than her husband. But they’d been very close, the three of them, and he knew the Adjustor would understand.

  He could trust the Adjustor not to tell Lita. He could trust the Adjustor to have everything ready and waiting for him now.

  Henson went up to the office. The papers were ready for him to sign. The two metal boxes containing the surrogates were already placed on the loaders ready for transport to wherever he designated. But the Adjustor wasn’t on hand to greet him.

  “Special assignment in Manila,” the Second explained to him. “But he left instructions about your case, Mr. Henson. All you have to do is sign the responsibility slips. And of course, you’ll be in Monday for the official report.”

  Henson nodded. Now that the moment was so near at hand he was impatient of details. He could scarcely wait until the micro-dupes were completed and the Register Board signalled clearance. Two common robots were requisitioned to carry the metal cases down to the gyro and load them in. Henson whizzed back home with them and they brought the cases up to his living-level. Then he dismissed them, and he was alone.

  He was alone. He could open the cases now. First, his own. He slid back the cover, gazed down at the perfect duplicate of his own body, sleeping peacefully for two serene years since its creation. Henson stared curiously at his pseudo-countenance. He’d aged a bit in two years, but the surrogate was ageless. It could survive the ravage of centuries, and it was always at peace. Always at peace. He almost envied it. The surrogate didn’t love, couldn’t hate, wouldn’t know the gnawing torture of suspicion that led to this shaking, quaking, aching lust to kill—

  Henson shoved the lid back and lifted the metal case upright, then dragged it along the wall to a storage cabinet. A domestic-model could have done it for him, but Lita didn’t like domestic-models. She wouldn’t permit even a common robot in her home.

  Lita and her likes and dislikes! Damn her and them too!

  Henson ripped the lid down on the second file.

  There she was; the beautiful, harlot-eyed, blonde, lying, adorable, dirty, gorgeous, loathsome, heavenly, filthy little goddess of a slut!

  He remembered the command word to awake her. It almost choked him now but he said it.

  “Beloved!”

  Nothing happened. Then he realized why. He’d been almost snarling. He had to change the pitch of his voice. He tried again, softly. “Beloved!”

  She moved. Her breasts rose and fell, rose and fell. She opened her eyes. She held out her arms and smiled. She stood up and came close to him, without a word.

  Henson stared at her. She was newly-born and innocent, she had no secrets, she wouldn’t betray him. How could he harm her? How could he harm her when she lifted her face in expectation of a kiss?

  But she was Lita. He had to remember that. She was Lita, and Lita was hiding something from him and she must be punished, would be punished.

  Suddenly, Henson became conscious of his hands. There was a tingling in his wrists and it ran down through the strong muscles and sinews to the fingers, and the fingers flexed and unflexed with exultant vigor, and then they rose and curled around the surrogate’s throat, around Lita’s throat, and they were squeezing and squeezing and the surrogate, Lita, tried to move away and the scream was almost real and the popping eyes were almost real and the purpling face was almost real, only nothing was real any more except the hands and the choking and the surging sensation of strength.

  And then it was over. He dragged the limp, dangling mechanism (it was only a mechanism now, just as the hate was only a memory) to the waste-jet and fed the surrogate to the flame. He turned the aperture wide and thrust the metal case in, too.

  Then Henson slept, and he did not dream. For the first time in months he did not dream, because it was over and he was himself again. The therapy was complete.

  “So that’s how it was.” Henson sat in the Adjustor’s office, and the Monday morning sun was strong on his face.

  “Good.” The Adjustor smiled and ran a hand across the top of his curly head. “And how did you and Lita enjoy your weekend? Fish biting?”

  “We didn’t fish,” said Henson. “We talked.”

  “Oh?”

  “I figured I’d have to tell her what happened, sooner or later. So I did.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Very well, at first.”

  “And then—?”

  “I asked her some questions.”

  “Yes.”

  “She answered them.”

  “You mean she told you what she’d been hiding?”

  “Not willingly. But she told me. After I told her about my own little check-up.”

  “What was that?”

  “I did some calling Friday night. She wasn’t in Saigon with her mother.”

  “No?”

  “And you weren’t in Manila on a special case, either.” Henson leaned forward. “The two of you were together, in New Singapore! I checked it and she admitted it.”

  The Adjustor sighed. “So now you know,” he said.

  “Yes. Now I know. Now I know what she’s been concealing from me. What you’ve both been concealing.”

  “Surely you’re not jealous about that?” the Adjustor asked. “Not in this modern day and age when—”

  “She says she wants to have a child by you,” Henson said. “She refused to bear one for me. But she wants yours. She told me so.”

  “What do you want to do about it?” the Adjustor asked.

  “You tell me,” Henson murmured. “That�
��s why I’ve come to you. You’re my Adjustor.”

  “What would you like to do?”

  “I’d like to kill you,” Henson said. “I’d like to blow off the top of your head with a pocket-blast.”

  “Not a bad idea.” The Adjustor nodded. “I’ll have my robot ready whenever you say.”

  “At my place,” said Henson. “Tonight.”

  “Good enough. I’ll send it there to you.”

  “One thing more.” Henson gulped for a moment. “In order for it to do any good, Lita must watch.”

  It was the Adjustor’s turn to gulp, now. “You mean you’re going to force her to see you go through with this?”

  “I told her and she agreed,” Henson said.

  “But, think of the effect on her, man!”

  “Think of the effect on me. Do you want me to go mad?”

  “No,” said the Adjustor. “You’re right. It’s therapy. I’ll send the robot around at eight. Do you need a pocket-blast requisition?”

  “I have one,” said Henson.

  “What instructions shall I give my surrogate?” the Adjustor asked.

  Henson told him. He was brutally explicit, and midway in his statement the Adjustor looked away, coloring. “So the two of you will be together, just as if you were real, and then I’ll come in and—”

  The Adjustor shuddered a little, then managed a smile. “Sound therapy,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it, that’s the way it will be.”

  That’s the way Henson wanted it, and that’s the way he had it—up to a point.

  He burst into the room around quarter after eight and found the two of them waiting for him. There was Lita, and there was the Adjustor’s surrogate. The surrogate had been well-instructed; it looked surprised and startled. Lita needed no instruction; hers was an agony of shame.

  Henson had the pocket-blast in his hand, cocked at the ready. He aimed.

  Unfortunately, he was just a little late. The surrogate sat up gracefully and slid one hand under the pillow. The hand came up with another pocket-blast aimed and fired all in one motion.

  Henson teetered, tottered, and fell. The whole left side of his face sheared away as he went down.