Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: To Preserve

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Aloise Savage fairly hissed. Clearly, no mere resident had ever spoken to him in this manner. “You’re not leaving until your shift is over and all your work is done.” He rose, towering behind his desk.

  Susan also stood. “I’m leaving,” she said calmly but firmly, then headed for the door.

  He called after her. “You do, and you’re finished. You’ll no longer be a resident at this facility.”

  Her back to the room, Susan stopped, stiffened. Her mind wandered to her first two years of medical school: the long difficult days in histology, anatomy, and biochemistry, returning, reeking of formaldehyde, to the tiny apartment she shared with various roommates, to study until bedtime every night. The latter half of her academics, where she had worked as slave labor, night and day, for aloof attendings who barely bothered with their residents and saw the medical students as lesser beings to ignore or torture. A standing joke was to ask the difference between medical students and dog crap, the answer being that no one goes out of their way to step on the poop. Chronic sleep deprivation, endless demands, grueling and constant testing had defined the clinical years of medical school, years that had sometimes seemed like decades.

  Susan had survived those trying times by throwing herself into her work, ignoring conventional entertainments and focusing entirely on matters of the intellect, honing her powers of observation and puzzle-solving abilities at the expense of a social life. Someday, she had believed, it would all pay off, molding her into a stellar diagnostician, a shining beacon of caring and knowledge who would use her brilliance selflessly to cure the sick and injured, bring wholeness to the suffering, and solace to the few she could not save.

  In Susan’s fantasies, her residency was full of intellectually gifted physicians of great experience who would gently guide her, as her father always had, toward the vast wisdom and knowledge that defined the medical field. Instead, she had found them all too human, with the same immaturities, laziness, and foolishness as their less gifted counterparts and a system awash in politics and jealousies. Like posturing professional athletes, they competed on an intellectual level and, instead of working together, hid their foibles, protected their discoveries, and hoarded accolades like finite treasures. Too many belittled their peers to bolster their own appearances.

  The tribulations of the last two years had broken Susan’s protective cocoon of naïveté. She saw with clear eyes the cruelty men inflicted on one another, and it reinforced her already-strong belief in evolution and science. Clearly, survival of the fittest had brought the human race to its current position. If mankind had a creator, he would have made them better, cleaner, more rational. More positronic. Nate, Susan realized, meant more to her than anyone. Being unable to complete her last year of residency did not negate her studies and training.

  A smile eased onto Susan’s face, accompanied by a strange calm that ill fit the situation. Wordlessly, she turned and approached Aloise’s desk. Dipping a hand into her pocket, she retrieved a sheaf of patient cards, the ones that allowed her to vend various medical products and assure they were billed to the proper account. She dropped these onto the desk, then the key to the PIPU. Everything else in her possession belonged to her. She raised her chin to look the head of the psychiatry residency program in the eyes. “I’m leaving,” she announced. “I’ll be back during the week to clean out my locker and complete any necessary paperwork.”

  Dr. Aloise Savage simply stared back, jaw sagging in silent shock. Apparently, no one had ever voluntarily left her residency before, at least not so close to the end.

  Susan did not wait for him to find his voice, whisking into the hallway and out of Manhattan Hasbro Hospital.

  • • •

  The NYPD Nineteenth Precinct resembled the Tenth, which had investigated the murder of Susan’s father: two-toned walls, a bank of computer monitors and people encased behind glass, and the tang of sweat and fear and camaraderie. Susan approached the least dour of them, a uniformed woman with shoulder-length, straight blond hair and well-trimmed bangs. The woman stopped typing and looked up. “How can I help you?”

  Susan drew in a deep breath. She had considered her phraseology during the short glide-bus ride to the station, but nothing had seemed adequate to explain the situation. “My name is Susan Calvin. I’m a physician at Manhattan Hasbro Hospital.” Was, she reminded herself but did not voice it. “I was part of the resuscitation team for Ari Goldman, the man killed in the research tower.”

  The woman sat up straighter, granting Susan her full attention. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We were told to come or call if we had any useful information about the crime.”

  The woman stood. She was several inches taller than Susan, and the doctor had to raise her head to continue the conversation. “The officers on the scene are still conducting interviews. Why didn’t you stay there, ma’am?”

  “Because they asked specifically for anyone who might have witnessed the event, and a hundred people got there ahead of me.” Though truth, it was not the full explanation. Susan had no idea who on the scene, if anyone, might know about Nate. To most, quite probably all, he appeared to be a total stranger, inconceivably anything other than human. Susan felt certain the police would find no direct witnesses to the crime itself. Nate could not have done it, and everyone seemed convinced he had. All of them, security, doctors, and nurses alike, had come in response to the code, necessarily after the attack.

  The woman’s brows knitted. “But you feel you have something else to add?” she guessed.

  “Definitely.” Susan did not go into details. She did not want to have to explain herself twice, and the likelihood that this woman was directly involved with the case was minuscule.

  “Just a moment.” The woman did something below counter level. A door behind her buzzed open, and she disappeared through it. It automatically slammed closed behind her, revealing its heaviness.

  Susan pressed her hands to the counter and waited. When she lifted her fingers, she could see where her palms had left sweaty prints.

  Soon, the door reopened, and the woman gestured for Susan to follow. The doctor stepped around the counter and through the door. Again, it slammed closed, this time behind Susan, and she trailed the woman through grungy corridors to an office. Inside, a man who appeared to be only a few years older than Susan sat behind a desk that held a palm-pross computer, several stick-e-drives, a stapler, a caddy of random office supplies, and framed pictures of an infant. There was also a nameplate identifying him as Detective Diondre Riviera III. The room contained two other chairs of the folding variety. He waved gruffly, and the woman stepped aside so Susan could enter the room.

  The detective pointed Susan to a chair. Susan flashed back to when she first met Detective Jake Carson. At that time, she had been so angry the police had dared label her father’s obvious murder as death by natural causes, she had refused to sit. This time, she seized one of the folding chairs, slid it toward the desk to place her directly in front of Diondre Riviera III, and plunked herself down on it. She met his gaze levelly, finding his eyes dark and strangely soulful for a cop.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Calhoun?”

  “Dr. Calvin,” Susan corrected. She might never finish her residency, but she maintained the title she had earned forever. “Dr. Susan Calvin.” He might recognize the name. Though her father’s murder, and the explosions the previous year, had occurred outside of this precinct, many detectives kept abreast of such developments, even in a city as large, complex, and populous as New York.

  If he did, he gave no sign. “Dr. Calvin. You have some information about the hospital murder?” He leaned forward. “Did you witness it?”

  “No,” Susan admitted, then added, “No one did. We all came running when the codes were called.”

  The detective encouraged Susan to continue. “Codes?”

  Susan explained, “The Code Blue brough
t the doctors and medical teams. The Code Silver brought security. I’m guessing security got there first because silver indicates an assailant with a weapon. That slowed a lot of the medical personnel down; no one wants to die trying to save a patient who might already be dead.” She added only in her mind, Unlike cops, we’re neither heroes nor adrenaline junkies.

  The detective probably already knew about the codes, but he latched onto something more pertinent. “You said no one witnessed the murder.”

  Susan wondered if he would notice that. She had said it as much for herself as him. “No one could have. Or else security wouldn’t have taken an innocent into custody. The police would be chasing down the killer.”

  “Ah,” Detective Riviera said, the sound worthy of any psychiatrist. It revealed nothing. “So . . . you believe we have the wrong perp.” He added belatedly, “Dr. Calvin.” A glint appeared in the otherwise soft, dark eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Detective Riviera rested knobby, coffee-colored elbows on the desktop. “Let me guess. You’re a close friend, perhaps a relative, of the perpetrator and know for a fact he could never have committed any crime, let alone one as heinous as murder.”

  Susan sighed. “I’m sure you hear that every case.” She made it clear she understood. “Sociopaths are astoundingly astute at hiding their true natures from those they rely upon. They have a knack for making themselves appear victimized when they are, in fact, vicious predators.” She could not help thinking of four-year-old Sharicka Anson.

  The detective tipped his head, studying her like a praying mantis. “It seems even cannibalistic serial killers love their mothers.”

  He had it backward. The mothers loved their psychopathic children and blinded themselves to the faults, no matter how perverted or cruel. “My point being,” Susan started, “that this is not the case of a girlfriend or parent with the wool pulled over her eyes. Nate is innocent because he is literally incapable of violence. He is constrained by—”

  The detective did not allow Susan to finish. “His name is Nate? As in Nathan? Nathaniel?”

  “Nate,” Susan said, “as in N8-C.”

  The detective grabbed a pen and a piece of paper. “Is See his last name? Or a middle initial?”

  “It is neither.” Susan plucked another pen from the desk set and eased the scrap of blank paper from underneath his palm. She wrote on it. “The letter N, the number 8, dash, the letter C.” She scrawled it out properly. “The eighth in the NC line. Detective Riviera, Nate is a positronic robot. As such, he is wholly constrained from violence against a human being by virtue of the First Law.”

  The detective only stared at Susan. She could have transmuted into a talking dog, and he would not have looked more bewildered. “What?”

  “The Three Laws of Robotics are integral to the positronic brain. It can’t function without them.”

  Detective Diondre Riviera shook his head as if to clear it. “Is this . . . some sort of . . . conspiracy theory?”

  Susan continued as if he had not spoken, “The First Law states: ‘A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.’ Ipso facto, Nate cannot be your killer.”

  The detective was still several steps behind Susan. “Wait. Are you saying the man we took into custody is . . . a robot?”

  “Yes.” Susan could not believe she had to start over. “Didn’t he tell you that?”

  The detective shook his head harder. “We haven’t gotten him to say anything yet. He just sits there with a dazed expression.”

  “He’s probably terrified,” Susan explained. “He may have witnessed the murder.” A sudden realization hit her. “He’s probably the one who called the codes.” Still driven by the need to help him, she added, “Where is he? Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s in the holding cell, and we need to talk to him first.” The detective studied Susan as if for the first time. Her presence, she knew, was unimpressive. She was average in height, skinny and curveless, with stick-straight dark hair and icy eyes. Her features were not particularly attractive, at least judging from the lack of men pursuing her; and she had never bothered to learn to apply makeup. The detective’s expression changed abruptly from confusion to suspicion. His gaze grew more intense. “Dr. Calvin, I’ve seen robots and I’ve seen men. I’ve spent nearly an hour trying to get the person in that cell to speak with me. He is, in fact, human.”

  “Human stem cells coaxed into a dermal and muscular system grown over a skeleton of porous silicone plastic.”

  “What?”

  Susan had spoken that description before, the same one Nate had used when he first met her. This time, she thought about it in a different light. “I suppose, theoretically, he could be considered a cyborg, but only in the same sense as someone with a prosthetic leg. A one-legged man is still a man. And, appearance aside, Nate is a robot. He was built and programmed by human beings.”

  The detective’s eyes narrowed, and he sat back in his chair, his gaze still pinning Susan. “Are you trying to make me look foolish, Dr. Calvin?”

  “No.” Susan resisted the urge to add, You’re doing a fine job of that all by yourself. His skepticism was logical and understandable; and, thus far, he had not thrown her out of his office. “I’m just telling you the facts of the situation. Whether or not you believe me, Nate is a robot. And, as such, he could not have harmed Dr. Goldman in any way.”

  “Are you aware they found him alone in the room with the victim? The wound was fresh, and the murder weapon was in your so-called robot’s hand.”

  “I was on the resuscitation team for Dr. Goldman,” Susan reminded him. “I surmised that to be the case, but it doesn’t change the facts. Nate is a positronic robot and, as such, is utterly constrained by the First Law.” Susan felt as if the conversation had gone in circles. She knew she had repeated herself more than once. “We don’t need to debate this. I can call Lawrence Robertson right now.”

  “And he is?”

  “The CEO and president of United States Robots and Mechanical Men. He invented the positronic brain. His company built and programmed Nate.” Susan reached for her Vox, glancing at the detective.

  Detective Riviera bobbled his head, as if questioning his own sanity, then waved at Susan to place the call. “Put it on speaker.”

  Susan quickly tapped in the Kwik-set key sequence that connected her with Lawrence’s Vox, on speaker. It took him three rings to answer. “Susan? Are you all right?”

  Lawrence’s words brought home how drama-prone Susan’s life had become. She was not the type to chat, and her recent run-ins, especially with USR, had involved an enormous amount of death and destruction. She made a mental note to ring Lawrence socially on occasion so he would stop automatically associating her with catastrophe. Now she would have liked to give him the conventional “I’m fine” answer but could not. “Lawrence, I’m at the police station with a Detective Riviera. Ari Goldman’s been murdered.”

  “Ari? Goldman?” The first name emerged uncertainly, the last in clear confusion. Next came suffocating grief. “No. Oh God, no. Not Ari. Murdered? No. No. Ari Goldman?” His voice quavered as tears began to flow. “What . . . Susan, what happened?”

  It suddenly occurred to Susan that she had not cried. Either circumstances had not yet allowed the details to sink in deeply enough, or she had become inured to disaster. She glanced at the detective for guidance. When he said nothing, she explained. “It happened in the lab. Hit in the head with a hammer, I believe. The police took Nate into custody.”

  “Nate?!” This time, the name was clearly startled out of him. “Why Nate?”

  “They think he did it.”

  “Nate?” Lawrence’s voice was an odd mix of grief and incredulity. “But that’s impossible. He’s constrained by the Three Laws of Robotics.”

  Susan leveled a steady gaze at the detective.
“That’s what I told him.”

  “My aunt Greta is a more likely suspect, and she’s been dead for six years.”

  Susan held any smugness from her expression as she stared even more intently at the detective. She hoped her look conveyed the appropriate unspoken question: Satisfied?

  The detective cleared his throat. “This is Detective Riviera. Who’s speaking?”

  Lawrence hesitated just long enough to reveal his surprise at finding another person on the line. “This is Dr. Lawrence Robertson, founder and CEO of United States Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc.”

  “I see.”

  Susan got the impression that the detective had expected the more-fumbling answer of a faker. If Lawrence was anyone other than he claimed, he certainly had the delivery of someone accustomed to the lie.

  Detective Riviera continued. “Dr. Robertson, is it true that this Nate you speak of is . . . a robot?”

  Lawrence kept it simple. “Yes.”

  “One you built and programmed?”

  “My team and I, yes. Nate is a USR product.”

  Susan sat back, smiling slightly. Lawrence made it sound as if USR were a giant corporation when, in fact, his team consisted of about half a dozen dedicated friends. She pulled in the corners of her mouth, not wanting to appear to be smirking.

  “Can you give me a description of him?”

  “I can do better than that.” The screen of Susan’s Vox came to life. “I can send you a picture.” A well-focused image of Nate filled the screen, demonstrating the short brown hair, unexceptional features, and athletic build. He had not aged a day since Susan had met him, appearing in his mid-twenties, though Susan now knew he was older than her father.

  Susan unstrapped her Vox and handed it to Detective Riviera. He held it close to his face, examining it for several moments in silence before returning it.