Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: To Preserve

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Jake smiled. “Well, I rather imagine he was trying to maintain doctor/patient confidentiality. And I appreciate that.”

  Susan’s focus on Kendall intensified. “You’ve been treating him?”

  Kendall’s gaze flicked to Jake who nodded. Only then, he answered Susan, though simply. “Yes?”

  Jake explained, “Current police rules state that, if we so much as discharge a weapon, we need to meet with a staff psychologist. As a condition of my . . . transfer, I had to promise to undergo a year of counseling from a psychiatrist or psychologist of my choosing.” He made a gesture toward Kendall.

  Susan appreciated the reprieve. She had not wanted to jump right into her concerns, and the men had, intentionally or otherwise, allowed a diversion. Not quite casually, she reached for the cooler bag, opened it, and pulled out the three sandwiches, individually wrapped in biodegradable paper. She placed a turkey pastrami and Swiss on each of the men’s plates and her Reuben on the third, then placed packets of mustard and mayonnaise on the table. A soft container of pickles in brine came next, followed by a personally selected mixture of sweet potato, carrot, tomato, and pea chips. Finally, she added the fizzy juice, six bottles of various flavors, uncertain which they would prefer. “So,” she said innocently as she unwrapped her sandwich. “Tell me about this transfer.”

  Jake reached for his own sandwich, scooping a couple of packs of mustard toward the plate. “Not much to it, really. I told you I’d get into some trouble after all the shootings, and I did. It could have been a lot worse. I got to keep my gun, my title. Was transferred to the FIAU, not a plum assignment but better than I could have hoped for; and I’ve only got another year there before I’m back to homicide. The only other condition was a year of counseling, which I’ve almost finished.” He squeezed mustard onto his sandwich, then tossed the empty wrappers on his plate.

  Kendall added a handful of assorted chips to his plate, grabbed a strawberry fizzy juice, and reached for the mayonnaise. “I told him you were the best, but you were booked solid, so he settled for me.”

  Jake brought his sandwich to his lips, then lowered it without taking a bite. “Oh, you’re good all right. Got me completely off the subject.” He pinned Susan with a scolding stare. “The man murdered at Manhattan Hasbro. You knew him, didn’t you, Susan?”

  Susan tried to act nonchalant. He had momentarily shaken her, but she had regained the upper hand. “Of course I knew him. Everyone knew him. Ari Goldman was one of the premier researchers in the world, especially in psychiatry.”

  Jake did not back down. “What was he, your uncle or something? Seems like people close to you wind up dead.”

  Jake had struck closer to home than Susan liked. She had made the same observation to Lawrence during the crises of the previous year. Her mother, Remington, her father had all died violently; and she had no remaining relatives as far as she knew. “And yet you two morons are complaining that I don’t spend more time with you. Have you no appreciation for your own mortality?”

  “Well I figure I’m safe,” Jake said, hands wandering to his head. “I already died for you once. No one’s had to die twice, have they?”

  Susan ignored the technicalities. Jake had sustained a severe concussion and insignificant skull fracture when his head struck the floor, but the gunshot itself had not been life-threatening. “No one’s had the opportunity. Yet.”

  Jake would not allow himself to get sidetracked a second time. “So, I ask again, what’s your personal interest in the murder?”

  Susan put down her sandwich, seeing no reason to prolong the moment any further. “They think Nate did it.”

  “They?” Jake prompted.

  “The police. They think Nate is the murderer.”

  Jake laughed.

  It was the last reaction Susan expected. Even Kendall turned him a curious look. “You think that’s funny?” she asked accusingly.

  “Hilarious.” Jake defended his reaction with another burst of laughter. “And you should think so, too. Didn’t we just spend an entire month dodging gunfire to prove robots can’t be uncoupled from the Three Laws?”

  “Exactly!” Susan could not suppress a shout. “So why did they arrest Lawrence?”

  All the humor left Jake so abruptly, his features assumed a wincing knot. “Because,” he said, mumbling into his sandwich, “they don’t know.”

  Susan heard him. “What do you mean, they don’t know? People may have become a bit . . . inured to murder, but surely something as wild as what happened to us last year . . .” Susan would never forget the shootings in the street, the standoff in Lawrence’s office that had ended with two federal agents dead.

  Jake shook his head. Susan glanced at Kendall, only to find his head shaking in unison.

  “What?” she demanded.

  Jake explained with two words. “Cover story.”

  Susan remembered the Department of Defense Intelligence Exploitation Agency she knew as Cadmium did not officially exist. Anything involving them, especially any interaction with law enforcement, required a rewrite of history. Doing so also protected Jake and themselves from retribution. Righteous indignation flowed through Susan. “So everyone involved knew about this cover story except me?”

  Kendall sputtered out. “We tried to talk to you a billion times, remember? You kept avoiding us.”

  Jake added, “Since you wouldn’t even talk to us, you clearly weren’t talking about what happened, so what did it matter?”

  The details were moot. Susan found her shoulder muscles relaxing and only then realized she appreciated the need for secrecy at a primal level. “So tell them. They’ll listen to you.”

  “To me?” Jake let out another chuckle, this one thoughtful, almost bitter. “I’m just one detective, Susan, and outside of their precinct. I have no authority there, even if I wasn’t already in deep . . .” He moderated his speech, aware Susan did not like swearing. “Doo-doo.”

  Incredulous, Susan dropped her sandwich to her plate. “But you guys . . . take care of each other. You can try, at least.” She could not help adding, “You have to try.”

  Jake placed his partially eaten sandwich on his plate. “Susan, you’re asking me to try to influence people I can’t influence with a story I’m not allowed to tell them at a time when my credibility is nonexistent. I’d be risking my badge, my entire life, for no possible return.”

  “So, instead, an innocent man should spend a lifetime in prison, an innocent robot should be destroyed, and an innocent corporation selling the greatest product in the history of mankind should close its doors?”

  Jake’s brows rose nearly to his forehead. “Susan, it’s not an either-or situation. My speaking to the highly competent homicide detectives in the Nineteenth Precinct will not change any of that.” He grabbed up his sandwich and took another bite.

  Susan had lost her appetite. “Jake, you have to do something.”

  Jake spoke around his food. “I’ll help you however I can, of course. But I wouldn’t tell you how to perform an appendectomy, and you can’t tell me how to handle the police. Agreed?”

  Susan could hardly argue. “Agreed,” she said reluctantly. “So what can you do for Nate? For Lawrence?”

  Kendall gave her a strange look.

  It took Susan a moment to realize she had expressed concern about the robot before the man. She covered weakly, saying, “Not necessarily in that order.”

  Jake caught Susan’s gaze and held it. “On a strictly professional level, they would have had to void Nate’s arrest. I’m guessing they did it as swiftly as possible to avoid embarrassment as well as the need for piles of paperwork and the use of lawyers.” He added drolly, “Good God, no one wants to invoke lawyers.” He gave the last word the emphasis one might use for rodents.

  Kendall chuckled. “Doctors aren’t big fans of lawyers, either.”

  J
ake stared at the ceiling, brows returning to their rightful position, then squinting further. “It seems to me that would make Nate . . . evidence.” He looked at Susan again. “I have no idea how one would corral a moving, thinking murder weapon.”

  Susan had an answer for that. “They asked Lawrence to turn Nate off, and he did so.”

  Now both men stared at Susan. Jake spoke first. “You can . . . turn him off?”

  Though Lawrence’s ability to do so had startled Susan just as much at the time, she turned the detective a cold stare. “Like all mechanical devices, he has an energy source. You remove it, he stops.”

  Kendall defended Jake. “It’s difficult to consider a thinking entity a ‘mechanical device.’ So, what does he run on? A hundred triple A’s?”

  Susan barely acknowledged the joke. She reached into the envelope containing Lawrence’s belongings and pulled out the tiny, silver-colored battery. “Just one of these does the trick.”

  The men leaned in to examine the battery. “Atomic,” Jake guessed. “Not all that different from what’s in our Vox.”

  Kendall tapped his Vox. “There’s one of those in here?”

  Jake gave him a strained glance. “What did you think keeps it running? It’s not like you have to plug it in at night.”

  Kendall flushed. “I don’t know. I guess I just figured some sort of . . . web waves or something.” He shook his arm, as if to reorient the Vox. “How come I’ve never had to change the battery?”

  Susan had the answer. “Because they last for years. Usually longer than anyone keeps a Vox before upgrading.” She carefully replaced the robot’s battery in the envelope. Lawrence had suggested she take it to United States Robots and Mechanical Men, and she suspected he had done so because they might learn something useful from it.

  “So . . . Nate’s immobile.”

  Susan tucked the envelope between her body and the arm of the couch. “Apparently.” Lawrence had once stated that the memories in the positronic brain could not last long once separated from the power source. A new fear gripped her. “How long will they keep him that way?”

  Jake hesitated, which brought all eyes on him. He explained his delay. “You have to realize this has never happened before.”

  Susan rolled her eyes. “Of course not. It can’t. The Three Laws prevent any positronic robot from harming any human. It didn’t happen this time, either. That’s my whole point.”

  “Yes, yes, Susan,” Kendall chimed in. “The walls and windows got that point.” He encouraged Jake, “I think what she means is what happens to Dr. Robertson? What can we do to help him?”

  That was not what Susan meant, but she let Jake answer the question on the table first.

  “He’ll be arraigned. Given the significance of the crime, probably held over for the grand jury.”

  Still concerned about Nate’s time without a battery, Susan inserted, “How long will they hold him?”

  “By current New York Criminal Procedure Law, they’ll have to convene the grand jury within seventy-two hours. The grand jury will decide whether or not to indict.”

  Susan had little experience with the law. “Is that something we can affect?”

  “You can’t even attend unless they decide to call you in as a witness.” Jake directed his full attention to Susan again. “Is that likely?”

  Susan doubted it. “I was about the hundredth person on the scene.”

  “No, then.” Jake shrugged and reached for his drink. “There’s nothing you can do on the legal front before the trial. Except, maybe, help him find a competent lawyer.”

  Susan glanced at Kendall, hoping he would not sidetrack her again. She worried for Lawrence, but the legal wrangling would not kill him. Nate might not have much longer. “So what happens to the evidence?”

  Jake smiled. “You mean Nate?”

  Susan saw no reason to lie. “Yes.”

  Jake downed his drink, then set the bottle aside. “Well, the standard course of action is to tag the evidence for chain of custody. It then goes into an envelope, if it’s small enough, and into the on-site evidence locker.” He added thoughtfully, “If it’s small enough. But neither of those apply to Nate. He’d have to go into the evidence room outside the locker with a tag affixed. From there, he would probably go to the police lab for testing.” He stopped in further consideration, then continued. “The final step is the police property clerk’s office at One Police Plaza where he’ll stay locked up until the trial.”

  Jake still seemed to be thinking, so Susan did not interrupt. Alarm swept through her. She knew it could take months for a trial, during which Nate might have no power to his positronic brain. He would die as surely as Ari Goldman.

  “Of course, I’m applying the standard to something distinctly oversized. Moving Nate around would take a lot more wrangling than the usual course of events. It would also depend on his weight.”

  “His weight?” Susan shrugged. “My father was about the same height as Nate, though thinner and less muscular. He tried to maintain himself at around two hundred pounds.”

  Kendall polished off his sandwich. “Is that what he weighed on an actual scale? Or is that what he told you?”

  “What?” The word was startled out of Susan.

  Kendall explained. “It occurs to me that metal gears might weigh more than organs. He would have told you something believable in order to pass as human. Did you ever see him step on a scale? Did you ever lift him?”

  “Of course not! Have you ever picked up your father?”

  “No,” Kendall admitted. “But I wrestled him once or twice.”

  “I’m a girl,” Susan reminded.

  “So is Kendall,” Jake said, in an unusual display of humor.

  Kendall gave him a dirty look. “By the definition you’re implying, hotshot, so are you.”

  Jake turned his attention back to his meal, though Susan thought she saw a ghost of an amused smile. No one could accuse him of appearing effeminate in any possible way.

  Susan refused to let their banter derail the conversation. Again. “At the morgue, they checked in my father’s headless body at one hundred seventy-eight pounds. So, unless the weight lies in the brain itself, I don’t think we’re dealing with tonnage.” It surprised Susan how easily information about her father’s corpse flowed from her tongue without invoking any further grief. It felt rote, mechanical, as if she no longer had any emotions to share.

  Jake chewed for several moments before saying, “Let’s assume the six-foot-eight-inch robot, including head, weighs in at a healthy two hundred seventy. He’s not going to fit into any courier’s pouch.”

  Susan had to know. “So what will they use?”

  Jake’s expression turned curious. “A van, I suppose. Maybe a fire vehicle or a bus.”

  “A bus?” Susan asked incredulously. “They could transport a hundred robots in a bus.”

  “Ambulance,” Jake corrected, and Susan remembered the police slang. “Why does it matter?”

  Susan made a noncommittal gesture. She had no particular idea other than that she wanted as much information as possible. No one knew what might prove inconsequential and what invaluable.

  Kendall filled in the reason, striking right to the heart. “Susan always absorbs every detail, even the ones most people dismiss. That’s why she’s the world’s greatest diagnostician.”

  Susan had never considered that, but it reminded her that some of the best detectives had a hint of obsessive-compulsive disorder, an uncanny ability to notice any tiny thing out of place. “I’m hardly the world’s greatest. There are thousands of better diagnosticians out there.”

  Kendall raised one brow in a quirky and characteristic gesture. “Name two.”

  Susan rolled her eyes. The rare famous physicians were nearly always known for inventions, treatment successes, or research awards.
She had never heard anyone outside the standard circle of colleagues ever lauded for diagnostic acumen. It was simply expected that all competent doctors would appropriately diagnose any disease in the same way mechanics were supposed to properly find and fix any malfunctioning component of a vehicle. “Just because I can’t name them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It’s not the kind of profession that inspires fame.”

  The conversation had come to its natural conclusion, at least in Susan’s mind. They made small talk as they finished their dinner, her thoughts racing in several directions. She would try her best to sleep tonight, while ideas about the situation bombarded her. In the morning, she would head for United States Robots to discuss the possibilities with Alfred Lanning.

  Chapter 5

  Susan Calvin was waiting at the door when the USR secretary, Amara, arrived. Susan had met her twice before, a petite thirty-something woman who would have been pretty had she worn a lot less makeup, at least in Susan’s opinion. When Amara caught sight of her, the secretary’s colorful face lit up. “Dr. Calvin! Pleasure to find you here.” Her grin was genuine. From long habit, she held the proper position for the simultaneous palm and retinal scanners. The door whisked open to reveal the familiar stuffy foyer containing only her large semicircular desk and its enormous computer console.

  Amara ushered Susan inside, then followed her as the door slid closed and the lock reset with an audible click. “Lawrence asked me to scan you, so you can operate the lock yourself. He says you’re a member of the staff now.”

  The news surprised Susan, who could barely believe Lawrence had used his only phone call to arrange such a thing. Then, another thought came to her. Of course he called USR. They need to know what happened, and he can instruct them to do whatever requires doing, including arranging for legal counsel. “Apparently, I’m your new robotherapist.”

  “Robopsychologist,” Amara corrected, apparently using Lawrence’s directive. “Welcome aboard, Dr. Calvin.”

  “Susan,” she suggested.

  But Amara shook her head. Bleached blond curls bobbed around her face, held in place by a large quantity of hair spray. “I loved your father, and I love having a reason to say his name again. Dr. Calvin. Dr. Calvin. Dr. Calvin.”