To Obey

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  It was obvious to Susan where this was going. “So, the SFH tried to kill them to keep the formula from ever getting used.”

  “It would appear so,” Lawrence said miserably. “For no reason at all, really, because no such secret formula ever existed. The truth is, Susan, there isn’t and never was any such possibility. The positronic brain and the Three Laws are inextricably intertwined.”

  Despite Lawrence’s forceful statement, Susan found herself strangely uncertain, left wondering if he was lying to keep her safe. If there was an uncoupling mechanism, she doubted Lawrence would tell her anything different than he had. Perhaps her parents had told the truth: the knowledge had died with them.

  As they reached the end of the story, Susan realized Lawrence was wrong. His revelation had not rocked her foundation; nothing of significance had changed. “So, that’s it? The big secret that would shake me up and change my life forever is the accident was actually a murder?”

  An expression crossed Lawrence’s face, then vanished nearly as quickly. He weighed his words.

  Was that relief? Susan refused to let him off the hook. “There’s still something you’re not telling me.”

  Lawrence looked away. Nate stared at his creator, as if willing the man to finish what he started.

  Susan remained as relentless as the reporters who had driven her parents to make the off hand comment that had, ultimately, destroyed them. “Spit it out, Lawrence Robertson. I have a right to know.”

  Lawrence sucked an enormous breath through his teeth, then let it out in a long, slow exhalation. “Susan, I’ve given you all the clues. I haven’t withheld anything you couldn’t work out if you took some time to consider everything you know.”

  Susan turned him a withering look. “I spend more than enough time unearthing obscure diagnoses in mistreated patients. There’s no benefit to giving me riddles, and no time to waste solving them when you could just tell me”—Susan raised the volume so Lawrence could find no way to avoid it—“the truth!”

  “Fine.” Lawrence could have thrown Susan from his office, if he chose. Instead he settled on doing exactly what she asked, bluntly and without preamble. “Calvin did survive the shooting, but only for a few hours. Long enough to make it clear how he wanted his daughter raised. Understand, Susan, we did everything we could to honor his final wishes, odd as some might find them.”

  Susan could hardly miss Lawrence’s point. “So, John Calvin was not my…biological father.” She immediately realized it did not matter. “So what? He loved me at least as much as if he were. And it doesn’t change how I feel about him, either.”

  Nate finally spoke. “NC stands for New Calvin.”

  Those five words made the connection Lawrence had missed imparting with several hundred. Susan found herself incapable of speech, movement, or even thought. That was the moment the earth finally collapsed beneath her feet and yet she felt infinitely grounded, as if she had grown roots that reached deeper than the molten core. When she finally managed to force out a breath, it emerged in a squeaky whine, “John Calvin is N12-C.” She did not need confirmation. It all came together in an instant: Nate passing so easily for human, her father’s aversion to public eating, his decision to devote himself wholly to his daughter, even to the exclusion of dating, his own happiness. N12-C had a mission that subsumed his every waking moment, the daughter to whom he dedicated himself because his programming made it so. The perfect father was, in fact, a positronic robot.

  “Susan!” Susan had no idea how long Lawrence Robertson had been shaking her. “Are you all right?”

  To Susan’s surprise, she was. She found herself more impressed than upset or betrayed. They had pulled off the deception flawlessly, the only details that might have given him away covered with such plausible lies that even she had believed them. Susan prided herself on noticing details, on putting tiny inconsistencies and bits of information together to create a previously unappreciated diagnosis. She had not missed anything here; rather, the picture was so complete, so perfect, so natural she had never considered the possibility. Who in their right, or even wrong, mind would?

  As soon as Lawrence had Susan’s attention back, he tried to explain, “We incorporated as much of Calvin’s genetic material as we could. A simple blood test or saliva test would have matched you as father and daughter. I tried to copy the neural circuitry as closely as possible, worked to incorporate the memories, with only one change: John didn’t know about the shootings; we couldn’t allow that. We had to get the features near enough for you to recognize him without the SFH becoming suspicious. Your tender age made it easier, as well as the fact that you spent a year in the sole care of your grandmother while your father recuperated. She was provided with progressive pictures to show you to allow for a believable transition.

  “Calvin had worried for your future from the moment of your conception, had planned for the eventuality of your losing one or both parents. He kept meticulous journals of his life and Amanda’s, every detail of which wound up in the positronic brain of his replacement. He dedicated every spare moment to what he called biorobotics, the science of creating robots of flesh and blood, indistinguishable from people, miraculous beings like Nate and Nick and John. He was obsessed with ensuring your upbringing was ideal, happy, exactly as it would have been if he had lived. As he lay dying, he made me promise, he made me swear a thousand times…” Lawrence’s eyes grew distant and hazy. He looked as if he might start crying.

  Susan could sense her father’s desperation, felt certain John Calvin had raised her precisely as the man he replaced would have done if he had had the chance. She harbored no anger, and, more important to her own sensibilities, no regrets, at least not for the moment. Perhaps in a time of lonely contemplation, she would find reasons to condemn the decision, the actions of desperate men acting out of dedication and friendship and love. For now she found herself captivated by the concept, fascinated by the details. Her entire life had become a psychiatrist’s dream study: the hapless little orphan raised by a robotic father, the victim of overreaching and evil geniuses.

  Lawrence now studied Susan as he spoke, seeking clues as to when curiosity became overbalanced by too much difficult information. “If Calvin had had his way, we would have reproduced Amanda instead of him. Unfortunately, no matter how small the circuitry, no matter how much we scaled down the positronic brain, we could not get it sized to fit inside a woman’s head without making her preternaturally big. A man taller than six and a half feet does not draw the same untoward attention as a woman who towers over the world, and it’s easier to hide wayward lumps and flaws in the masculine form.” Lawrence likely would feel far more comfortable discussing the technical details, but had to realize those things mattered little at the present moment. Perhaps someday Susan would become as fascinated by those specifics as her parents had been when they had chosen to dedicate their lives to robotics.

  Susan found herself more concerned with the events of the past few days. “What was the threat, Lawrence? Why did my father leave work in the middle of the day, and what did the SFH want from him worth”—she almost said “killing him over,” but the words seemed wrong now—“destroying him for?”

  Lawrence sighed again, shaking his head even more briskly. “We try to keep track of the SFH Web sites, their main one but also their social networks, their communication boards, their private sites, when we can get on them. There was some activity suggesting someone might have discovered a connection between Calvin and John, even some credible talk the two men might be one and the same. Threats followed. We thought it best if you and John disappeared for a while. He went home to pack, with plans to go into hiding with you until things blew over. Obviously, it didn’t go quite as planned.”

  Susan realized the truth. “I was the connection, wasn’t I? They figured out I was Calvin and Amanda’s daughter, and the man raising me resembled my biological father, at least superficially.”

  Lawrence Robertson ignored the qu
estion, an answer of sorts. “The killers who gunned down your parents received life sentences. We originally thought they were rogue operatives, like the lunatics who murdered abortion doctors or the fringe conservationists shooting hunters and scientists in the name of rescuing innocent animals. It wasn’t until last year, when the bombs showed up in the hands of the nanorobot study patients, that we realized the lengths to which the SFH would, once again, go. Of course, those people, too, wound up behind bars, so we thought we had disposed of the worst offenders.” Lawrence could no longer hold back the tears. “Oh, Susan. If we had had any idea—”

  Susan waved him off. She did not hold Lawrence in any way responsible. The information he had given her seemed oddly immaterial. “Do you think” she started carefully, “the SFH knew…”

  She paused just long enough that Lawrence filled in, “John was robotic?”

  Susan nodded once.

  “No.” Lawrence’s lips twisted in a parody of consideration. “Nothing in their communications suggested they even suspected it. If I had to guess, I’d say they surprised him in your home and questioned his connection to Calvin. After that, your guess is as good as mine.”

  “They must have eventually figured out what he was.” Susan did not realize she had spoken aloud until Lawrence responded.

  “Not necessarily.”

  Susan could scarcely believe what she had just heard. Her brow furrowed. “You mean—” She did not know how to finish, so she allowed him to do it.

  Nate did so for him. “Biorobotics,” he reminded. “We wouldn’t resemble real humans so completely if we didn’t have a full dermal system. You can’t have living tissue without nourishment, so we have a circulatory system to oxygenate blood and pump it to where it needs to go. Wires and electronic pulses aren’t that different from the natural human neurological system. An autopsy would reveal the mechanical framework, as would a simple X-ray, MRI, or CT scan. Our limbs can break with sufficient force, our skin can scrape and cut quite naturally, our wounds bleed.”

  Lawrence bobbed his head, as if someone had inserted a spring in his neck. “All true and correct.”

  Susan could not remember her father ever becoming sick, though he handled her own illnesses with all the right nurturing, as if he understood the discomforts, the family cures, the scourges of nasal discharge and raw, pus-covered tonsils. She had applied the occasional Band-Aid to the inevitable scrapes and injuries accompanying her father’s everyday life. She had noticed nothing odd about them. “So a gunshot wound…?”

  “Would probably look grossly similar to a human one,” Lawrence supplied. “I’m not an expert on firearms or pathology, but the density of the parts isn’t that different from muscle and bone in a human being. Entrance wounds ought to behave similarly. Exit wounds, if they exist, perhaps not. It’s possible a wire might protrude or a blast might take out a patch of skin and leave the framework exposed.”

  Susan became fully professional, blocking out the realization they were discussing her beloved father as if he were a complicated toy. “Are you saying the SFH might have killed a robot and, to this moment, still believe he’s human?”

  “Susan, I’m saying it’s possible even the police still believe they’re investigating a murder.”

  Susan knew otherwise, but, for the moment, that information did not seem as significant as what Lawrence had just said. “How could they not notice? They have the body, for Christ’s sake!”

  “We have the body,” Lawrence said quietly.

  “What?”

  “We swiped it from Hasbro, Susan. We couldn’t risk it.” Lawrence took Susan’s hand. “Can you understand?”

  Susan shrugged and bobbed her head simultaneously. There were layers of danger: legal, social, and future implications more important than business profits and losses. She felt certain Lawrence had even considered the problems it would cause her if anyone knew about her upbringing.

  Lawrence continued his explanation. “The police don’t examine the body all that closely. They’re trained to scrutinize the environment, to follow leads and clues, but to leave the forensics to the experts. They let the pathologists take the lead on removal and inspection of the body itself. We had to get that body before the first cut was made. There’s only one problem, and it’s a doozy.”

  Susan knew the answer. “You didn’t get the head.”

  Lawrence’s jaw fell open. “How could you possibly know that?”

  Susan reminded him, “I mentioned it earlier in the conversation, but you were too focused on trying to avoid giving me the information about my father, on letting me believe the ‘natural causes’ baloney the police concocted.” Though the truth, it was not an altogether fair attack. Lawrence had finally leveled with her despite a promise he had held sacred for longer than two decades. “I gave you a list of things I might have believed under different circumstances, including my father’s body arriving at Hasbro headless because the medical examiner wanted the skull and its contents examined at another facility.”

  “That did slip past me,” Lawrence admitted. “How did you know?”

  At the moment, Susan would tell him anything that might help explain the situation. “I read the Hasbro pathology log. He arrived that way.”

  Lawrence stiffened and turned away. Clearly, she had told him something he did not know. “We also thought they sent it to a different part of the morgue for special examination.”

  An idea struck Susan, one she could not possibly wait to speak. “Lawrence, if we can recover that head, could we…bring John Calvin…back to life?” The idea buoyed her in a way nothing else had in at least a year. She felt giddy and nauseated, excited and terrified, abruptly thrilled with the understanding that her father was not a flesh- and- blood man. A concept that should have appalled her became her one saving grace. Every microsecond it took for Lawrence to answer became a deep and throbbing pain.

  Lawrence whirled to face Susan. “No, Susan. No. Please don’t pin your hopes on that.”

  “Why not?” Susan’s voice emerged unwittingly confrontational. She sounded to her own ears like a whining toddler. “If the memories still exist…”

  “That’s a big ‘if,’” Lawrence reminded. “We don’t even know who has his head, what they might have done with it before or after they recognized what it was. The entire process is patented, of course, so information on construction and care is not freely available. Even if they intended to keep it safe, to retain access to John’s thoughts, that would have been hard for nonexperts to do.”

  Susan was resolute. “I’m going to find that head.”

  “We have to,” Lawrence agreed. “We can’t leave a positronic brain in the hands of the SFH. Who knows what they might learn, what they might do, what they might use it for?”

  Susan had a completely different take on the matter. “If there’s any chance whatsoever of bringing back my father…”

  “Susan, no.” Lawrence’s tone grew sharper. “You’re not thinking clearly. How could you possibly explain your murdered father rising from the dead? Even if you found a plausible explanation, what would keep the SFH from exposing him? Or killing him again more permanently?”

  “We can deal with that issue after we recover him.” Susan wanted her father with a desire so raw and deep she would give up anything else to have him.

  “Susan…”

  “We could rework his features and present him as an uncle or a brother. A friend.”

  “Susan…”

  Susan did not want Lawrence to finish his sentence, to remind her of all the practical considerations she did not wish to confront at the moment. “We need to find the head.”

  “I agree with you, Susan.” Lawrence tried another tack. “We need to find it, but I don’t want your assistance.”

  That was not what Susan had expected him to say. “Why not?”

  “Mostly because of the obvious physical danger, but also because I don’t want you emotionally devastated again. I can’t have yo
u believing this is a rescue mission, a means of saving your father’s life. The truth is, that’s an extremely unlikely outcome.”

  “Why?” Susan demanded.

  This time, Nate explained. “Because the positronic memory is volatile. When stored, it requires a source of power to remain intact, and it’s sensitive to radiation. That’s why I never volunteer to stick my head in a CT scanner, even though it’s not supposed to emit enough to damage me. It might violate the Third Law.”

  Lawrence nodded. “Thank you, Nate. I don’t believe the SFH knew John was robotic when they went after him, which means they wouldn’t have brought a backup power source, and they wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot him in the head multiple times. More likely, they figured out what he was while dispatching him and took the head for study. It’s unlikely to have survived the transport intact, and who knows what they might have done to it since.”

  “Fine,” Susan said. “I won’t get emotionally involved.” It was a promise she could not keep, but she did not allow doubt to enter her voice. “I’ll consider this a mission to regain your proprietary information and parts, but you have to count me in. You can’t do it without me.”

  “We can’t?” Lawrence might have intended his question to be rhetorical, but Susan had a ready answer.

  “You need me because the police won’t speak to you. You’re not family. For the time being, at least, they still have me assigned to a contact. Either they don’t know about the robotics or they don’t want me to know, and I can take advantage of both possibilities.” Susan looked pointedly, questioningly, at Lawrence Robertson. “So we’re in this together.”

  Reluctantly, Lawrence rotated his head in the vertical plane, robotlike. “I guess we are, Susan. I guess we are.”

  Chapter 15

  It was nearly 3:30 p.m. when Susan arrived at the station and demanded to see Detective Jacob Carson. She was ushered into a small, neat office lined with shelves and cubbies. Each compartment held a packet of e-formation, bound papers, electronic equipment, battery chargers, or folders. No pictures hung on the walls, and no photographs occupied any surface.