Asimov’s Future History Volume 7

by Isaac Asimov

  The rat had just negotiated a maze with apparently undiminished efficiency, and Avery had picked it up to put it back in its cage when the lights dimmed and brightened again as if something had momentarily drawn a heavy load. Derec thought nothing of it; the city’s mutability made for unusual power demands, especially when a building shifted or grew from nothing. He had subconsciously learned that flickering lights meant the neighborhood would probably look different when he stepped outside again.

  The lights dimmed a second time, and stayed dim. Derec just had time to think, Boy, there must be a big one going up next door, when they went out completely. The lab was in the interior of the hospital building and had no windows; the darkness was total.

  “What the — ouch!” Avery shouted. There followed a thump and the clatter of the rat cage falling off the table. “It bit me!”

  “What?” Derec reached for the table, found Avery’s shoulder instead.

  “I’ve lost it. Lights!” Avery shouted. “Lights on!”

  The voice-switch wasn’t working either.

  “I wonder what —” Derec began, but he never finished the question. He became aware of a deep, almost subsonic groan that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It grew in intensity, shaking the floor, slowly rising up the scale into audibility. The floor gave a particularly violent lurch, and half a second later a sudden loud crack echoed through the lab.

  Then came a sound like an enormous tree cracking at the base, splintering and popping as it toppled.

  Avery’s shoulder suddenly dropped out from under Derec’s hand. “Get under something!” he shouted.

  Derec obediently dropped to his knees in the dark and conked his head on the bench. Something furry — the rat, no doubt — squirmed under his hand and scurried away. Ignoring it, Derec reached out, found the kickspace under the bench, and crawled in. Avery was already there, but it was big enough for both of them.

  From beyond the lab, transmitted through the floor and walls, came a last groan of overstressed metal, then a relatively silent rush of wind. Then came a peal of thunder that sounded as if Derec’s eardrums themselves had been hit by lightning, and the floor made a sudden rush for the ceiling.

  The ceiling got out of the way in time, but just barely.

  When the shaking and rumbling was over, Derec crawled out from under the lab bench and stood up, but he barely made it above a crouch before he banged his head again.

  “Ouch! Be careful when you stand. The place has caved in on us.”

  “Not surprising.” He heard Avery crawling out beside him, groping around in the dark and encountering the lab bench, the stool, which had already tipped over, and the remains of the rat’s cage and maze. A steady ringing in his ears accompanied the sound of Avery shuffling toward the door.

  A moment later Avery said, “It’s collapsed even worse over here.”

  “I’ll call for help.” Emergency, Derec sent, directing his comlink to the central computer. Derec and Dr. Avery are trapped in Avery’s laboratory. Send someone to get us out.

  He listened for a response, but none came.

  “The computer’s out,” he whispered.

  “Impossible. The backup is a network of mobile supervisor robots. Even if the central coordinating unit were destroyed, the supervisors could function independently. They couldn’t all be destroyed.”

  “Well, I’m not getting a response.”

  “Hmm. Try a direct local command to turn on the lights.”

  “Okay.” Lights on, Derec sent.

  The blackness persisted.

  “No good.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Now what?”

  “Call a specific robot. Call Mandelbrot.”

  “Right.” Mandelbrot. Do you hear me?

  Yes, master Derec. Are you all right?

  “Got him!” Yes, we’re all right, but we’re trapped in the lab. Is Ariel okay?

  She and Wolruf have escaped serious injury; however, I am engaged in bandaging a cut on Wolruf’s forehead. I will call assistance to get you out of the laboratory.

  “He’s calling help,” Derec echoed. There was a moment’s silence, then Mandelbrot sent, That is strange. I get no response on the supervisory link.

  I couldn’t either. Something has happened to them.

  Then I will gather what robots I can find and come myself.

  Make sure Ariel and Wolruf are safe first.

  Of course.

  Derec felt himself blush. He hadn’t had to order him to do that.

  Do you know what happened? he sent.

  It appears a newly constructed building has fallen over.

  Derec repeated his news for Avery, who had moved back to the lab bench and was fumbling around in a drawer for something.

  “Certainly sounded like it,” Avery replied.

  Derec shifted his weight from leg to leg. Crouching down was hard to do for more than a minute or so. “But how could a building have fallen over?” he asked.

  “Easy. Just shut off the power to it when it’s at an unbalanced stage in its growth. The cells lose their mobility, and the building acts like a solid construction. If it isn’t stable, over it goes. But don’t ask me how the power could get shut off; there’s an entire supervisory subsection devoted to power distribution. Ah, here we go. Where are you?”

  “Right here,” Derec said. He reached toward the place where Avery’s voice had come from, encountered his back.

  “Shield your eyes.”

  Derec just had time to raise his hand over his eyes before a brilliant blue light filled the room. He heard a loud hissing crackle from only a few feet in front of Avery, then the light dimmed and the hissing faded. Derec opened his eyes cautiously and saw Avery holding a cutting laser, now turned to low intensity and pointed up at an angle toward the ceiling. Avery played with the focus and the spot of light widened, but it was still painfully bright, and a wisp of smoke drifted away from it if he held it for too long in one place. It was made for cutting, not illumination, but at least it was light.

  They surveyed the remains of the lab. The ceiling had indeed come down, stretching rather than crumbling. It met the floor near the door, and they could see the remains of the wall in which the door had stood smashed beneath it. Nothing had shattered; the building material had simply bent and crumpled under the stress. The monochromatic blue laser light made for stark shadows, accentuating the destruction.

  “Evidently the core of the building collapsed,” Avery said. “We’ll have to go out through an exterior wall.” He turned the laser’s intensity up to full again and fired it at the wall opposite the door. The ceiling was still at the proper height there; Avery stepped closer until he could stand comfortably and began cutting a ragged rectangle into the wall. The light beam was nearly invisible at first, except where it met the wall, but within seconds it became a solid blue rod lancing through the smoke.

  “Don’t breathe that stuff,” Derec cautioned.

  “Good idea.” Avery stepped back and continued to cut. He got the sides and the top done, but the panel remained standing, so he cut along the floor as well. At last the section of wall twisted and toppled outward, landing with a clang on the sidewalk outside. Avery turned the laser intensity back down, took a deep breath, and rushed through the hole.

  Derec followed. They jogged out into the street — a peculiarly empty street for one that had just suffered a major disaster — breathed deeply in the fresh air, and looked around them.

  The entire city was dark. The rain had stopped earlier in the day, but clouds still masked the stars. The only illumination anywhere came from the laser in Avery’s hand. He turned up the intensity again and waved it around like a spotlight, and they saw collapsed buildings all around them. Most, like the hospital, seemed to have fallen inward rather than crumbling and Calling sideways like a more conventional building would. It was evidently an effect of the building material, though whether it was by conscious design or merely accidental Derec di
dn’t know.

  Their apartment, far down the street from the hospital now that the constraint to hold it next door for Ariel’s vigil had been cancelled, was in an area of lesser damage, but even so Derec felt the urge to run down to it. He held himself back. Mandelbrot had said she was all right; he should concentrate his effort on finding out what had happened and preventing it from happening again.

  When Avery shined the light down the street in the other direction, the cause of the destruction became evident.

  For a moment it had probably been the tallest building in the city. Now it was the longest, what was left of it. The end nearest them had flattened everything in its path, but it had survived the fall relatively intact. It was still rectangular, at least. That part had to be the base. Farther along its length, where it would have been moving faster when it hit, they could see where it had ripped apart on impact, fragmenting. It crossed the street at an angle, so they couldn’t see what had been the top of the building, but they could see what had become of it all the same. Out there the force of impact had been enough to dissolve the intercellular bonds in the building material, spewing it in all directions. In short, it had splashed.

  It had taken quite a few other buildings with it. The destruction fanned out in a wedge, with the narrow end of it nearest the building’s base, which had been less than a block from them.

  And now that he looked closely, Derec could see something moving along the building’s edge. It was a single robot, walking slowly toward the sheared-off base.

  You, Derec sent. Can you hear me?

  Yes. Master Derec. is it not?

  That’s right. What’s your designation?

  I am Building Maintenance Technician 126.

  Was that building your responsibility?

  It would have been upon completion. I believe it has now become the responsibility of Salvage Engineer 34, but I cannot get supervisory confirmation of that.

  You can’t reach your supervisor?

  That is correct. I cannot reach any of the seven supervisors.

  Then I order you to assume general supervisory duties until you regain contact. Can you contact Salvage Engineer 34?

  I can.

  Inform him that he is also a supervisor.

  Acknowledged. The robot immediately sent the order, then began directing the robots under his guidance in assessing the damage elsewhere in the city.

  “I just promoted two robots to supervisor,” Derec said aloud.

  “Good. Tell them to make power restoration their first priority.”

  Derec relayed the order, then turned around to look back down the street toward their apartment. Avery obediently shined the light that way again.

  A light appeared in the street. It bobbed up and down with the regular rhythm of a robot’s stride, and within moments Mandelbrot stood before them, four more robots flanking him. Even though robots could see perfectly well by infrared light, he carried a more conventional flashlight, presumably for the humans he had come to rescue.

  “I am glad to see that you escaped uninjured,” he said. “I was growing concerned. There seems to be no organized effort to restore city functions, and I have been unable to contact any of the normal supervisors. They all seem to have abandoned their duties.”

  “That’s impossible,” Avery stated flatly. “Their jobs have been programmed into them. They can’t just up and leave!”

  “I do not wish to contradict you,” Mandelbrot replied, “but they appear to have done just that.”

  “I suspect they had help,” Derec said. “And I bet we all know just who it was.”

  Over the comlink, he shouted, Lucius!

  Chapter 8

  REVOLUTION

  STATIC.

  A familiar type of static.

  The static of robots in communication fugue. Many robots, from the sound of it.

  Derec turned his head from side to side, trying to get a fix on them. There. Of course.

  “They’re in the Compass Tower.”

  Avery nodded. “Mandelbrot, get us some transportation.”

  Mandelbrot handed one of the other robots the flashlight and obediently moved off at a run down the street.

  “They’re using their comlinks again,” Derec said while they waited. “That means they’ve decided to disregard direct orders.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Avery flicked off the laser. The robot with the flashlight held it up overhead to make a pool of light with the humans in it.

  Derec said, “It’s my fault.” He told Avery of his conversation with Lucius earlier in the day. “Evidently he decided he’s best off if he doesn’t consider anybody human.”

  “Evidently. Well, we’ll soon fix that.” Avery slapped the laser against his open palm.

  They heard a soft whine, and moments later a dark shape drifted up the street toward them. The robot with the flashlight aimed it at the shape and it resolved into a truck with Mandelbrot at the controls. Mandelbrot brought it to a halt beside them and Avery and Derec climbed into the cab with him. The other robots climbed into the back, and they accelerated off toward the Compass Tower.

  Sensing that his passengers didn’t like speeding through the dark, Mandelbrot turned on the headlights. In their illumination Derec saw robots moving aimlessly along the sidewalks, as if unaware that anything had happened only a few blocks away.

  “Good grief,” Derec said. “Don’t they care that half the city has been destroyed?”

  Avery shook his head. “No curiosity, and they haven’t received orders. Why they haven’t is a mystery, but it’s obvious they haven’t.”

  As they drove on through the city, though, they began to notice more and more robots moving purposefully. “Looks like your new supervisors are getting things going again,” Avery said.

  Even as he spoke, the lights came back on. In the sudden brilliance, Derec nodded his agreement. “Looks like,” he said. He twisted around in his seat and looked back the way they had come. A dark wedge still cut into the city’s glow. He wondered how long it would take to erase that scar. In a normal city it would take years, but here? Maybe a day. Two at the outside.

  The Compass Tower was the first building erected in a new robot city, and the only building to remain unchanged from day to day. As such, it housed the city’s central memory, served as communications center, and also became a general meeting place. It was no surprise to find all seven of the city’s supervisor robots there, nor, judging from the comlink static, to find them all standing immobile in the main conference room, locked in communication fugue. The three experimental robots were there as well.

  This conference room was not a windowless closet. It was near the top of the building and had windows on three sides looking out over the city. Avery stood in the doorway a moment, surveying the scene, then raised the cutting laser up to aim at Lucius.

  “Are you sure you want —?” Derec whispered, but Avery had already fired.

  A shower of molten metal erupted from the robot’s chest. Avery moved the point of destruction upward, toward its head and the positronic brain contained within, but the beam never reached its mark. Threatening Derec with a laser hadn’t been enough to bring Lucius out of communication fugue before, but now that it was his own body under fire, Lucius became a blur of motion; a window suddenly grew a robot-sized hole in it, and he was gone.

  Avery flicked the beam toward Adam, but he and Eve had already begun to move. Two more crashes and they were gone as well. Derec and Avery ran to the window in time to see three gigantic bird shapes disappear around the edge of the building.

  The supervisor robots had also awakened, but they made no move to escape. Avery turned away from the window to face them and said, “All of you, deactivate. Now.”

  Six supervisors froze in place. The seventh took a halting step forward, said, “Please, I must —”

  Avery fired his laser, this time at the head instead of the chest. The robot fell to the floor, showering sparks. Avery swept the l
aser over the others, heads first, then methodically melted them all into puddles. When he was done he turned to the four robots Mandelbrot had brought with him. “You four are now supervisors. Access the central library for your duties.”

  “Yes, Master Avery,” they said in unison. They were still for a moment, consulting the library via comlink, then as one being they turned and left the room to begin their new jobs.

  Something about the sight sickened Derec. Seven cooling puddles of recently free robot stained the floor, and four new slaves moved off to take their places. And yet, and yet, what else could Avery have done? They had seen what happened when supervisors failed to perform their duties. The old supervisors might have been still usable — the one who had defied Avery’s order might have been about to protest that he must see to restoring the city — but who could know? If that hadn’t been what he’d been about to say, and if Avery hadn’t fired when he had, they might have had ten renegade robots on their hands instead of three.

  Three were bad enough. Time and again throughout the night, reports came in of the robots attempting to distract others from their duties. Avery had ordered hunter-seekers out to stop them, but that merely stopped the problem wherever there were hunters. He and Derec considered the idea of ordering all the city robots to arm themselves against the renegades, but rejected it after only a moment’s thought. One didn’t arm the peasants during a revolution.

  Derec and Mandelbrot went back to the apartment and brought Ariel and Wolruf back to the Compass Tower, reasoning they would be safer there, guarded by hunter-seekers whose definition of “human” had been strengthened and refined to include the tower’s four organic occupants, no matter who said otherwise. While he did that, Avery worked to strengthen the definition of human for all the city’s robots, and thus the Second Law compulsion to obey.