I, Robot: To Protect

Chapter 21

Doctors Susan Calvin and Remington Hawthorn sat on a bench in the park ten stories below the Calvins’ apartment, their bellies full of John Calvin’s special chicken-eggplant recipe, cobbled from the Kentucky Roasted they brought home and lots of fresh vegetables. The afternoon sun beamed down upon a horde of squealing preschoolers racing across machine-woven mats of recycled plant material and climbing ladders, tunnels, and bridges molded from shredded rubber. The softness of the ground and structures allowed them to push, shove, and plummet to their hearts’ content. Their parents and nannies watched them from windows or benches, shouting encouragements.

Remington stretched his legs in front of him and placed an arm around Susan. Excitement flitted through her at his touch. She felt like a high schooler with her first crush. Everything he did that suggested he liked her seemed like a new and exhilarating experience. She loved the look of him: golden highlights glistening in the casual disarray of his blond curls, his physique a pleasant combination of slender and muscular, his features strong and regular, the very definition of chiseled. The natural scents of him enticed her in a way no human-created smell had before, bringing her thoughts back to childhood vacations and, inexplicably, stops for ice cream.

They had talked the entire trip and now sat in a comfortable silence Susan felt no particular drive to break. She could have sat like this all day, reveling in the warmth of his closeness, the thrill of his touch, a light breeze wafting the faint, sweet odors of toast and jam from the children. Then, her mouth opened, as if of its own volition, and words she had no chance to consider spewed forth. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

Remington hesitated, his gaze tracking a toddler headed toward what appeared to be an older sibling, the toddler’s steps tentative and bowlegged, his arms outstretched. “If you’re asking do I believe it’s possible to glance across a crowded room, meet someone’s gaze, and instantly know you’re soul mates, then no. I don’t believe it’s possible to love someone until you know what’s in that person’s heart and mind. Some of the most outwardly attractive people in the world are vain, prejudiced, or just plain stupid.” He turned his gaze to Susan and raised his brows in quick succession. “On the other hand, I do believe in lust at first sight. You see someone exquisitely beautiful and can imagine making wild, passionate love for the rest of your born days.” He smiled crookedly. “Usually, though, she opens her mouth before you can get her into bed and spoils everything.”

Susan tried not to glare. She had asked an incredibly stupid question without giving it much thought, and he had simply responded in an appallingly forthright manner. She had always preferred people who spoke their minds.

Apparently sensing he had not given the answer Susan wanted, Remington continued floundering. “But if you mean do I think our first meeting might go down in the annals of history . . .” He paused thoughtfully, then shook his head. “I’d still have to say no. As I recall, one of us acted like a pompous ass.” He grinned at her.

Susan knew how to play that game. “And the other one like a castrating bitch. Not exactly first-sight-love material.”

To Susan’s surprise, Remington further mulled a question that now seemed beaten to death. “However, I think I can firmly say that, with you, I did experience lust at first sight. And, over a relatively short period of time, I’ve grown to” — he looked at her, as if worried his next word might queer the deal — “love you.”

The reply was startled from Susan. “You love me?” As soon as the words left her lips, Susan wanted to strangle herself. Don’t sound so surprised. You knew it. And you love him, too.

Remington laughed. “Why else would I throw my body over yours to shield you from an explosion? Why would I give up my first day off to help you stab crazy people in the spine in the same setting I spend nearly every waking hour?” He shook his head. “Does reality have to strike you with a sledgehammer, you silly woman?”

Susan stared. “Well, when you put it in such a beautiful and romantic way, how could I not know it?” She snuggled against him. “And, by the way, I love you, too.”

Remington’s arms tightened around Susan. “Should I make you prove it?”

Susan forced herself not to flinch. “Right here and now?”

Remington glanced at the playground equipment, the running children, the parents ringed around them. “I’m game, but do you really think three- and four-year-olds are ready for a sex ed class?”

Susan felt her entire face warm, and that surprised her. She sighed before she could stop herself. “Remy, I need to tell you something.”

He tensed but remained silent.

Susan got the idea he was bracing himself for whatever she might say. She looked up at him. He had his lower lip trapped between his teeth, and his eyes looked positively frantic.

Susan shook her head, laughing. The children’s calls and shouts had drowned out their conversation thus far, but she lowered her voice further. Somehow, silence seemed to appear in the most unlikely places when a person said something inappropriate. “You think I’m about to tell you I’m a transvestite, don’t you?”

Remington shifted in obvious discomfort. “Actually, I was thinking about an incurable venereal disease; but thanks for giving me something else to worry about.”

“It’s neither of those.”

Remington guessed, “Lesbian?”

“Nope.”

His voice became strained. “Cancer?”

Susan let him off the hook. “I’m a virgin.”

Remington studied her face. He did not appear shocked, just more tightly braced, as if he waited for the other shoe to fall. Finally, he said in a strangely squeaky voice, “That’s it?”

“That’s it. I’m a genetic woman with all of the working parts.” Susan swiftly amended her statement. “Well, they’re working as far as cycling and all. To my knowledge, there’s only one virgin who’s ever given birth.”

Remington cleared his throat, then spoke in his normal voice. “A virgin, huh? Well, that’s nothing bad.”

“In some circles, it’s considered a major achievement. After all, I’m twenty-six years old.” Susan did not want Remington to get the wrong idea. “Not that I haven’t had opportunities, of course. I mean I started dating in high school. It’s just I’ve always felt a person should be in love before making love.”

“And,” Remington started carefully, “you love me?”

“I do,” Susan admitted, then wished she had phrased it any other way. She did not want him to think she was rushing him into marriage when they had barely even managed a second date.

Remington did not seem to notice. “And I love you?”

“Are you asking me? Or telling me?”

“Haven’t I already told you?”

Susan recognized a pattern. “Why do we keep answering each other’s questions with another question?”

Remington grinned and gave the obvious answer, “Why not?” Then the smile disappeared, and he drew her back to him. “Seriously, Susan. I’m a man; I’m always ready. But I’m not going to push you into anything. I can wait as long as you need.”

“I’m ready,” Susan said, then realized the folly of her words. She glanced around the park. “Well, not immediately, of course. Tonight, though. We’ll barricade ourselves in my bedroom.”

“Ooh-kay.” Remington did not seem wholly comfortable with the suggestion. “But what about your father?”

“He can find his own date.”

“Funny.” Remington rolled his eyes. “I just mean, will he be all right with our spending the night together in his apartment?”

Though she had never tested him, Susan felt certain John Calvin could handle the situation. “He’ll have to. When he asked me to stay with him, he knew I was a grown woman. And I pay my share of rent.”

To Susan’s surprise that did not put Remington at ease. When he did not explain why, she pressed. “What’s wrong?”

“Well,” he said softly, “I have a lot of respect for your dad, and I want him to like me.”

“He does like you,” Susan reassured him. “And he’s aware that twentysomethings have . . .”

Remington remained quiet.

“What?” Susan demanded.

“Well, parents and kids are funny about that. I mean, I know my parents must have done it at least three times and probably a lot more, but I don’t want to imagine it. Or know it’s happening. I’d rather just pretend they grew us in the cabbage patch; you know what I mean?”

Susan understood, though she did not share his sentiment. She wished her father would date rather than moon over a woman he had lost so long ago, even if she was Susan’s own mother. “I know what you mean, but I don’t see it as a problem. I’ll talk to him first, if you want.”

Remington’s cheeks took on a reddish hue. “This may sound ridiculously old-fashioned, but do you mind if I talk to him?”

Susan gave him a pointed look. “You want to ask my father if you can . . . have sex with me?”

“Well, actually, I thought I’d phrase it more as you asked me to stay over, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t have a problem with it before I agreed to do it.”

“Oh,” Susan said facetiously. “Make me look like the slut.”

Remington did not rise to the bait. “By now, he surely knows you don’t invite men to sleep over every day.” He gave her a wide-eyed look. “You don’t invite men to sleep over every day, do you?”

Susan put as much sarcasm into her voice as she could muster. “Sure, I do. Then I poison their toothpaste.” She added, as if fielding the thought for the first time, “You don’t suppose that might be why I’m still a virgin?”

“Could be.” Remington rose. “No time like the present.”

Susan also stood. “You’re going to ask him right now?”

“No.” Though he had gotten up with vigor, Remington seemed hesitant to take the next step. “But I do want to talk with him a bit. I think I’d like to get to know the man a little better before I ask if he minds terribly much if I steal his daughter’s virginity.”

“It’s not stealing if I give it to you.” Susan took Remington’s hand and led him back toward the building.

When Susan and Remington returned to the Calvins’ apartment, they discovered John Calvin striding from his bedroom in dress clothes, his fingers on his Vox. When he spotted the pair, he removed his hand, smiling. “Ah, there you are. I was just going to call you. I’m heading in to work.”

“Work?” Susan paused halfway to the living room chair. “I thought you couldn’t go. Structural damage.”

“I’m not actually working. We’re just having a short meeting, taking a look at the damage. That sort of thing.”

It occurred to Susan that, with her father gone for hours, it might obviate the whole issue of Remington’s needing to sleep over. She could feel her heart hammering against her ribs and a lump forming in her throat. A mixture of excitement, relief, and fear washed through her.

“Can we go with you, sir?” Remington said, then corrected himself. “John?”

“I’m not a knight of the realm,” Susan’s father said jokingly.

Susan might have grinned at the realization that her father did not kid with just anyone, so he must like Remington; but she found herself too surprised by the neurosurgeon’s request to consider that long. “You want to go downtown? Near the bomb site?”

“I think it might do us both some good. Plus, I’d really like to see the place where Nate was built, and those nanorobots.”

Susan could not help remembering she had initiated the exact same trip the day Payton had hijacked their bus. “I’ve been wanting to see where you work, too, Dad. I can’t believe I’ve never gone before.”

John Calvin toed his usual line. “Kitten, it’s boring. There’s nothing there but a bunch of middle-aged guys and some laboratory benches covered in tangles of wires.”

No longer swayed by his words, Susan gave her father a stormy look. “Tangles of wires that bring plastic and steel and skin cells to life.” She pictured Nate. “Come on, Dad. We almost got blown up along with your building. Can’t you take us this once?”

John Calvin looked from one to the other. “You really want to go?”

Susan wondered if her father had gone stupid. “Of course, I want to go. You’ve worked there my whole life, and I’ve never even seen the outside of the building. Now that I’m actually involved in a USR project, I can’t believe I haven’t gone yet.” Susan understood her own reasons, but she wasn’t sure she understood Remington’s. Obviously, the creation and animation of robots intrigued him, particularly since he had met Nate, and the nanorobot project seemed to fascinate him as well.

“All right,” John Calvin said. The words emerged half heartedly, and his smile seemed forced. “But don’t get your expectations too high. There are places even I can’t go, and a few things got unexpectedly shuffled after the damage to the building.”

Remington held the door. “Lead the way, Sir John.”

John Calvin gave him a look Susan knew well. “As you wish, Sir Remy.” With a flourishing bow, he headed out the door.

Susan followed, and Remington took the rear, closing the door behind him.

A drab, grayish, rectangular building of insignificant size, U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., did not stand out in any way from the offices and shops around it. Before the bomb explosion, it had displayed no sign or other identifying features; but, now, the front was marred by divots and patches of scorching. The front edge of the roof looked chaotically scalloped, as if some horror-movie monster had struck it with a claw. Otherwise, the building appeared to be intact.

Focused on the building with laserlike intensity, Susan nearly missed the other telltale signs of a recent catastrophe. Cued by her father’s worried glance around, Susan opened her mind to the obvious details. Blinking police caution tape enclosed the area, and hazard blockades sat at either end of the street. The burnt, twisted, and sodden remains of the glide-bus still occupied part of the street, where a police forensics team conferred, taking myriad tiny samples. A tangled array of metal stood like a perverted piece of art, jutting from blackened concrete; and it took Susan a moment to recognize the remains of the bus stop. A dark pool of blood marred the sidewalk, connected to an erratic trail. Susan remembered its origin: She had eased a piece of glass from a woman’s thigh, only to have her run in panic when it came free. Remington had had to tackle her to allow Susan to hold pressure on the injury.

The memory brought a deep frown to Susan’s face. She had never understood why desperate circumstances brought out the best in some people and the worst in others. In emergencies, Susan had always noticed time seemed to slow down for her. When a driver swerved into her path, or a patient went into cardiac arrest, she felt as if she had all the time in the world to take evasive action or to recall the sequence of emergency procedures. Some other people seemed to freeze and grow desperately pale, or dithered wildly and purposelessly, and still more screamed and ran in some random direction, which usually only served to worsen the situation. She had even seen fellow students, male and female, faint dead away in a crisis.

Susan appreciated that one’s reaction to disaster was a natural phenomenon, not under the control of the individual. Obviously, those prone to calm thought belonged in occupations such as law enforcement, military, traffic control, and medicine, where potentially life-threatening calamities arose often and required quick wits and action. She appreciated that Remington appeared to have nerves of steel. She could think of nothing more important for someone operating on people’s brains and spinal cords, and she did not know if she could have respected a man who panicked in a crisis, no matter how natural and understandable the reaction.

A hand fell to Susan’s shoulder. Startled from her thoughts, Susan looked up to her father, his face screwed up in pain.

Abruptly concerned, Susan grabbed his hand. “Are you all right?”

“Me?” Her father’s features shifted instantly from discomfort to clear confusion. “I was worried about you. Are you okay coming here so soon?”

“I’m fine. I can’t say it’s not weird seeing it again, but I’m not suffering from post-traumatic anxiety or anything.” Susan glanced past him at Remington, who seemed more interested in the USR building than in the wreckage. “Remy seems fine, too.”

At the sound of his name, Remington looked at Susan. “Hmm?”

“I said you don’t seem to be suffering from post-traumatic anxiety.”

“No. Should I be?”

“I hope not,” Susan said, “because I’m not, either.”

Apparently intuiting the original source of concern, Remington addressed John Calvin. “If anyone should know, she should.” He jerked a thumb toward Susan and whispered as if revealing a dangerous secret, “She’s a headshrinker.”

Susan’s father chuckled. “Yes, indeed she is. And a good one, so I’ve heard.”

Though merely banter, the words made Susan cringe. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me. I sent a psychopath home to murder her sister and maim her brother, then couldn’t talk a schizophrenic out of blowing up a bus.” Those two enormous failures would weigh heavily on her conscience, she believed, for all eternity. She ground her teeth as guilt swam down upon her again. In her mind, the blood of Misty Anson would always stain her hands.

“Ah,” Remington said. “So now we measure success and failure by whether or not crazy people act crazy?”

Susan turned him a withering look. “That is my job, Remy. To keep crazy people from doing crazy things.”

“First of all,” he reminded her, “Payton Flowers was never your patient. You didn’t treat him, you didn’t medicate him, and you didn’t know him any better than I did. As for . . .” He paused, surely considering confidentiality. Payton Flowers had become a household name since the police had released his identity, but Sharicka and her family still had a reasonable expectation of privacy. “As for the girl, you took a calculated risk, and the worst happened. Learn from it and move on.”

Susan wanted to do that; but, while awake and in her dreams, she found herself reliving the moment when Sharicka’s mother had asked her opinion. “Who says I’m not moving on?”

“The person who watched you say nothing when a man announced his plans to blow us up.”

Susan wanted to clobber both of the men in her life. “What are you saying? That I was afraid to try to dissuade Payton because I felt inadequate after allowing Sh —” She caught herself, then continued. “That little girl a deadly home visit?”

Both men only looked at her, brows raised like psychiatrists who have just tricked a patient into breakthrough self-analysis.

Susan shook her head so hard, her hair whipped her face. “I didn’t act on the bus because I didn’t know Payton well enough. I didn’t know what would provoke or deter him. Besides, I didn’t really believe he had a working bomb.”

“Okay.” Remington said in that aggravating tone men use when they hand over a reluctant victory for the sole purpose of ending an argument.

Susan felt her limbs shaking. The whole ordeal seemed to crash down on her at once: the terror, the helplessness, and the realization she alone might have had the power to stop it.

Suddenly, Susan found herself enfolded in Remington’s embrace. “I’m sorry,” he whispered directly into her ear. “I’m sorry about what I said. I was wrong.”

Susan trembled in his arms, cursing her weakness. Tears streamed down her face. “You’re not wrong, Remy. I just didn’t realize it before. I consider myself so strong; but, when it came to preventing a tragedy, I froze.”

“You didn’t freeze. You just didn’t take a chance. As it turned out, your decision to say nothing wasn’t wrong.”

Susan had to admit the worst had not come to pass. “I might have stopped the whole process,” she choked out. “I might have saved his life.”

“Maybe.” Remington squeezed her tightly and closed his eyes. “Or he might have freaked out and detonated the bomb with everyone on board. My point wasn’t that it was in any way your fault. I’m just saying, if you start overquestioning your every decision because of one mishap, you deprive the world of your obvious and incredible brilliance.”

John Calvin stepped aside, wisely allowing Remington to handle the situation, though his fatherly instincts had to ache.

Susan sank to the ground.

Remington squatted in front of her. “You’re the one condemning both situations as personal failures and taking the burden of guilt on yourself. Medicine is an art, not a science. You use as much knowledge and thought as you can, but it reaches a point where you have to play the odds and intuition. A postsurg patient gets septic. Was it the glove that broke and had to be changed midprocedure? Was it the sneeze? Or was it simply inevitable? The Guzman procedure works best for sixty-two percent of people with early spinal cord separation. You use it on a patient, and he winds up quadriplegic. Could he have led a perfectly normal life had you gone with the Striker technique? Would the outcome have been exactly the same, or would he have died? Life has a lot of forks. Just because the consequences of choosing one was bad doesn’t mean the others would have been any better.”

Susan understood his point. “But had I not sent her home, her sister would still be alive. Her brother would not have had to undergo emergency neurosurgery. Her parents would not have been devastated.”

“Her parents were already devastated,” Remington said firmly. “Long before you came into the picture.”

“Yes, but . . .” Susan forced back the tears, and a sob shuddered from her in its place. “But things would have been so much better. At least, the sister would be alive.”

“Would she?”

The question seemed ludicrous. “Of course she would.”

“Because, if you had not sent your patient on a home visit that particular day, no one else would have done so. Ever.”

Susan finally managed to get control. “I’m sorry I’m blubbering like a baby. You’d never believe, just prior to this meltdown, I was thinking about how well I handle stress.”

“Answer the question,” John Calvin said quietly.

Susan’s father did not issue commands often, and Susan always took them seriously. “Well, of course, she would have gone on a home visit eventually. When she was more stable.”

“More stable than what?”

Susan flicked her gaze back to Remington, who had asked the question. “More stable than she obviously was.”

Remington released her, shook his head, and started to rise.

Susan wiped away the last of the tears. She felt ashamed of her weakness and hoped it would not drive Remington away. “Just ignore me. I got overwhelmed by the moment.” She glanced around at the carnage. “I guess the whole ordeal hit me harder than I thought.”

Remington smiled and offered his hand. “Ah, so the great Dr. Susan Calvin is . . . human, eh? Who’d have guessed it?”

Susan took his hand and forced her own weak smile. She hated the thought of appearing weak, promised herself not to let it happen again.

John Calvin waited patiently while they sorted themselves out before saying, “Ready?”

Back in full control, Susan said, “Ready.”

Her father approached the door, scanning palm and retina simultaneously, a foolproof security system that required a person to stand in one precise spot and position. The door whisked open to reveal a stuffy, austere foyer containing only a large, semicircular desk. A woman wearing too much makeup sat behind it, partially obscured by a large computer console that clearly controlled more than the standard palm-pross. “Good afternoon, John,” she said cheerfully. “They’re meeting in Lawrence’s office.” She looked over Susan and Remington. “It appears you need a couple of guest passes.”

John Calvin smiled at the woman. “Thank you, Amara. This is my daughter, Susan, and her boyfriend, Remy.”

Amara winked. “I figured as much. Not only do you bear a resemblance, but I recognized Susan from the eight hundred pictures in your office.” She tapped a couple of keys on her desktop, a printer beneath it hummed, and she pulled out two small, square pieces of paper. Stuffing each into a plastic holder with a thin lanyard, she handed them to John Calvin. Susan could now read the word VISITOR on each. She accepted one, slung it around her neck, then gave the other to Remington. He took his and put it on with the same deft flick of his hand.

“This way.” John led Susan and Remington toward one of five doors, this one bearing the name LAWRENCE ROBERTSON. He knocked firmly, paused briefly, then opened it.

Apparently cued by the knock, three men in dress polos sat in silence, all looking at the opening door. One stood up behind an enormous mahogany desk that held a half dozen palm-prosses; two digital frames; a mass of books, mostly hard copies bound in large folders; an enormous printer combo; and a surprising amount of paper, most of which seemed to contain circuitry maps. Loose computational chips also floated through the mess. The other two men sat on comfortable-looking, but mismatched, chairs, while three more empty chairs were spaced around the room.

The man behind the desk said, “Hey, John!” He gave Susan a warm and genuine smile. “This must be the younger Dr. Calvin you’re always talking about.” He came around the desk and extended his hand. “I’m Lawrence Robertson.”

From the reverent tone with which her father always spoke his name, Susan had pictured someone older, even though she knew they had been college roommates. He appeared to be about her father’s age, with dark, wavy hair, a large mouth, and a rugged complexion. He carried a touch of gray at the temples that perfectly matched his pale, friendly eyes. Susan knew he had founded the company the year she was born. He must have done so in his early twenties, already the genius behind the positronic brain. She gripped his hand firmly. It was dry, solid, and powerful.

“And this is Susan’s boyfriend, Remington Hawthorn. He’s a neurosurgeon.”

Susan wished her father would stop referring to Remington as her boyfriend. It made her sound twelve years old.

Lawrence Robertson released her hand to reach for Remington’s.

Remington clasped it. “You can call me Remy.”

“Remy, it is. And you can call me Lawrence.”

Susan did not feel any more comfortable referring to the founder of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men by his first name than Remington did her father. She wondered if she could get away with “Sir Lawrence.”

Lawrence continued the introductions by pointing to a frumpy-looking, balding man in wrinkled dress clothing. “This is my director of research, Alfred Lanning.”

“How do?” Alfred mumbled when no one stepped close enough to shake hands.

“And one of our top roboticists, George Franklin.” George did not wait for them to come to him. A tall, gangly youth, he crossed to the center of the room in a single step to shake hands with Susan and Remington. “Pleased to meet you.”

Lawrence Robertson stepped back behind his desk, his gaze still on Susan. “So, young lady, when are you joining us on staff?”

“Me?” Susan could make no sense of the question. “I’m a psychiatry resident. I can’t imagine you need one of those at a robot factory.”

The men sniggered gently, except for Alfred Lanning, who gave the suggestion actual thought. “As complex as the positronic brain has become, I could see us putting a robot or two on the couch.”

“Not to mention the staff,” Lawrence added smoothly. “You have to be a bit nutty to work here.”

Not to be outdone, Remington added his piece. “I could just picture a robot lying on his analyst’s couch: ‘Doc, I know my intelligence is artificial, but my problems are real.’ ”

Everyone chuckled, except Remington himself. As George retook his seat, Susan joined Alfred in giving the idea real thought, or at least appearing to do so. “I can’t speak for the staff, but the robots shouldn’t be too hard to analyze. Ethically, they have to conform to the Three Laws of Robotics, right? That doesn’t leave a whole lot of wriggle room, really.”

John Calvin took one of the chairs. “I think it’s the general public who needs the help. We could hire a team of psychiatrists to eradicate the Frankenstein Complex, and people would still be worrying that robots are going to take their jobs, obliterate their privacy . . . and eat them.”

George nodded grimly. “Well, I suppose the risk of having a psychiatrist on staff would be the further reaction of the public.” He made a gesture toward the ceiling that Susan took to symbolize “the sky is the limit.” “They’d be imagining a two-ton hunk of metal with the capacity to smash a girder running around clinically depressed.”

Lawrence shook his head, still grinning. Clearly, he had asked Susan out of politeness, the kind of question all bosses address to a favored employee’s children. “Well, John, we’re still waiting for Javonte and Keagan. Why don’t you give your guests a short tour?”

“That’s all I can give them.” John rose and ushered Susan and Remington toward the door. “We’re not large to begin with, and we can’t go most places.”

“Sorry,” Lawrence said, sounding honestly apologetic.

“No problem.” Remington headed out the door, with Susan and John at his heels. “So long as we can get a glimpse of the nanorobot production, I don’t mind. That’s what Susan’s working on, and it has me fascinated.”

“Knock yourselves out,” Lawrence said as the door shut behind them.

They found themselves back out in the foyer with the secretary and the assortment of doors.

“Nice people,” Susan said.

“The best.” John looked around thoughtfully, apparently figuring where to start. “Why do you think I’ve stayed so long?”

Amara piped up, “I thought it was my amazing coffee.” “Coffee?” John playacted exaggerated surprise. “You mean that stuff you give us in the morning is coffee? All these years, I thought it was motor oil.”

It occurred to Susan that she had no idea how her father liked his coffee. She had never seen him drink any.

“Very funny.” Amara returned to her work. “Next time, Dr. Calvin, you get a mug of gasoline. We’ll see if you can tell the difference.”

John Calvin pointed to one of the doors. “The other offices are through there, including mine. I’ll take you there if we run out of places before Lawrence calls me back.” He opened one of the other doors and ushered them into a laboratory.

Compared to Lawrence’s office, the room looked positively germfree. The white walls gleamed, without a trace of stain or dirt. Long lab benches held racks of empty test tubes, and the sinks appeared brand-new. Small refrigeration units with old-fashioned key locks perched on each end of every bench. Each one also held a high-powered microscopic chamber. Hovering over the benches, clear Plexiglas shields could be lowered to create a soundproof or sterile environment. Only the chairs lay in disarray, apparently left where the workers had abandoned them.

“This is what you wanted to see, Remy.” John Calvin waved a hand to encompass the entire room. “The skeletal forms of the nanorobots are produced in the microchambers.” He led them to one of the boxes on the table. “You put your hands in here.” He indicated cut-out areas on the sides, now locked down tight. “And the view screen magnifies the project and tools so our roboticists don’t go blind.”

Remington lowered his head until he looked directly into the screen. “How much magnification is there?”

“I can look up an exact figure, if you want to know.” John Calvin hit a switch button on the back. Instantly, a brilliant light came on, demonstrating the contents: strange-looking pliers, guide wires, lasers, blades, screwdrivers, and even a tiny hammer. A sleek, pill-shaped body lay on a piece of cloth that looked like a chamois.

“Is that a nanorobot?” Remington asked, clearly awed.

“That’s the shell of one, yes. And those are the tools we use.”

Susan leaned in closer. “It looks so big.”

“Magnification,” John Calvin explained. “Put your hands in.”

“May I?” Remington said breathlessly.

“Be my guest.”

Remington looked at Susan, a stripe of red across his cheeks. “I’m sorry. Did you want to go first?”

Susan felt no particular need to have her own hands in the contraption. “Be my guest.” She looked at her father. “Just promise me this isn’t some sick practical joke that’s going to mangle his surgeon hands.”

John Calvin leaned in and unlocked the ports. He stepped back, gesturing at Remington.

Susan rolled over a chair so Remington did not have to crouch.

Without taking his attention from the magnification box, Remington settled his bottom on the chair and gently glided each hand into a side of the box.

They appeared instantly, wrapped in an opaque film. They looked enormous, as if he could grip the entire room.

“Whoa,” Susan said.

“Whoa,” Remington and John agreed.

Remington tentatively touched one of the tools with his finger. “That’s amazing. I didn’t think glass this big could be ground that finely.”

“It can’t.” John wore the expression of one accustomed to the impossible. “The glass is maximally magnified. Then we use an active system to multiply it another thousandfold.”

Remington removed his hands and sat back. “I’m impressed.” He rose and stepped aside. “Want to try it, Susan?”

Susan suspected, after a day of work, the nanorobot scientists walked around holding their arms spread far apart, afraid to knock over everything in their path with their gigantic hands. “No, thanks. I got the idea, and I’d just as soon not know if I have hair on my knuckles.”

Remington reflexively examined his own hands. “What’s the greenish fluid in the nanorobot concoction?”

“Normal saline.” It was an extremely familiar product, one Remington ran through IV lines daily and Susan had used in her medical rotations as well. It consisted of a sterile 0.91 percent solution of sodium chloride in water, essentially the same composition as that of most bodily fluids. It was the safest solution known to man, one that could be injected or rinsed over any organ, vessel, or tissue in the body, even in relatively large amounts.

Susan asked the obvious follow-up question. “So, what makes it green?”

John relocked the magnification box and flipped off the switch. “As I understand it, it bleeds off the nanorobots’ shell. Some kind of anti-infective, antirejection slime.”

“Slime, huh? That must be the medicotechnical terminology,” Susan said helpfully as her father reflexively restored every flap and detail of the magnifier box.

Remington seemed fascinated with the tiniest detail of the operation. He glanced around the room with slow thoroughness, then focused on the refrigeration units on the ends of the lab benches. “Is that where you store the vials?”

John Calvin followed Remington’s gaze. “Yup. They’re pretty basic units. You didn’t want to see the inside of the fridges, too?”

“Please?”

“Seriously?”

“If you don’t mind.”

With a shrug and a glance that suggested he thought the neurosurgery resident had gone insane, John unlocked one of the refrigeration units. He opened the door to reveal thick walls and insulation. A test-tube stand held five of the familiar green vials with reddish seals. They seemed out of place to Susan, like running into an old friend from home while on vacation.

Remington leaned in so closely he blocked Susan’s view. He studied the vials for several moments, while Susan and her father exchanged looks that expressed confusion, surprise, and, perhaps, a hint of suspicion. Susan had to ask. “What are you doing, Remy?”

Remington stiffened, as if awakening from a trance. “Sorry. It’s just all so amazing.”

At that moment, an alarm blared through the room, so sudden and loud that Susan let out an involuntary squeak. She turned to John Calvin for explanation, but he seemed as uncomfortable as she did. Remington stood up straight.

“Lock up, Susan,” John Calvin said, heading for the door.

Susan reached to shut the refrigeration unit, but Remington caught her hand. “Wait,” he whispered, pausing until John Calvin had fully exited. Only then, he whipped something from his pocket and held it up against the test tubes. Susan recognized it as one of the empty vials from when he had helped her inject her last few patients, along with the torn-off seal.

The alarm continued to shrill through the building, almost unbearable. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears and curl into a ball. Ventilator alarms made a similar noise, absolutely impossible to ignore, cuing medical staff to a life-threatening emergency requiring immediate attention.

“See?” Remington said.

“See what?” The words emerged more gruffly than Susan intended. Driven to find the source of the alarm, and fix it, she found concentration on anything else almost impossible.

“Look closely. At the seals.”

Susan forced herself to study the removed seal, comparing it to the ones on the fresh vials. Now that Remington had pointed it out, she could see the previous seal had more of an orange hue, while the ones in the fridge were definitively red. “Do you think it faded a bit?”

Remington grimaced, then shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. It came off yesterday, and it’s been in my pocket since. Besides, you’ve seen the seals on the vials we’re using.”

The alarm seemed to explode in Susan’s head, making original thought nearly impossible. “So . . . someone is tampering with them.” The significance of her own words escaped her momentarily.

The alarm stopped abruptly, and realization smacked Susan so hard she nearly fell.

Remington closed and locked the refrigerator unit. “Exactly. And it’s happening sometime after this step in the process.”

The silence became nearly as overbearing as the alarm itself. Susan felt a shiver traverse her entire spine. “Let’s go find my dad.” She headed for the door, and Remington followed.

They wound their way swiftly back to Lawrence Robertson’s office, where they found the door closed. Susan knocked politely before pushing it open. A screen blared the evening news. The same men they had met earlier, plus two more, leaned forward in their chairs, watching intently. At the back of the room, Susan’s father appeared to be the only one who noticed them, and he ushered them inside with a gesture. The pair stepped in and closed the door behind them.

“Hell of a coincidence,” someone muttered.

“But coincidence it must be,” Alfred Lanning said emphatically. “There’s no other explanation.”

“What happened?” Susan whispered to her father.

John Calvin squirmed, clearly loath to tell her. “Valerie Aldrich just blew herself up in the Federal Building.”

Susan felt as if a vice clamped onto her chest. “Valerie Aldrich? Princess Valerie? I injected her myself.”

“Yes.”

The situation seemed to require more. “Dad, that’s the second person with circulating nanorobots who set off a bomb in Manhattan.”

“Yes.”

Susan made a wordless noise of frustration.

Remington took over the questioning. “Was anyone hurt?”

Lawrence Robertson shut off the news.

“From what they’re saying, she ordered everyone to evacuate the room before detonation. Half the building went down, though, and some people got caught in the rubble. They’ve confirmed two deaths and a lot of injuries.”

“We have to remember,” Alfred Lanning continued, “we’re working with the most psychotic patients in the city. Insanity is normal for them.”

Susan blurted out, “But acting within the Three Laws of Robotics isn’t.”

Every eye, every head whipped toward Susan. Remington shook his head and unobtrusively took her hand in a quiet plea for silence.

But it was too late. Whatever damage he feared was already done.

Lawrence Robertson spoke first. “What do you mean, Susan?”

Susan had no idea why Remington wanted to silence her, but she had something to say and every intention of saying it. “Both of our bombers have had three things in common: They were injected with nanorobots, they somehow obtained functioning explosives, and they attempted to follow the Three Laws of Robotics.”

An outburst of conversation followed Susan’s pronouncement.

Lawrence Robertson raised a hand, restoring the quiet but not decreasing the intensity of the stares one iota. “How so? If they were operating under the Three Laws, they could not have injured anyone.”

As Susan continued, Remington’s grip on her hand grew stronger to the point of pain. “I think they tried to avoid it, but they had limited judgment and insight into the power of the explosives they carried. In both cases, they ordered people out of the blast area first.” She gave Remington a questioning look and received a subtle cutting gesture at his throat. He wanted her to shut up.

Alfred Lanning screwed his features into a perfect depiction of disgust. “That’s all very interesting, but entirely impossible. While it’s true the nanorobots do carry the Three Laws by virtue of having positronic properties, they don’t have the thinking capacity to contemplate and act on them. I think it’s far more likely the functioning consciences of these psychiatric patients caused them to act in an ethical manner that simulates the patented Three Laws of Robotics.”

“Except,” Susan said, “that it’s too far-fetched a coincidence to believe that, in a city of fifteen million, two of the seven patients injected with nanorobots, neither of whom had ever shown a violent propensity nor had any knowledge of explosives, independently decided to blow up prime Manhattan targets.”

A handsome, fine-boned man of mixed race piped up next. “Are you saying the nanorobots caused these people to act this way?”

“Impossible,” Alfred snapped. “I programmed those nanos myself. There’s absolutely nothing in them that could induce someone to act in any fashion.” He added emphatically, “Nothing!”

Remington released Susan. “Unless, Dr. Lanning, someone tampered with them.”

The room fell into an even deeper silence than before, if possible. Susan suddenly understood why Remington had wanted to keep her from talking. He suspected someone at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, perhaps someone in the room, was a saboteur.

Apparently, Lawrence Robertson made the same connection. He addressed Remington directly. “With the exception of you, young stranger, I trust every person in this room not only with my business, but with my life itself. Not one has worked with me fewer than fifteen years, and all of them have invested a life work into this company. As to you, Remy, I’m assuming you don’t have the knowledge to program nanorobots, and I know you haven’t had the opportunity.”

“No, sir.” Remington rolled his eyes at the bare thought. “But I do have reason to believe this tampering is occurring, and not necessarily at your facility.” He approached Lawrence Robertson with a hand in his pocket, pulled out the vial and seal, and placed them on the desk. “I compared the seals to the ones on the vials in your laboratory. They’re not the same.”

Alfred Lanning scooped it up before anyone else could take a closer look. “Where did you get this?”

“From one of the vials Susan injected into a patient.”

Susan appreciated he did not mention he had taken over for her on two occasions. It might make her appear incompetent.

The scientist tossed the objects back onto the desk. “He’s right. That seal is definitely more orange in color and not quite as thick as the ones we use.” He shrugged a single shoulder. “Someone is tampering with our work.” His eyes widened at the implications of his own words. “Someone sabotaged our nanorobots!”

A pallor seemed to overtake the room. Every face, the air in the room itself, seemed to grow white with strain. Susan watched them all carefully. She could read a lot from faces, from fidgeting, from words and movement. Everyone seemed genuinely shocked and dismayed. If a traitor stood among them, he was well trained at guarding his thoughts and emotions.

Lawrence Robertson took over immediately. “Javonte and George, start looking into whoever touches those vials once they leave the refrigerators: lower-level employees, delivery men, shipping companies. No one outside this room is above suspicion.”

The handsome black man and the gangly roboticist rushed to obey. “Alfred, get Goldman and Peters up on the secure speaker. Susan —” Apparently suddenly realizing he was commanding someone not in his employ, he softened his tone. “Based on what you’ve seen so far, and your knowledge of the study patients, what can we expect?”

Susan had focused so intently on her theory about the Three Laws, she had not taken her ideas on the matter much further. Now, she thought aloud. “Since the nanorobots don’t have the capacity to mull the Three Laws the way a full positronic brain does, we have to assume the patient’s ethical considerations play a role here, filling in what the nanorobots can’t.” The idea was so stunning, Susan had to stop herself. The protestor, the one who had tried to talk her out of helping with the project, had a point. If she was right, they had created an odd and primitive form of cyborg, robot function interacting seamlessly with human thought and emotion. Except we can hardly consider it seamless under the current circumstances.

No one spoke, not even Alfred Lanning, who looked as if he had just rushed headlong into a train.

Susan had to continue, resorting to an exterior stony coldness to explain something shocking the instant it came to her mind, yet make it appear as if she had given it her full attention for an appropriate period of time to make it a viable theory. “The way I figure it, someone programmed the nanorobots to overtake the brains of their human hosts, each programmed to blow up a different target. But whoever did the programming either didn’t know about, or didn’t understand the overwhelming significance of, the Three Laws of Robotics.”

To Susan’s surprise, the silence persisted. Every man in the room kept staring directly at her, their expressions anticipatory, to a man. She wondered what more they expected. She felt as if she had thrown out more than enough ideas to contemplate for hours.

Remington gave her hand another squeeze, this one less insistent, more encouraging. “Susan, in your psychiatric opinion, will the Three Laws of Robotics hold? Can we be certain the other patients will also follow them when performing their . . . um . . . their, um . . . ?”

Susan did not wait for Remington to find the right word to describe the programmed missions of the saboteurs. Susan opened her mouth to answer, but the words did not come. She had no precedent on which to base her answer. She needed to think. “At this point, shouldn’t we call the police with our suspicions? We need to prevent anything else terrible from happening.”

Finally, murmurs swept the room, punctuated by Lawrence Robertson’s loud sigh. He rose from his chair, walked around his desk, and came to Susan’s side. He glanced at John Calvin before turning his attention fully to the daughter. “Susan, I’m not sure if I can explain this properly, but it’s important I try.” Again, he looked at John, as if trying to elicit help. “We can’t go to the police.”

Susan made no objections, wanting to hear him out first, but Lawrence raised a hand as if she had.

“Other than that, we will do everything in our power to prevent ‘anything else terrible from happening.’ ”

Susan suppressed a horrific urge to laugh in his face. Other than call the police? What else is there?

Not entirely ignorant of her thoughts, Lawrence answered the unspoken question. “I know that sounds absurd, but it’s true. If word gets out to the general public that the people causing these explosions had nanorobots injected into their brains, it would mean the end of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men.”

The words seemed irresponsible; yet Susan understood more from his eyes than from his explanation. The company was the life work of Lawrence Robertson, of Alfred Lanning, of John Calvin, of most of the men in this very room.

Lawrence leaned in closer. “Susan, you’ve met N8-C, right?”

Susan could not help smiling at the memory. “Nate, yes. Many times. He’s absolutely amazing, brilliant.”

“Yes.” Lawrence glanced around the room, where so many men seemed to be holding their breath simultaneously. “And, if the population at large gets wind of this, Nate will be erased, along with all the other prototypes and working robots. Their positronic brains will be wiped out, the technology outlawed, robotics set back for at least another generation.” His eyes grew moist; the thought was clear agony.

Susan bit her lips. She no longer thought of Nate as a robot, but as a living individual. The idea of allowing anyone to destroy him seemed as intolerable as killing her own father. “We don’t know that will happen.”

She was distracted by shaking heads all around the room, but managed to continue. “We could explain the truth. Give people some credit; they’d understand.”

The combined force of those shaking heads stole Susan’s concentration completely, especially when she realized her father’s and Remington’s were now among them. She considered all the things she knew, what Nate had told her about how few of the hospital staff felt comfortable using him, how many of the patients refused his assistance once they knew, how protestors demanded his immediate removal. “But we’re talking about sabotage and spies. About homicide bombings, for Christ’s sake. People have died, will die. Next time, it could be hundreds, thousands.”

“Which is why we have to make sure there is no next time,” Lawrence Robertson said with slow clarity.

As shocking as Susan’s own revelations had seemed, the words spoken to her now flabbergasted her, mostly because they came from the lips of people she had always considered good and decent, upright and moral human beings. Her mouth and tongue felt numb, paralyzed.

John Calvin motioned for Lawrence to stand back, and he did so wordlessly. Susan’s father looked down into her face. “I know what you’re thinking, kitten. And, as smart as you are, you’re wrong.”

Susan’s pale eyes flicked directly on his. They looked so like her own, the ones she saw in the mirror every day, and the sincerity deep within them seemed to penetrate her psyche. She did not know what she was thinking, so she found herself eager for her father’s theory.

“U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men isn’t some greedy monster of a corporation panicking over its profits. We’re small, as you know, smaller than we ever should be. We deal with priceless concepts, with products that cost millions to build, yet ‘making money,’ at least in a significant sense, is a notion that hasn’t reached us and may not for another century.”

Susan could scarcely call her father rich. They had both borrowed heavily to send her through college. The state covered medical school for all physicians. Had she had to make her own way, as in Bainbridge’s day, she would have drowned in her own debt. Most of the men currently involved in the company’s projects would never see the riches their hard work might eventually reap. They did it from a firm belief that, once accepted, robotics would make humans happier, healthier, and better.

John seemed to be trying to read his daughter’s mind as he spoke, his scrutiny intense, his tone almost pleading. “People have imagined robots improving our lives since long before any of our births. The water clock was invented in 200 BC, for God’s sake; and Leonardo da Vinci made a moving armored robot in 1495. Animatronics are commonplace at theme parks and as children’s toys, and NASA has used robotic exploration and analysis units since at least the 1990s. General Motors had a functioning robotic arm on its assembly line in the 1960s. And that’s all assuming you don’t include computers in the robotics category. Yet, when it comes to an actual humanoid robot, one that can actually think and talk, one that has skin, muscles, and a functional skeleton, one that can actually pass for human, people panic.” The disgust in his voice became palpable. “The Frankenstein Complex.”

Susan had never heard her father denigrate anyone. He treated everyone kindly and had something nice to say about even the ones Susan would not miss if they fell off the earth. Although they argued about some things, she could never fault his knowledge or logic. He could make her see the other side of issues that did not seem to have one, and his love for humanity was unimpeachable. About this issue, he clearly felt passionate.

John cleared his throat. “Susan, the positronic brain will change the course of history. It’s the greatest invention since” — he paused to consider — “the greatest invention ever, in my opinion.”

Behind him, Susan could see Lawrence Robertson and Alfred Lanning exchanging glances, their cheeks flushed by the enormity of John Calvin’s compliment.

“It will change the world as nothing else has since the Internet or the cellular phone. Society will improve a millionfold. Our lives will become easier, better in every way. Medicine will take a grand leap into the future. The possibilities are mind-boggling: prosthetics, transplants, fixing neural pathways, the intricacies of perfect surgery, even psychiatry itself, once we explore the relationship between human neural pathways and the positronic brain. Thousands of lives saved, millions in time.” John Calvin’s eyes held a gleam Susan had never seen before. It combined raw excitement with hope and joy and honest, innocent wonder.

Susan took a slow, deep breath. Her father had never steered her wrong. He had an uncanny memory, a keen mind, a gift for finding the best in everyone and everything. She understood the grandeur in his speech; yet she also saw why it might incite fear in some. What about the surgeons replaced by those robots who could perform those perfect surgeries? What about the mental status of those people fitted with wondrous, robotic prosthetics? Would a caste system develop: full humans versus cyborgs versus robots? Could fully sentient robots contemplate their superiority, their immortality, their precision, and program themselves to overcome the Three Laws of Robotics? She released the breath in a long sigh.

“Believe me, Susan.” John Calvin had not finished. “I taught you to look at both sides of every issue, and I know you’re doing that now, doing it with great intelligence and fervor.” His gaze remained fully locked on her own. “Know this: I believe zealously in the Three Laws and in the process that governs their existence in each and every positronic brain. They cannot be removed or tampered with; the simple act of trying would utterly destroy the brain itself.”

A shiver traversed Susan. She hated when people seemed to read her thoughts, even the father who knew her better than anyone else. “I think,” she finally managed to say, “the world would be a far, far better place if all of us had to adhere to the Three Laws of Robotics.” She knew they needed a definitive answer. “All right. No police.” It amazed Susan how, this day, the men of USR seemed to do everything concurrently. Once again, to a man, the entire room appeared relieved by her promise.