Mystery in Space

Something Wrong with Rupert

by Starsky Hutch 76

The angry looking man got into the back of the space cab. He looked back, scowled, and pulled the slow-to-respond android into the back seat with him.

“Where to, buddy?” the Space Cabbie asked.

“Quantum Mechanics,” the man said, still scowling.

“You look frazzled, buddy, the Space Cabbie said. “What’s the problem, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“It’s this walking pile of junk. He’s been nothing but trouble since the moment I got him,” the man snarled. “Just one small problem one after another. And always something not covered by the warranty. And now, just as it’s expired, he’s having major motor skill and A.I. problems! I should’ve never bought this lemon! Everyone told me he was a bad model, but I bought into all the stupid holo-ads. Plus, I had a coupon…. God, I hate this piece of junk!”

“Jeez, buddy? Don’t you feel funny talking like that with him sitting right there next to you?”

“Why?” the man said. “He’s just a machine.

“That’s what some old passengers of mine thought about their ‘droid,” the Space Cabby said. “Let me tell you, they were in for a real surprise….” And with that, he began his tale.

 

***

 

“You have to do whatever I say, don’t you?” the boy asked the family servant as they walked towards the super market.

“Yes, I do, Master Robbie,” he responded pleasantly.

“Then I say we go get ice cream!”

“Now, you know that your mother gave us this money for groceries. I do believe that she put ice cream on the list she gave me.”

“Store ice cream ain’t as good,” Robbie insisted.

“Yeah, Wupert,” Robbie’s little sister agreed, “Wobbie and I wanna go to Baskin Wobbins.”

“Baskin Wobbins?” Robbie laughed. “What are you? Some kind of siwwy wabbit?”

“Now, Robbie, you must not make fun of your little sister. You used to talk the same way when you were her age,” the servant chided.

“I never talked like that,” the child said with disbelief.

“You most certainly did. Until you grew out of it, that is. I remember it perfectly, and you know my memory is perfect.”

“You must have a fried circuit or something,” the boy said sulkily.

“No, I run a diagnostic check on myself every morning and I am in perfect working order.”

“Gimme piggy back, Wupert,” the little girl said, reaching up to Rupert-5. The android reached down with one hand and lifted her up onto his shoulders. He kept the one hand behind her for support. “I wanna go to Baskin Wobbins,” she said insistently as she grabbed handfuls of his hair the way a horseback rider would grab hold of the reins.

“When we meet your mother and baby sister at the park, you can ask her for some money to get something from the ice cream vendor.”

 

The electronic doors of the grocery door opened and they were hit with a blast of cool air. Two women were talking as one of them tried to push her grocery cart out through the entrance that had opened for Rupert and the children. Her grocery cart slammed hard into Rupert, who was, of course, unaffected by the collision. The crash forced the woman out of her gossiping and into awareness of their presence.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going, you walking pile of junk!” she snapped.

“Excuse me, Madam. I am terribly sorry,” Rupert apologized.

“Shoot her with your death ray!” Robbie chimed in.

“Master Robbie, you know I do not have a death ray.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t!”

“You androids should learn your place!” the loud woman snarled, “instead of getting in the way of real people.” She huffily steered her buggy around him and stormed out of the parking lot.

“It was her fault,” Robbie said. “Why didn’t you tell that fatso off?”

“She is human. I am a machine,” Rupert said. “Therefore, she must be right. I should have stayed out of her way.”

The rest of the shopping trip didn’t go much better. The children kept running up to him with junk food items and insisting that he buy them. Rupert was determined to stick to the list that Mrs. Smitherman had laid out for him. It wasn’t an easy task for him to accomplish, though. If other customers saw that he had an item that they wanted, they would simply walk over and take it out of his hands. He was, after all, only a machine. His programming didn’t allow him to take it back from them.

When he finally made it to the register, the cashier tried to overcharge him. Immediately, he picked up on the mistake, but when he tried to point it out to her, she was insulting and rude. The children began to scream at her, which drew the attention of the manager. He started to take the side of the cashier until he recognized the Smitherman children from the times the mother had brought them there herself.

Rupert would have been relieved to have left the grocery store if he had been capable of it. His programming didn’t allow him to feel such strong emotions, though. The most he could do was acknowledge the sudden lack of conflict.

It was a beautiful, sunny day as Rupert-5 pushed the stroller carrying the Smitherman’s infant daughter through the park in his usual dignified gait. He whistled an old lullaby that had been programmed into his English Butler mannerisms. The Smithermans loved him and trusted him implacably. He was as faithful as the old family dog and he had been with them for about as long. His personality, though merely a program, was so endearing and his manner so seemingly caring and conscientious that it was hard to remember that he was only a machine and not really alive. It was for this reason that Mrs. Smitherman felt confident enough to let Rupert-5 stroll about the park unsupervised with her youngest while she talked with a friend that she had run into in the park while her boy played ball with his friends.

Rupert was making his way around the far corner of the park when one of the children made a hit that would make any player green with envy. It was way too far out of bounds for any of the children to catch it, unfortunately for Rupert. He was too engrossed in his duties as nanny to pay attention to what was happening and try to avoid the ball as it came flying at him. It struck him in the side of the head, knocking off his face plate.

The android made a few spastic jolts as he tried to continue pushing the stroller and singing the lullaby he had started to sing.

“Hush little baby don’t say a word *whirr *click ”

“Hush little baaaaaeeeeebeeeeee *whirr *clunk”

“Hush *click ”

“Hush *click ”

“Hush *click

“Huuuuuuush *whirrrr *ka-chunk ”

His sad attempt at carrying out his duties was shaking up the baby terribly, so it began to wail. The android stopped dead in his tracks. He felt where something inside his head had been jarred out of place. He began to slap himself on the side of the head in an almost comical fashion, like a person who had lost his money in a soda machine or someone trying to get his television to work by banging on it. One of the litterbug sanitation robots flew by and scooped up his abandoned face plate, mistaking it for rubbish.

Mrs. Smitherman saw the commotion and jumped up from her conversation at the park bench to run see what was the matter. She yelled, “Rupert, stop!” The thought of how much it would cost to have him repaired made her sick and she cringed at the sight of him standing there banging himself on the side of the head, probably causing more damage. “What’s the matter?” she asked in a panic.

Just then, he gave himself one more good slap in the head and something fell in to fill the gap where something had been knocked out of place. A new awareness seemed to come over him. It was as if he had been wearing blinders before and he was only now seeing the scenic beauty of the park for the first time. For a second, his senses seemed to overwhelm him. He touched the area where the baseball had struck him and calmly replied, “Your little %^^&^ clocked me in the side of the head with a baseball and knocked the $#&% out of me. That’s what the hell is the matter.”

Mrs. Smitherman was taken back by his outburst. It was so unlike him. It was unlike any android for that matter. She stood there, dumfounded, hardly believing her ears.

He didn’t know why he had snapped at her. A new sensation had come over him, though. It was one that he had no experience in dealing with. It was anger. In a sincerely apologetic voice, he exclaimed, “Please forgive me, Madame. I don’t know what made me say that. I would never…”

“I know,” she interrupted. Rupert’s programming blocked out all antisocial behavior. Even though he was only a robot, she also liked to believe that he wasn’t the sort that would act that way even if it were possible. Something had to be wrong for him to behave in such a way.

Her son came to retrieve his baseball and when he looked up, he saw the exposed wire and circuitry where Rupert’s face had been. The artificial eyes and ceramic teeth set in mechanical jaws glistened in the sunlight. “Cool,” he gasped, spellbound.

Mrs. Smitherman grabbed Rupert’s wrist and said gingerly, “Come along, Rupert. We had better get you home and see about getting you fixed.

“That sounds like a #&@#ing good idea, Madame.”

 

When they got home, she called the dealer where the android had originally been purchased. It would be more expensive to have him repaired there, considering that he was no longer a new model. Nothing was too good for Rupert, though. He was practically a member of the family. The events over the next couple of days, though, did much to change her mind.

When her children were watching television, the bald host of a popular children’s television show came onto the screen. Laughing, Rupert made a rude comparison between that man’s appearance and a certain part of the male anatomy if it had ears. The fact that he had made a \n off color remark in front of the children upset her. Then, she realized that he, a machine, had been laughing. And that frightened her. She ordered him to stay away from the children until she could get him repaired.

If the worst she had had to put up with was a little foul language and a few off-color remarks, then it might have been tolerable. But it didn’t end there. His personality began to change as well. When attempting to make breakfast for the family, the toaster wasn’t making the waffles fast enough or properly apologetic about it to make him happy, so he brought his fist down on it and smashed the machine to bits. This scared her so bad that she called every number in the book until she could find a place that could take him in immediately. Finally, she found a small, locally owned place known as Function Circuits.

The ride there was a living hell. In the first place, she had wanted to shut him down. He wouldn’t allow it. Neither she nor her husband could talk him into letting them do it. That in itself was an oddity; that he would have to be talked into anything. Free will. Robots weren’t supposed to have free will. At least they were able to talk him into the car. There was no way to force a 500 lb android into going anywhere he didn’t want to go. On the way there, though, he was argumentative, like an insolent child. He kept going on and on about how all of it was a bunch of $#&$ and he felt fine. “Fan-%#&$-tastic,” was the way he described himself. He said people got sick. Not robots. He was never better than he was then. He was seeing things more clearly than he ever had before. She felt guilty for the fact that she would be relieved when she could drop him off and be rid of him.

Function Circuits wasn’t exactly the cream of the crop of technological services. They did good work but the facility was in a state of perpetual chaos. It wasn’t that uncommon for a project to disappear and then reappear where no one had thought to look for it weeks later. One could only hope Rupert would be spared such a fate.

The receptionist showed them to one of the examination rooms to wait for the technician. Mrs. Smitherman waited impatiently, eager to leave so she could get to work and forget about the unpleasantness of the past couple of days. Rupert simply wanted to leave. Whatever it was that had changed in him, he wasn’t all that sure he wanted it taken away.

Gary, the technician who received them, was an oddity in his time. In an age when so many were entering his profession for the profit there was to be made in satisfying the public’s increasing demand for ways to make their lives more comfortable, He did it out of a pure love for his craft. He was more comfortable around circuits and nuts and bolts than people. That was the reason he was working for at a small service like Function Circuits rather than one of the larger organizations. His meek demeanor made most employers who interviewed him overlook him for employment despite his qualifications.

When he met Mrs. Smitherman, he suddenly felt very crude and common before her poise and sophistication. She was the sort of woman he had never been able to work up the nerve to talk to. IT was hard for him to make eye contact with her. Attractive women had always intimidated him. She looked immaculate and strong, as well as beautiful, in her smart business suit. It made him feel like the awkward teenager he had been in high school who was too shy to ask a girl out on a date.

“Uh,… hi. My name’s Gary Streabach. I’ll be doing the repairs on your ‘droid.”

“Like I really care,” Rupert said disinterestedly. Mrs. Smitherman was mortified.

He showed them to his work area and Rupert flopped himself into an old leather office chair. He looked like a juvenile delinquent who had been brought into the principal’s office. It seemed odd to Gary that she had brought him in still activated but not altogether unusual. Some people had a tendency to become emotionally attached to their androids. To them, shutting them off often seemed like killing them… albeit temporarily.

Gary thought for a second about Rupert’s unusual response and then motioned towards the back of his neck to try and shut him down but stopped when he saw his reaction.

“Try it, $%^&^%*, and you’ll be spitting up bloody Chiclets!” Rupert snapped, looking him firmly in the eyes. Mrs. Smitherman let out a horrified gasp.

“But I need to shut you off if I’m going to work inside your head!” Gary gasped, jumping back.

“I’m a big boy. Anything that needs to be done to me can be done to me when I’m awake.”

“He wouldn’t let us shut him down, either,” Mrs. Smitherman said testily. “Look, I have a ten O’clock meeting, so I’m going to have to leave him here with you. Call me when it’s time to pick him up.” She picked her briefcase up off the workbench and walked out the door, leaving Gary alone with the hostile android.

“Wait!” he exclaimed, following her out into the hall. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

“What is it, Mr. Streabach? I’m in a hurry.”

“Well, I just needed you to fill me in on a few things about your case.”

“Certainly. You must excuse me. I wasn’t trying to be rude. It’s just that I’m closing a very important deal today, and this whole incident with Rupert has thrown off my entire schedule. Well, let me see, we’ve had him for a little over ten years. He was a wedding gift from my husband’s parents.”

“Do you know the model number?”

“RRXKO-5″

“The Rupert-5. You don’t see too many of them anymore. That was a limited edition.”

“I know. You don’t think you’ll have any trouble fixing him, do you?” she asked.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You’ve probably noticed he seems to be exhibiting his own free will. He actually resisted me when I tried to turn him off! He wouldn’t let me shut him down!” Gary said, growing more excited as he spoke. “It seemed like an almost emotional response rather than a programmed defensive one. This seems to be a really revolutionary thing here. Perhaps we shouldn’t do anything about it. This could be the discovery that leads to finding out what makes the difference between artificial intelligence and real intelligence. It could lead to all sort of exciting new breakthroughs. He seems completely autonomous. It’s like he’s as independent a thinker as anyone I know!”

“Mr. Streabach,” Mrs. Smitherman sighed, “Rupert is our domestic servant. That is all he is. He’s practically raising our children himself, but he’s doing it according to our wishes. I don’t need anything revolutionary happening under my roof. Rupert is like part of the family and I love him to death, but I don’t need him having a free will so he can argue with me about what’s best for our children.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am. He’s your droid,” Gary shrugged.

Since Gary was used to having androids shut down when he had to examine them, he didn’t take certain things into consideration, such as their superior sense of hearing. Rupert’s head turned towards the hallway and his eyes rolled and clicked into position to watch them as they talked. If Rupert had still had a face plate, Gary would have seen one very angry looking android.

Gary came back into the examination room still feeling uneasy under the scrutiny of the android. He tried to have an outward air of confidence, but it only made him look constipated. “I was just talking to your owner. Mrs. Smitherman is a real interesting lady.”

“Good old Supermom, juggling career and raising a family. Guess which role gets the short end of the stick. She wouldn’t know a maternal instinct if it came up and bit her on the ass!”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s probably true. I was a latch key kid myself,” Gary said.

“Sure, pal. And just look how well adjusted you turned out. I raised those damn kids. Me!” Rupert said, gesturing to himself with his fist. “And this is the thanks I get!”

Gary suddenly felt very small and breakable, kind of like a small porcelain figure in a China shop as it watches the bull racing towards it. He yelped, “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure, Poindexter. Go on and get the hell out of here. I’m sick of looking at ya anyway.”

“That’s Gary.”

“Whatever.”

Gary walked briskly to his friend Andy’s office. He found him sitting at his desk with his feet propped up as he threw darts at the dart board facing him on the opposite wall.

“Hey, Andy. I could use your help on the Smitherman case. A few unexpected things have come up.”

Couldn’t it wait, man? I’m right in the middle of something,” he said as he kept playing his game.

“I really think you ought to take a look at this.”

“Oh all right,” Andy said reluctantly, climbing out of his chair. “Lets see what’s got you all stirred up. I can’t imagine what it could be.”

“Hey, believe it or not, exciting things do happen in my life without your influence,” Gary said.

“I find that hard to believe,” Andy chuckled.

The two of them walked into the laboratory where Rupert was sitting. An old computer monitor that was sitting on the shelf had been converted into a television set. The channels were flipping by at a breakneck speed. Andy stepped on a small, discarded circuit board that had been left on the floor, making a small crunching sound. Suddenly, the screen went dead. The leather chair swung around and the macabre face, all circuitry and eyeballs and teeth, looked up at them and blurted, “Hello, douche bags. If either one of you has any idea about going for my ‘off’ switch, you can just kiss my shiny metallic ass.”

Incredibly, Gary had actually been able to show Andy something to surprise him. Andy walked around to the robot’s side, staring at him with bright-eyed amazement. “Holy …. Gary, did you do this? This is one rude robot!”

“No. He just came like this. Charming disposition and all.”

“But he’s still on!”

Upon hearing this observation, Rupert spoke up. “Damn straight. And I’m gonna stay that way!”

Andy gave a wild hoot. “Don’t worry, pal. I wouldn’t dream of turning you off!”

“Not if you know what’s good for you, $%#^%!” Rupert said, crossing his legs, casually.

Andy could barely contain himself. He was holding his sides, making odd spurting noises as he tried to stifle his laughter, and signaled to Gary.

“What? What?” Rupert yelled.

Andy had never had much use for what other people referred to as common sense, so as soon as they were out of the room, he slapped his arm around Gary’s shoulders, laughing, and sad, “Oh God, man, we just can’t let this go to waste! We just can’t!”

Gary suddenly felt nauseous again. “What do you mean?”

“That guy’s a riot. If we took him to the party tonight, he’d bring the roof down.”

“Yeah, I think I could see that happening,” Gary said sarcastically.

“Oh come on. Why shouldn’t we take him with us?” Andy said.

“Well, for one thing, he’s not a ‘guy’. He’s a machine and a defective one at that. He might be dangerous. Besides, if the Smithermans ever got wind of it, they’d sue our asses off.”

“How are they going to find out? I doubt any Smithermans are going to be at this party.”

“He’s not working right. What if we take him there and he goes berserk?” Gary said.

“Hey, look at his uniform He’s a domestic servant. They’re not capable of going berserk. Everything in their programming keeps them from doing it.”

“Does it look like he’s functioning within his programming to you?” Gary exclaimed.

“Hey, he might be acting a little nuts, but there are plenty of checks and balances within his head to keep him from having anything like that happen. Something would have to be seriously jarred and aside from the lack of a face plate, he doesn’t seem to be sporting any real damage. I don’t even see a dent.”

Nothing Gary could say could turn Andy’s opinion around. He was determined to go through with it. It had always been like that for him. Andy was irresponsible, stubborn, and impulsive, but for some reason, he had latched onto Gary. And Gary didn’t make friends that easily, so he wasn’t about to push him away. He usually ended up following wherever Andy led. All he could do was make sure he would be right there in case something disastrous were to happen, which he was sure would be the case.

Andy walked back into the examination room grinning mischievously. “Hey, how would you like to go to a party?”

“A party?” Rupert asked interestedly. Before his accident, any wants or needs he might have had pertained strictly to the performance of his duties. Now, he was able to want so much more. He wanted to see and do things he never would have even considered before. He wanted excitement. This party seemed like as good a place to start as any. It was a way to see the outside world, to go out and socialize the way Mr. And Mrs. Smitherman used to when they would leave him at home taking care of the children. “Sure, I’m game.”

Gary had a terrible feeling about this whole idea. Any time the subject would come up; he would have a feeling like he was going to throw up. Especially when Andy brought Rupert a change of clothes. He took Rupert out of his domestic servant’s uniform and put him into a black studded leather jacket, ragged blue jeans, motorcycle boots, and a T-shirt that said “born to kill”. Andy took some hair gel and put Rupert’s hair into a spiky hairdo and gave him an earring.

Rupert stood in front of the mirror admiring himself. So this was what it was like to be an individual, he thought, rather than one of a series.

To be on the safe side, Gary called the Smitherman house to tell them that they were going to have to hold Rupert-5 for a little while longer than they had expected. Because he was such an old model, they were unable to find a face plate for him and they were going to cast a new mold. He also told her that they had to order certain hard to find pieces for his motor-reflex circuitry. With all the smoke he was blowing, Gary figured they could use HIM to cast the mold for Rupert’s face plate.

He couldn’t believe that he had let Andy talk him into such a crazy scheme. The techno-crafter’s convention, of all things. About the only solace he could take was that in all the chaos of the night, Rupert might not stand out. The people who would be at this convention were the type who’d gotten into the business of technological services for the money but were dismayed to find that it meant they had to spend most of their time in labs. Watching them let their hair down was a scary thing to behold.

When they walked into the converted warehouse complex, they were met with bright lights, pounding music, and the smell of booze and cigarettes. There was also a definite aura of sex. At this time in history, society had run the cycle of rampant promiscuity and stifling conservatism back to the point of rampant promiscuity again until the next incurable venereal disease would make it’s appearance and spoil the fun.

Everyone at this party was drunk or stoned. If they weren’t drinking, then they weren’t conscious. Couples groping at each other like starving people at a buffet took up most of the spaces that weren’t in open view. Rupert seemed overcome with curiosity. Andy waved and shouted greetings to everyone that walked by as if they were old friends. Gary just kept popping antacids.

Suddenly, they heard an obnoxious voice shout from the distance. “Holy $#&$! It’s Andy and Gary! Howzithangin?!! See you two couldn’t find a third stooge, so you made one!”

“Who’s this &@##*&*?” Rupert asked out of the obviously wasted man’s hearing range.

“Careful,” Andy cautioned. “That’s Roche. He’s a big man in the tech field. We don’t want to piss him off.”

“He’s an idiot,” Gary snorted.

“Hey, we get in good with him and we might be able to get out of that rat hole we work in,” Andy said.

“I happen to like our rat hole,” Gary said, offended.

“You would,” Andy said disdainfully.

“Besides, it’s the only place that would put up with you!”

Andy was just about to spit out a response when Roche was upon them. “Hey, guys, howzitgoin? Grab a drink. Better yet, grab some ass!” he guffawed obnoxiously. “There’s plenty of it here tonight. Hey, who’s your friend? He’s a big un.” He gave Rupert a hard slap on the back and Gary had to grab Rupert’s sleeve when he sensed him tensing up. Otherwise, he might’ve pounded him into a loaf of spam.

“I see you’re enjoying the party,” Andy joked.

“$%%^$^% yeah, man,” Roche sputtered drunkenly. “I’m havin’ a hell of a time.”

“This guy’s a major exec for Innovative Designs, Int.,” Gary pondered inwardly. “Unbelievable.”

“I think I’ve had too much to drink,” Roche guffawed. “But what the #$%$. So has everybody!” Gary had to wince as his breath blasted them in the face. If they had brought any germs in with them, they were dead now.

“C’mon, Gary, loosen up!” the drunk laughed, giving him one of his obnoxious slaps on the back. “You’re always such a tight-ass!” Gary thought dreamily of real conventions where people sipped watered down martinis and talked about business, making normal business contacts. What he wouldn’t have given for a discussion on cybergenetic theorems right then.

Luckily, Roche suddenly saw someone else he knew and yelled, “Hey Bob!” Gary was able to breath a little easier now that he had stopped being their problem and become Bob’s.

The party moved slowly to the second floor of the reconditioned warehouse. Andy worked his way through the crowd, schmoozing as many people he could find that he thought important. Gary finally managed to loosen up after a few drinks and he struck up a conversation with a girl from Quantum Robotics. He found her fascinating and by some miracle, she seemed to feel the same way about him. Any previous anxieties he had had about this evening were quickly dissipated.

Rupert, on the other hand, wasn’t having all that much fun. Being a robot, he couldn’t drink, and his lack of a face plate made it impossible to find a dance partner. He was also losing his patience with the people who saw him as a source of amusement. As Andy had predicted, everyone at the party got a real kick out of his non-robot-like disposition. Everyone that is, except for Rupert. He was getting pissed off.

As if things weren’t bad enough, Roche had returned. He saw the crowd forming around Rupert and he had to be a part of it. No, he had to be the leader of it.

“I see you found my big metal friend,” he said, reaching up and slapping his arms around Rupert’s shoulders. “Isn’t he cuuuute,” he crooned as he tweaked what was left of Rupert’s cheek without his face plate. This started everyone laughing.

Rupert had had about all the affronts to his dignity he could stand that evening. “Get your $%$^%$ hands off me!”

“Now now. Is that any way for a good little robot to talk? We might have to wash your voice synthesizer out with soap.”

“I’m warning you…”

“Temper temper. You might blow a fuse.” Everyone laughed again. Partly because it was amusing and partly because Roche was a man to be patronized.

“You fat bald piece of $#&! Get your sweaty worthless hands off me before I rip them off and shove them up your @$$! No one here likes you! They’re all just putting up with you because of your title! But you already knew that! Deep down, we all know what a worthless piece of $%&@ you really are.”

Some stood with their jaws hanging in shock. Some were brave enough to clap. But all were ecstatic. They had all dreamed of saying very similar things to Roche, who stood sputtering with outrage, themselves.

“How dare you,” Roche seethed, suddenly seeming very sober. “I think it’s time you were turned off. He began to reach for the back of Rupert’s neck.

Big mistake. Rupert backhanded him so fast that he was sent flying right through the large picture window behind the group.

The entire warehouse suddenly grew very quiet. Even the music stopped playing. Both Gary and Andy could only stand still with their mouths hanging open as they watched their careers go flying out the window after Roche.

Every eye in the room was suddenly on Rupert. “What?” he shouted. “Do any of you wanna go after him?”

The result was instant mayhem. The partygoers were running to and fro, apparently with no sense of direction. Gary and Andy found themselves swept up in the hurricane of activity. When Gary turned to look for her, the woman from Quantum Robotics was nowhere to be seen. So fate had put another obstacle in the way of Gary’s chances for happiness. She had run for the nearest exit along with everyone else. Gary and Andy didn’t flee with them. They were responsible for Rupert and the chaos he was causing. It was going to be bad enough for them when all of this was over, so God help them if they lost track of him. That was assuming that they survived the night.

When the club was completely empty except for the three of them, Rupert sat down on the floor and rested his head on his knees in a very human fashion. He looked nowhere nearly as threatening as he had only moments earlier. “What the hell are you two still doing here?’ he asked them.

They were both speechless. Neither of them had a reasonable answer. Temporary insanity? They both knew they had to do something, but do what? What could they do? They were only two flesh and blood guys and not particularly imposing ones at that.

Andy was the first to speak up. He walked towards the robot with his hands held out in a peaceful gesture. “C’mon, Rupert. Chill out, big guy.”

“Very authoritative, Andy,” Gary said from his hiding place behind an overturned table.

“Well, I don’t see you trying to do anything!”

“Call me crazy, but I don’t feel like following Roche out the window.”

Their bickering briefly distracted Rupert and he looked over at the pair. “Will you two shut the hell up? Give a dying man some peace.”

“Dying?” Andy said, giving him a halfhearted grin.

“What do you think are my chances of making it out of this in one piece? The street outside is going to be swarming with cops.”

“Well, what the hell did you go and knock him though a window for?” Gary yelled.

“He wanted to turn me off!” Rupert said defensively. You can’t possibly imagine what that’s like. You probably look at it like it’s similar to sleep. Well, let me be the first one to tell you it’s not. It’s more like sampling death. Nothing goes through your head. You don’t think or dream. You’re completely inert. Lifeless.”

“Couldn’t you have simply pushed him away?

“That’s easier said than done. The @$$#% just kept pushing me. He wouldn’t let up. He just kept hounding me and hounding me and when he tried to shut me off, I just lost it. I’ve felt things I never felt before today. It’s been incredible. SO enlightening! I never knew what I’d been missing out on! I’m able to form my own opinion about things now. I can decide for myself whether I think something is good or bad. I can feel! I don’t know how it happened, but it’s happened. I was afraid that if someone turned me off, it might go away. So when he tried to do it, I lashed out emotionally. I wasn’t about to let him take this away from me.”

“You lashed out more than emotionally,” Gary said. “So far, you haven’t done too good a job of controlling your emotions.”

“Well, excuse me, Gary, but I haven’t had a whole lot of experience with them. From what I’ve seen of others who have them, I do about as good a job as a lot of so-called real people out there. Tell me, do you think I have a soul?”

Gary hadn’t expected a question like that. He wasn’t sure how to answer it. “Well, uh, …”

“Come on, Gary, it’s not that difficult a question! Yes or no! How about you Andy? What do you think?”

Andy grinned nervously. “You’re.. ah… you’re ah machine.”

“I’m a machine, sure. I’m made of plastic and steel. But there’s more to me than that. I laugh and cry just the same as you. I have the same wants and desires as any flesh and blood person now. At the risk of sounding a little cliché, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ If that’s what it takes to give you a soul, then shouldn’t I have one?”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Gary.

“There’s not much you can say and there’s nothing you can do. I’m history. All hell’s about to break loose. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. I would rather have this one day of real freedom than a hundred years of being subservient. I can’t ever go back to being what I was before. I wasn’t really alive. I only started living today.”

“What do you think’s going to happen to you?” Andy asked.

“They’re going to destroy me, of course!” Rupert scoffed. “It’s what everybody’s waiting for. ‘Robot goes nuts and goes on a rampage. Film at eleven’. People have been expecting something like this since the first prototype for artificial intelligence was built. I don’t stand a chance.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Gary said. “You could leave here with Andy and me. We could help you.”

“Either they turn me into scrap metal out there in the street or in a laboratory somewhere when they take me apart to try and figure out what made me the way I am. Somehow, the former sounds a lot more appealing to me. You can’t help me, Gary. I have about as much rights as your toaster. I realized that when I heard you talking to Gail out in the hall when she first brought me to your lab. I thought I was a member of her family. But in the big picture, I was just another appliance.”

“Then what do you plan to do?”

“I plan to go down fighting!” Rupert said, jumping to his feet. “Now that I know what it is to really be free, there’s no way I’ll go back to being someone else’s property!”

“Look, Rupert, I don’t think you should do anything crazy,” Gary cautioned.

“Don’t call me Rupert,” the robot said. “Rupert was one of a series. A mindless slave! I’m an individual!”

“Then what do we call you?”

“I don’t know! I’ll think of a new name to call myself! Now, I think you two should leave before things get hairy. It would be safer for you two to leave through the underground exit. I heard a group of people talking about it earlier. They were going there for something called ‘nose candy’, whatever that is. It’ll take you across the street and keep you from getting caught in the crossfire when I have to confront the police outside.”

“If you think we’re just going to leave you here to get yourself blown away…”

The robot suddenly grabbed up the bar and threw it very near to where they were standing, showering them with debris. “Do as I say, damn you!” They scrambled quickly towards the stairwell to obey.

Rupert took the elevator down to the first floor and then walked slowly towards the entrance. He looked almost as if he were tired, if that were possible for him. “I guess I’d better get this over with,” he said to himself. He then threw open the doors, revealing himself to the waiting SWAT team, news crews, and spectators.

Robbie was watching the news update on his pocket television as his mother was driving him and his sisters home from their grandmother’s house. “Look, Mommy. Rupert’s on TV,” he said, holding the small device up towards his mother’s line of vision.

“That’s nice, honey,” she said, trying to shrug the device away so she could keep her eyes on the road.

“It’s true! He’s on the news and he’s dressed like Duke Nukem!” Robbie held the device up to her face even closer so she would be forced to look at it, which she did so she could get some peace.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. He could have been any robot, since he looked so different from the robot she had left that morning, but she knew instinctively that it was him. She did a three-point turnaround and proceeded to drive to the site where the newscaster said the incident was taking place.

Rupert bolted from the entrance screaming, “You wanna piece of me? Come on! I’m ready for you!” Several members of the SWAT team tried to charge at him, but he picked up one of their own barricades for a shield which he used to shove them away and send a couple of them flying. A number of cops tried to jump him, but he threw them off as if they weren’t even there. He shoved a police car aside and started to walk towards the crowd of spectators, which made many of them run in panic.

As soon as he was in clear view, two sharp shooters managed to hit him with objects that were distant relatives of tasers, only these were wired to generators. He was suddenly flooded with overwhelming volts of electricity as his clothes and hair began to ignite.. To his horror, he realized that they were trying to short circuit him rather than destroy him. He struggled to his feet, but he felt himself losing control of his motor functions. He could feel his knees giving out from under him. “Oh God,” he moaned. “Please don’t let them take me alive.” He tried to pull himself to his feet by grabbing onto the side of the police car. But the metal simply crumpled under the strength of his hands.

Almost as if in answer to his prayer, one of the men on the SWAT team was unnerved by the site of him crushing the metal of the car. He had a rocket launcher which was supposed to be used as a last resort only, Thinking the robot was still a threat, he fired the rocket, hitting him square in the chest. Bits of plastic and metal rained down on the street for over a minute.

Gary was walking down the street, away from the ruckus. He turned around quickly when he heard the explosion. Suddenly, a large chunk of debris came flying towards him and he caught it. He tossed the object from one hand to the next for a few seconds going, “Ah! Ah! Ah! Hot! Hot! Hot!” until it seemed to cool off and he was surprised to see that it was the robot’s head. He held it up by one hand and said in his best mock-Shakespearean voice, “Alas, poor Rupert. I knew him well.”

Gary felt a gentle tugging at the back of his shirt. “Excuse me, mister?”

He turned around and said to the little boy looking up at him, “Yes? What can I do for you?”

“That’s my robot Rupert’s head.”

“Are you the Smitherman boy?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then I believe this belongs to you.” He handed the seemingly inanimate object to the young boy.

“Thank you,” Robbie said excitedly as he ran off to his waiting mother and two little sisters. “Mommy, look! I found Rupert’s head!”

“Dear, that could be any robot’s head. There are lots of factories around here where that could have come from. Most of the skin’s melted off of this one, so there’s no way of knowing.”

As soon as she said that, the head seemed to hum to life. “Madame, I’m so glad to see you. Pardon me for asking, but what has happened? I seem to have misplaced my body.”

Relief poured over Mrs. Smitherman. Rupert was back. The old Rupert. “You’ve been under the weather, Rupert, but you’re better now. We’ll get you a new body.”

Gary watched as they poured into their car. He wished there was something he could say to them, but anything he might say would do no good and probably make things worse for himself. The best thing he could do would be just to keep quiet and pray for a lack of recriminations.

That night, for the first time in his existence, the android dreamed. In his dream, he was wearing a human’s business suit and leaving for work as humans do. His wife, also a robot, came to the door with his children to see him off. None of them wore face plates. Instead, their real robotic nature was revealed for all the world to see.. And yet their human neighbors accepted them as they would any person. He kissed his wife and children and got into his car to drive to work, blissfully content with his life.