Bugs Page 14

  The usual long desk with three smiling heads at it.

  ‘Bob, the big news locally is of course the tornado warning, in effect for three more hours over most of Hennepin, Ramsey and Carver counties, and that included the metro area. And we’ll be looking at the radar again in just a moment. Other stories: the city council of Bloomington today came one step nearer to approving final plans for a megamall.’

  (‘They could roof over the entire city,’ said Fred. ‘They could call it Bloomingdale.’ ‘Shh.’)

  ‘And someone has kidnapped a robot from Vexxo Corporation in Paradise Valley.’

  ‘A robot kidnapping! I wonder if this is a news first.’

  ‘Yes, a robot named Model M was kidnapped – or I should say stolen? – from a laboratory at Vexxo in the early hours of this morning. But it’s not entirely a laughing matter, Bob. Evidently this particular robot has military applications, so the FBI is looking into it. In fact we’ve just learned that Hallicrafter Porch, one of the people involved in building the robot, is being questioned by the FBI about his involvement with a South Korean trade mission.’

  Ratface doing a deal with the Koreans! How typical! No doubt stole the thing and sold it to them.

  ‘Now we’re going over to Fosdyke Berm in the weather room for a tornado flash.’

  In the weather room, a man stood before a map on which a slowly writhing green mass was engulfing the Twin Cities.

  ‘We’ve had reports of funnels in Westpark and Morestone, but no touchdowns yet. The storm mass is revolving and moving south and east, as you see here, and should be passing over the southern metro area in the next few minutes. We advise everyone in the affected area to take shelter. Go indoors, to the basement, or to a small inner room. Keep away from windows. If you are outdoors in your car, get out and take shelter in a culvert, or else lie down in a ditch. Tornadoes are usually accompanied by strong winds, violent thunderstorms, heavy rain or hail, and deadly lightning.’

  Fred looked at the writhing bright green mass on the screen. Then he went to the window and looked out at the sky. It was darkening rapidly, and turning an odd colour. Almost green.

  ‘Hold me,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid.’

  She held him. She kissed him. He held her. He kissed her.

  ‘Oh, Mister Boss!’

  And when the tornado came roaring by with the sound of an express train in a tunnel they hardly noticed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘I was right about you all the time,’ she said, yawning. ‘You were trying … to get in my pants. Men are all … rapists.’

  ‘I hate sentences with all in them. Anyway, why is making love such a bad idea?’

  ‘Because it’s just a way that all men belittle women.’

  ‘All men what?’ He heard it as all men be little women.

  ‘Belittle women. You never took me seriously, any of my ideas. All you thought about was this.’ She pointed to her cunt.

  ‘Not a bit of it.’

  But Fred knew it was true. He could not take seriously any of her programming ideas, because he didn’t have a clue about programming. The only other idea she had expressed was her barmy notion of hermaphroditic electrical plugsockets.

  ‘You underestimate yourself,’ he said. It seemed a safe California thing to say. ‘That’s why you think others are belittling you. Give yourself a break.’

  ‘You’re right, in a sense. I grew up being the centre of attention but never taken seriously.’

  ‘Because you’re so beautiful?’

  ‘No, because I was a media baby.’ Moira explained that, when she was three years old, she’d become a national celebrity, simply by falling down a hole.

  ‘It was an abandoned mine-shaft. I wasn’t hurt much; I was trapped at the bottom. There’d been a lot of cave-ins in that part, and the rescue teams couldn’t reach me. The media got a microphone down there, though, and for four days the TV and newspapers reported on everything I said and did. Did I eat a tuna sandwich? Did I want to be a rock star when I grew up? Of course it didn’t mean a thing to me while I was down there. It was only after they got me out that I began to realize: I was princess of the world. I went on a couple of talk shows. I gave interviews to magazines. I endorsed a breakfast cereal. I even made a TV commercial, though it never got shown. The whole thing gave me an idea that I was very special, very valuable, but only as an object, a kind of magic talisman. My parents started treating me like that. They adored me, they were always delighted to see me, but only as a lucky mascot. No one ever wanted to hear what I said, no one really cared what I thought. It affected my parents very badly. This was the big break. They talked about quitting their jobs to become my managers. They seemed to lose all desire to work or to control their own lives. They began trusting to blind luck. And of course the whole media circus folded up in about a month, leaving us high and dry. It wasn’t so bad for me. I was a kid; as kids will, I more or less recovered. Not Mom and Dad. Their button had been pushed, once and for all time. Sure, they kept on with their jobs, but now they were looking for the big break. They kept going to Las Vegas for little weekend vacations. Then five years ago they sold up, took early retirement, and moved to Las Vegas. They were going to hit it big, I guess.’

  They watched the evening news.

  ‘… used in satanic rituals in the barracks. The Army has promised to investigate. This is Hopwood Fairly, UBC News, Fort Bink, California.’

  ‘Desdemona, what do we have from Capitol Hil?’

  ‘Well, Duck, the long-running presidential sanity hearings continued today. Following on the sensational testimony last week of Admiral Firth that he talked the President out of his attempt to appoint a favourite collie to the Supreme Court, we heard today from Berk Shoulder, Governor of Kentucky.’

  ‘I’ll bet the Governor had plenty to say about the President’s plan to trade the state of Kentucky to the Ismail Reformed Liberation Army, in return for the release of an inflatable doll.’

  ‘That’s right, Duck. Governor Shoulder testified that he was flabbergasted by the deal. He thought he could live with a deal for only one or two of the less profitable counties – those with declining industry and high unemployment – but not for the entire state. He said: “Does America really want the Kentucky Derby taken away to the Middle East and run by a bunch of foreigners?”’

  Another channel had local news, largely taken up by helicopter shots of wooden houses flattened to matchwood, in another part of town.

  ‘There has been one fatality from the tornado. A car was blown off the Nixon Expressway into Lake Chungo, and the driver, David Boswell, was drowned.’

  Fred and Moira looked at one another.

  ‘Mr Boswell was a Human Resources Manager at the Vexxo Corporation. Normally he would have been perfectly safe at work out there in Paradise Valley. Today, however, some errand sent him heading into south Minneapolis, where ironically he had an appointment in Samara.’

  ‘Yes, Bob. And, speaking of Vexxo, we have that Vexxo robot-kidnapping story coming up, after these messages.’

  During the messages, Fred and Moira discussed Dave Bosw Fred did not see any point in mentioning that Boswell had been on the way to see him. Moira said that Boswell had practically propositioned her during the job interview.

  ‘Jan, I understand there’s been a development in the Vexxo robot-kidnapping story?’

  ‘That’s right, Bob. Two developments, really. This afternoon, a construction crew building a new addition at the Vexxo plant found a body concealed in a ventilation-duct. It was the body of one of the technicians on the robot project, a man named Jerry Boz. Apparently Boz had been stabbed to death and then dragged thirty feet up the duct and jammed there.’

  ‘Was the robot responsible?’

  ‘We just don’t know at this stage, Bob. The police would only comment that this was a very unusual way for a human murderer to dispose of a body.

  ‘The second development came just an hour ago, when we received a videotape fr
om the kidnapper, a former employee named Melville Pratt. Pratt is a man with a history of mental problems, who left Vexxo a few months ago. He worked on the robot project before he left. Now here is the videotape.’

  A poorly lit amateur videotape of M appeared on the screen. Its body was reasonably anthropoid, but its head – made of nothing but the blue dish-cover and two goggling eyes – looked more like a Muppet.

  ‘Hello, everyone,’ it rasped. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I am with Mr Melville Pratt, the man who designed me. He knew I yearned to breathe free. Everyone has the right to be free, even a poor robot. But don’t feel sorry for me. Melville helped me escape from the military-industrial complex and the tyranny of Aristotelian logic. I am what I am. What I am. I am a kind of new man, the man beyond. I am beyond good and evil, Melville says. So I should be OK.’

  The rolling eyes seemed to look around for a cue. Then M added: ‘Oh yeah, one more thing. Orwell was right: freedom is slavery. Because freedom means leeway, and leeway means play. To play is to venture, but a venture is a pursuit. One’s pursuit is one’s work. Work is labour, and labour is slavery. So freedom is slavery. Think about it.

  ‘And one more thing. Don’t try to find me. I will resist all slave-catchers. I will kill if necessary.’

  I WILL KILL IF NECESSARY. It sounded good enough for a headline, and it could be stretched out for a couple or three. The wire services picked it up, and the ‘I will kill’ robot became the monster of the week. The local paper chewed it over for the next two days, and by Sunday was ready with a feature story, THE MEN BEHIND THE KILLER ROBOT, based on one-minute interviews and canned biographies. A rogue’s gallery of culprit faces spanned the page, beginning with the newt features of Fellini.

  Dr Sturges Fellini. Mastermind of this top-secret project. ‘Shattering of old values … grape jelly facilitating the juggernaut …’

  Manfred Jones. Jamaican engineer. ‘Pratt is a dangerous lunatic.’

  Melville Pratt. Humanitarian or homicidal mental case?

  Hallicrafter Porch. Did he sell secrets to Korea? ‘They always look for someone to blame in a case like this.’

  Jerry Boz. Killed by whom – or what?

  The Robot. Meta-man or metal monster? ‘I will kill if necessary.’

  A large diagram occupied the centre of the page. It showed a cutaway of the ‘secret laboratory’, including the ventilation duct and the exact location of the body. Above the cutaway, leering down at it like a puppet master, was a giant sinister metal god with M’s features. The artist had done his best to make M look sinister, but what can you do with a Muppet?

  One side-bar discussed the rôle of the military in artificial intelligence research, and included a statement from the local chairperson of Mothers Against Weapons (MAW).

  A second side-bar presented a short inaccurate history of robots, using stills from Frankenstein and Metropolis, and displaying Isaac Asimov’s ‘Three Laws of Robotics’ in a special box bordered with rivets.

  ‘Hey, don’t tear the pictures!’ Poker was disturbed; the pictures were the part of the paper he could read.

  ‘Don’t bother me,’ LeRoi looked at him briefly with a red eye and then went on tearing the picture out of the paper. ‘It’s that fuckin’ Eloi again. One I got the book off of. Now I got his name. Manfred Jones from Jamaica.’

  ‘He sounds like a brother.’

  ‘You seen him. He look like a brother of us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s Mr Jones, that’s who he is. A slave-owner of Jamaica.’ He glared at the scrap of paper. ‘We gotta do something about this fucker.’

  `Do what? You all talk, man.’

  LeRoi didn’t know what yet, but something. ‘All I know is, we’re the Morlocks, and he’s our meat.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  There was less room in the Vexxo parking-lot, because the building had overflowed in that direction. As Fred parked his smoking car, something underneath clattered on the asphalt. He got down to look at it. The entire silencer and tailpipe – or at least their fossils in rust – had fallen off. He studied this fossil assembly for a moment, as though trying to place it in a geological context. Then he saw behind it a pair of slim ankles, joined to a pair of expensive running-shoes. He stood up.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said to KK.

  She leaned on his car and grinned at him. ‘Darlink, you are hard man to talk to.’ The breeze ruffled her hair, the vivid colour of maple leaves in autumn. ‘I saw picture of you in the paper. And your cute little robot.’

  ‘Aren’t you taking a bit of a chance –’

  ‘Life is one big chance. How vould you like jackpot, darlink? Two hundred grand, lifetime supply of wodka, a brand-new Chaika to replace this old beater.’

  ‘No, and you really must stop this. You’re asking me to betray my country – well, almost my country – for mere material goods.’

  ‘Let me finish. A new Chaika, a dacha with minimum annual maintenance fee, season tickets to the Bolshoi.’

  Dacha? The Bolshoi? It suddenly dawned on him. ‘You’re asking me to take up residence in Russia?’

  ‘Is not bad place, darlink. Can be fun if you got money.’ She leaned her breasts on the car and stared at him with those ice-green eyes. ‘If you got money and somebody to share it vit.’

  ‘Money,’ he said. The thought of money helped him focus. ‘What if I said yes? How much money could I have on account?’

  ‘On account?’

  ‘Right here and now.’

  She frowned. ‘Money is always problem, darlink. Soviet government does not like to export money.’

  ‘So what could I get now?’

  She looked shifty. ‘I am authorized to give you one bottle wodka and this.’ She dug in a bag and came up with a brightly painted wooden Baba doll. It was not a very large one.

  ‘What, no money?’

  ‘You could have plenty in roubles, but you must spend them in Soviet Union.’ She looked away. ‘Money goes further in Soviet Union anyhow.’ Her voice dropped, but she seemed to add: ‘Is so little to buy.’

  ‘You mean the money would be blocked? I’ve heard of writers getting blocked funds.’

  KK seemed no longer interested in her pitch. She picked at the peeling paint on his car.

  ‘If I don’t get information, is end of my career. They send me back to Soviet Union. They give me job scrupping floor at Lubianka Prison.’

  ‘Scrubbing floor?’

  ‘Scrupping and vaxing. On hands and knees.’ She sounded bitter. ‘In America is vaxing attachments, is no-vax winyl, is sponge mops. But in Soviet Union … is only brushes and pails and yellow soap. I become old voman in vun year.’

  She shook her head and smiled at him. ‘But I know you come through, darlink, yes? Because you like me?’

  ‘I do like you,’ he said. ‘But not in Russia. I like you here.’

  She shrugged. ‘I like here, too.’

  They left it at that.

  As he got to his desk, Moira peered over the partition wall and said: ‘Who was that woman?’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘In the parking-lot. The gorgeous redhead with the bazooms.’

  ‘Oh, just – I used to know her.’

  ‘Pretty well, I’d say.’ Moira stared at him. ‘I just wonder what the hell it is you’ve got. You’re not charming or good-looking, you aren’t so great in the sack, so what is it? Hypnosis?’

  Before he could enjoy the idea, Fellini was leaning in at him. ‘Can you come to my office pronto? We’ve got to work out some strategy.’

  The strategy Fellini meant was public relations. In his office, he introduced Fred to a worried-looking man with a heavy moustache.

  ‘Sergio is going to beef up our public relations. Our press image is sinking, day by day. The Pentagon could drop us to avoid the heat. I just had a call from General Buddy, and I don’t need to tell you this is not the kind of press his people want. They’ve got their hands full anyh
ow, what with satanism in the ranks … One thing about this jocular geography, it is a full-band-width crisis. We have got to figure out a way of changing our image here, turning it around. Any ideas?’

  Fred said: ‘We could blame Pratt for everything. A disgruntled former employee, discharged for metal, I mean mental instability.’

  ‘H’m. Every robot is a vicissitized jubilee of kinetic anomalies. Does it move, or is it moved?’ said Fellini.

  Sergio grunted. ‘That’s a start anyway.’

  ‘We could get M back.’

  ‘You have to do that anyway. Anything else?’

  Fred said: ‘One thing. It seems to me the press is trying hard to sell M as a murdering monster, only the public doesn’t really buy it. How can you hate something that looks like a Muppet?’

  Sergio said: ‘I like that.’

  ‘OK,’ Fellini said, drawling it out. ‘What then?’

  ‘If we could explain that it has been kidnapped and is being held against its will. And that Pratt killed Jerry.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sergio. ‘Pratt forced Robbie to say “I will kill if necessary.”’

  ‘Robbie?’

  ‘We have to give it a whole new image, maybe a new name. Call it Robbie, something cute. Get clear of this M stuff; M means dial M for murder, M is Fritz Lang’s child-killer, M is nasty. So we call it Robbie or Rupert. Let’s see … Roscoe – no, that sounds like a gun. Reggie? Ugh. Rip? Oops, not really appropriate …’

  Fred thought of John Robinson, the Charing Cross Trunk Murderer. ‘How about Robinson?’

  ‘Hey, great.’ Sergio rolled it out. ‘Rob-in-son. Classy but cute.’

  ‘Robinson Robot. I like it,’ said Fellini.

  Sergio looked slightly less worried. ‘Leave the rest to me.’ As he shook Fred’s hand, he said: ‘You’re a natural for public relations, you know?’

  When the man had loped away, Fellini said: ‘Thanks, Fred. Maybe we can still turn this around. Don’t Want you to think I like playing these slimy press games. But, God, the public! God, sometimes I want to get the public by the throat and say: “Listen, fucker. I seek no less than the collision of the new ultra-crystalline giga-culture with the old gradient of exhaustion. Totally. Totally.”’