the corner of my apartment, not consuming much juice, staring at the walls, a bot with nothing but time and nothing to do with it. Now I had a short list of objectives that didn't include driving a cab and staying out of trouble.
I stopped by a robot wash and charged a wash and wax job. The Diode might have a dress code, and a smudged chassis might prove a hindrance. It didn't take long to get back my gleaming chassis. There were still traces of damage to my paint job, but beyond that, there wasn't a hint that I'd been subjectedto anything more traumatic than an overweight pigeon perching on my shoulder. That was the miracle of my one-of-a-kind alloy, so experimental that there wasn't even a name for it yet. I felt better, more functional. Illogical, since the wash did little to improve my performance except clear some grit from my right elbow joint, and that was a .0003 performance hindrance.
I went back to Jung's apartment and waited for him to get back from work. There was a newspaper waiting at his front door. I found a seat on his sofa and scanned the paper cover to cover while running an internal diagnostic for Grey's worm. Reading was such a low level task, it left 99 percent of my processing power free to dig around in my electronic brain.
It'd been a while since I'd read a paper. The details were different, but the world was all the same. The Biological Rights League was saying bad stuff about robots. The Learned Council was pushing some new technological breakthrough. The Big Brains were discussing the utopian world we—I guess that included me, too—were creating. A couple of labs exploded. Crime was up. Mutant births were up. Pollution was up. Business as usual.
There was a brief article about my apartment exploding on page eight. It measured exactly two inches by one inch, including the stock photo of me. Explosions weren't that big a deal in Empire, but you'd think my former celebrity status would've earned me at least another three-fourths of an inch.
Internally, I'd come up with nothing, something I was getting used to. Grey's psychic empathy with machines must've been pretty high-end stuff. Or maybe by now my maintenance protocols had already expunged his influence, isolated and devoured the foreign program. It was always possible.
There was a distinctly metal against metal knock on the door. A robot. Immediately, I thought of Knuckles. But therewas no reason to suspect he'd found me here. Still, my aggression index hoped to hell it was as I opened the door.
It was Humbolt, Lucia Napier's butler auto. "Yo, Mack. Gotch'ya gift from Miss Napier here." Without giving me time to refuse, he strode into the apartment with a big box under his arm. He tossed the box on the coffee table and saluted. "There you go, pal. Enjoy it."
He moved toward the door again, but I grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Don't wrinkle the suit, bub," he said.
"What's this about?" I asked.
"Retune your audios, Mack. It's a gift from the lady. Y'know, the one you met earlier today. Classy dame. Big penthouse. Real doll in a squishy organic way."
"I didn't ask for anything."
"You don't have to ask for gifts. That's part a what makes 'em gifts."
"What if I don't want it?"
"Then throw it out," he replied. "The boss wanted me to deliver it personally, so that's what I did. What you do with it afterward ain't my problem." He stepped back and smoothed his jacket. "But if I were you, I'd take it. You could use some style, if you ask me."
"How'd you find me?"
"You stuck in a question askin' loop, Mack? The lady has ways of keepin' tabs on guys."
"Guys like me?" I asked. "Guys like Tony Ringo?" Maybe Humbolt was right. Maybe I was stuck in a loop.
"She don't bother with losers like Ringo," he said. "Guess you must've caught her eye."
I went over to the box and opened it. Inside was a dark blue suit, pinstriped. I pulled out the jacket and wasn't surprised itwas large enough to fit my shoulders. It looked expensive and obviously
I stopped by a robot wash and charged a wash and wax job. The Diode might have a dress code, and a smudged chassis might prove a hindrance. It didn't take long to get back my gleaming chassis. There were still traces of damage to my paint job, but beyond that, there wasn't a hint that I'd been subjectedto anything more traumatic than an overweight pigeon perching on my shoulder. That was the miracle of my one-of-a-kind alloy, so experimental that there wasn't even a name for it yet. I felt better, more functional. Illogical, since the wash did little to improve my performance except clear some grit from my right elbow joint, and that was a .0003 performance hindrance.
I went back to Jung's apartment and waited for him to get back from work. There was a newspaper waiting at his front door. I found a seat on his sofa and scanned the paper cover to cover while running an internal diagnostic for Grey's worm. Reading was such a low level task, it left 99 percent of my processing power free to dig around in my electronic brain.
It'd been a while since I'd read a paper. The details were different, but the world was all the same. The Biological Rights League was saying bad stuff about robots. The Learned Council was pushing some new technological breakthrough. The Big Brains were discussing the utopian world we—I guess that included me, too—were creating. A couple of labs exploded. Crime was up. Mutant births were up. Pollution was up. Business as usual.
There was a brief article about my apartment exploding on page eight. It measured exactly two inches by one inch, including the stock photo of me. Explosions weren't that big a deal in Empire, but you'd think my former celebrity status would've earned me at least another three-fourths of an inch.
Internally, I'd come up with nothing, something I was getting used to. Grey's psychic empathy with machines must've been pretty high-end stuff. Or maybe by now my maintenance protocols had already expunged his influence, isolated and devoured the foreign program. It was always possible.
There was a distinctly metal against metal knock on the door. A robot. Immediately, I thought of Knuckles. But therewas no reason to suspect he'd found me here. Still, my aggression index hoped to hell it was as I opened the door.
It was Humbolt, Lucia Napier's butler auto. "Yo, Mack. Gotch'ya gift from Miss Napier here." Without giving me time to refuse, he strode into the apartment with a big box under his arm. He tossed the box on the coffee table and saluted. "There you go, pal. Enjoy it."
He moved toward the door again, but I grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Don't wrinkle the suit, bub," he said.
"What's this about?" I asked.
"Retune your audios, Mack. It's a gift from the lady. Y'know, the one you met earlier today. Classy dame. Big penthouse. Real doll in a squishy organic way."
"I didn't ask for anything."
"You don't have to ask for gifts. That's part a what makes 'em gifts."
"What if I don't want it?"
"Then throw it out," he replied. "The boss wanted me to deliver it personally, so that's what I did. What you do with it afterward ain't my problem." He stepped back and smoothed his jacket. "But if I were you, I'd take it. You could use some style, if you ask me."
"How'd you find me?"
"You stuck in a question askin' loop, Mack? The lady has ways of keepin' tabs on guys."
"Guys like me?" I asked. "Guys like Tony Ringo?" Maybe Humbolt was right. Maybe I was stuck in a loop.
"She don't bother with losers like Ringo," he said. "Guess you must've caught her eye."
I went over to the box and opened it. Inside was a dark blue suit, pinstriped. I pulled out the jacket and wasn't surprised itwas large enough to fit my shoulders. It looked expensive and obviously
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