Robot Adept

Bane tried to reach with an arm—and extruded an appendage whose terminus was a roller brush. He lowered this to the floor and twitched his fingers. The brush spun. He started brushing the floor.

DO NOT REACT, a panel flashed.

Then a serf wearing the emblem of Citizen Blue entered. “Good thing I got here in time!” he exclaimed. “They had us blocked off. Come on; we’re going home.”

Bane continued brushing.

“Hey, you’re safe now!” the man said. “At least, you will be when we get you to the Citizen’s territory. Come on!”

Bane ignored him, playing the dumb machine.

Disgruntled, the serf departed.

They continued brushing the floor. In due course the job was done. The two other machines had cleaned off the chairs and dusted the walls. “Return to storage,” the speaker said. They returned to the storage chamber. There they parked and waited for another hour. What was going on? Obviously the self-willed machines were protecting them, but could the chase still be on? Where was Citizen Blue?

The panel flashed. REACT.

Then Citizen Blue walked in, followed by Sheen, his wife. “Is this chamber secure?” Blue asked.

“Yes, Citizen,” the speaker replied.

“I owe you.”

“No. Your activities benefit our kind.”

Blue faced the cyborg brusher. “Are you in good condition?”

Now at last Bane felt free to answer; Blue was evidently legitimate. “Yes,” he said through his mouthspeaker, which was now set near the top of the apparatus.

“This is a respite, not the end. You will assume our likenesses. Keep alert.”

Then the dismantling unit approached, and reversed the prior procedure. It extracted Bane’s arms, legs, torso and head and assembled them, so that soon he was back to his original condition. Agape was removed from the brain chamber, as a mound of jellylike flesh, and she stretched out and up and became herself in human form.

“You will assume our forms,” Blue said. “We shall not be challenged in the halls, but you would be.”

Agape began to change again, orienting on Sheen.

“No,” Blue said. “Emulate me. The sensors can distinguish between flesh and machine.”

“But I am alien,” she protested. “They will know I am not human. I can emulate only an android, if they test.”

“They distinguish human from android by fingerprints,” Blue said. “The self-willed machines will give you my prints.”

She nodded. She shifted until she looked so much like him that Bane was startled. Then she went to a unit in the wall where a unit overlaid her blank fingertips with pseudoflesh molded in the likeness of Blue’s prints. Blue got out of his Citizen’s robe and set it on her. The emulation was complete.

Meanwhile Sheen was attending to Bane. She simply had the dismantling unit remove her brain unit and exchange it with his. Abruptly Mach was in her body, and she was in his. This one would certainly pass inspection!

“Go to my private residence and remain there until we return,” Blue said. He was applying pseudoflesh the self-willed machines provided, remolding his face and body to resemble Agape’s. He had done this before, when he had rescued Bane from the captivity of Citizen Purple; he was good at emulations himself.

“But thou—when they find thee and take thee for Agape—” Bane protested.

“They will discover they are in error,” Blue said. “Sheen and I will serve as diversion until the two of you are safe. This is a necessary precaution; they want you very much.”

“Do not be concerned for us,” Sheen said from his body. “We are immune to molestation.”

Bane hoped that was the case. He faced the door.

“And let her do the talking,” Blue said from Agape’s apparent body.

Bane had to smile. It would not do to have the seeming Sheen speaking the dialect of Phaze!

They left. There were serfs, but those stood respectfully aside, eyes downcast. The two of them walked down the hall to the nearest transport station. Agape, as Blue, lifted her right hand to the panel. The prints registered. In a moment the panel slid to the side to reveal a blue chamber: Citizen Blue’s personal conveyance. They stepped in.

The chamber moved, first rising, then traveling horizontally. There was no challenge, no delay; they were being transported to the Citizen’s residence.

Bane wanted to take Agape in his arms and kiss her—but even had this been in character in their present guises, he would have found it awkward when she looked like Citizen Blue, who almost exactly resembled his own father Stile.

She looked at him and made a wicked smile. Then she took him in her arms and kissed him. Any watcher would have sworn that it was male kissing female, rather than vice versa.

The transport delivered them directly to Citizen Blue’s suite. There were no servants there, so no awkwardness about identities.

Should they maintain their emulations? They realized that they had to, because Bane had Sheen’s body. It was strange, seeing himself in the mirror, looking so like his other self’s mother! So they settled down and watched news features on the screen, and waited.