War with the Robots

"Why not?" Carl was standing now, hammering on the table with his still tender hands. "Why do I have to finish a year at that stupid, made-work job? It’s completely artificial, designed to torture, not to accomplish anything. The amount of work I do every night could be done in three seconds by a robot when the truck returned. Do you call that teaching social consciousness? Humiliating, boring work that—"

"Sit down Tritt," Prisbi shouted in a high, cracked voice. Don’t you realize where you are? Or who I am? I tell you what to do. You don’t say anything to me outside of yes, sir or no, sir. I say you must finish your primary year of work, then return here. That is an order."

"I say you’re wrong," Carl shouted. "I’ll go over your head — see your superiors — you just can’t decide my life away like that!"

Prisbi was standing now too, a twisted grimace splitting his face in a caricature of a smile. He roared at Carl.

"You can’t go over my head or appeal to anyone else-I have the last word! You hear that? I tell you what to do. I say you work — and you’re going to work. You doubt that? You doubt what I can do?" There was a bubble of froth on his pale lips now. "I say you have shouted at me and used insulting language and threatened me, and the record will bear me out!"

Prisbi fumbled on his desk until he found a microphone. He raised it, trembling, to his mouth and pressed the button.

"This is Sentence Advisor Prisbi. For actions unbecoming a sentenced man when addressing a Sentence Advisor, I recommend Carl Tritt’s sentence be increased by one week."

The answer was instantaneous. The Sentence Control speaker on the wall spoke in its usual voder tones. "Sentence approved. Carl Tritt, seven days have been added to your sentence, bringing it to a total of sixteen years

The words droned on, but Carl wasn’t listening. He was staring down a red tunnel of hatred. The only thing he was aware of in the entire world was the pasty white face of Advisor Prisbi.

"You… didn’t have to do that," he finally choked out. "You don’t have to make it worse for me when you’re supposed to be helping me." Sudden realization came to Carl. "But you don’t want to help me, do you? You enjoy playing God with sentenced men, twisting their lives in your hands—"

His voice was drowned out by Prisbi’s, shouting into the microphone again… deliberate insults…recommend a month be added to Carl Tritt’s sentence… Carl heard what the other man was saying. But he didn’t care any more. He had tried hard to do it their way. He couldn’t do it any longer. He hated the system, the men who designed it, the machines that enforced it. And most of all he hated the man before him, who was a summation of the whole rotten mess. At the end, for all his efforts, he had ended up in the hands of this pulpy sadist. It wasn’t going to be that way at all.

"Take your glasses off," he said in a low voice.

"What’s that… what?" Prisbi said. He had finished shouting into the microphone and was breathing heavily.

"Don’t bother," Carl said reaching slowly across the table. "I’ll do it for you." He pulled the man’s glasses off and laid them gently on the table. Only then did Prisbi realize what was happening. No was all he could say, in a sudden out-rush of breath.

Carl’s fist landed square on those hated lips, broke them, broke the teeth behind them and knocked the man back over his chair onto the floor. The tender new skin on Carl’s hand was torn and blood dripped down his fingers. He wasn’t aware of it. He stood over the huddled, whimpering shape on the floor and laughed. Then he stumbled out of the office, shaken with laughter.

The robot-receptionist turned a coldly disapproving, glass and steel, face on him and said something. Still laughing he wrenched a heavy light stand from the floor and battered the shining face in. Clutching the lamp he went out into the hall.

Part of him screamed in terror at the enormity of what he had done, but just part of his mind. And this small voice was washed away by the hot wave of pleasure that surged through him. He was breaking the rules-all of the rules-this time. Breaking out of the cage that had trapped him all of his life.

As he rode down in the automatic elevator the laughter finally died away, and he wiped the dripping sweat from his face. A small voice scratched in his ear.

"Carl Tritt, you have committed violation of sentence and your sentence is hereby increased by…"

"Where are you!" he bellowed. "Don’t hide there and whine in my ear. Come out!" He peered closely at the wall of the car until he found the glass lens.

"You see me, do you?" he shouted at the lens. "Well I see you too!" The lamp stand came down and crashed into the glass. Another blow tore through the thin metal and found the speaker. It expired with a squawk.