“Until it is safe,” Rydberg said.
“Then if you do let us out,” Derec persisted, “how can you be sure we won’t try to escape?”
“We will have to keep a very close watch on you,” Euler replied.
With that, the robot firmly, but gently, pushed Derec aside and moved out the door, the servo following quickly behind. Derec tried to follow them out, but a squared-off utility robot blocked his path, its body streaked with random bands of different colored paints like the colors on an artist’s pallet.
“Stand aside,” Derec told the machine.
“It is dangerous for you outside. I am to keep you inside where it is safe, and have no more conversation with you lest you try and deceive me.”
“Me?” Derec said. “Deceive?”
The robot pushed the door stud and the unit slid closed. Derec turned to Katherine. “What do you make of it?”
She moved to sit on the sofa, then stretched out, looking tired. “We’re being held prisoner by a bunch of robots with no one in charge,” she said, sighing deeply. “The dead man was an exhibitionist who could, apparently, eat anything. They want us to prove our innocence, but refuse to let us see the body or investigate.” She sat up abruptly, eyes narrowing. “Derec, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“They won’t do anything to us without proof of our guilt,” Derec replied. “It’s not in their nature. We’ll stay around and get this straightened out. Then they’ll be happy to send us on our way. Besides, this place has got me really curious. How does it work… why does it work?”
She lay down again, staring at the ceiling. “I’m not so sure they’d really let us leave,” she said, voice distant. “I think we’ve stumbled into something completely crazy. A robot world without humans could take any sort of bizarre turn.”
“But not a… what did you say… completely crazy turn,” he replied. “They can’t be crazy; there’s no logic to crazy. Besides, what makes you think we’ve stumbled into anything? We were brought here, plain and simple, for a reason that hasn’t been made clear yet. Maybe a little time here will help us ferret it out.”
“You ferret it out,” she said. “I’m tired.”
“Well, I’m not.” He moved to the balcony, feeling the stiff wind on his face as the light show continued to rage outside. “I’m going out tonight and do a little poking around.”
She was up from the couch, moving toward him. “They said it was dangerous,” she said quietly, a hand going to his forearm. “Go out tomorrow.”
“Under their watchful eye?” he said, then shook his head. “We need to get around on our own, and this is the time. Besides, a little rain can’t hurt me.”
“Stay,” she said. “I’m afraid,”
“You?” He laughed. “Afraid?”
She pulled her hand away. “All right,” she said. “Go out and get yourself killed. I’m tired of looking out for you anyway.”
“You’re angry.”
“And you’re an idiot.” She turned from him and stared out across the magnificent city, realizing that its beauty was for them alone to appreciate. There was something unutterably sad about that. “How will you get past the door guard?”
“We’ll take his advice and deceive him,” Derec said.
“ We?”
“Will you help me?”
She turned and walked back into the apartment. “Anything to get you out of my hair,” she said over her shoulder.
Derec’s plan was simple enough, but it was one he could use only once. The robots learned quickly enough of human duplicity, arming themselves with the knowledge as a protection. But just this once, it might work.
He crouched beside the sofa, knotting into a tight ball. Just as soon as he was well out of sight of the door, Kate took a deep breath and tried to open it-locked.
She shrugged once in Derec’s direction, then began screaming in terror. A second later the door slid open, the utility robot blocking the entry.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Derec!” she cried, pointing. “He fell from the balcony!”
Without hesitation, the robot rolled into the room, ready to check her story for lies and deceit. He quickly moved toward the balcony, leaning way over the edge to get a look into the night.
Derec jumped up from behind the couch and hurried quietly out the door and into the elevator that took him all the way to the ground and his first positive step in uncovering the mystery of Robot City. He was free, but what that meant here he could only guess.
Chapter 2. The Sluice
Derec exited onto the wide street, hurrying across it to the shadows of buildings a half a block away. From there he took a few minutes to turn back and study the surroundings he had just left behind, trying to memorize the positions and shapes of the buildings near his tower. If his feelings were correct and the city was evolving outward, finding his way back could be a difficult, if not impossible, task. He didn’t worry too much about it, though. He felt completely safe in this world of robots and figured that if he got lost, he’d simply turn himself in to the nearest robot of decent sophistication and be sent back.
That dwelt upon, he turned his attention completely to exploring the new world that an unseen fate had guided him to. In his current pristine state of innocence and awareness, it was difficult for Derec not to see the hand of destiny in his wanderings. It was as if his amnesia was an emotional and intellectual purging of sorts, set in motion to prepare him for a journey of which Robot City could be only a part. Since that was the only feeling or need he had to work with, he plunged himself into it with relish, enthusiasm, and as much good humor as he could muster. Katherine would never understand his feelings in this matter, but then Katherine had a life to go back to and memories to sustain her. For Derec, this was it, his whole world, and he wanted to know as much about it as he possibly could.
The city stretched all around him like some magnificent clockwork. The shapes of the buildings, from towering spires to squat storage warehouses, were all precise and multifaceted, like growing crystals. And the shapes seemed to be designed as much for aesthetic pleasure as pragmatic necessity. This concept formed the core of a theory within Derec’s mind, and one that he would want to explore in greater detail when he had time for reflection. For nothing exists in a vacuum. Robots were not motivated independently by unreasoning emotion. They had to have reasons for their actions, and by what Derec had seen, their actions were all directed absolutely, despite Rydberg’s claims of autonomy.
The cold winds sliced through him like a knife through water, and the sky rumbled and quaked, yet all around him he watched a furious activity that kept the mechanism of Robot City moving to its own internal rhythm and purpose. Hundreds of robots filled the streets around him, all moving and directed. All ignored his presence.
Streets were cleaned, even as spray painting was conducted on dull-sheened buildings, the sprayers held close to the target in the stiff wind-which probably explained the bands of paint on the utility robot that guarded the humans. Converted mining cars sped by, filled with broken equipment and scrap metal, their beamed headlights illuminating the streets before them like roving mechanical fireflies. Once he took to the shadows as a whole squad of drones, accompanied by a supervisor robot he hadn’t seen before, drove past in an open-bed equipment mover and passed his position without a look before disappearing around a distant corner. He thought about following them, but decided that he would continue exploring slowly at first, getting a feel for his world and its parameters.
The questions in his mind seemed endless, and their answers only led to more questions. Who began Robot City, and why did the robots not know of their own origin? Why this place, this particular planet? Why a city of human proportions for a world of the nonhuman? Euler had called Robot City the perfect place for humans-why? The murder, to Derec, was nothing but a small nuisance with large complications. What really interested him was the motivation behind the city itself.