The file is extensive. While I play it back, I make my hourly query of my owner’s implant. I note that his blood pressure and pulse rate have lowered, and his brainwave traces have moderated. My medical software tells me this is consonant with a slight reduction in mental stress. I conjecture that playing memory file HALLORAN somehow has a soothing effect on my owner.
“Lieutenant Halloran, at ease,” he says, and I fall silent while my owner talks to his nephews. “The real Halloran nearly got our platoon killed a dozen times, because he wanted to look like a gung-ho gyrene—win a medal, impress the rear-echelon honchos, get himself promoted. So he kept volunteering us for lurps—hell, long-range reconnaissance patrols to you—and ambush patrols. All the scut jobs. Then one night he walked us into Sandinista turf, and he got half of us killed. I caught a bullet in the spine that night.”
A subroutine whose existence I have not suspected makes itself known. I record his words into a special memory file. They will be evaluated by a psychiatrist, who is concerned with my owner’s adaptation to his disability.
My owner again shows the VRM-1 group photograph to his nephews. “Look, I want you kids to know about the guys in my unit. See this dude, Wynsocki?”
“The white boy with the long mustache?” a nephew asks.
“Yeah, that’s Wynsocki. We called him the Sock. He saved us all one night.” My owner’s voice-stress levels remain within acceptable limits, if just barely. “See, Halloran sent us into a village, and he ordered us not to shoot until the Reds opened fire, so we’d know exactly where they were. That’s how an ambush patrol works. Only word had it that the Sandinistas had a whole company in that village. We knew we were dead goin’ in, but try telling that to Halloran. Orders are orders, he said, so write your will if you’re scared.
“We got to the edge of the village, and the Sock grins at me, and says he’ll obey orders and let them shoot first. Then— then he runs into the village, shoutin’ and screamin’, and that’s when all the Reds in the village start shootin’ at him. That bought us enough time to get under cover and save our bacon, but it was all over for the Sock. I guess he had better luck than me.” One hand hits the side of his chair.
There is a long silence, lasting tens of millions of microseconds, during which the nephews stop eating the smaller objects from VRM-T-203. When one finally speaks his voice-stress level is high. He says that it is time to go home, and they leave at once.
I clean up the living room while my owner prepares and eats his dinner. During my next check of his implant I note that his blood-alcohol level has risen to 0.09%, a significant but not worrisome amount. After dinner he returns to the living room. He carries VRM-T-200 on his lap, an object which contains brown bottles. He turns on the television and drinks from the bottles.
Then he speaks, and both his voice-stress and decibel levels reach high and dangerous readings. I roll into the living room, alerted for a medical emergency. I check my emergency systems: medical software, siren, oxygen bottle and mask, modem and telephone cord. “Do you require assistance? Is there trouble?”
“Trouble! You didn’t hear the news? We’re goddamn withdrawing from Nicaragua !”
Analyzing this as best I can, I find “withdraw” in my vocabulary. It is a medical term, referring to certain side effects of addictive substances. “Error message fifty-two. Undefined use of ‘withdraw.’ You are not an addict.”
“ ‘Addict’? What are you talking about, you scraphead? I’m not addicted to any damned thing.” My owner drinks from a bottle. “Maybe Uncle Sam is the addict. Yeah. He’s hooked on getting us into wars, then quitting before we can win. All that talk about how we’re fightin’ for democracy—what were they doing, just throwing us away? Tell me!”
“Error message twelve,” I answer. “Data not available.”
“Goddamn machine!” He throws the bottle at me. I am undamaged, although the bottle shatters. “Know why they gave me a robot nursemaid? Because you’re goddamn cheaper’n a human worker! They weren’t going to waste money on—forget it. Forget everything. Everyone wants to forget about us soldiers. Even family.” He rolls his wheelchair out of the room.
There is broken glass all over the living room floor. I get my cleaning equipment and remove it.
My owner goes to bed early, but he does not fall asleep until well after midnight. It is probable that he will not wake until late tomorrow morning, and he will not leave bed until he has been awake over an hour. In the sixty-three days during which I have worked for him I have never seen him vary from this pattern. My medical profiles inform me that this is not standard human behavior, but it does not fall outside the parameters which the VA gave me for my owner. I cannot explain this incongruity.
At 1:37 A.M. I hear unidentifiable noises from my owner’s bedroom. When I go to investigate, I find that a human has entered the bedroom. I examine him in infrared, and find that he does not fit my recognition matrices.
Evidently, he does not fit my owner’s matrices either. “What you want?” he asks. His voice-stress levels are high.
“Just shut up,” the unknown human tells him. “Stay quiet and you won’t get hurt.” The man looks out the window at the side yard, then pulls the window down. He does this with one hand. In his other hand he holds an object which I know I should recognize.
The man points the object at my owner. “Get your hands out where I can see them, spade. Real slow—I don’t want you pulling something on me. Now get out of bed. Slow.”
“I—can’t—walk.” His voice-stress levels verge on the danger line. Following my programming, I switch my medical monitors to full coverage. I now receive an implant update every five seconds. All of my owner’s readings are within tolerable levels, but the trend is upward. “Get up!”
“I can’t! Look, why in hell you think I got that wheelchair?” The man looks at it and makes a grunting noise. Then he notices me. “What’s that?”
“A Vet-Admin robot. It runs errands for me.”
“And calls the cops, too, I bet. Turn it off.”
“It doesn’t have an ’off switch. Hell, it doesn’t even have an instruction manual!”
“Yeah, I’ll just bet,” the intruder says. He comes to me and squats down. As he examines me I study the object in his hand. It strongly resembles certain objects in the group photograph. I feel a 90 percent level of confidence that it is a pistol. My safety program describes pistols and related devices as health hazards.
The intruder grunts again and pulls open my communication panel. In seconds my maintenance circuits alert me to damage: modem disabled. Siren disabled. Primary speaker disabled. It is evident that the intruder knows something of robotics, although he misses my back-up speaker.
He steps back from me and faces my owner. “Now, I’m going to stay here until I’m sure the pigs are through searching this area. Don’t make any trouble for me and you won’t get hurt.”
“Who the hell are you?” my owner asks.
“Let’s just say I’m a free soul, and I’m staying that way.” He waves the pistol. “Where’s your money?”
My owner snorts. “You think I’m rich? Did you ever see a VA disability check?”
“I got to tear this place apart?” The intruder kicks over the wheelchair. “If you got any money, you better talk!”
“OK. There’s five, maybe six bucks in my top dresser drawer.”
“Five or six bucks?” The intruder opens the drawer and extracts the money. “What a place. I didn’t even get that much when I hit the liquor store.”
The intruder sits on the floor, but he keeps the gun pointed at my owner. “Rotten luck. I saw all the long grass and weeds in your yard, and I figured no one lived here. Only it turns out you’re some cripple that don’t mow his lawn. So what am I going to do with you when I leave?”