The Automatic Detective Page 11

  Knuckles the Mark Three was there, still wearing my bowler. And Grey sat in a cozy chair beside the auto.

  "Hey, Mack, good to see you," said Grey.

  Knuckles beeped in a decidedly sarcastic way.

  Something ruffled in the bunch of plants next to them, and out stepped a four-foot, two-inch biological in overalls. His skin was a shiny emerald hue and 30 percent of his height was devoted to his forehead. He had big black eyes and two antennae over them. He cradled a plant in his gloved hands. Whatever it was, it was breathing surprisingly loud for a plant.

  He smiled with his very small mouth. "So you must be this Mack Megaton I've been hearing so much about."

  "If I must," I agreed. "And let me guess. You must be Greenman."

  He touched his face in that spot where he should've had a nose but didn't. I got the gesture anyway.

  9

  "You can call me Abner," said Greenman. "Got to tell you, Mack, I'm impressed. First, you find Tony Ringo in . . . how long has it been, Grey?"

  "Eleven hours, boss."

  "Ten hours, forty-four minutes, six seconds," I corrected. "Give or take."

  Greenman grinned. It was hard to spot with his little mouth. "See, that's what I like in my people. Precision. An eye for detail. But what truly impresses me is that you know my name."

  "Wasn't hard to come by," I said.

  "Just the same, not many people know it. Isn't that right, Grey?"

  Grey nodded. "That's right, boss. Like to keep a low profile, stay out of the . . . whaddayacallit . . . limelight."

  "Exactly," said Greenman. "You seem to be a remarkable detective for a bot who makes a living driving a cab."

  "I'm a versatile unit," I replied.

  He set the plant down in a bed of soil. The breathing blue flora scuttled over to a comfortable spot and dug in its roots. Greenman stroked its leaves. The plant purred.

  "So what do you want, Mack? Money, I suppose. Everybody wants money. Makes the world go round, doesn't it?"

  "I'll take some money."

  "See that Mack gets a fair payment for services rendered. Throw in a bonus for timeliness and . . . what's that phrase they use?"

  "Chutzpah, boss."

  "Yes, chutzpah." Greenman frowned, mumbling to himself. "Chutzpah, chutzpah, chutzpah." He shrugged. "Odd sounding word, isn't it?"

  Knuckles beeped his agreement.

  "Perhaps I should consider making Mack a permanent addition to the payroll," said Greenman.

  "Don't know, boss," said Grey. "They already sell chauffeur autos for cheap."

  Knuckles beeped again, this time with a shrill antagonism.

  It was a safe assumption that Greenman's goons weren't very fond of me. Our first meeting hadn't gone so well and now I'd made them look bad in front of their boss.

  "Of course, money isn't the real reason you're here now, is it, Mack?" asked Greenman.

  "No, but I've got a power bill to pay."

  "Well, what other personal business can I help you with?"

  "I want to know who Ringo's working for."

  "As would I, Mack. As would I."

  "You don't know?"

  "Until a few days ago, I would've said he was in my employ. Apparently I was mistaken." Greenman frowned. "In any case, I've arranged for a discussion with Ringo, and you're welcome to sit in."

  Grey stood. "I don't know if that's such a good idea, boss. How do you know we can trust this bot?"

  Knuckles beeped his agreement.

  "Come now, Grey. We wouldn't even have Ringo in our custody without Mack's services. His trustworthiness is as reliable as your considerable talents, so to question him is to bring yourself into question as well. If you're uncertain of yourself, please feel free to say so now."

  Grey sneered, but didn't say anything.

  "Excellent." Greenman tapped a button on his dusty overalls, and they transformed into a wrinkle-free olive suit complete with a dark green tie in a perfect Windsor knot. I could've really used one of those. All the dust was gone, and there was a fresh crease in the pants and some shiny cuff links as well. "Shall we, gentlemen?"

  "After you, boss," said Grey.

  We walked down another hallway. Greenman led the way, with Grey next, then me, then Knuckles clomping right behind me. Close enough, I detected a very slight ping in his left shoulder joint every time his right foot hit the floor. An urge to take back my bowler perched on his head and dismantle him bolt by bolt in the process rose in me, but I squelched it.

  They were holding Ringo in a clean white room with clean white lights and a single clean white chair. There was a faded stain on the ceiling. Old blood, I guessed, though I didn't ponder how it'd gotten up there.

  Ringo looked scared. Very scared. He was always a little punchy, always had this look on his face that said he was perfectly willing to pick a fight, even if he wasn't always willing to follow that attitude to its logical conclusion. Now, he looked terrified, sweating and crying and holding his broken arm close to his body. I was somewhat surprised that he didn't appear any more roughed up than the sorry state he'd arrived in. There was plenty of time left to work him over. Hell, maybe Greenman wanted to get a few slaps in himself.

  Somehow, I doubted it. Not because Greenman was such a little guy either. Abner Greenman was clearly a man in charge, and Tony Ringo was a loser, designed by nature to be pushed around by anyone and everyone. I felt sorry for him. In the messy business of biological evolution, defective designs were inevitable. It wasn't much different than robots, except we got to learn our lesson after one or two unsatisfactory prototypes. But biologicals, they just kept churning out the useless ones.

  No, Greenman wasn't the kind of guy to slap around anyone. That was the impression I got, anyway. Could've been wrong because Ringo was trembling, and it wasn't me or Knuckles or Grey that he was staring at now. It was little Abner Greenman.

  "Hello, Tony," said Greenman.

  "Hello, Mr. Greenman, sir." Tony's voice shuddered. "I'm sorry. They made me do it. I'm sorry."

  Greenman circled Ringo. He rose an inch in the air with each step, like he was walking an invisible staircase. When he got high enough, he straightened Ringo's collar. "Look at you, young man. Such a mess."

  Greenman's antennae twitched. The door opened, and a nurse walked into the room. She was blue-skinned, voluptuous, with breasts threatening to spill out of her low-cut uniform, which I doubted was regulation. Maybe it was this new detective gig that made me notice, but she had long legs that went on forever, circling the curve of space and meeting themselves back at the end of eternity. And her face: it belonged in movies. Monster movies. The kind where some thing with six eyes and a lamprey mouth sucks out teenagers' brains.

  Her voice was smooth as jagged glass. "Now, this'll only hurt for a minute, sweetie." The nurse injected something into Ringo's broken arm. He winced. His arm made a weird crackling noise for twelve seconds, then—bam—it straightened good as new.

  "Thank you, nurse." Greenman patted her gently on the ass.

  "Fresh." She chuckled. Or gurgled. She ran a green tongue around her sucker mouth in a way I assumed was supposed to be appealing and pinched his tiny cheeks before swinging her hips to an out-of-the-way corner.

  Greenman turned his attention back to Ringo. "Now, isn't that better?"

  "Yes, sir, Mister Greenman."

  "Good, because I find pain in the subject distracts from the extraction process."

  Ringo paled.

  "You don't got to do that, Mister Greenman. You don't! I'll tell you everything! Everything you want to know!"

  "I know you will, Tony. Every little detail."

  The nurse sashayed over. She dropped a tin beanie on Ringo's skull. It had two short antennae on top.

  "Now, I advise you to pay attention, Mr. Megaton," said Greenman. "You're about to witness something few men have ever seen. And if you're fortunate, I might even allow Mr. Grey to let you keep the memory."

  Ringo started blathering
, but he didn't last long. The nurse pumped him with another injection, and he went limp.

  "The device acts as a conduit. However, the talent belongs to me. It's rather like reading a book." Greenman put his hands on the beanie. His eyes glowed black. Don't ask me to describe how. I scanned it, and I still can't explain it. The beanie lit up, and lines of electricity ran up the antennae. Ringo groaned. He twitched and foamed at the mouth.

  It didn't take long: twenty seconds. If Ringo's mind was a book, then it was a short one.

  When Greenman finished, Ringo sat there, staring blankly, drooling, his lips flapping but no sound coming out.

  "Is he going to be okay?" I asked. I didn't like Ringo, but I wasn't sure anybody deserved to end up like this.

  "Oh, I'm afraid not," said Greenman. "The process is terribly traumatic. Most minds can't withstand it. Rather like burning a book while you read it." The nurse handed him a handkerchief, and he wiped his hands. "The bad news is that he knew very little. I might be able to extract a useful bit, but not the information you required."

  "And I'm supposed to take your word for it."

  "To be perfectly honest, Mr. Megaton, I don't see that you have a choice."

  Knuckles clamped me on the shoulder.

  So here we were again: Knuckles, Grey, and me. I'd formulated battle strategies against Knuckles, and was confident I could take him down. But I hadn't figured a way around Grey yet, and Greenman was an unknown quantity.

  "No need for violence, Mark Three." Greenman's eyes flashed golden, and his antennae straightened. I levitated off the floor. "Mr. Megaton will be leaving quietly. Won't you, Mack?"

  It's funny. You get used to being the toughest bot in the room, then find yourself on the short end of things all of a sudden. I could take Ringo, but now a cheese sandwich could take Ringo, so that wasn't saying much. I stood a statistically favorable chance against Knuckles. But Grey's electrokinesis and Greenman's telekinesis put me in a tight spot. I backed down.

  It was the only logical thing to do. As a machine, it made perfect sense, but it still bugged me, somewhere deep inside my artificial soul.

  "Sure, Abner, sure."

  He released his telekinetic grip and lowered me gently to the floor. I could've stepped on him, but what would that have accomplished?

  "Please escort Mr. Megaton out, would you, Grey."

  "But, boss—" started Grey.

  Greenman shut him up with a hard glance.

  "Sure thing, Mr. Greenman," said Grey. And he meant it. Whatever his hard feelings toward me, they didn't hold up to his fear of this four-foot biological. I was almost insulted by that, but I figured Greenman was the most dangerous guy in whatever room he happened to be in. Who knew what other strange mental powers he might have in that giant brain of his? Not me, and I didn't think I wanted to find out.

  The nurse sauntered over and caressed Greenman's antennae. He ran his hand along her fishnets. She made that gurgling sound again, and they exited.

  That left Grey and Knuckles to deal with, but a smart bot knew when he was beat. I cast one last scan at Tony Ringo, now nothing but a bag of meat. Whatever information he might've had was wiped clean, and I had nothing left to go on.

  Grey and Knuckles escorted me back to the Condor. None of us said a word. I got in back without being told, and Knuckles hopped in beside me. The windows went black. The rotorcar lifted off, and I was off on another of those meandering, time-killing rides.

  The backseat was a tight fit for a couple of big robots, and Knuckles wasn't mindful of my personal zone. He was close enough to drip oil on my suit collar. So close, I could hear the hum of his wiring. He kept his optical trained on me the whole time, but I kept staring straight ahead.

  "Don't suppose you'd like to give me back my hat?" I asked casually.

  He beeped, shrilly and without humor.

  "How do you keep it on that misshapen box of a head anyway? Duct tape?"

  Knuckles didn't utter another beep, and that was the end of our discussion for the remainder of the trip.

  It's always a little strange for me sitting with another robot that hasn't qualified for citizen status. Here I was with all the rights (well, most of them anyway) of a biological citizen, while Knuckles was basically considered a walking refrigerator. I could bust him to pieces, and it'd only be considered an act of vandalism. We were both made up of the same basic components. Except I'd passed my minimal sentience examination, and he hadn't. Maybe no one had ever bothered to get him tested. Maybe he had taken the test and flunked out on the Rorschach portion. Maybe when they showed him that blot of ink he'd answered honestly, saying it was just a blot of ink instead of lying like I had.

  Butterfly, my tin-plated ass.

  Of course, they'd known I was lying. That was okay. It was one of the marks of sentience, the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy and still indulge in fantasy. In other words: I lied, therefore I thought.

  For whatever reason, I always felt bad among less fortunate robots. Even an old Mark Three that, from what I could tell, would've been a real exhaust port.

  The Condor finally set down in an alley. I calculated my position by the skyline. It didn't do me a lot of good for finding Greenman. He could've been hidden away in a hundred places in this town. Hell, they could've flown around in a big circle and deposited me right across the street from Greenman's secret hideout, and I wouldn't have known.

  "Got a hanky?" I asked Grey as I got out of the rotorcar. "Your boy here is leaking oil."

  Knuckles clamped onto my shoulder. It was a mistake. Outside of the car with enough room to maneuver and a reaction already cued up in my battle simulator, I didn't hold back. I grabbed him by his head, kicked his left leg out from under him and pushed. He fell over. Deftly, I snatched the bowler off his head when he did. It was an impressive move. Not the push. Anyone with enough strength and the right angle could knock over a Mark Three. Not crushing the hat in my clumsy mitt was a real accomplishment. Maybe my fine motor coordination was finally coming along.

  I dusted the hat gently while Knuckles struggled to get back up. It was not a pretty sight.

  I figured Grey would try and shut me down with his mind, but he didn't do anything. "Let's get this straight, Megaton. I don't like you, and if it were up to me, I'd fry you to the very last circuit." His eyes flashed green for a second. "But Mr. Greenman, he likes you. Thinks you might be useful to us, might be a good guy to have around. I think you've recorded too much, but, hey, the boss says not to touch you, so I don't touch you. But when he changes his mind . . ."

  His eyes flashed again.

  By now, Knuckles had creaked his way to his feet again. He barked three aggressive pings in my direction.

  "That's enough," said Grey. He reached into his suit and pulled out a thick envelope, which he handed to me. "Compliments of Mr. Greenman. Now, I'd advise you to get a new apartment, get back to driving a cab, and forget about any of this business."

  Grey and Knuckles climbed back into their rotorcar. I tipped my hat to the Condor as it soared away.

  The envelope was full of cash. Not bad for my first day's work as a detective. I could only hope tomorrow would be as lucrative.

  10

  I'd tried to find Julie and the kids, and I'd actually come closer than I'd expected to, which wasn't very close at all. Tony Ringo was gone now, and I had no way of finding Abner Greenman. Even if I did find him, I doubted I could convince him to give me the information he'd sucked out of Ringo's head. Information, in all likelihood, not worth much anyway because Ringo had been a small-time loser. Someone would have had to have been an idiot to trust him with any secrets.

  There were the other two goons, Harelip and Dome Head. I hadn't gotten the chance to talk to them, and by now, they'd probably had their brains emptied, too.

  But I wasn't giving up yet.

  The cash in my pocket, though I hadn't bothered to count it yet, was thick enough to pay my power bill for a few weeks at the very least. Fre
ed from the burden of daily employment, I could blow off my job and keep looking. I didn't think Greenman would appreciate me using his payment to continue wedging myself into the gears of whatever sordid goings-on were taking place, but maybe he would. Chutzpah, he'd said.

  Continuing toward this objective would almost certainly lead me back into confrontation with Greenman's goons. As long as Grey had me by the on/off switch, I was at a severe disadvantage. My own diagnostics had turned up zilch in my electronic brain. I had no choice. I needed an expert.

  My shrink wasn't too happy to see me at her apartment door. I attributed this to the lateness of the hour. She adjusted her flannel robe.

  "How did you get this address?" Doc Mujahid asked.

  "Phone book," I replied.

  "How'd you get past the doorman?"

  "He was asleep. Might've woken him still, but that's some thick carpeting in your lobby, Doc. So are you going to invite me in?"

  "Do you know what time it is?"

  "I always know what time it is, Doc."

  A curious smile crossed her face. "Was that a joke, Mack?"

  "Might've been." I shrugged. "Even I'm not always sure."

  The almost-joke was enough to get the doc's interest up, but she didn't step aside yet.

  "I know it's late," I said. "And I know you don't want patients bothering you outside of the office, but—"

  "Actually, Mack, this is the first time I've ever had a patient stop by my apartment."

  That made sense. How many emergencies could pop up in a cybernetic psychologist's patient roster? Robots were usually polite enough to wait until office hours.

  "Nice suit, Mack."

  She showed me to her living room and excused herself to make some coffee.

  The doc had a nice place. It wasn't as nice as Lucia's, but not too shabby. The living room was big enough for a sofa and a couple of bookshelves. There were some paintings and knickknacks, but nothing to draw my attention. It wasn't that big, but I assumed there were other rooms behind the various doors.