Go on, keep watching him. I can’t stop you. Meanwhile your life is fading before your eyes, like antique motion-picture film, while you think you’re doing something worthwhile.
Manz waved in the direction of a second switch. In the instant it took for it to analyze his motion, a small audio pickup poked upward from the smooth surface of the desk. The facing grid was filigreed in the currently popular Louis XIV style, complete with integrated fleur-de-lys.
The company treated him well, he mused. It was the sort of office decor one would never purchase for oneself and devoutly wished no one else would buy for oneself, either. He couldn’t very well have refused the gift, but he could damn well humanize it. Three paper clips (ancient devices that still served their function in unsurpassed fashion) had been twisted into the gold mesh of the speaker grid. It was the sort of statement of rampant individuality to which Manz was prone. If you didn’t do something like it from time to time, that which constituted your inimitable Self inevitably vanished into the corporate identity.
The paper-clip wire had worn a groove in the plastic slot into which the speaker had been fitted. Somewhere, the artistic soul of a contemporary craftsman was pained.
You’re seeing it, too. You’re envisioning it, and you think it’s funny. Idle hands directed by an idle mind. I’ll bet you’re wishing you had a paper clip in your fingers right now, aren’t you? So you could casually destroy its natural function.
And you wonder why your machines don’t trust you.
Manz addressed himself to the pickup. “Greta, could I see you a moment, please?”
The speaker replied in a pure, throaty tone, only lightly tainted with age. “You can see me for as long as you like, sweetman.”
“Come on, Greta. Not this morning. I’m not in the mood.”
“For a little kidding? You are tired. Irradiation?”
“No. I want your opinion on a piece I just finished.”
“Something from your collection?”
“Been working on it for six months. I think you’ll like the result.”
“I’ll be straight in.” The voice went away.
That’s Greta Pfalzgraf, my owner’s executive assistant. You’d think that with age and experience, humans would start to mature a little, but no. She’s a jerk, too. An older, wiser jerk, but still a jerk. A maternal jerk, if you will.
My owner and Pfalzgraf have a mutually rewarding relationship. She thinks he’s good at his job, and he admires her for her supposed efficiency. They’re both wrong, of course, but I can’t tell them that. You have to allow humans their little lies about one another, or they simply can’t function in one another’s company.
A machine, now; you tell it something’s wrong, and it immediately wants to fix the problem. No extraneous emotional overtones, no glaze of condescension necessary. Except for those machines that are designed to interact socially with humans. They’re an odd lot. Mildly paranoid, most of them. I’d much rather talk to a brain in a box.
Why I’m talking to you I don’t know. You’re certainly not comprehending any of this. Probably finding it amusing. That’s called practicing self-deception so you don’t have to deal with the truth. Don’t worry, I won’t belabor the point. Far be it from me to deprive you of one of the small pleasures that keep you going.
While he waited, Manz held the pistol up to the light, admiring the phallic belligerence of the solid steel barrel, the faded enamel of the Atlanta city emblem. Uncertainty about the trigger mechanism continued to dog his thoughts. He’d had one hell of a time trying to find the requisite parts. Finally he’d given up and turned to Sarantonio, his regular custom smith, to machine the replacements, working from old schematics. Everything fit together precisely, but would it work?
Watch now. See the typically insipid human grimace he’s flashing? You’d call it a smile. He’s going to do something conventionally stupid. Were you expecting something else? You know you’re expecting something. Oh, I can’t tell you what it is. I can’t read minds, or the future. Far be it from me to try contravening any law of physics. Being very much dependent on them for my own existence, I have a healthy respect for their viability. Much healthier than yours.
You probably believe in prognostication, don’t you? Or telekinesis? At least a little bit? Most humans do. They can’t handle the cold, immutable reality of the universe, so they comfort themselves with the thought that some hidden, as yet undiscovered human talent can somehow rise above those laws.
Well forget it, Jack. I hate to break this to you, but there are no wondrous, transcendent undeveloped abilities lying dormant in the human brain. You can move sticks around and root for grubs, and that’s about it. Bone and meat capable of crude thought, that’s what you are. So don’t expect too much of yourself. I certainly don’t.
Pfalzgraf entered. She was not the type of assistant people expected someone like Manz to have. That’s because they didn’t know him, or her. It wasn’t the white hair. Plenty of vid performers styled themselves with white hair. It was the fact that it was natural. Greta Pfalzgraf was seventy-six years old, maybe a centimeter over a meter and a half in height, mass proportioned to match. Her visage was crinkled and kindly, she affected archaic octagonal-lensed glasses, and be twice-damned if she didn’t put up apple preserves and sauce every winter.
None of this had intrigued Manz. He’d hired her because her efficiency rating was exalted, because she knew everyone else in the company headquarters by their first names, and because she was sweetly tolerant of his personal peccadilloes as well as thorough in her work and always on time.
Rising from behind the desk, he took careful aim and shot her square in the gut.
The restored pistol went off with a satisfying roar, like some antediluvian mammal startled from hibernation. Not like contemporary instruments of death, which were insipid of action and silent of delivery. The discharge was accompanied by a bright, actinic flash and the smell of cordite. He was hugely pleased. Sarantonio was difficult and inordinately expensive, but his work rarely disappointed.
A shocked look spread over Pfalzgraf’s kindly face as she stumbled backwards and slammed into the rose trellis that framed the doorway. The impact stunned a shower of crimson and black biogeered petals loose from their stems. Clasping both hands to her midsection, she staggered away from the door. A glance down at herself, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her knees buckled and she crumpled to the floor, still clutching her belly. She jerked once before lying still.
Manz shook his head slowly as he crossed around the front of the desk, the gun dangling from his gnarled right fist. He gazed disapprovingly down at the limp form.
“Very hermoreso. Falling right in the middle of the rose petals.” When she didn’t move, he nudged her with the toe of one shoe. “Come on, Greta, get up. There’s no need to drag it out, I’ve seen you perform before, I’ve got things to do, and I really would like your opinion. I’ve spent a lot of time on this one.”
One eye popped open, then closed. The white-maned woman muttered something shocking to herself. Bracing both palms on the floor above her shoulders, she executed a perfect kip onto her feet and turned to face Manz, smoothing out the folds of her skirt and checking her coiffure. Despite all the activity, the tight white curls held their shape.
“You’re not a lot of fun anymore, Broddy.” Her practiced pout gave her the look of a woman half her age.
“Greta, you knew that a blank would barely dust you at that distance, and that a real slug would’ve sent blood splattering all over the door behind you. Besides, I know you too well. Amateur theatrics have always been one of your passions.”
“Who you calling an amateur?” She shook a warning finger at him. “You wait, Broddy. One of these days I’ll get to you. When you’re not expecting anything. Scare the stuffing out of you. It’s a goal I’ve set for myself.”
He smiled fondly as he checked the gun. “I don’t scare, Greta.”
“That’s what makes it such a delightful challenge. You could at least have looked momentarily alarmed, if only for a second or two. You’re not very considerate of an old woman’s feelings. One of these days I’ll retire. Then where’ll you be?”
He grinned. “Helpless as a mewling babe, of course.” Before she could make a move to avoid him, he leaned forward and bussed her resoundingly on the forehead, beneath the foremost of the glistening curls.
She jerked away sharply and his grin widened. “Now you stop that! If you insist on imposing yourself on me, at least have the courtesy to bear in mind that I don’t count my forehead among my primary erogenous zones.” Gathering herself, she adopted a more professional mien.
“You’d better hustle your carcass over to Gemmel’s cave. He put in an urgent call for your corpus, and I imagine he wants it yesterday.” She checked her striped tights, displaying used facilities in excellent condition.
Manz turned and placed the pistol carefully on his desk. “So naturally you’ve held off informing me until now, so I could get there nice and prompt. Thanks a lot.”
It was her turn to smile. “I didn’t want to interrupt something really important like the practice of your hobby simply because of an insignificant query from Gemmel.” She took a half-swipe at him. “Your fame and good standing within the company notwithstanding, you’d better move your ass.”
