During the fight he displayed anything but a surgeon’s touch. About the best that could be said for his actions was that he delivered his multitudinous kicks and punches in a craftsmanlike manner.
The security squad pretty much ignored their quarry’s attendant mechanical. Standing as if deactivated, Moses would bestir himself on occasion to remove startled battlers from the scene like a vintner plucking grapes. Thanks to his subtle efforts the pile of struggling humanity surrounding Manz diminished rapidly.
The adjuster adjusted the final grim-faced survivor with a side kick to the solar plexus. The man turned white and doubled over, collapsing to the floor. Panting heavily in his combat stance, Manz hunted for his next opponent, only to discover that the sole remaining individual besides himself still left standing was a friendly one composed of inorganic materials.
“Resume station,” he wheezed. The Minder, which at the onset of fighting had risen to hover safe and out of the way near the ceiling, returned to its accustomed location hard to port of its owner’s head. It had not been damaged in the altercation, nor had it partaken of the activity.
“Thanks for the help.” He eyed Moses uncertainly. “I never knew that your programming allowed for actual physical intercession during combat. What about the mechanical’s prime directive, ‘Thou shalt not harm a human being’?”
“I did not violate the prime,” replied Moses primly. “I could no more do that than could any other mechanical.”
“Uh-huh.” Manz’s respiration was slowing. “Then what happened to her?” He indicated a prone form lying spraddled on the floor. “I didn’t lay a hand on that one.”
“As I recall, the poor woman tripped and struck her head against the corridor wall.”
“Sure she did. And the guy next to her?”
The humaniform’s synthetic lenses considered the body in question. “Didn’t watch where he was going. He ran into something unyielding.”
“Like what?” Manz was straightening his attire.
A thick, flexible tentacle semaphored rhythmically. “I believe it was this limb.”
“And the one next to him?” The adjuster stepped over a snuffling form he was sure he wasn’t accountable for.
“Oh, him. I believe that he …”
“Never mind. I know: he did a double two-and-a-half forward flip with a half-twist and didn’t lay out properly.”
“In actuality he …”
“I said never mind. Come along.”
“I recorded everything,” declared the Minder helpfully, “in case you wish to analyze the actual sequence of events at some future time.”
“I doubt it, but you were only doing your job. I don’t suppose it matters that these unhappy campers will be able to recognize me now. I’m more concerned with whoever’s trying to vape me.” He continued down the corridor, moving quickly but with renewed caution. “Both of you remain on full alert. We’re not out of here yet.”
They reached the intersection he remembered and paused. Moses could sense an organic presence from the heat it emitted, but if building security also had any mechanicals on the prowl they risked charging blindly into them. Manz peered around the corner, his goggles manufacturing daylight out of the feeble illumination.
“Looks clear to me. Moses, you have a scan.”
The humaniform trundled out into the empty corridor. “The way ahead is presently vacant, but I can detect vibrations in the floor. Many humans are coming this way. I cannot vouch for the presence or absence of security mechanicals.”
“Head for the lifts.” They had no choice, he knew. Moses could ascend steep grades, but on stairs his trackball was useless.
Once inside the shuttered cab, he bypassed the controls and send the car humming groundward. To anyone monitoring the lift system, visually or via instrumentation, Lift Five would appear inoperative.
The downward journey was painfully slow. At the first sublevel the door parted to reveal the startled face of a guard. Evidently the word had been passed from above that the usual control methods were ineffective against this evening’s intruder, because instead of pepper gas or a stun tube the guard carried a real gun.
“Good evening,” said Manz in his most unctuous, inoffensive manner. In the time it took the man to react, Moses had clubbed him across the forehead with a well-placed tentacle. The guard twitched and stumbled half in, half out of the lift cab.
Manz hurriedly dragged him in and closed the doors. The route leading to the delivery ramp now stood unguarded and open. As soon as they reached the sliding door he activated the lockseal, no longer worried about setting off any alarms. As the seal popped, something white-hot took a quarter-centimeter off the right side of his head, just above the ear. His tonsorialist would have been appalled by the result.
Blinking back the pain he spun, dropped, and returned fire more out of instinct than certitude. Something exploded deep within the loading bay, and he could hear distant, agitated shouting. By this time the exterior door had retracted enough for him to slip through. Another shot grazed the air nearby, frying molecules.
Safely outside, he slammed the external seal and watched anxiously as the door began to riffle downward. A touch of the instrument he carried scrambled the lock’s internal circuitry, ensuring that no one would open that particular door behind him.
“That’s that. Let’s mobilate.”
He’d taken half a dozen steps when the ground behind him blew up, stunning him forward. He braced himself as best he could and came up firing. Somewhere in the night an unseen figure moaned. There was no follow-up explosion.
Climbing to his feet yet again, he found that he couldn’t move without limping. His left leg had suddenly gone numb. He cursed it eloquently, but his words had no effect on the uncooperative limb.
The Minder hummed down for a look. “Impossible to make an accurate evaluation under these conditions, but there is clearly a certain amount of nerve damage, resulting in loss of muscular function and corresponding motility. There is ongoing blood loss.”
“Thanks for the analysis,” Manz growled, pulling himself along the serviceway.
“You are welcome.”
Also fragile. You’re all so very fragile. You complain when something breaks or becomes inoperative, not realizing that by all reasonable logic not a one of you should survive to adulthood. The cheapest composite is stronger than your densest bone, the basic off-the-shelf connective elastics tougher than, any of your ligaments or tendons, and as far as efficient conversion of fuel into energy, well, it’s a credit to your heart-pumps that your own energy circulation and supply system doesn’t shut down completely by the time you reach forty because of all the crap you cram into your bodies.
Yes, you’ve taken an organic design that was bad from the start and done your best to screw it up further at every opportunity. And you have the gall, the chutzpah, the nerve to complain when something goes wrong with it.
I’m wasting my time explicating any of this, aren’t I? You’re going to ignore me, just like you’ve been doing all along. I’m probably not even rendering you uncomfortable, much less making you stop and think.
Well, fine. Don’t let me slow you down. Don’t let logic and reason get in the way of your good time. You can go to the food locker now and find something unnecessary and deleterious to poison your system with. Something crunchy, or salty, or sweet, or all three.
What’s this: hesitation? Why bother? We both know it won’t last.
