I, Robot To Protect

Mouth full, Remington only nodded.

“Does he go hunting?”

Remington swallowed. “Not often. He’s more of a shooting range kind of guy. He spends more time reading about guns and cleaning those he has. I think he gets a kick out of taking them apart and reassembling them.”

Susan liked that answer. She had always planned to have a home free of firearms. One date, and I’m already thinking through a marriage to this guy. Though it seemed premature, Susan knew her thoughts were normal. Surely most women in their late twenties considered the future whenever they dated. “Do you shoot?”

“I have.” Remington studied Susan, clearly trying to read her opinion on the matter. “Could you imagine the jokes? A man named Remington never firing a . . .”

“Remington?”

“Yeah. I’ve hunted many times.”

“Oh.” Susan tried not to sound disappointed. She wondered if she could ever learn to live with a man who shot innocent animals for sport.

Chopsticks hovering, Remington continued to study Susan. “You didn’t ask the follow-up question.”

Susan had no idea what he meant. “Follow-up?”

“Have I ever shot anything?”

Susan put the ends of her chopsticks in her mouth to savor a few clinging grains of rice. “Well, I just assumed . . .”

“Never.” Remington’s gaze went distant. “I love crouching in the tree stand, looking down on the forest. After a half hour or so, the animals come back. The birds sing in a way you never seem to hear when you’re just hiking. They land on the stand itself and look right through you for bugs and crumbs. The squirrels chatter and play, without hiding on the far sides of the trees. The deer browse, nibbling at the trunk, at the greenery. This one’s too small, that one’s a doe, the other’s a buck without enough points to bother shooting. Don’t want to waste my tag on just anything. When a large buck does come along, it’s never in quite the right position for a clear shot, you know?”

Susan could not help grinning. “I know. You’re more of a deer watcher than a deer hunter.”

“Besides, the report might scare away the even larger buck that might come along next.” Remington smiled crookedly. “My dad says I’m hopeless.” He returned to his food, finished his plate, and added a bit more of everything.

Still on her first serving, Susan gestured at the serving dishes. “Have as much as you like. I won’t be able to eat seconds.”

“I’m good now.” Remington dexterously worked on his plate.

When the bill card arrived, Remington grabbed it, looked, and pulled a bankcard from his wallet.

“Split it?” Susan suggested.

Never taking his eyes from the card, Remington frowned at her. “Not a chance. I asked you, remember?”

“But I picked the place.”

“Yes.” Remington finally looked at Susan. “And thank you. You’re a cheap date.”

“Why pay more than you have to for food this good?”

“For sure.”

Remington fed the bill into the tableside pay slot. When the right amount flashed up, he inserted his bankcard. The machine clicked, a green light came on, and the card returned. “Who’d have thought they’d find a new use for those ancient computer cards?”

Susan recalled her grandmother mentioning this, also during a restaurant payment. She had talked about a time when computers needed individual programmed cards just to work each step. She had once dropped a two hundred–card program that had taken months to write. From then on, she had painstakingly penciled page numbers on all her cards.

Of course, the restaurant cards were much sleeker and smaller than the old-time ones, which her grandmother described as the size of a three-by-nine-inch mailing envelope.

Remington rose. “Now, how do I get you home?”

“Just put me on the number seven tram, and I’ll get right to the complex door.” Susan also stood up. The mingled odors of sauces no longer enticed now that she felt comfortably full. The decor was simple: Chinese paper lanterns dangling over each table and stylized paintings of koi on the walls. “Which one do you take home?”

“The five.” Remington put an arm across Susan’s back to guide her safely to the door. “But I’m not going home yet. I want to check up on my last postsurgical patient.”

Susan remembered. “Starling?”

“Yup.”

Susan consulted her Vox as they passed through the door onto the now-dark street. “But it’s after nine.”

Remington shrugged. “That’s the positive side of surgeons. We’re dedicated.”

Susan could scarcely deny it, at least when it came to Remington. “Clearly. But doesn’t that defy the humane residency laws, the ones put in place to ensure we get sleep, food, and . . . a life? To make us safer doctors.”

Remington shook his head. “The humane residency laws only define the hours they can make us work. We can volunteer extra if we wish, and I don’t know a surgery resident who doesn’t.”

Susan got it. “So, anyone who follows the letter of the laws looks like a piker and suffers for it.”

Remington shrugged. “I suppose. But I’ll get home in time to sleep. I already ate, and I just finished a wonderful date.”

“Wonderful?” Susan could not help smiling. She found herself edging toward him.

Remington swept her into an embrace. They kissed there on the street, just outside the Golden Chopstick, the taste of house lo mein and chicken broccoli still on both their lips. A tingle traversed Susan, and she found herself pressing closer to him. She had never felt both so comfortable and so wildly excited. She wondered if it would surprise or bother him to find out she was still a virgin.

As the kiss ended, Susan whispered into Remington’s face. “Do me a favor.” She did not wait for him to agree. “If you have the time, go to the charting room and say good night to Nate.”

Remington stepped back, and Susan cursed herself for mentioning another man at that intimate moment. She silently berated herself, No wonder I’m still a virgin.

“Do you think he’ll still be at the hospital? This late?”

Susan said cryptically, “I can virtually guarantee it.”

Chapter 9

When Susan arrived at the first-floor charting room, she found Remington Hawthorn and N8-C sitting across from each other and engaged in spirited conversation.

Already dressed in his scrubs, Remington was speaking. “. . . it’s intradural, intramedullary with decreased posterior column sensation, pain localized to two fingers’ breadths over the lower spine, no correlation with time of day.”

Nate did not hesitate. “Family history? Maybe . . .”

“Von Hippel-Lindau,” they said together, then laughed.

Spotting Susan, they went silent.

“Good morning,” she said cheerily.

“Good morning, Susan,” they replied, still simultaneously. Then, they looked at each other and laughed again.

Susan perched on the arm of Remington’s chair. “You’re scaring me.”

“He’s amazing,” Remington admitted. “Makes me wonder how many thinking robots we already have on staff. Some of the guys I work with don’t show any emotion at all.”

“I’m the only humanoid robot at Hasbro,” Nate said. “I cost in the range of one hundred million dollars. And I do show emotions, when it’s appropriate.”